Few amongst those who, at this period, honoured Dr. Burney with an
increasing desire of intimacy, stood higher in fashionable celebrity
than Horace Walpole,[12] and his civilities to the father were ever
more accompanied by an at least equal portion of distinction for his
daughter; with whom, after numerous invitations that circumstances had
rendered ineffective, the Doctor, in 1786, had the pleasure of making a
visit of some days to Strawberry Hill.
Mr. Walpole paid them the high and well understood compliment of
receiving them without other company. No man less needed auxiliaries
for the entertainment of his guests, when he was himself in good humour
and good spirits. He had a fund of anecdote that could provide food
for conversation without any assistance from the news of the day,
or the state of the elements: and he had wit and general knowledge
to have supplied their place, had his memory been of that volatile
description that retained no former occurrence, either of his own or
of his neighbour, to relate. He was scrupulously, and even elaborately
well-bred; fearing, perhaps, from his conscious turn to sarcasm, that
if he suffered himself to be unguarded, he might utter expressions
more amusing to be recounted aside, than agreeable to be received
in front. He was a witty, sarcastic, ingenious, deeply-thinking,
highly-cultivated, quaint, though evermore gallant and romantic,
though very mundane, old bachelor of other days.
But his external obligations to nature were by no means upon a par with
those which he owed to her mentally: his eyes were inexpressive; and
his countenance, when not worked upon by his elocution, was of the same
description; at least in these his latter days.
Strawberry Hill was now exhibited to the utmost advantage. All that
was peculiar, especially the most valuable of his pictures, he had the
politeness to point out to his guests himself; and not unfrequently,
from the deep shade in which some of his antique portraits were placed;
and the lone sort of look of the unusually shaped apartments in which
they were hung, striking recollections were brought to their minds of
his Gothic story of the Castle of Otranto.
He shewed them, also, with marked pleasure, the very vase immortalized
by Gray, into which the pensive, but rapacious Selima had glided to her
own destruction, whilst grasping at that of her golden prey. On the
outside of the vase Mr. Walpole had had labelled,
“’Twas on THIS lofty vase’s side.”
He accompanied them to the picturesque villa already mentioned, which
had been graced by the residence of Lady Di. Beauclerk; but which,
having lost that fair possessor, was now destined for two successors
in the highly-talented Miss Berrys; of whom he was anticipating with
delight the expected arrival from Italy. After displaying the elegant
apartments, pictures, decorations, and beautiful grounds and views;
all which, to speak in his own manner, had a sort of well-bred as well
as gay and recreative appearance, he conducted them to a small but
charming octagon room, which was ornamented in every panel by designs
taken from his own tragedy of the Mysterious Mother, and executed by
the accomplished Lady Di.
Dr. Burney beheld them with the admiration that could not but be
excited by the skill, sensibility, and refined expression of that
eminent lady artist: and the pleasure of his admiration happily escaped
the alloy by which it would have been adulterated, had he previously
read the horrific tragedy whence the subject had been chosen; a tragedy
that seems written upon a plan as revolting to probability as to
nature; and that violates good taste as forcibly as good feeling. It
seems written, indeed, as if in epigrammatic scorn of the horrors of
the Greek drama, by giving birth to conceptions equally terrific, and
yet more appalling.
In the evening, Mr. Walpole favoured them with producing several, and
opening some of his numerous repositories of hoarded manuscripts; and
he pointed to a peculiar caravan, or strong box, that he meant to leave
to his great nephew, Lord Waldegrave; with an injunction that it should
not be unlocked for a certain number of years, perhaps thirty, after
the death of Mr. Walpole; by which time, he probably calculated, that
all then living, who might be hurt by its contents, would be above,—or
beneath them.
He read several picked out and extremely clever letters of Madame
du Deffand,[13] of whom he recounted a multiplicity of pleasant
histories; and he introduced to them her favourite little lap-dog,
which he fondled and cherished, fed by his side, and made his constant
companion. There was no appearance of the roughness with which he had
treated its mistress, in his treatment of the little animal; to whom,
perhaps, he paid his court in secret penitence, as _l’amende honorable_
for his harshness to its bequeather.
Horace Walpole was amongst those whose character, as far as it was
apparent, had contradictory qualities so difficult to reconcile
one with another, as to make its development, from mere general
observation, superficial and unsatisfactory. And Strawberry Hill
itself, with all its chequered and interesting varieties of detail,
had a something in its whole of monotony, that cast, insensibly, over
its visitors, an indefinable species of secret constraint; and made
cheerfulness rather the effect of effort than the spring of pleasure;
by keeping more within bounds than belongs to their buoyant love of
liberty, those light, airy, darting, bursts of unsought gaiety, yclept
animal spirits.
Nevertheless, the evenings of this visit were spent delightfully—they
were given up to literature, and to entertaining, critical, ludicrous,
or anecdotical conversation. Dr. Burney was nearly as full fraught as
Mr. Walpole with all that could supply materials of this genus; and Mr.
Walpole had so much taste for his society, that he was wont to say,
when Dr. Burney was running off, after a rapid call in Berkeley-square,
“Are you going already, Dr. Burney?—Very well, sir! but remember you
owe me a visit!”
The pleasure, however, which his urbanity and unwearied exertions
evidently bestowed upon his present guests, seemed to kindle in his
mind a reciprocity of sensation that warmed him into an increase of
kindness; and urged the most impressive desire of retaining them for a
lengthened visit. He left no flattery of persuasion, and no bribery of
promised entertainment untried to allure their compliance. The daughter
was most willing: and the father was not less so; but his time was
irremediably portioned out, and no change was in his power.
Mr. Walpole looked seriously surprised as well as chagrined at the
failure of his eloquence and his temptations: though soon recovering
his usual tone, he turned off his vexation with his characteristic
pleasantry, by uncovering a large portfolio, and telling them that it
contained a collection of all the portraits that were extant, of every
person mentioned in the Letters of Madame de Sevigné; “and if you will
not stay at least another day,” he said, patting the portfolio with an
air of menace, “you shan’t see one drop of them!”
Highly pleased and gratified, they came away with a positive engagement
for a quick return; but an event was soon to take place which shewed,
as usual, the nullity of any engagement for the future of Man to his
fellow.