The warm and venerating attachment of Dr. Burney to Mr. Crisp, which
occasional discourse and allusions had frequently brought forward,
impressed the whole Thrale family with a high opinion of the character
and endowments of that excelling man. And when they found, also, that
Mr. Crisp had as animated a votary in so much younger a person as their
new guest; and that this enthusiasm was general throughout the Doctor’s
house, they earnestly desired to view and to know a man of such eminent
attraction; and gave to Dr. Burney a commission to bring on the
acquaintance.
It was given, however, in vain. Mr. Crisp had no longer either health
or spirit of enterprize for so formidable, however flattering, a new
connexion; and inexorably resisted every overture for a meeting.
But Mrs. Thrale, all alive for whatever was piquant and promising,
grew so bewitched by the delight with which her new young ally, to whom
she became daily more attached and more attaching, dilated on the rare
perfections of _Daddy Crisp_; and the native and innocent pleasures
of Liberty Hall, Chesington, that she started the plan of a little
excursion for taking the premises by surprise. And Dr. Burney, certain
that two such singularly accomplished persons could not meet but to
their mutual gratification; sanctioned the scheme; Mr. Thrale desired
to form his own judgment of so uncommon a Recluse; and the Doctor’s
pupil felt a juvenile curiosity to make one in the group.
The party took place; but its pleasure was nearly marred by the failure
of the chief spring which would have put into motion, and set to
harmony, the various persons who composed its drama.
Dr. Burney, from multiplicity of avocations, was forced, when the day
arrived, to relinquish his share in the little invasion; which cast
a damp upon the gaiety of the project, both to the besieged and the
besiegers. Yet Mr. Crisp and Mrs. Thrale met with mutual sentiments of
high esteem, though the genius of their talents was dissimilar; Mrs.
Thrale delighted in bursting forth with sudden flashes of wit, which,
carelessly, she left to their own consequences; while Mr. Crisp, though
awake to her talents, and sensible of their rarity and their splendour,
thought with Dr. Fordyce, that in woman the retiring graces are the
most attractive.[34]
Nevertheless, in understanding, acuteness, and parts, there was so
much in common between them, that sincere admiration grew out of the
interview; though with too little native congeniality to mellow into
confidence, or ripen into intimacy.
Praise, too, that dangerous herald of expectation, is often a friend
more perilous than any enemy; and both had involuntarily looked for a
something indefinable which neither of them found; yet both had too
much justness of comprehension to conclude that such a something did
not exist, because no opportunity for its development had offered in
the course of a few hours.
What most, in this visit, surprised Mrs. Thrale with pleasure, was the
elegance of Mr. Crisp in language and manners; because that, from the
Hermit of Chesington, she had not expected.
And what most to Mr. Crisp caused a similar pleasure, was the courteous
readiness, and unassuming good-humour, with which Mrs. Thrale received
the inartificial civilities of Kitty Cooke, and the old-fashioned but
cordial hospitality of Mrs. Hamilton; for these, from a celebrated wit,
moving in the sphere of high life, he also in his turn had not expected.
The Thrales, however, were all much entertained by the place itself,
which they prowled over with gay curiosity. Not a nook or corner; nor
a dark passage “leading to nothing;” nor a hanging tapestry of prim
demoiselles, and grim cavaliers; nor a tall canopied bed tied up to
the ceiling; nor japan cabinets of two or three hundred drawers of
different dimensions; nor an oaken corner cupboard, carved with heads,
thrown in every direction, save such as might let them fall on men’s
shoulders; nor a window stuck in some angle close to the ceiling of a
lofty slip of a room; nor a quarter of a staircase, leading to some
quaint unfrequented apartment; nor a wooden chimney-piece, cut in
diamonds, squares, and round nobs, surmounting another of blue and
white tiles, representing, _vis à vis_, a dog and a cat, as symbols of
married life and harmony—missed their scrutinizing eyes.
They even visited the attics, where they were much diverted by the
shapes as well as by the quantity of rooms, which, being of all sorts
of forms that could increase their count, were far too heterogeneous of
outline to enable the minutest mathematician to give them any technical
denomination.
They peeped, also, through little window casements, of which the panes
of glass were hardly so wide as their clumsy frames, to survey long
ridges of lead that entwined the motley spiral roofs of the multitude
of separate cells, rather than chambers, that composed the top of the
mansion; and afforded from it a view, sixteen miles in circumference,
of the adjacent country.
* * * * *
Mr. Crisp judged it fitting to return the received civility of a
visit from Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, whatever might be the inconvenience
to his health; or whatever his disinclination to such an exertion.
From habitual politeness he was of the old school in the forms of good
breeding; though perfectly equal to even the present march of intellect
in the new one, if to the present day he had lived,—and had deemed
it a march of improvement. He was the last man not to be aware that
nothing stands still. All nature in its living mass, all art in its
concentrated aggregate, advances or retrogrades.
He took the earliest day that one of his few gout intervals put at his
own disposal, to make his appearance at Streatham; having first written
a most earnest injunction to Dr. Burney to give him there the meeting.
The Memorialist was then at Chesington, and had the happiness to
accompany Mr. Crisp; by whom she was to be left at her new third home.
Dr. Johnson, in compliment to his friend Dr. Burney, and by no means
incurious himself to see the hermit of Chesington, immediately
descended to meet Mr. Crisp; and to aid Mrs. Thrale, who gave him a
vivacious reception, to do the honours of Streatham.
The meeting, nevertheless, to the great chagrin of Dr. Burney, produced
neither interest nor pleasure: for Dr. Johnson, though courteous in
demeanour and looks, with evident solicitude to shew respect to Mr.
Crisp, was grave and silent; and whenever Dr. Johnson did not make the
charm of conversation, he only marred it by his presence; from the
general fear he incited, that if he spoke not, he might listen; and
that if he listened—he might reprove.
Ease, therefore, was wanting; without which nothing in society can be
flowing or pleasing. The Chesingtonian conceived, that he had lived too
long away from the world to start any subject that might not, to the
Streathamites, be trite and out of date; and the Streathamites believed
that they had lived in it so much longer, that the current talk of the
day might, to the Chesingtonian, seem unintelligible jargon: while each
hoped that the sprightly Dr. Burney would find the golden mean by which
both parties might be brought into play.
But Dr. Burney, who saw in the kind looks and complacency of Dr.
Johnson intentional goodwill to the meeting, flattered himself that
the great philologist was but waiting for an accidental excitement,
to fasten upon some topic of general use or importance, and then to
describe or discuss it, with the full powers of his great mind.
Dr. Johnson, however, either in health or in spirits was,
unfortunately, oppressed; and, for once, was more desirous to hear than
to be heard.
Mr. Crisp, therefore, lost, by so unexpected a taciturnity, this fair
and promising opportunity for developing and enjoying the celebrated
and extraordinary colloquial abilities of Dr. Johnson; and finished
the visit with much disappointment; lowered also, and always, in his
spirits by parting from his tenderly attached young companion.
Dr. Burney had afterwards, however, the consolation to find that Mr.
Crisp had impressed even Dr. Johnson with a strong admiration of his
knowledge and capacity; for in speaking of him in the evening to Mr.
Thrale, who had been absent, the Doctor emphatically said, “Sir, it is
a very singular thing to see a man with all his powers so much alive,
when he has so long shut himself up from the world. Such readiness of
conception, quickness of recollection, facility of following discourse
started by others, in a man who has long had only the past to feed
upon, are rarely to be met with. Now, for my part,” added he, laughing,
“that _I_ should be ready, or even universal, is no wonder; for my dear
little mistress here,” turning to Mrs. Thrale, “keeps all my faculties
in constant play.”
Mrs. Thrale then said that nothing, to her, was so striking, as that a
man who so long had retired from the world, should so delicately have
preserved its forms and courtesies, as to appear equally well bred with
any elegant member of society who had not quitted it for a week.
Inexpressibly gratifying to Dr. Burney was the award of such justice,
from such judges, to his best and dearest loved friend.
From this time forward, Dr. Burney could scarcely recover his daughter
from Streatham, even for a few days, without a friendly battle. A
sportively comic exaggeration of Dr. Johnson’s upon this flattering
hostility was current at Streatham, made in answer to Dr. Burney’s
saying, upon a resistance to her departure for St. Martin’s-street in
which Dr. Johnson had strongly joined, “I must really take her away,
Sir, I must indeed; she has been from home so long.”
“Long? no, Sir! I do not think it long,” cried the Doctor, see-sawing,
and seizing both her hands, as if purporting to detain her: “Sir! I
would have her Always come ... and Never go!—”
* * * * *