CONVERSATION PARTIES AND LITERARY ASSEMBLIES
Not the least pleasant of the social gatherings for conversation was
the levee, or reception held on rising from bed. The custom was of
course adopted by people of fashion in imitation of the popular court
function, and it always retained something of the courtly atmosphere,
its popularity in fine society being due to the sense of importance
which it lent to the host or hostess. Madame de Tencin, for example,
thus held court from eight o’clock in the morning, queening it over
everybody, ‘from the lowest tools to the highest.’[167] Mascarille,
it will be remembered, boasts that he never rises from bed without
the company of half a dozen _beaux esprits_. Yet despite its
imitation of the court, there must have been about this kind of
reception a certain intimacy and ease that were lacking in the more
formal assemblies held later in the day.[168]
[Illustration: THE LEVEE
From an engraving of the fourth painting in Hogarth’s _Marriage à la
Mode_]
In England the levee had been known for perhaps a hundred
years;[169] but it first becomes of importance to the student of
literature about the middle of the century. A good general impression
of it may be obtained from the fourth plate of Hogarth’s _Marriage à
la Mode_, published in 1745. The hostess, half dressed, is seated at
her toilet-table, under the ministrations of her hair-dresser, and is
engaged in conversation with her lover, who is reclining on a sofa
near by. In the background is seen the bed, one curtain of which is
still drawn. A negro butler is passing chocolate to the guests who
are ranged in front of the bed, while an Italian tenor is regaling
them with solos to the accompaniment of a flute. This latter point
is significant in the satire, for it is evident that the hostess is
incapable of conducting a true conversazione, and has therefore had
recourse to providing her guests with other entertainment, while she
pursues her amorous intrigue.
A later and even more familiar representation of the levee is found
at the opening of the _School for Scandal_, where Lady Sneerwell is
‘discovered’ at her toilet. When this scene is correctly represented
on the stage the lady’s guests are shown as drinking chocolate
at her levee, and there characteristically displaying their
conversational gifts.
That the levee was at its best essentially a literary function is
shown by the encouragement it received from Samuel Johnson. The
account of his morning receptions is preserved for us by Dr. Maxwell,
whose description must be quoted in full:
About twelve o’clock I commonly visited him, and frequently found
him in bed, or declaiming over his tea, which he drank very
plentifully. He generally had a levee of morning visitors, chiefly
men of letters; Hawkesworth, Goldsmith, Murphy, Langton, Steevens,
Beauclerk, etc., etc., and sometimes learned ladies, particularly I
remember a French lady of wit and fashion doing him the honour of a
visit.[170] He seemed to be considered as a kind of public oracle,
whom everybody thought they had a right to visit and consult; and
doubtless they were well rewarded.[171]
When Johnson visited Boswell in Edinburgh after the tour of the
Hebrides ‘he had, from ten o’clock to one or two, a constant levee
of various persons, of different characters and descriptions;’ so
that poor Mrs. Boswell was obliged to ‘devote the greater part of the
morning to the endless task of pouring out tea.’[172]
This custom, thus sanctioned by fashion and by literary authority,
was adopted by all who pretended to wit. In 1760, Goldsmith sneers
at the philosophical beau who ‘receives company in his study, in all
the pensive formality of slippers, night-gown, and easy-chair.’[173]
Flavia, in the same author’s _Double Transformation_, after marrying
an Oxford Fellow, aspires to the reputation of a _femme savante_:
Proud to be seen she kept a bevy
Of powdered coxcombs at her levee.
By 1779 the function had become so popular that its name was
frequently extended to any formal entertainment where conversation
was the principal attraction, even when it was held in the
evening.[174]
The levee merged easily into the formal breakfast. This function
might occur at any hour from eight o’clock in the morning to three
in the afternoon.[175] It was in 1750 that Madame du Bocage recorded
her impressions of Mrs. Montagu’s breakfasts, generalizing upon the
custom of the nation in these words:
In the morning breakfasts which enchant as much by the exquisite
viands as by the richness of the plate in which they are served
up, agreeably bring together both the people of the country and
strangers [_i.e._, both natives and foreigners].[176]
The diaries and letters of Beattie, Mrs. Delany, Miss Burney, and
Miss More are strewn with references to this fashionable meal.
In the spring of 1774, Walpole professes himself frightened at
the inundation of them coming on.[177] A favourite diversion at
these matutinal parties, as at entertainments later in the day,
was the declamation of Thomas Sheridan (who would repeat Gray’s
_Elegy_, Dryden’s _Ode_, and ‘everything that everybody could say by
heart’[178]), the French readings of Tessier, the tragic recitations
of Tighe (who expected his auditors to swoon from emotion), and,
occasionally, bits of recitation or acting by Garrick. Sheridan gave
so many of these literary breakfasts that Mrs. Boscawen suspected
that he received money for them.[179] At times such functions were
more or less public, and were held in the Haymarket, at Vauxhall, or
at Bath, in the Assembly Rooms.
The receptions of the later afternoon and evening are of a less
definite character. Beattie describes a gathering at Mrs. Montagu’s
as ‘an assembly or conversation or rout.’[180] The entertainment was
of wide scope, as in Italian and French drawing-rooms, and might
include dancing, card-playing, and literary readings, as well as
conversation.[181] In this work we are concerned only with the
literary aspect of these parties; the origin and the more serious
results of the London salon are discussed elsewhere, so that the
rest of this chapter may be devoted to a consideration of the means
adopted for shining in conversation at these parties, and the attempt
to connect such assemblies directly with the production of poetry.
It is surely a misfortune that contemporary descriptions of
the conversazione should be generally satirical in tone; but
it is natural enough, for conversation, unsupported by other
entertainment, tends, in large groups, to pedantry on the one hand,
and to frivolousness on the other. English literature produced no
Molière to satirize the salons; but the conversazione did give both
character and title to one great comedy, the _School for Scandal_.
Although this play is not, like the _Critique de l’École des
Femmes_, an adequate criticism of the literary drawing-room, it does
nevertheless preserve prominent aspects of it, and we shall have
occasion to refer to it repeatedly in illustrating the nature of the
conversazione.[182] Another criticism of this entertainment is found
in a book now totally forgotten, entitled, _Modern Manners, or the
Country Cousins, in a series of Poetical Epistles_. This is the work
of the Rev. Samuel Hoole, son of the translator of Tasso and Ariosto,
and appeared in the year 1782. The poems describe the visit of a
north-English family to London, somewhat after the manner of Smollett
in _Humphry Clinker_, and of Anstey in the _New Bath Guide_. The
tenth epistle is an account of Lady Chattony’s conversazione.[183]
At that assembly old Mr. Ralph Rusty is served with lukewarm coffee
and tea and a minute bit of cake, which made him long for more. The
company splits up into groups, each with their backs turned on the
rest. The first party which he joins is (naturally) talking scandal:
‘My lovely Miss Wagtail,’ says pretty Beau Brisker,
‘I’ve seen your dear friend, sweet Miss Fatty Fanfrisker.’
‘—Dear creature!—she’s truly what all men adore so’—
‘—Faith not quite so charming but some I know more so’—
‘—You difficult thing! you’re as rude as a bear,
You think nobody handsome I vow and declare!
What fault can you find?—to be sure, her hair’s sandy,
And Scapegrace declares that her legs are quite “bandy.”’
His second visit is to a group engaged in musical gossip:
‘a nymph with a white varnished face
And a sallow thin man, almost covered with lace.’
He escapes from their gushing ecstasies only to fall on a political
discussion:
Next a party of critics and authors I joined,
And thought I had found out a set to my mind:
Cries a little black man, ‘I’m convinced, Dr. Guzzle,
’Tis a poor paltry book that was mentioned by Puzzle.
I’m told too that Ratsbane and Screachowl abuse it?—
Have you, my dear Doctor, had time to peruse it?’
‘O, yes, I have skimmed it—’tis terrible trash,
An _oleo_ of nonsense, an ill-savour’d _hash_.’
‘Sir, good Mr. Shuttlecock’s pamphlet, depend on’t,
Which now is just published, will soon make an end on’t’—
‘I heard,’ cries another, ‘at Cadell’s to-day,
That Johnson’s in town, and is writing away;
I was charmed with his Milton; what judgment and spirit!
Mr. Rattlesnake, sure you’ll allow this has merit?
You’ve read it, no doubt, Sir,’—‘Not I, Sir, indeed—
Read Johnson!—I’d sooner subscribe to the creed!—
His opinions, religious and civil, I hate—
Sir, he’d make us all slaves to the church and the state!’—
‘Gude Sir,’ cries a Scot, springing up from behind,
And presenting his snuff-box, ‘you’re quite o’ my mind;
’Tho’ the Doctor would fain give our poets the law,
O’ the spirit of verse he knows nothing at a’;
In spite of his critique, I canna’ perceive
What there is in your poem of Adam and Eve:
An Ossian you read, Milton canna’ ga doun
’Tis lik after a virgin a mess o’ the toun:
No, troth, here the Doctor does nothing but dream,
For he is too purblind to ken the subleeme’—
‘Hold, hold, my good friend—I must stand by old Milton,
While the sword that I wear has a blade or a hilt on;
That great politician, that torch of our nation,
Must never be mentioned without veneration:
Respecting the Doctor, you say very true,
I think him as scurvy a critic as you,
But consider him now in a worse point of view:
Pray is he not _pensioned_?—and does he not write, Sir,
To make us tame fools, and believe black is white, Sir?
All friends to our freedom that _creature_ must hate
Who pockets three hundred a year from the state.’
‘Gad troth, maister Rattlesnake, why do you mantion,
With so much asperity, Sir, that word _pansion_?
The Doctor deserves na sic thing—but what then
In troth, I weel know many axcellent men,
Who never have thought it a shame or disgrace
T’accept a wee pansion or snug pratty place;
But then they have a’ sat doun selent as deeth—
The Doctor still vents his pestiferous breeth
Against a’ Scotch tenets and Scotch reputation,
Tho’ he found a gude friend in a Laird of our nation.’
‘I see,’ cries another, ‘your anger he wakes,
Because he’s no friends to the _country of cakes_;
Nor am I surpriz’d, for the place of our birth
We all of us think is the best upon earth;
And therefore we ne’er can the writer approve,
Who slights the dear land we so partially love.’
‘You speak like a seer—ah! you ken, Sir, his Tour,
Our vary worst foe could have written no more;
In thot he insinuates, tho’ he canna’ see
Twa yards, that we’ve na sic a thing as a tree,
Tho’ just by the road there were saxteen or twanty,
And, if he’d gone more to the laft, he’d found planty;
Nay, troth, it’s a fact, Sir, that’s weel understood,
Au’ Scotland was antiently covered with wood.’
Mr. Rusty’s unhappy evening was concluded by listening to the tales
of a young lord just returned from his travels, a buck who wishes to
fight a duel with him because he laughs at incredible stories.
There is nothing very witty in this poem, as the quotations may show;
and the satires no doubt sank of their own weight; but in spite of
its dulness, the account would appear to be, in the main, a fair
picture of the conversazione. We may notice, in the first place,
that Lady Chattony has followed the best traditions of the salon in
reducing her refreshments to a minimum, depending for the success of
her reception entirely upon the conversation of her guests.[184] The
talk, again, is not confined to a large circle; but is broken up,
after Mrs. Vesey’s manner, into a series of small groups. We have
the usual references to gossip, scandal, and chatter about clothes,
politics, and the opera, with occasional approaches to Sheridan’s
method of satire, but with none of his cleverness.
It is inevitable that any satire on the conversazione should dwell
on the tendency to scandal and gossip. So inevitable is their
presence in the salons that it seems hardly necessary to point it
out; but it is essential to be at the true explanation of their
prevalence, which no satire is likely to point out. Scandal, and its
sister, Gossip, are the short cuts to cleverness, and cleverness is
the one indispensable thing to the frequenters of salons. This is
abundantly evident in the _School for Scandal_. It is wit for which
Lady Sneerwell’s guests are striving, and they will mar a character
that they may make a _mot_. ‘There is no possibility,’ says Lady
Sneerwell, ‘of being witty without a little ill-nature; the malice of
a good thing is the barb that makes it stick,’[185] and Lady Teazle
is in practical agreement with her; ‘I vow I bear no malice against
the people I abuse; when I say an ill-natured thing ’tis out of pure
good humour.’
Sheridan was not the only dramatist to satirize the salons and their
scandalous talk. His comedy was imitated by Thomas Holcroft in
_Seduction_,[186] a play whose popularity on the stage was equalled
by its popularity in print. The conversation descriptive of an
assembly at Lady Morden’s is in obvious imitation of the Scandal
School.
_Sir Frederic._ Sir Nathan Neaptide, the yellow admiral, came.
_Lord Morden._ An agreeable guest!
_Mrs. Modely._ Oh! rude as his own boatswain.
_Sir Frederic._ Would teach a startling blasphemy, rather than want
good conversation.
_Lady Morden._ He attempts satire.
_Lord Morden._ But utters abuse.
_Mrs. Modely._ That makes him so much respected.
_Lady Morden._ Yes; like a chimney-sweeper in a crowd, he makes
his way by being dirty....
_Sir Frederic._ The widow Twinkle, as usual, talked a vast deal
about reputation.
_Lady Morden._ One is apt to admire a thing one wants.
_Lord Morden._ She always takes infinite pains to place her
reputation, like broken china in a buffet, with the
best side outward.
_Lady Morden._ She may plaister, and cement, but will never bring
it to bear handling.
Other aspirants to conversational fame adopted the less questionable
habit of talking sentiments. Here again the _School for Scandal_
reveals the trick of the salons, for Joseph Surface has won himself
a place in the group by virtue of his philosophical and ethical
maxims. Sheridan’s brilliant satire of a reigning fad in literature
and society was anticipated by Goldsmith in _She Stoops to Conquer_,
in which, when Kate Hardcastle wishes to speak like a fine lady,
she at once begins to talk sentiments.[187] This habit of lending
a semblance of depth to one’s conversation by the introduction of
philosophical aphorisms is no doubt as old as the salon itself. At
its best, there is nothing contemptible in the sentiment, as the
long and brilliant history of the maxim in French literature may
prove. The reputation of Mme. de Sablé’s salon was largely made by
the maxim or _pensée_, and all the later salons afford examples of
its vitality. Madame Geoffrin was famous for it. ‘Madame Geoffrin,’
wrote Mme. Necker, ‘a mis toute sa raison en maximes,’[188] and
the same writer praises the work of English authors for their
successful production of this type, finding these authors otherwise
deficient in moral principles.[189] The maxim, ethical sentiment,
or philosophical truth sententiously expressed, did indeed attain
substantial existence in the essays of Samuel Johnson, who fancied
that mankind might come in time to ‘write all aphoristically;’ but
in English conversation it never found a thoroughly congenial soil.
‘Sentiments’ were popular, but, like much that was popular, they were
hollow too. The Dowager Countess Gower writes to Mrs. Delany that
the bluestockings are at Sunning Wells, where they ‘sport sentiments
from morn tell noon, from noon to dewy eve.’[190] The pages of
the _Wit’s Magazine_ teemed with collections of them: ‘Flattery,
like a cameleon, assumes the colours of the object it is nearest
to.’ The record of bluestocking maxims and sentiments preserved in
letters and diaries is amazing, but not because of its brilliance.
Mrs. Montagu wrote the following to Miss Burney, in reference to
the character of Mr. Vesey, ‘A frippery character, like a gaudy
flower, may please while it is in bloom; but it is the virtuous only
that, like the aromatics, preserve their sweet and reviving odour
when withered.’[191] This is exactly in the style of Julia, the
once-fashionable heroine of _The Rivals_, who, in respect of her
conversation, might be own sister to Joseph Surface: ‘When hearts
deserving of happiness would unite their fortunes, Virtue would
crown them with an unfading garland of modest hurtless flowers; but
ill-judging Passion will force the gaudier Rose into the wreath,
whose thorn offends them when its leaves are dropped.’
Closely akin to the neatly-turned sentiment is the epigram and this,
in all its forms, the salon, following Continental models, sought to
stimulate. One thinks immediately of the poetical epigrams of Sir
Benjamin Backbite, his impromptu verses on Lady Frizzle’s feather
catching fire, his rebuses, the charade which he made at Mrs.
Drowsie’s conversazione, and, above all, of that sprightly extempore
conceit on Lady Betty Curricle’s ponies:
Sure never were seen two such beautiful ponies;
Other horses are Clowns—and these macaronies;
Nay, to give ’em this title I’m sure isn’t wrong,
Their legs are so slim and their tails[192] are so long.
There was no more certain way of achieving a reputation for wit
than by the impromptu composition of these little verses. No lover
of Goldsmith will fail to remember Garrick’s epigram on the poet
who ‘wrote like an angel and talked like poor Poll.’ Less hackneyed
is the couplet which Dr. Young produced at the ‘World,’ a club of
gentlemen who were amusing themselves after dinner by scratching
verses, with their diamonds, upon the wine-glasses. Having no jewel
of his own, Young, when his turn came round, was obliged to borrow
Chesterfield’s, and then wrote:
Accept a miracle: instead of wit,
See two dull lines with Stanhope’s pencil writ.[193]
It is difficult to find a volume of eighteenth century verse that
does not bear witness to the popularity of the epigram. Every
miscellany teems with them. No collected edition of poems was
complete without a handful of them. They are recorded in every diary
and commonplace-book, and were exchanged by friends in the course
of familiar correspondence. High and low, the peer of wit and the
pretender to it, vied with one another in the production of them.
All alike seem to have reached a dead level of mediocrity. The
charade which Johnson made in honour of his friend Dr. Barnard[194]
is no better and no worse than scores of impromptu verses quoted in
Walpole’s _Letters_ or the _Asylum for Fugitive Pieces_.
Much of this, no doubt, seems trivial. But wherever the spirit of the
salon appears, evidence of its presence is seen in the production
and general esteem of such trifles: rebuses, anagrams, madrigals,
enigmas, charades, and _bouts rimés_. The explanation of it all goes
back, perhaps, to the Italian Renaissance, when, as Burckhardt has
shown, an epigram could lay the foundation of a scholar’s celebrity:
It was held the greatest of all triumphs when an epigram was
mistaken for a genuine copy from some old marble or when it was so
good that all Italy learned it by heart, as happened in the case of
some of Bembo’s.
The popularity of epigrams in fine English society is amusingly
illustrated by the entertainments provided by a certain Mrs.
(afterwards Lady) Miller at her villa near Bath. The character
and the results of her attempt to stimulate the production of
literature are typical, and, as they have left a considerable
record in print, it may be profitable to consider them somewhat at
length. She introduced what she was pleased to term the ‘little
Gallic institution’ of _bouts rimés_. Lists of riming words were
distributed among her guests, who composed verses suggested by
them, employing them in their given order. The resulting effusions
were then placed in a vase decorated with laurel branches and pink
ribbons, erected upon a ‘modern altar.’ ‘It is at present,’ writes
this ingenious lady, ‘the receptacle of all the contending poetical
morsels which every other Thursday (formerly Friday) are drawn out
of it indiscriminately, and read aloud by the gentlemen present,
each in his turn. Their particular merits are afterwards discussed
by them, and prizes assigned to three out of the whole that appear
to be the most deserving. Their authors are then, and not before,
called for, who seldom fail to be _announced_ either by themselves,
or, if absent, by their friends. Then the prize poems are read aloud
a second time to the company, each by its author, if present, if not,
by other Gentlemen, and wreaths of Myrtle presented publicly by the
Institutress[195] to each successful writer.’
When these verses were published they roused, if not the general
esteem which the Institutress plainly expected for them, the interest
of Miss Burney, the curiosity of Boswell, and the mirth of Walpole.
The latter wrote, in his most delightful mood, to the Countess of
Ailesbury:
You must know, Madam, that near Bath is erected a new Parnassus,
composed of three laurels, a myrtle-tree, a weeping-willow, and
a view of the Avon, which has been new christened Helicon. Ten
years ago there lived a Madam Riggs, an old rough humourist who
passed for a wit; her daughter, who passed for nothing, married to
a Captain Miller, full of good-natured officiousness. These good
folks were friends of Miss Rich, who carried me to dine with them
at Bath-Easton, now Pindus. They caught a little of what was then
called taste, built and planted, and begot children, till the whole
caravan were forced to go abroad to retrieve. Alas! Mrs. Miller is
returned a beauty, a genius, a Sappho, a tenth Muse, as romantic
as Mademoiselle Scudéri, and as sophisticated as Mrs. Vesey. The
Captain’s fingers are loaded with cameos, his tongue runs over
with _virtù_, and that both may contribute to the improvement of
their own country, they have introduced _bouts rimés_ as a new
discovery. They hold a Parnassus fair every Thursday, give out
rhymes and themes, and all the flux of quality at Bath contend for
the prizes. A Roman vase dressed with pink ribbons and myrtles
receives the poetry, which is drawn out every festival; six
judges of these Olympic games retire and select the brightest
compositions, which the respective successful acknowledge, kneel
to Mrs. Calliope Miller, kiss her fat hand, and are crowned by it
with myrtle, with—I don’t know what. You may think this is fiction
or exaggeration. Be dumb, unbelievers! The collection is printed,
published.—Yes, on my faith! There are _bouts rimés_ on a buttered
muffin, made by her Grace the Duchess of Northumberland; receipts
to make them by Corydon the venerable, _alias_ George Pitt; others
very pretty by Lord Palmerston; some by Lord Carlisle: many by
Mrs. Miller herself, that have no fault but wanting metre: and
immortality promised to her without end or measure.[196]
Mrs. Miller’s Institution appears, however, to have been an
unqualified social success. The first edition of the verses was
exhausted in ten days,[197] and a second was published in the
following year. Three similar volumes appeared at intervals,[198] and
the series was terminated only by the death of the Institutress.[199]
The publications received the compliment of an anonymous attack
entitled _Sappho_,[200] in which Mrs. Miller was satirically hailed
as ‘Mistress of the tuneful nine’; but a more deadly assault took the
form of a solemn congratulatory _Epistle to Mrs. Miller_,[201] in
which that lady is said to
Shine unmatched in old or modern time,
A friend of Genius, Pleasure, Taste and Rhime,
Which daily thrive beneath thy fostering hand
And pour the tide of learning o’er the land.
An examination of the volume published in 1775 hardly seems to bear
out these statements. The following production of the hostess herself
it is difficult to describe with accuracy, for the word verse hardly
seems appropriate to it:
From Castor and Pollux, those twins of renown,
Arose the great dance taught at Lacedæmon;
Then a son of Achilles, with a barbarous name,
Taught his soldiers to dance, those Cretans of fame.
Wise philosopher Socrates also would know,
From Aspasia the fair how to well point a toe.
Pompous nuptials and feasts—e’en the grave Funerals
Was danc’d at by princes, priests, people and all.
It is only fair to say that the verses in the volume do frequently
rise from this level to that of mediocrity. The following specimen
of _bouts rimés_ may serve to indicate the type and contents of the
volume:
Hard to my muse it is, I must confess,
In six fixed rhymes aught witty to express;
Why did I mix with Wits? who must detest
And crush my follies which their sense molest.
Thus the poor mole, who rises into light
Dies when he meets the sun’s refulgent might.
There are other things to be said in amelioration of the harsh
judgments one is inclined to pass upon Mrs. Miller. The later
volumes are certainly less bad than the first. The praise of
Mrs. Miller, which had formed the staple of the first volume, is
somewhat mitigated in the others, and the names of the contributors
occasionally emerge into the borderland of fame. Potter, William
Hayley, Anna Seward, and Christopher Anstey are worthy of respect,
and a poem by Garrick, though worthless, lends a certain distinction
to the second volume. Anstey’s poem, _An Election Ball_,[202] which
enjoyed something of the popularity of his _New Bath Guide_, was
written upon a subject given out by Mrs. Miller, ‘The ancient and
modern Dress and Manners of the English Nation compared’; and the
_Poetical Address_ which prefaced it is addressed to Mr. Miller. In
the former ‘Clio’ and the Tusculan ‘vause’ are celebrated, and in the
latter the ‘myrtle sprigs’ and ‘vocal swans of Bath.’ These poems
are still readable.
To Mrs. Miller must certainly be allowed the merit of having gathered
about herself a group of persons who would have made the reputation
of any London drawing-room. Her own inability to produce anything
that should have more than the external appearance of verse does
not seem to have repelled those of higher ability and finer taste.
For such a woman it was in the nature of an achievement that her
Institution lasted six years; and the four volumes of so-called
poetical contributions to it retain a certain melancholy interest as
showing the result of a deliberate attempt by the world of fashion to
stimulate the production of poetry.