To begin with what still is famous in the annals of conversation, the
_Bas Bleu_ Societies.
The first of these was then in the meridian of its lustre, but had
been instituted many years previously at Bath. It owed its name to an
apology made by Mr. Stillingfleet, in declining to accept an invitation
to a literary meeting at Mrs. Vesey’s, from not being, he said, in the
habit of displaying a proper equipment for an evening assembly. “Pho,
pho,” cried she, with her well known, yet always original simplicity,
while she looked, inquisitively, at him and his accoutrements; “don’t
mind dress! Come in your blue stockings!” With which words, humourously
repeating them as he entered the apartment of the chosen coterie, Mr.
Stillingfleet claimed permission for appearing, according to order.
And those words, ever after, were fixed, in playful stigma, upon Mrs.
Vesey’s associations.[45]
This original coterie was still headed by Mrs. Vesey, though it was
transferred from Bath to London. Dr. Burney and this Memorialist were
now initiated into the midst of it. And however ridicule, in public,
from those who had no taste for this bluism; or envy, in secret, from
those who had no admission to it, might seek to depreciate its merit,
it afforded to all lovers of intellectual entertainment a variety of
amusement, an exemption from form, and a _carte blanche_ certainty of
good-humour from the amiable and artless hostess, that rendered it as
agreeable as it was singular: for Mrs. Vesey was as mirth-provoking
from her oddities and mistakes, as Falstaff was wit-inspiring from his
vaunting cowardice and sportive epicurism.
There was something so like the manoeuvres of a character in a comedy
in the manners and movements of Mrs. Vesey, that the company seemed
rather to feel themselves assembled, at their own cost and pleasure,
in some public apartment, to saunter or to repose; to talk or to hold
their tongues; to gaze around, or to drop asleep, as best might suit
their humours; than drawn together to receive and to bestow, the
civilities of given and accepted invitations.
Her fears were so great of the horror, as it was styled, of a circle,
from the ceremony and awe which it produced, that she pushed all the
small sofas, as well as chairs, pell-mell about the apartments, so as
not to leave even a zig-zag path of communication free from impediment:
and her greatest delight was to place the seats back to back, so
that those who occupied them could perceive no more of their nearest
neighbour than if the parties had been sent into different rooms: an
arrangement that could only be eluded by such a twisting of the neck as
to threaten the interlocutors with a spasmodic affection.
But there was never any distress beyond risibility: and the company
that was collected was so generally of a superior cast, that talents
and conversation soon found—as when do they miss it?—their own
level: and all these extraneous whims merely served to give zest and
originality to the assemblage.
Mrs. Vesey was of a character to which it is hardly possible to find a
parallel, so untrue would it be to brand it with positive folly; yet so
glaringly was it marked by almost incredible simplicity.
With really lively parts, a fertile imagination, and a pleasant
quickness of remark, she had the unguardedness of childhood, joined to
an Hibernian bewilderment of ideas that cast her incessantly into some
burlesque situation; and incited even the most partial, and even the
most sensitive of her own countrymen, to relate stories, speeches, and
anecdotes of her astonishing self-perplexities, her confusion about
times and circumstances, and her inconceivable jumble of recollections
between what had happened, or what might have happened; and what had
befallen others that she imagined had befallen herself; that made her
name, though it could never be pronounced without personal regard, be
constantly coupled with something grotesque.
But what most contributed to render the scenes of her social circle
nearly dramatic in comic effect, was her deafness; for with all the
pity due to that socialless infirmity; and all the pity doubly due to
one who still sought conversation as the first of human delights, it
was impossible, with a grave face, to behold her manner of constantly
marring the pleasure of which she was in pursuit.
She had commonly two or three, or more, eartrumpets hanging to her
wrists, or slung about her neck; or tost upon the chimney-piece or
table; with intention to try them, severally and alternately, upon
different speakers, as occasion might arise; and the instant that any
earnestness of countenance, or animation of gesture, struck her eye,
she darted forward, trumpet in hand, to inquire what was going on;
but almost always arrived at the speaker at the moment that he was
become, in his turn, the hearer; and eagerly held her brazen instrument
to his mouth to catch sounds that were already past and gone. And,
after quietly listening some minutes, she would gently utter her
disappointment, by crying: “Well! I really thought you were talking of
something?”
And then, though a whole group would hold it fitting to flock around
her, and recount what had been said; if a smile caught her roving
eye from any opposite direction, the fear of losing something more
entertaining, would make her beg not to trouble them, and again rush
on to the gayer talkers. But as a laugh is excited more commonly by
sportive nonsense than by wit, she usually gleaned nothing from her
change of place, and hastened therefore back to ask for the rest of
what she had interrupted. But generally finding that set dispersing, or
dispersed, she would look around her with a forlorn surprise, and cry:
“I can’t conceive why it is that nobody talks tonight? I can’t catch a
word!”
Or, if some one of peculiar note were engaging attention; if Sir
William Hamilton, for example, were describing Herculaneum or Pompeii;
or Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Hannah More were discussing some new author,
or favourite work; or if the then still beautiful, though old, Duchess
of Leinster, was encountering the beautiful and young Duchess of
Devonshire; or, if Mr. Burke, having stept in, and, marking no one
with whom he wished to exchange ideas, had seized upon the first
book or pamphlet he could catch, to soothe his harassed mind by
reading—which he not seldom did, and most incomparably, a passage or
two aloud; circumstances of such a sort would arouse in her so great
an earnestness for participation, that she would hasten from one spot
to another, in constant hope of better fare; frequently clapping, in
her hurry, the broad part of the brazen ear to her temple: but after
waiting, with anxious impatience, for the development she expected,
but waiting in vain, she would drop her trumpet, and almost dolorously
exclaim: “I hope nobody has had any bad news to night? but as soon as I
come near any body, nobody speaks!”
Yet, with all these peculiarities, Mrs. Vesey was eminently amiable,
candid, gentle, and even sensible; but she had an ardour to know
whatever was going forward, and to see whoever was named, that kept her
curiosity constantly in a panic; and almost dangerously increased the
singular wanderings of her imagination.
Here, amongst the few remaining men of letters of the preceding
literary era, Dr. Burney met Horace Walpole, Owen Cambridge, and Soame
Jenyns, who were commonly, then, denominated the old wits; but who
rarely, indeed, were surrounded by any new ones who stood much chance
of vying with them in readiness of repartee, pith of matter, terseness
of expression, or pleasantry in expanding gay ideas.