_Tuesday._--Lord Mulgrave called this morning. He is returned to Bath
for only a few days. He was not in his usual spirits; yet he failed not
to give me a rub for my old offence, which he seems determined not to
forget; for upon something being said, to which, however, I had not
attended, about seamen, he cast an arch glance at me, and cried out,
“Miss Burney, I know, will take our parts--if I remember right, she is
one of the greatest of our enemies!”
“All the sea captains,” said Mrs. Thrale, “fall upon Miss Burney:
Captain Cotton, my cousin, was for ever plaguing her about her spite to
the navy.”
This, however, was for the character of Captain Mirvan,[122] which, in
a comical and good-humoured way, Captain Cotton pretended highly to
resent, and so, he told me, did all the captains in the navy.
Augusta Byron, too, tells me that the admiral, her father, very often
talks of Captain Mirvan, and though the book is very high in his favour,
is not half pleased with the captain's being such a brute.
However, I have this to comfort me--that the more I see of sea captains,
the less reason I have to be ashamed of Captain Mirvan; for they have
all so irresistible a propensity to wanton mischief--to roasting beaus,
and detesting old women, that I quite rejoice I showed the book to no
one ere printed, lest I should have been prevailed upon to soften his
character. Some time after, while Lord Mulgrave was talking of Captain
G. Byron's marrying a girl at Barbadoes, whom he had not known a week,
he turned suddenly to me, and called out,
“See, Miss Burney, what you have to expect--your brother will bring a
bride from Kamschatka, without doubt!”
“That,” said I, “may perhaps be as well as a Hottentot, for when he was
last out, he threatened us with a sister from the Cape of Good Hope.”
_Thursday,_--Lord Mulgrave and Dr. Harrington dined here. Lord Mulgrave
was delightful;--his wit is of so gay, so forcible, so splendid a kind
that when he is disposed to exert it, he not only engrosses attention
from all the rest of the company, but demands the full use of all one's
faculties to keep pace in understanding the speeches, allusions, and
sarcasms which he sports. But he will never, I believe, be tired of
attacking me about the sea; “he will make me 'eat it that leak,” I
assure _you_.
During dinner he was speaking very highly of a sea officer whose name, I
think, was Reynolds.
“And who is he?” asked Mrs. Thrale, to which his lordship answered,
“Brother to Lord--something, but I forget what;” and then, laughing
and looking at me, he added, “We have all the great families in the
navy--ay, and all the best families, too,--have we not, Miss Burney? The
sea is so favourable an element to genius, that there all high-souled
younger brothers with empty pockets are sure of thriving: nay, I can say
even more for it, for it not only fosters the talents of the spirited
younger brothers, it also lightens the dullness even of that poor
animal--an elder brother; so that it is always the most desirable place
both for best and worst.”
“Well, your lordship is always ready to praise it,” said Mrs. Thrale,
“and I only wish we had a few more like you in the service,--and long
may you live, both to defend and to ornament it!”
“Defence,” answered he with quickness, “it does not want, and, for
ornament, it is above all!”