But the meetings of this sort, to which sarcasm, sport, or envy have
given the epithet of blueism, that Dr. Burney most frequently and the
latest attended, were those at the house of Mr., since Sir William
Weller Pepys.
The passion of Sir William for literature, his admiration of talents,
and his rapturous zeal for genius, made him receive whoever could
gratify any of those propensities, with an enchantment of pleasure
that seemed to carry him into higher regions. The parties at his house
formed into little, separate, and chosen groups, less awful than at
Mrs. Montagu’s, and less awkward than at Mrs. Vesey’s: and he glided
adroitly from one of these groups to another, till, after making
the round of politeness necessary for the master of the house, his
hospitality felt acquitted of its devoirs; and he indulged, without
further restraint, in the ardent delight of fixing his standard for the
evening in the circle the most to his taste: leaving to his serenely
acquiescent wife the more forbearing task of equalizing attention.
To do that, indeed, beyond what was exacted by good breeding for the
high, and by kindness for the insignificant part of his guests, would
have been a discipline to all his feelings, that would have converted
those parties, that were his pride and his joy, into exercises of the
severest penitence.
But while an animated reciprocation of ideas in conversation, a lively
memory of early anecdotes, and a boundless readiness at recital of
the whole mass of English poets, formed the gayest enjoyment of his
chosen and happiest hours, the voice of justice must raise him still
higher for solid worth. His urbanity was universal. He never looked so
charmed as when engaged in some good office: and his charities were as
expansive as the bounty of those who possessed more than double his
income. So sincere, indeed, was his benevolence, that it seemed as much
a part of himself as his limbs, and could have been torn from him with
little less difficulty.[51]