The general result down to this point is that, whatever the
disturbance in Mrs. Thrale's heart and mind, Johnson had no ground of
complaint, nor ever thought he had, which is the essential point in
controversy. In other words, he was not driven, hinted, or manoeuvred
out of Streatham. Yet almost all his worshippers have insisted that
he was. Hawkins, after mentioning the kind offices undertaken by
Johnson (which constantly took him to Streatham) says:--"Nevertheless
it was observed by myself, and other of Johnson's friends, that soon
after the decease of Mr. Thrale, his visits to Streatham became less
and less frequent, and that he studiously avoided the mention of the
place or the family." This statement is preposterous, and is only to
be partially accounted for by the fact that Hawkins, as his daughter
informs us, had no personal acquaintance with Mrs. Thrale or
Streatham. Boswell, who was in Scotland when Johnson and Mrs. Thrale
left Streatham together, gratuitously infers that he left it alone,
angry and mortified, in consequence of her altered manner:
"The death of Mr. Thrale had made a very material alteration with
respect to Johnson's reception in that family. The manly authority of
the husband no longer curbed the lively exuberance of the lady; and
as her vanity had been fully gratified, by having the Colossus of
Literature attached to her for many years, she gradually became less
assiduous to please him. Whether her attachment to him was already
divided by another object, I am unable to ascertain; but it is plain
that Johnson's penetration was alive to her neglect or forced
attention; for on the 6th of October this year we find him making a
'parting use of the library' at Streatham, and pronouncing a prayer
which he composed on leaving Mr. Thrale's family.
"'Almighty God, Father of all mercy, help me by Thy grace, that I
may, with humble and sincere thankfulness, remember the comforts and
conveniences which I have enjoyed at this place; and that I may
resign them with holy submission, equally trusting in Thy protection
when Thou givest, and when Thou takest away. Have mercy upon me, O
Lord! have mercy upon me! To Thy fatherly protection, O Lord, I
commend this family. Bless, guide, and defend them, that they may so
pass through this world, as finally to enjoy in Thy presence
everlasting happiness, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.'
"One cannot read this prayer without some emotions not very
favourable to the lady whose conduct occasioned it.
"The next day, he made the following memorandum:
"'_October 7._--I was called early. I packed up my bundles, and used
the foregoing prayer, with my morning devotions somewhat, I think,
enlarged. Being earlier than the family, I read St. Paul's farewell
in the Acts, and then read fortuitously in the Gospels,--which was my
parting use of the library.'"
Mr. Croker, whose protest against the groundless insinuations of
Boswell should have put subsequent writers on their guard, states in
a note:--"He seems to have taken leave of the kitchen as well as the
church at Streatham in Latin." The note of his last dinner there,
done into English, would run thus:
"Oct. 6th, Sunday, 1782.
"I dined at Streatham on boiled leg of lamb, with spinach, the
stuffing of flour and raisins, round of beef, and turkey poult; and
after the meat service, figs, grapes, not yet ripe in consequence of
the bad season, with peaches, also hard. I took my place at table in
no joyful mood, and partook of the food moderately, lest I should
finish by intemperance. If I rightly remember, the banquet at the
funeral of Hadon came into my mind.[1] When shall I revisit
Streatham?"
[Footnote 1: "Si recte memini in mentem venerunt epulæ in exequiis
Hadoni celebratæ." I cannot explain this allusion.]
The exclamation "When shall I revisit Streatham?" loses much of its
pathos when connected with these culinary details.
Madame D'Arblay's description of the last year at Streatham is too
important to be much abridged:
"Dr. Burney, _when the Cecilian business was arranged_[1], again
conveyed the Memorialist to Streatham. No further reluctance on his
part, nor exhortations on that of Mr. Crisp, sought to withdraw her
from that spot, where, while it was in its glory, they had so
recently, and with pride, seen her distinguished. And truly eager was
her own haste, when mistress of her time, to try once more to soothe
those sorrows and chagrins in which she had most largely
participated, by answering to the call, which had never ceased
tenderly to pursue her, of return.
"With alacrity, therefore, though not with gaiety, they re-entered
the Streatham gates--but they soon perceived that they found not what
they had left!
"Changed, indeed, was Streatham! Gone its chief, and changed his
relict! unaccountably, incomprehensibly, indefinably changed! She was
absent and agitated; not two minutes could she remain in a place; she
scarcely seemed to know whom she saw; her speech was so hurried it
was hardly intelligible; her eyes were assiduously averted from those
who sought them; and her smiles were faint and forced."
[Footnote 1: This may mean when the arrangements were made for the
publication, or when the book was published. It was published about
the beginning of June, 1782.]
"The mystery, however, soon ceased; the solicitations of the most
affectionate sympathy could not long be urged in vain;--the mystery
passed away--not so the misery! That, when revealed, was but to both
parties doubled, from the different feelings set in movement by its
disclosure.
"The astonishing history of the enigmatical attachment which impelled
Mrs. Thrale to her second marriage, is now as well known as her name:
but its details belong not to the history of Dr. Burney; though the
fact too deeply interested him, and was too intimately felt in his
social habits, to be passed over in silence in any memoirs of his
life.
"But while ignorant yet of its cause, more and more struck he became
at every meeting, by a species of general alienation which pervaded
all around at Streatham. His visits, which, heretofore, had seemed
galas to Mrs. Thrale, were now begun and ended almost without notice:
and all others,--Dr. Johnson not excepted,--were cast into the same
gulph of general neglect, or forgetfulness;--all,--save singly this
Memorialist!--to whom, the fatal secret once acknowledged, Mrs.
Thrale clung for comfort; though she saw, and generously pardoned,
how wide she was from meeting approbation.
"In this retired, though far from tranquil manner, _passed many
months; during which_, with the acquiescent consent of the Doctor,
his daughter, wholly devoted to her unhappy friend, _remained
uninterruptedly at sad and altered Streatham;_ sedulously avoiding,
what at other times she most wished, a _tête-à-tête_ with her father.
Bound by ties indissoluble of honour not to betray a trust that, in
the ignorance of her pity, she had herself unwittingly sought, even
to him she was as immutably silent, on this subject, as to all
others--save, singly, to the eldest daughter of the house: whose
conduct, through scenes of dreadful difficulty, notwithstanding her
extreme youth, was even exemplary; and to whom the self-beguiled, yet
generous mother, gave full and free permission to confide every
thought and feeling to the Memorialist."
* * * * *
"Various incidental circumstances began, at length, to open the
reluctant eyes of Dr. Burney to an impelled, though clouded
foresight, of the portentous event which might latently be the cause
of the alteration of all around at Streatham. He then naturally
wished for some explanation with his daughter, though he never
forced, or even claimed her confidence; well knowing, that
voluntarily to give it him had been her earliest delight.
"But in taking her home with him one morning, to pass a day in St.
Martin's Street, he almost involuntarily, in driving from the
paddock, turned back his head towards the house, and, in a tone the
most impressive, sighed out: 'Adieu, Streatham!--Adieu!'"
* * * * *
"_A few weeks earlier_, the Memorialist had passed a nearly similar
scene with Dr. Johnson. Not, however, she believes, from the same
formidable species of surmise; but from the wounds inflicted upon his
injured sensibility, through the palpably altered looks, tone, and
deportment, of the bewildered lady of the mansion; who, cruelly aware
what would be his wrath, and how overwhelming his reproaches against
her projected union, wished to break up their residing under the same
roof before it should be proclaimed.
"This gave to her whole behaviour towards Dr. Johnson, a sort of
restless petulancy, of which she was sometimes hardly conscious, at
others, nearly reckless; but which hurt him far more than she
purposed, _though short of the point at which she aimed_, of
precipitating a change of dwelling that would elude its being cast,
either by himself or the world, upon a passion that her understanding
blushed to own, even while she was sacrificing to it all of inborn
dignity that she had been bred to hold most sacred.
"Dr. Johnson, while still uninformed of an entanglement it was
impossible he should conjecture, attributed her varying humours to
the effect of wayward health meeting a sort of sudden wayward power:
and imagined that caprices, which he judged to be partly feminine,
_and partly wealthy_, would soberise themselves away in being
unnoticed."
"But at length, as she became more and more dissatisfied with her own
situation, and impatient for its relief, she grew less and less
scrupulous with regard to her celebrated guest: she slighted his
counsel; did not heed his remonstrances; avoided his society; was
ready at a moment's hint to lend him her carriage when he wished to
return to Bolt Court; but awaited a formal request to accord it for
bringing him back.
"The Doctor then began to be stung; his own aspect became altered;
and depression, with indignant uneasiness, sat upon his venerable
front.
"It was at this moment that, finding the Memorialist was going one
morning to St. Martin's Street, he desired a cast thither in the
carriage, and then to be set down at Bolt Court.
"Aware of his disturbance, and far too well aware how short it was of
what it would become when the cause of all that passed should be
detected, it was in trembling that the Memorialist accompanied him to
the coach, filled with dread of offending him by any reserve, should
he force upon her any inquiry; and yet impressed with the utter
impossibility of betraying a trusted secret.
"His look was stern, though dejected, as he followed her into the
vehicle; but when his eye, which, however short-sighted, was quick to
mental perception, saw how ill at ease appeared his companion, all
sternness subsided into an undisguised expression of the strongest
emotion, that seemed to claim her sympathy, though to revolt from her
compassion; while, with a shaking hand, and pointing finger, he
directed her looks to the mansion from which they were driving; and,
when they faced it from the coach window, as they turned into
Streatham Common, tremulously exclaiming: 'That house ... is lost to
_me_--for ever!'
"During a moment he then fixed upon her an interrogative eye, that
impetuously demanded: 'Do you not perceive the change I am
experiencing?'
"A sorrowing sigh was her only answer.
"Pride and delicacy then united to make him leave her to her
taciturnity.
"He was too deeply, however, disturbed to start or to bear any other
subject; and neither of them uttered a single word till the coach
stopt in St. Martin's Street, and the house and the carriage door
were opened for their separation! He then suddenly and expressively
looked at her, abruptly grasped her hand, and, with an air of
affection, though in a low, husky voice, murmured rather than said:
'Good morning, dear lady!' but turned his head quickly away, to avoid
any species of answer."
"She was deeply touched by so gentle an acquiescence in her declining
the confidential discourse upon which he had indubitably meant to
open, relative to this mysterious alienation. But she had the comfort
to be satisfied, that he saw and believed in her sincere
participation in his feelings; while he allowed for the grateful
attachment that bound her to a friend so loved; who, to her at least,
still manifested a fervour of regard that resisted all change; alike
from this new partiality, and from the undisguised, and even
strenuous opposition of the Memorialist to its indulgence."
The Memoirs of Dr. Burney, by his daughter, published in 1832,
together with her Diary and Letters, supplied the materials of Lord
Macaulay's celebrated article on Madame D'Arblay in the "Edinburgh
Review" for January, 1843, since reprinted amongst his Essays. He
describes the Memoirs as a book "which it is impossible to read
without a sensation made up of mirth, shame, and loathing," and
adds:--"The two works are lying side by side before us; and we never
turn from the Memoirs to the Diary without a sense of relief. The
difference is as great as the difference between the atmosphere of a
perfumer's shop, scented with lavender water and jasmine soap, and
the air of a heath on a fine morning in May."[1]
[Footnote 1: Critical and Historical Essays (one volume edition),
1851, p. 652. The Memoirs were composed between 1828 and 1832, more
than forty years after the occurrence of the scenes I have quoted
from them.]
The passages I have quoted amply establish the justice of this
comparison, for they are utterly irreconcileable with the unvarnished
statements of the Diary; from which we learn that "Cecilia" was
published about the beginning of June, when Johnson was absent from
Streatham; that the Diarist had left Streatham prior to August 12th,
and did not return to it again that year. How could she have passed
many months there after she was entrusted with the great secret,
which (as stated in "Thraliana") she only guessed in September or
October?
How again could Johnson have attributed Mrs. Thrale's conduct to
caprices "partly wealthy," when he knew that one main source of her
troubles was pecuniary; or how can his alleged sense of ill-treatment
be reconciled with his own letters? That he groaned over the terrible
disturbance of his habits involved in the abandonment of Streatham,
is likely enough; but as the only words he uttered were, "That house
is lost to _me_ for ever," and "Good morning, dear lady," the
accompanying look is about as safe a foundation for a theory of
conduct or feeling as Lord Burleigh's famous nod in "The Critic." The
philosopher was at this very time an inmate of Streatham, and
probably returned that same evening to register a sample of its
hospitality. At all events, we know that, spite of hints and
warnings, sighs and groans, he stuck to Streatham to the last; and
finally left it with Mrs. Thrale, as a member of her family, to
reside in her house at Brighton, as her guest, for six weeks.[1] To
talk of conscious ill-treatment or wounded dignity, in the teeth of
facts like these, is laughable.
[Footnote 1: The Edinburgh reviewer says, "Johnson went in Oct. 1782
from Streatham to Brighton, where he lived a kind of boarding-house
life;" and adds, "he was not asked out into company with his
fellow-lodgers." The Thrales had a handsome furnished house at
Brighton, which is mentioned both in the Correspondence and
Autobiography.
It is amusing enough to watch these attempts to shade away the
ruinous effect of the Brighton trip on Lord Macaulay's Streatham
pathos.]
Madame D'Arblay joined the party as Mrs. Thrale's guest on the 26th
October, and on the 28th she writes:
"At dinner, we had Dr. Delap and Mr. Selwyn, who accompanied us in
the evening to a ball; as did also Dr. Johnson, to the universal
amazement of all who saw him there:--but he said he had found it so
dull being quite alone the preceding evening, that he determined upon
going with us: 'for,' he said, 'it cannot be worse than being alone.'
Strange that he should think so! I am sure I am not of his mind."
On the 29th, she records that Johnson behaved very rudely to Mr.
Pepys, and fairly drove him from the house. The entry for November
10th is remarkable:--"We spent this evening at Lady De Ferrars, where
Dr. Johnson accompanied us, for the first time he has been invited of
our parties since my arrival." On the 20th November, she tells us
that Mrs. and the three Miss Thrales and herself got up early to
bathe. "We then returned home, and dressed by candle-light, and, _as
soon as we could get Dr. Johnson ready_, we set out upon our journey
in a coach and a chaise, and arrived in Argyll Street at dinner time.
Mrs. Thrale has there fixed her tent for this short winter, which
will end with the beginning of April, when her foreign journey takes
place."
One incident of this Brighton trip is mentioned in the "Anecdotes":
"We had got a little French print among us at Brighthelmstone, in
November 1782, of some people skaiting, with these lines written
under:
'Sur un mince chrystal l'hyver conduit leurs pas,
Le precipice est sous la glace;
Telle est de nos plaisirs la légère surface,
Glissez, mortels; n'appuyez pas.'
"And I begged translations from every body: Dr. Johnson gave me this:
'O'er ice the rapid skater flies,
With sport above and death below;
Where mischief lurks in gay disguise,
Thus lightly touch and quickly go.'
"He was, however, most exceedingly enraged when he knew that in the
course of the season I had asked half a dozen acquaintance to do the
same thing; and said, it was a piece of treachery, and done to make
every body else look little when compared to my favourite friends the
_Pepyses_, whose translations were unquestionably the best."[1]
[Footnote 1: By Sir Lucas:
"O'er the ice, as o'er pleasure, you lightly should glide,
Both have gulphs which their flattering surfaces hide."
By Sir William:
"Swift o'er the level how the skaiters slide,
And skim the glitt'ring surface as they go:
Thus o'er life's specious pleasures lightly glide,
But pause not, press not on the gulph below."]
Madame D'Arblay's Diary describes the outward and visible state of
things at Brighton. "Thraliana" lays bare the internal history, the
struggles of the understanding and the heart:
"At Brighthelmstone, whither I went when I left Streatham, 7th
October 1782, I heard this comical epigram about the Irish
Volunteers:
"'There's not one of us all, my brave boys, but would rather
Do ought than offend great King George our good father;
But our country, you know, my dear lads, is our _mother_,
And that is a much surer side than the other.'"
"I had looked ill, or perhaps appeared to feel so much, that my
eldest daughter would, out of tenderness perhaps, force me to an
explanation. I could, however, have evaded it if I would; but my
heart was bursting, and partly from instinctive desire of unloading
it--partly, I hope, from principle, too--I called her into my room
and fairly told her the truth; told her the strength of my passion
for Piozzi, the impracticability of my living without him, the
opinion I had of his merit, and the resolution I had taken to marry
him. Of all this she could not have been ignorant before. I confessed
my attachment to him and her together with many tears and agonies one
day at Streatham; told them both that I wished I had two hearts for
their sakes, but having only one I would break it between them, and
give them each _ciascheduno la metà!_ After that conversation she
consented to go abroad with me, and even appointed the place (Lyons),
to which Piozzi meant to follow us. He and she talked long together
on the subject; yet her never mentioning it again made me fear she
was not fully apprized of my intent, and though her concurrence might
have been more easily obtained when left only to my influence in a
distant country, where she would have had no friend to support her
different opinion--yet I scorned to take such mean advantage, and
told her my story _now_, with the winter before her in which to take
her measures--her guardians at hand--all displeased at the journey:
and to console her private distress I called into the room to her my
own bosom friend, my beloved Fanny Burney, whose interest as well as
judgment goes all against my marriage; whose skill in life and
manners is superior to that of any man or woman in this age or
nation; whose knowledge of the world, ingenuity of expedient,
delicacy of conduct, and zeal in the cause, will make her a
counsellor invaluable, and leave me destitute of every comfort, of
every hope, of every expectation.
"Such are the hands to which I have cruelly committed thy cause--my
honourable, ardent, artless Piozzi!! Yet I should not deserve the
union I desire with the most disinterested of all human hearts, had I
behaved with less generosity, or endeavoured to gain by cunning what
is withheld by prejudice. Had I set my heart upon a scoundrel, I
might have done virtuously to break it and get loose; but the man I
love, I love for his honesty, for his tenderness of heart, his
dignity of mind, his piety to God, his duty to his mother, and his
delicacy to me. In being united to this man only can I be happy in
this world, and short will be my stay in it, if it is not passed with
him."
"_Brighthelmstone, 16th November 1782_.--For him I have been
contented to reverse the laws of nature, and request of my child that
concurrence which, at my age and a widow, I am not required either by
divine or human institutions to ask even of a parent. The life I gave
her she may now more than repay, only by agreeing to what she will
with difficulty prevent; and which, if she does prevent, will give
her lasting remorse; for those who stab _me_ shall hear me groan:
whereas if she will--but how can she?--gracefully or even
compassionately consent; if she will go abroad with me upon the
chance of his death or mine preventing our union, and live with me
till she is of age-- ... perhaps there is no heart so callous by
avarice, no soul so poisoned by prejudice, no head so feather'd by
foppery, that will forbear to excuse her when she returns to the rich
and the gay--for having saved the life of a mother thro' compliance,
extorted by anguish, contrary to the received opinions of the world."
"_Brighthelmstone, 19th November, 1782_.--What is above written,
though intended only to unload my heart by writing it, I shewed in a
transport of passion to Queeney and to Burney. Sweet Fanny Burney
cried herself half blind over it; said there was no resisting such
pathetic eloquence, and that, if she was the daughter instead of the
friend, she should be tempted to attend me to the altar; but that,
while she possessed her reason, nothing should seduce her to approve
what reason itself would condemn: that children, religion, situation,
country, and character--besides the diminution of fortune by the
certain loss of 800_l._ a year, were too much to sacrifice for any
_one man_. If, however, I were resolved to make the sacrifice, _a la
bonne heure!_ it was an astonishing proof of an attachment very
difficult for mortal man to repay."
"I will talk no more about it."
What comes next was written in London:
"_Nov. 27, 1782_.--I have given my Piozzi some hopes--dear, generous,
prudent, noble-minded creature; he will hardly permit himself to
believe it ever can be--_come quei promessi miracoli_, says he, _che
non vengono mai_. For rectitude of mind and native dignity of soul I
never saw his fellow."
"_Dec. 1, 1782_.--The guardians have met upon the scheme of putting
our girls in Chancery. I was frighted at the project, not doubting
but the Lord Chancellor would stop us from leaving England, as he
would certainly see no joke in three young heiresses, his wards,
quitting the kingdom to frisk away with their mother into Italy:
besides that I believe Mr. Crutchley proposed it merely for a
stumbling-block to my journey, as he cannot bear to have Hester out
of his sight.