_July 15._--To-day my father, my mother, and I, went by appointment to
dine and spend the day at Twickenham with the Cambridges. Soon after our
arrival Mr. C. asked if we should like to walk, to which we most readily
agreed.
We had not strolled far before we were followed by Mr. George. No sooner
did his father perceive him, than, hastily coming up to my side, he
began a separate conversation with me; and leaving his son the charge of
all the rest, he made me walk off with him from them all. It was really
a droll manoeuvre, but he seemed to enjoy it highly, and though he said
not a word of his design, I am sure it reminded me of his own old
trick to his son, when listening to a dull story, in saying to the
relator,--“Tell the rest of that to George.” And if George was in as
good-humour with his party as his father was with his why, all were well
pleased. As soon as we had fairly got away from them, Mr. Cambridge,
with the kindest smiles of satisfaction, said,--“I give you my word I
never was more pleased at any thing in my life than I am now at having
you here to-day.”
I told him that I had felt so glad at seeing him again, after so long
an absence, that I had really half a mind to have made up to him myself,
and shook hands.
“You cannot imagine,” said he, “how you flatter me!--and there is
nothing, I do assure you, of which I am prouder, than seeing you have
got the better of your fear of me, and feeling that I am not afraid of
you.”
“Of me, sir?--but how should you be?”
“Nay, I give you my word, if I was not conscious of the greatest purity
of mind, I should more fear you than any body in the world. You know
everything, everybody,” he continued, “so wonderfully well!”
We then, I know not how, fell into discussing the characters of forward
and flippant women; and I told him it was my fortune to be, in general,
a very great favourite with them, though I felt so little gratitude for
that honour, that the smallest discernment would show them it was all
thrown away.
“Why, it is very difficult,” said he, “for a woman to get rid of those
forward characters without making them her enemies. But with a man it is
different. Now I have a very peculiar happiness, which I will tell you.
I never took very much to a very amiable woman but I found she took also
to me, and I have the good fortune to be in the perfect confidence of
some of the first women in this kingdom; but then there are a great many
women that I dislike, and think very impertinent and foolish, and, do
you know, they all dislike me too!--they absolutely cannot bear me! Now,
I don't know, of those two things, which is the greatest happiness.”
How characteristic this!--do you not hear him saying it?
We now renewed our conversation upon various of our acquaintances,
particularly Mr. Pepys, Mr. Langton, and Mrs. Montagu. We stayed in this
field, sitting and sauntering, near an hour. We then went to a stile,
just by the riverside, where the prospect is very beautiful, and there
we seated ourselves. Nothing could be more pleasant, though the wind was
so high I was almost blown into the water.
He now traced to me great part of his life and conduct in former
times, and told me a thousand excellent anecdotes of himself and his
associates. He summed them all up in a way that gave me equal esteem and
regard for him, in saying he found society the only thing for lasting
happiness; that, if he had not met a woman he could permanently love, he
must with every other advantage have been miserable--but that such was
his good fortune, that “to and at this moment,” he said, “there is no
sight so pleasing to me as seeing Mrs. Cambridge enter a room; and that
after having been married to her for forty years. And the next most
pleasing sight to me is an amiable woman.”
He then assured me that almost all the felicity of his life both had
consisted, and did still consist, in female society. It was, indeed, he
said, very rare but there was nothing like it.
“And if agreeable women,” cried I, “are rare, much more so, I think,
are agreeable men; at least, among my acquaintance they are very few,
indeed, that are highly agreeable.”
“Yes, and when they are so,” said he, “it is difficult for you to have
their society with any intimacy or comfort; there are always so many
reasons why you cannot know them.”
We continued chatting until we came to the end of the meadow, and there
we stopped, and again were joined by the company.
Mr. Cambridge now proposed the water, to which I eagerly agreed.
We had an exceeding pleasant excursion. We went up the river beyond the
Duke of Montagu's, and the water was smooth and delightful. Methinks
I should like much to sail from the very source to the mouth of the
Thames....
After dinner we again repaired to the lawn, in a general body;
but--we--had scarce moved ten paces, before Mr. Cambridge again walked
off with me, to a seat that had a very fine view of Petersham wood, and
there we renewed our confabulation.
He now shewed me a note from Mr. Gibbon, sent to engage himself to
Twickenham on the unfortunate day he got his ducking.[178] It is the
most affected little piece of writing I ever saw. He shall attend him,
he says, at Twickenham, and upon the water, as soon as the weather is
propitious, and the Thames, that amiable creature, is ready, to receive
him.
Nothing, to be sure, could be so apt as such a reception as that
“amiable creature” happened to give him! Mr. Cambridge said it was
“God's revenge against conceit.”
DR. JOHNSON's HEROIC FORBEARANCE.
_Tuesday, December 9_--This evening at Mrs. Vesey's, Mr. George
Cambridge came, and took the chair half beside me. I told him of some
new members for Dr. Johnson's club![179]
“I think,” said he, “it sounds more like some club that one reads of in
the 'Spectator,' than like a real club in these times; for the forfeits
of a whole year will not amount to those of a single night in other
clubs. Does Pepys belong to it?”
“Oh no! he is quite of another party! He is head man on the side of the
defenders of Lord Lyttelton. Besides, he has had enough of Dr. Johnson;
for they had a grand battle upon the 'Life of Lyttelton,' at Streatham.”
“And had they really a serious quarrel? I never imagined it had amounted
to that.”
“Yes, serious enough, I assure you. I never saw Dr. Johnson really in a
passion but then: and dreadful, indeed, it was to see. I wished myself
away a thousand times. It was a frightful scene. He so red, poor Mr.
Pepys so pale!”
“But how did it begin? What did he say?”
“Oh, Dr. Johnson came to the point without much ceremony. He called out
aloud, before a large company, at dinner, 'What have you to say, sir,
to me or of me? Come forth, man! I hear you object to my “Life of Lord
Lyttelton. What are your objections? If you have anything to say, let's
hear it. Come forth, man, when I call you!'”
“What a call, indeed! Why, then, he fairly bullied him into a quarrel!”
“Yes. And I was the more sorry, because Mr. Pepys had begged of me,
before they met, not to let Lord Lyttelton be mentioned. Now I had no
more power to prevent it than this macaroon cake in my hand.”
“It was behaving ill to Mrs. Thrale, certainly, to quarrel in her
house.”
“Yes; but he never repeated it; though he wished of all things to have
gone through just such another scene with Mrs. Montagu, and to refrain
was an act of heroic forbearance.”
“Why, I rather wonder he did not; for she was the head of the set of
Lytteltonians.”
“Oh, he knows that; he calls Mr. Pepys only her prime minister.”
“And what does he call her?
“Queen,' to be sure! 'Queen of the blues.' She came to Streatham one
morning, and I saw he was dying to attack her. But he had made a promise
to Mrs. Thrale to have no more quarrels in her house, and so he forced
himself to forbear. Indeed he was very much concerned, when it was over,
for what had passed; and very candid and generous in acknowledging it.
He is too noble to adhere to wrong.”
“And how did Mrs. Montagu herself behave?”
“Very stately, indeed, at first. She turned from him very stiffly, and
with a most distant air, and without even courteseying to him, and with
a firm intention to keep to what she had publicly declared--that she
would never speak to him more! However, he went up to her himself,
longing to begin! and very roughly said,--'Well, madam, what's become of
your fine new house? I hear no more of it.'
“But how did she bear this?”
“Why she was obliged to answer him; and she soon grew so frightened--as
everybody else does--that she was as civil as ever.”
He laughed heartily at this account. But I told him Dr. Johnson was now
much softened. He had acquainted me, when I saw him last, that he had
written to her upon the death of Mrs. Williams, because she had allowed
her something yearly, which now ceased. 'And I had a very kind answer
from her,' said he.
“'Well then, sir,' cried I, 'I hope peace now will be again
proclaimed.'”
“'Why, I am now,' said he, 'come to that time when I wish all bitterness
and animosity to be at an end. I have never done her any serious
harm--nor would I; though I could give her a bite!--but she must provoke
me much first. In volatile talk, indeed, I may have spoken of her not
much to her mind; for in the tumult of conversation malice is apt to
grow sprightly! and there, I hope, I am not yet decrepid!'”
He quite laughed aloud at this characteristic speech.