which took place not long after the First, already recorded in these my
elaborate annals.
“My father invited Mr. Twining, the great Grecian, to said meeting.
What a contrast did he form with Mr. Bruce, the great Ethiopian! I have
already described Mr. Twining to you, though very inadequately; for he
is so full of merits, it is not easy to find proper phrases for him.
There is only our dear Mr. Crisp whom we like and love half as well.
“Mr. Twining, with all his excellencies,—and he is reckoned one of the
first scholars living; and is now engaged in translating Aristotle,—is
as modest and unassuming as Mr. Bruce is high and pompous. He came very
early, frankly owning, with a sort of piteous shrug, that he really
had not bronze to present himself when the party should be assembled,
before so eminent, but tremendous a man, as report painted Mr. Bruce;
though he was extremely gratified to nestle himself into a corner, as a
private spectator.
“Mrs. Strange, with her daughter, arrived next; and told us that his
Abyssinian Majesty, as she calls Mr. Bruce, had dined at General
Melville’s, but would get away as quickly as possible.
“We waited tea, in our old-fashioned manner, a full hour; but no Mr.
Bruce. So then we—or rather I—made it. And we all united to drink it.
There, Sir; there’s another event for you!
“Mr. Twining entreated that we might no longer postpone the concert,
and was leading the way to the library, where it was to be held; but
just then, a thundering rap at the door raised our expectations, and
stopt our steps;—and Mr. Bruce was announced.
“He entered the room with the state and dignity of a tragedy giant.
“We soon found that something had displeased him, and that he was
very much out of humour: and when Mrs. Strange inquired after General
Melville, he answered her, with a face all made up of formidable
frowns, that the General had invited a most stupid set of people to
meet him. He had evidently left the party with disgust. Perhaps they
had asked him whether there were any real men and women in Abyssinia,
or only bullocks and heifers.
“He took his tea in stern silence, without deigning to again open his
lips, till it was to demand a private conference with my father. They
then went together to the study,—erst Sir Isaac Newton’s—which is
within the library.
“In passing through the latter, they encountered Mr. Twining, who
would hastily have shrunk back; but my father immediately, and with
distinction to Mr. Twining, performed the ceremony of introduction.
Mr. Bruce gravely bowed, and went on; and he was then shut up with my
father at least an hour, in full discussion upon the Theban harp, and
the letter for the history.
“Mr. Twining returned, softly and on tiptoe, to the drawing room; and
advancing to Mrs. Strange and my mother, with uplifted hands and eyes,
exclaimed, ‘This is the most awful man I ever saw!—I never felt so
little in all my life!’
“‘Well, troth,’ said Mrs. Strange, ‘never mind! If you were six feet
high he would overlook you; and he can do no more now.’
“Mr. Twining then, to recover breath he said, sat down, but declared
he was in fear of his life; ‘for if Mr. Bruce,’ he cried, ‘should come
in hastily, and, not perceiving such a pitiful Lilliputian, should
take the chair to be empty—it will soon be over with me! I shall be
jammed in a moment—while he will think he is only dropping down upon a
cushion!’
“As the study confab. seemed to menace duration, Mr. Twining petitioned
Mr. Burney to go to the piano-forte; where he fired away in a voluntary
with all the astonishing powers of his execution, and all the vigour of
his genius.
“He might well be animated by such an auditor as Mr. Twining, who
cannot be a deeper Grecian than he is a refined musician. How happy
is my dear father that the three best, and dearest, and wisest, of
his friends, should be three of the most scientific judges of his own
art,—Mr. Twining, Mr. Bewley, and Mr. Crisp.
“Dear me! how came that last name into my head? I beg your pardon a
thousand times. It was quite by accident. A mere slip of the pen.
“Mr. Twining, astonished, delighted, uttered the warmest praises, with
all his heart; but that fervent effusion over, dropped his voice into
its lowest key, to add, with a look full of arch pleasantry, ‘Now, is
not this better than being tall?’
“My poor sister, Burney, was not quite well, and had a hurt on one of
her fingers. But though she could not exert herself to play a solo, she
consented to take her part in the noble duet for the piano-forte of
Müthel; and she was no sooner seated, than Mr. Bruce re-appeared in our
horizon.
“You well know that enchanting composition, which never has been more
perfectly executed.
“Mr. Twining was enraptured; Mrs. Strange listened in silent wonder and
pleasure; and Mr. Bruce himself was drawn into a charmed attention.
His air lost its fierceness; his features relaxed into smiles; and
good humour and complacency turned pride, sternness, and displeasure,
out of his phiz.
“I begin now to think I have perhaps been too criticising upon poor
man-mountain; and that, when he is not in the way of provocation to
his vanity, he may be an amiable, as well as an agreeable man. But
I suppose his giant-form, which makes every thing around him seem
diminutive, has given him a notion that he was born to lord it over
the rest of mankind; which, peradventure, seems to him a mere huddle
of Lilliputians, as unfit to cope with him, mentally, in discourse, as
corporeally in a wrestling match.
“Mr. Twining had been invited to supper; and as it now grew very late,
my mother made the invitation general; which, to our great surprise,
Mr. Bruce was the first to accept. Who, then, could start any objection?
“So softened had he been by the music, that he was become all courtesy.
Nobody else was listened to, or looked at; and as he scarcely ever
deigns to look at any body himself, he is a primary object for peering
at.
“The conversation turned upon disorders of the senses; for Mrs. Strange
has a female friend who is seized with them, from time to time, as
other people might be seized with an ague. She had been on a visit
at the house of Mrs. Strange, the day before, where she had met Mr.
Bruce. When it was perceived that a fit of the disorder was coming on,
Miss Strange took her home; for which extraordinary courage Mr. Bruce
greatly blamed her.
“‘How,’ said he, ‘could you be sure of your life for a single moment?
Suppose she had thought proper to run a pair of scissors into your
eyes? Or had taken a fancy to cutting off one of your ears?’
“Miss Strange replied, that she never feared, for she always knew how
to manage her.
“Mr. Bruce then inquired what had been the first symptom she had shewn
of the return of her malady?
“Mrs. Strange answered, that the beginning of her wandering that
evening, had been by abruptly coming up to her, and asking her whether
she could make faces?
“‘I wish,’ said Mr. Bruce, ‘she had asked me! I believe I could have
satisfied her pretty well that way!’
“‘O, she had a great desire to speak to you, sir,’ said Miss Strange,
‘she told me she had a great deal to say to you.’
“‘If,’ said Mr. Bruce, ‘she had come up to me, without any preface, and
made faces at me,—I confess I should have been rather surprised!’
“‘Troth,’ said Mrs. Strange, ‘if we are not upon our guard, we are all
of us mad when we are contradicted! for we are all of us so witty, in
our own ideas, that we think every mon out of his head that does not
see with our eyes. But when I tried to hold her, poor little soul, from
running into the street, while we were waiting for the coach, she gave
me such a violent scratch on the arm, that I piteously called out for
help. See! here’s the mark.’
“‘Did she fetch blood,’ cried Mr. Bruce, in a tone of alarm; ‘if she
did, you will surely go out of your own senses before a fortnight will
be over! You may depend upon that! If you are bit by a wild cat, you
will undoubtedly become crazy; and how much more if you are scratched
by a crack-brained woman? I would advise you to go forthwith to the
sea, and be well dipped. I assure you fairly I would not be in your
situation.’
“I thought this so shocking, that I felt a serious impulse to
expostulate with his giantship upon it myself, and _almost_ the
courage; but, whether perceiving my horror, or only imagining it, I
cannot tell; he deigned to turn his magnificent countenance full upon
me, to display that he was laughing. And he afterwards added, that he
knew there was nothing in this case that was any way dangerous; though
how he obtained the knowledge he kept to himself.
“My mother then expressed her hopes that the poor lady might not,
meanwhile, be removed to a private asylum; as in these repositories,
the patients were said to be goaded on to become worse, every time a
friend or a physician was expected to visit them; purposely to lengthen
the poor sufferer’s detention.
“‘Indeed!’ cried Mr. Bruce, knitting his brows, ‘why this is very bad
encouragement to going out of one’s senses!’
“The rest of the conversation was wholly upon this subject; and so,
as I know you hate the horrors, I must bid good night to Meeting the
Second with his Abyssinian Majesty.
“The _tête à tête_ in the study had been entirely upon the two
drawings; and in settling the points upon which Mr. Bruce had best
expatiate in his descriptive and historical epistle.
“My father has great satisfaction in being the first to bring forth
the drawings and the writings of this far-famed traveller before the
public. The only bad thing was, that it kept him away from us all
supper-time, to put down the communications he had received, and the
hints he wished to give for more.
“Mr. Twining, too, wrapt himself up in his own observations, and would
not speak—except by his eyes, which had a comic look, extremely
diverting, of pretended fearful insignificance.
* * * * *
“Well, now, my dear Sir, to