_October 20._--I must now have the honour to present to you a new
acquaintance, who this day dined here.
Mr. B----y,[111] an Irish gentleman, late a commissary in Germany. He is
between sixty and seventy, but means to pass for about thirty; gallant,
complaisant, obsequious, and humble to the fair sex, for whom he has an
awful reverence; but when not immediately addressing them, swaggering,
blustering, puffing, and domineering. These are his two apparent
characters; but the real man is worthy, moral, religious, though
conceited and parading.
He is as fond of quotations as my poor Lady Smatter,[112] and, like
her, knows little beyond a song, and always blunders about the author of
that. His whole conversation consists in little French phrases, picked
up during his residence abroad, and in anecdotes and story-telling,
which are sure to be retold daily and daily in the same words.
Speaking of the ball in the evening, to which we were all going, “Ah,
madam!” said he to Mrs. Thrale, “there was a time when--fol-de-rol,
fol-de-rol [rising, and dancing and Singing], fol-de-rol!--I could dance
with the best of them; but now a man, forty and upwards, as my Lord
Ligonier used to say--but--fol-de-rol!--there was a time!”
“Ay, so there was, Mr. B----y,” said Mrs. Thrale, “and I think you and I
together made a very venerable appearance!”
“Ah! madam, I remember once, at Bath, I was called out to dance with
one of the finest young ladies I ever saw. I was just preparing to do
my best, when a gentleman of my acquaintance was so cruel as to whisper
me--'B----y! the eyes of all Europe are upon you!' for that was the
phrase of the times. 'B----y!' says he, 'the eyes of all Europe are
upon you!'--I vow, ma'am, enough to make a man tremble!-fol-de-rol,
fol-de-rol! [dancing]--the eyes of all Europe are upon you!--I declare,
ma'am, enough to put a man out of countenance.”
I am absolutely almost ill with laughing. This Mr. B----y half convulses
me; yet I cannot make you laugh by writing his speeches, because it is
the manner which accompanies them, that, more than the matter, renders
them so peculiarly ridiculous. His extreme pomposity, the solemn
stiffness of his person, the conceited twinkling of his little old eyes,
and the quaint importance of his delivery, are so much more like some
pragmatical old coxcomb represented on the stage, than like anything in
real and common life, that I think, were I a man, I should sometimes be
betrayed into clapping him for acting so well. As it is, I am sure no
character in any comedy I ever saw has made me laugh more extravagantly.
He dines and spends the evening here constantly, to my great
satisfaction.
At dinner, when Mrs. Thrale offers him a seat next her, he regularly
says,
“But where are les charmantes?” meaning Miss T. and me. “I can do
nothing till they are accommodated!”
And, whenever he drinks a glass of wine, he never fails to touch either
Mrs. Thrale's, or my glass, with “est-il permis?”
But at the same time that he is so courteous, he is proud to a most
sublime excess, and thinks every person to whom he speaks honoured
beyond measure by his notice, nay, he does not even look at anybody
without evidently displaying that such notice is more the effect of his
benign condescension, than of any pretension on their part to deserve
such a mark of his perceiving their existence. But you will think me mad
about this man.
_Nov. 3_--Last Monday we went again to the ball. Mr. B----y, who was
there, and seated himself next to Lady Pembroke, at the top of the room,
looked most sublimely happy! He continues still to afford me the highest
diversion.
As he is notorious for his contempt of all artists, whom he looks upon
with little more respect than upon day-labourers, the other day, when
painting was discussed, he spoke of Sir Joshua Reynolds as if he had
been upon a level with a carpenter or farrier.
“Did you ever,” said Mrs. Thrale, “see his Nativity?”
“No, madam,--but I know his pictures very well; I knew him many years
ago, in Minorca; he drew my picture there; and then he knew how to take
a moderate price; but now, I vow, ma'am, 'tis scandalous--scandalous
indeed! to pay a fellow here seventy guineas for scratching out a head!”
“Sir,” cried Dr. Delap, “you must not run down Sir Joshua Reynolds,
because he is Miss Burney's friend.”
“Sir,” answered he, “I don't want to run the man down; I like him well
enough in his proper place; he is as decent as any man of that sort I
ever knew; but for all that, sir, his prices are shameful. Why, he would
not (looking at the poor doctor with an enraged contempt) he would not
do your head under seventy guineas!”
“Well,” said Mrs. Thrale, “he had one portrait at the last exhibition,
that I think hardly could be paid enough for; it was of a Mr. Stuart; I
had never done admiring it.”
“What stuff is this, ma'am!” cried Mr. B----y, “how can two or three
dabs of paint ever be worth such a sum as that?”
“Sir,” said Mr. Selwyn[113] (always willing to draw him out), “you know
not how much he is improved since you knew him in Minorca; he is now the
finest painter, perhaps, in the world.”
“Pho, pho, sir,” cried he, “how can you talk so? you, Mr. Selwin, who
have seen so many capital pictures abroad?”
“Come, come, sir,” said the ever odd Dr. Delap, “you must not go on so
undervaluing him, for, I tell you, he is a friend of Miss Burney's.”
“Sir,” said Mr. B----y, “I tell you again I have no objection to the
man; I have dined in his company two or three times; a very decent man
he is, fit to keep company with gentlemen; but, ma'am, what are all your
modern dabblers put together to one ancient? nothing!--a set of--not a
Rubens among them! I vow, ma'am, not a Rubens among them!”....
To go on with the subject I left off with last--my favourite subject you
will think it---Mr. B----y. I must inform you that his commendation was
more astonishing to me than anybody's could be, as I had really taken it
for granted he had hardly noticed my existence. But he has also spoken
very well of Dr. Delap--that is to say, in a very condescending manner.
“That Mr. Delap,” said he, “seems a good sort of man; I wish all the
cloth were like him; but, lackaday! 'tis no such thing; the clergy in
general are but odd dogs.”
Whenever plays are mentioned, we have also a regular speech about them.
“I never,” he says, “go to a tragedy,--it's too affecting; tragedy
enough in real life: tragedies are only fit for fair females; for
my part, I cannot bear to see Othello tearing about in that violent
manner--and fair little Desdemona, ma'am, 'tis too affecting! to see
your kings and your princes tearing their pretty locks,--oh, there's no
standing it! 'A straw-crown'd monarch,'--what is that, Mrs. Thrale?
'A straw-crown'd monarch in mock majesty.'
“I can't recollect now where that is; but for my part, I really cannot
bear to see such sights. And then out come the white handkerchiefs, and
all their pretty eyes are wiping, and then come poison and daggers, and
all that kind of thing,--O ma'am, 'tis too much; but yet the fair tender
hearts, the pretty little females, all like it!”
This speech, word for word, I have already heard from him literally four
times.
When Mr. Garrick was mentioned, he honoured him with much the same style
of compliment as he had done Sir Joshua Reynolds.
“Ay, ay,” said he, “that Garrick was another of those fellows that
people run mad about. Ma'am, 'tis a shaine to think of such things! an
actor living like a person of quality scandalous! I vow, scandalous!”
“Well,--commend me to Mr. B----y!” cried Mrs. Thrale “for he is your
only man to put down all the people that everybody else sets up.”
“Why, ma'am,” answered he, “I like all these people very well in their
proper places; but to see such a set of poor beings living like persons
of quality,--'tis preposterous! common sense, madam, common sense is
against that kind of thing. As to Garrick, he was a very good mimic,
an entertaining fellow enough, and all that kind of thing---but for an
actor to live like a person of quality--oh, scandalous!”
Some time after the musical tribe was mentioned. He was at cards at
the time with Mr. Selwyn, Dr. Delap, and Mr. Thrale, while we “fair
females,” as he always calls us, were speaking of Agujari.[114] He
constrained himself from flying out as long as he was able; but upon our
mentioning her having fifty pounds a song, he suddenly, in a great rage,
called out, “Catgut and rosin! ma'am, 'tis scandalous!”...
The other day, at dinner, the subject was married life, and among
various husbands and wives Lord L-- being mentioned, Mr. B----y
pronounced his panegyric, and called him his friend. Mr. Selwyn, though
with much gentleness, differed from him in opinion, and declared he
could not think well of him, as he knew his lady, who was an amiable
woman, was used very ill by him.
“How, sir?” cried Mr. B----y.
“I have known him,” answered Mr. Selwyn, “frequently pinch her till she
has been ready to cry with pain, though she has endeavoured to prevent
its being observed.”
“And I,” said Mrs. Thrale, “know that he pulled her nose, in his frantic
brutality, till he broke-some of the vessels of it, and when she was
dying she still found the torture he had given her by it so great, that
it was one of her last complaints.”
The general, who is all for love and gallantry, far from attempting to
vindicate his friend, quite swelled with indignation on this account,
and, after a pause, big with anger, exclaimed,
“Wretched doings, sir, wretched doings!”
“Nay, I have known him,” added Mr. Selwyn, “insist upon handing her to
her carriage, and then, with an affected kindness, pretend to kiss her
hand, instead of which he has almost bit a piece out of it.”
“Pitiful!--pitiful! sir,” cried the General, “I know nothing more
shabby!”
“He was equally inhuman to his daughter,” said Mrs. Thrale, “for, in one
of his rages, he almost throttled her.”
“Wretched doings!” again exclaimed Mr. B----y, “what! cruel to a fair
female! Oh fie! fie! fie!--a fellow who can be cruel to females and
children, or animals, must be a pitiful fellow indeed. I wish we had had
him here in the sea. I should like to have had him stripped, and that
kind of thing, and been well banged by ten of our clippers here with a
cat-o'-nine-tails. Cruel to a fair female? Oh fie! fie! fie!”
I know not how this may read, but I assure you its sound was ludicrous
enough.
However, I have never yet told you his most favourite story, though we
have regularly heard it three or four times a day--and this is about his
health.
“Some years ago,” he says,--“let's see, how many? in the year '71,--ay,
'71, '72--thereabouts--I was taken very ill, and, by ill-luck, I was
persuaded to ask advice of one of these Dr. Gallipots:--oh, how I hate
them all! Sir, they are the vilest pick-pockets--know nothing, sir!
nothing in the world! poor ignorant mortals! and then they pretend--In
short, sir, I hate them all!--I have suffered so much by them, sir--lost
four years of the happiness of my life--let's see, '71, '72, '73,
'74--ay, four years, sir!--mistook my case, sir!--and all that kind of
thing. Why, sir, my feet swelled as big as two horses' heads! I vow I
will never consult one of these Dr. Gallipot fellows again! lost me,
sir, four years of the happiness of my life!--why, I grew quite an
object!---you would hardly have known me!--lost all the calves of my
legs!--had not an ounce of flesh left!--and as to the rouge--why,
my face was the colour of that candle!--those deuced Gallipot
fellows!--why, they robbed me of four years--let me see, ay, '71, '72--”
And then it was all given again!
We had a large party of gentlemen to dinner. Among them was Mr.
Hamilton, commonly called Single-speech Hamilton, from having made
one remarkable speech in the House of Commons against government, and
receiving some douceur to be silent ever after. This Mr. Hamilton is
extremely tall and handsome; has an air of haughty and fashionable
superiority; is intelligent, dry, sarcastic, and clever. I should
have received much pleasure from his conversational powers, had I not
previously been prejudiced against him, by hearing that he is infinitely
artful, double, and crafty.
The dinner conversation was too general to be well remembered; neither,
indeed, shall I attempt more than partial scraps relating to matters of
what passed when we adjourned to tea.
Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Selwyn, Mr. Tidy, and Mr. Thrale seated themselves to
whist; the rest looked on: but the General, as he always does, took up
the newspaper, and, with various comments, made aloud, as he went
on reading to himself, diverted the whole company. Now he would cry,
“Strange! strange that!”--presently, “What stuff! I don't believe a
word of it!”--a little after, “Mr. Bate,[115] I wish your ears were
cropped!”--then, “Ha! ha! ha! funnibus! funnibus! indeed!”--and, at
last, in a great rage, he exclaimed, “What a fellow is this, to presume
to arraign the conduct of persons of quality!”
Having diverted himself and us in this manner, till he had read every
column methodically through, he began all over again, and presently
called out, “Ha! ha! here's a pretty thing!” and then, in a plaintive
voice, languished out some wretched verses.