“The villa at Hampstead is small, but commodious. We were received by Mrs. Crewe with much kindness. The room was rather dark, and she had a veil to her bonnet, half down, and with this aid she looked still in a full blaze of beauty.... She is certainly, in my eyes, the most completely a beauty of any woman I ever saw. I know not, even now, any female in her first youth who could bear the comparison. She uglifies everything near her. Her son was with her. He is just of age, and looks like her elder brother! he is a heavy, old-looking young man. He is going to China with Lord Macartney.[[108]]
“My former friend, young Burke, was also there. I was glad to renew acquaintance with him; though I could see some little strangeness in him: this, however, completely wore off before the day was over. Soon after entered Mrs. Burke, Miss French, a niece, and Mr. Richard Burke, the comic, humorous, bold, queer brother of the Mr. Burke.... Mrs. Burke was just what I have always seen her, soft, gentle, reasonable, and obliging; and we met, I think, upon as good terms as if so many years had not parted us.
“At length Mr. Burke appeared, accompanied by Mr. Elliot. He shook hands with my father as soon as he had paid his devoirs to Mrs. Crewe, but he returned my curtsey with so distant a bow, that I concluded myself quite lost with him, from my evident solicitude in poor Mr. Hastings’s cause. I could not wish that less obvious, thinking as I think of it; but I felt infinitely grieved to lose the favour of a man whom, in all other articles, I so much venerate, and whom, indeed, I esteem and admire as the very first man of true genius now living in this country.
“Mrs. Crewe introduced me to Mr. Elliot: I am sure we were already personally known to each other, for I have seen him perpetually in the Managers’ Box, whence, as often, he must have seen me in the Great Chamberlain’s. He is a tall, thin young man, plain in face, dress, and manner, but sensible, and possibly much besides; he was reserved, however, and little else appeared.
“The moment I was named, to my great joy I found Mr. Burke had not recollected me. He is more near-sighted considerably than myself. ‘Miss Burney!’ he now exclaimed, coming forward, and quite kindly taking my hand, ‘I did not see you;’ and then he spoke very sweet words of the meeting, and of my looking far better than ‘while I was a courtier,’ and of how he rejoiced to see that I so little suited that station. ‘You look,’ cried he, ‘quite renewed, revived, disengaged; you seemed, when I conversed with you last at the trial, quite altered; I never saw such a change for the better as quitting a Court has brought about!’
“Ah! thought I, this is simply a mistake from reasoning according to your own feelings. I only seemed altered for the worse at the trial, because I there looked coldly and distantly, from distaste and disaffection to your proceedings; and I here look changed for the better, only because I here meet you without the chill of disapprobation, and with the glow of my first admiration of you and your talents!
“Mrs. Crewe gave him her place, and he sat by me, and entered into a most animated conversation upon Lord Macartney and his Chinese expedition, and the two Chinese youths who were to accompany it. These last he described minutely, and spoke of the extent of the undertaking in high, and perhaps fanciful, terms, but with allusions and anecdotes intermixed, so full of general information and brilliant ideas, that I soon felt the whole of my first enthusiasm return, and with it a sensation of pleasure that made the day delicious to me.
“After this my father joined us, and politics took the lead. He spoke then with an eagerness and a vehemence that instantly banished the graces, though it redoubled the energies, of his discourse. ‘The French Revolution,’ he said, ‘which began by authorizing and legalizing injustice, and which by rapid steps had proceeded to every species of despotism except owning a despot, was now menacing all the universe and all mankind with the most violent concussion of principle and order.’ My father heartily joined, and I tacitly assented to his doctrines, though I feared not with his fears.
“One speech I must repeat, for it is explanatory of his conduct, and nobly explanatory. When he had expatiated upon the present dangers, even to English liberty and property, from the contagion of havoc and novelty, he earnestly exclaimed, ‘This it is that has made ME an abettor and supporter of Kings! Kings are necessary, and, if we would preserve peace and prosperity, we must preserve THEM. We must all put our shoulders to the work! Ay, and stoutly, too!’...
“At dinner Mr. Burke sat next Mrs. Crewe, and I had the happiness to be seated next Mr. Burke; and my other neighbour was his amiable son.