The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume I Part 50

"And then your insects, Mr. Pacchierotti! those alone are a most dreadful drawback upon the comfort of your fine climate."

"I must own," said Pacchierotti, "Italy is rather disagreeable for the insects; but is it not better, sir, than an atmosphere so bad as they cannot live in it?"

"Why, as I can't defend our atmosphere, I must s.h.i.+ft my ground, and talk to you of our fires, which draw together society."

"O indeed, good sir, your societies are not very invigorating! Twenty people of your gentlemen and ladies to sit about a fire, and not to p.r.o.nounce one word, is very dull!"

We laughed heartily at this retort courteous.

RAPTURES OF THE "OLD WITS" OVER "CECILIA."

[Mary Delany was the daughter of Bernard Granville, younger brother of George Granville, Baron Lansdowne, the poet and friend of Wycherley and Pope. She was born on the 14th Of May, 1700. Her uncle, Lord Lansdowne, was a better friend to the Muses than to his young niece, for he forced poor Mary Granville, at the age of seventeen, to marry one Alexander Pendarves, a coa.r.s.e, hard drinking Cornish squire, of more than three times her age. Pendarves died some six years later, and his widow married, in 1743, Dr. Patrick Delany, the friend of Swift. With Delany she lived happily for fifteen years, and after his death in 1768, Mrs. Delany devoted most of her time to her bosom friend, the dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Portland (see note [161], ante.), at whose seat at Bulstrode she usually spent the summer, while during the winter she resided at her own house in St. James's- place, where she was constantly visited by the d.u.c.h.ess. On the death of the d.u.c.h.ess in July, 1785, King George bestowed upon Mrs. Delany, whose means were not such as to make an addition to them a matter of indifference, a furnished house at Windsor and a pension Of 300 pounds a year. These she enjoyed for less than three years, dying on the 15th of April, 1788.

The strong attachment which grew up between her and f.a.n.n.y renders Mrs. Delany a very interesting figure in the "Diary." Nor was f.a.n.n.y's enthusiasm for her aged friend misdirected. Speaking of Mrs. Delany, Edmund Burke said: "She was a perfect pattern of a perfect fine lady: a real fine lady of other days. Her manners were faultless; her deportment was of marked elegance; her speech was all sweetness; and her air and address were all dignity. I have always looked up to Mrs. Delany, as the model of an accomplished gentlewoman of former times."[174]--ED.]

_Sunday, January 19_--And now for Mrs. Delany. I spent one hour with Mrs. Thrale, and then called for Mrs. Chapone,[175] and we proceeded together to St. James's-place.

Mrs. Delany was alone in her drawing-room, which is entirely hung round with pictures of her own painting, and Ornaments of her own designing.

She came to the door to receive us. She is still tall, though some of her height may be lost: not much, however, for she is remarkably upright. She has no remains of beauty in feature, but in countenance I never but once saw more, and that was in my sweet maternal grandmother.

Benevolence, softness, piety, and gentleness are all resident in her face; and the resemblance with which she struck me to my dear grandmother, in her first appearance, grew so much stronger from all that came from her mind, which seems to contain nothing but purity and native humility, that I almost longed to embrace her; and I am sure if I had the recollection of that saint-like woman would have been so strong that I should never have refrained from crying over her.

Mrs. Chapone presented me to her, and taking my hand, she said,--

"You must pardon me if I give you an old-fas.h.i.+oned reception, for I know nothing new." And she saluted me. I did not, as with Mrs. Walsingham, retreat from her.

"Can you forgive, Miss Burney," she continued, "this great liberty I have taken with you, of asking for your company to dinner? I wished so impatiently to see one from whom I have received such extraordinary pleasure, that, as I could not be alone this morning, I could not bear to put it off to another day; and, if you had been so good to come in the evening, I might, perhaps, have had company; and I hear so ill that I cannot, as I wish to do, attend to more than one at a time; for age makes me stupid even more than I am by nature; and how grieved and mortified I must have been to know I had Miss Burney in the room, and not to hear her!"

She then mentioned her regret that we could not stay and spend the evening with her, which had been told her in our card of accepting her invitation, as we were both engaged, which, for my part, I heartily regretted.

"I am particularly sorry," she added, "on account of the d.u.c.h.ess dowager of Portland, who is so good as to come to me in an evening, as she knows I am too infirm to wait upon her grace myself: and she wished so much to see Miss Burney. But she said she would come as early as possible."

Soon after we went to dinner, which was plain, neat, well cooked, and elegantly served. When it was over, I began to speak; and now, my Chesington auditors, look to yourselves!

"Will you give me leave, ma'am, to ask if you remember any body of the name of Crisp?"

"Crisp?" cried she, "What! Mrs. Ann Crisp?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"O surely! extremely well! a charming, an excellent woman she was; we were very good friends once; I visited her at Burford, and her sister Mrs. Gast."

Then came my turn, and I talked of the brother---but I won't write what I said. Mrs. Delany said she knew him but very little; and by no means so much as she should have liked. I reminded her of a letter he wrote her from abroad, which she immediately recollected.

This Chesingtonian talk lasted till we went upstairs, and then she shewed me the new art which she had invented. It is staining paper of all possible colours, and then cutting it out, so finely, and delicately, that when it is pasted on paper or vellum, it has all the appearance of being pencilled, except that, by being raised, it has still a richer and more natural look. The effect is extremely beautiful.

She invented it at twenty-five! She told me she did four flowers the first year; sixteen the second; and the third, one hundred and sixty; and after that many more. They are all from nature, and consist of the most curious flowers, plants, and weeds, that are to (be found. She has been supplied with patterns from all the great gardens, and all the great florists in the kingdom. Her plan was to finish one thousand; but, alas! her eyes now fail her though she has only twenty undone of her task.

About seven o'clock, the d.u.c.h.ess dowager of Portland came. She is not near so old as Mrs. Delany; nor, to me, is her face by any means so pleasing; but yet there is sweetness, and dignity, and intelligence in it. Mrs. Delany received her with the same respectful ceremony as if it was her first visit, though she regularly goes to her every evening. But what she at first took as an honour and condescension, she has so much of true humility of mind, that no use can make her see in any other light. She immediately presented me to her. Her grace courtesied and smiled with the most flattering air of pleasure, and said she was particularly happy in meeting with me. We then took our places, and Mrs.

Delany said,--

"Miss Burney, ma'am, is acquainted with Mr. Crisp, whom your grace knew so well; and she tells me he and his sister have been so good as to remember me, and to mention me to her."

The d.u.c.h.ess instantly asked me a thousand questions about him--where he lived, how he had his health, and whether his fondness for the polite arts still continued. She said he was one of the most ingenious and agreeable men she had ever known, and regretted his having sequestered himself so much from the society of his former friends.

In the course of this conversation I found the d.u.c.h.ess very charming, high-bred, courteous, sensible, and spirited; not merely free from pride, but free from affability--its most mortifying deputy.

After this she asked me if I had seen Mrs. Siddons, and what I thought of her. I answered that I admired her very much.

"If Miss Burney approves her," said the d.u.c.h.ess, "no approbation, I am sure, can do her so much credit; for no one can so perfectly judge of characters or of human nature."

"Ah, ma'am," cried Mrs. Delany, archly, "and does your grace remember protesting you would never read 'Cecilia?'"

"Yes," said she, laughing, "I declared that five volumes could never be attacked; but since I began I have read it three times."

"O terrible!" cried I, "to make them out fifteen."

"The reason," continued she, "I held out so long against reading them, was remembering the cry there was in favour of 'Clarissa' and 'Sir Charles Grandison,' when they came out, and those I never could read.

I was teased into trying both of them; but I was disgusted with their tediousness, and could not read eleven letters, with all the effort I could make: so much about my sisters and my brothers, and all my uncles and my aunts!"

"But if your grace had gone on with 'Clarissa,'" said Mrs. Chapone, "the latter part must certainly have affected you, and charmed you."[176]

"O, I hate any thing so dismal! Every body that did read it had melancholy faces for a week. 'Cecilia' is as pathetic as I can bear, and more sometimes; yet, in the midst of the sorrow, there is a spirit in the writing, a fire in the whole composition, that keep off that heavy depression given by Richardson. Cry, to be sure, we did. Mrs. Delany, shall you ever forget how we cried? But then we had so much laughter to make us amends, we were never left to sink under our concern."

I am really ashamed to write on.

"For my part," said Mrs. Chapone, "when I first read it, I did not cry at all; I was in an agitation that half killed me, that shook all nerves, and made me unable to sleep at nights, from the suspense I was in! but I could not cry, for excess of eagerness."

"I only wish," said the d.u.c.h.ess, "Miss Burney could have been in some corner, amusing herself with listening to us, when Lord Weymouth, and the Bishop of Exeter, and Mr. Lightfoot, and Mrs. Delany, and I, were all discussing the point--of the name. So earnest we were, she must have been diverted with us. Nothing, the nearest our own hearts and interests, could have been debated more warmly. The bishop was quite as eager as any of us; but what cooled us a little, at last, was Mr.

Lightfoot's thinking we were seriously going to quarrel; and while Mrs.

Delany and I were disputing about Mrs. Delvile, he very gravely said, 'Why, ladies, this is only a matter of imagination; it is not a fact: don't be so earnest.'"

"Ah, ma'am," said Mrs. Delany, "how hard your grace was upon Mrs.

Delvile: so elegant, so sensible, so judicious, so charming a woman."

"O, I hate her," cried the d.u.c.h.ess, "resisting that sweet Cecilia; coaxing her, too, all the time, with such hypocritical flattery."

"I shall never forget," said Mrs. Delany, "your grace's earnestness when we came to that part where Mrs. Delvile bursts a blood vessel. Down dropped the book, and just with the same energy as if your grace had heard some real and important news, You called out, 'I'm glad of it with all my heart!'"

"What disputes, too," said Mrs. Chapone, "there are about Briggs. I was in a room some time ago where somebody said there could be no such character; and a poor little mean city man, who was there, started up and said, 'But there is though, for I've one myself!'"

"The Harrels!--O, then the Harrels!" cried Mrs. Delany.

"If you speak of the Harrels, and of the morality of the book," cried the d.u.c.h.ess, with a solemn sort of voice, "we shall, indeed, never give Miss Burney her due: so striking, so pure, so genuine, so instructive."

"Yes," cried Mrs. Chapone, "let us complain how we will of the torture she has given our nerves, we must all join in saying she has bettered us by every line."