“‘But where are les charmantes?’ meaning Miss T. and me. ‘I can do nothing till they are accommodated!’
“And, whenever he drinks a glass of wine, he never fails to touch either Mrs. Thrale’s or my glass, with ‘est-il-permis?’
“But at the same time that he is so courteous, he is proud to a most sublime excess, and thinks every person to whom he speaks honoured beyond measure by his notice,—nay, he does not even look at anybody without evidently displaying that such notice is more the effect of his benign condescension, than of any pretension on their part to deserve such a mark of his perceiving their existence. But you will think me mad about this man....
“As he is notorious for his contempt of all artists, whom he looks upon with little more respect than upon day-labourers, the other day, when painting was discussed, he spoke of Sir Joshua Reynolds as if he had been upon a level with a carpenter or farrier.
“‘Did you ever,’ said Mrs. Thrale, ‘see his Nativity?’
“‘No, madam,—but I know his pictures very well; I knew him many years ago, in Minorca; he drew my picture there, and then he knew how to take a moderate price; but now, I vow, ma’am, ’tis scandalous—scandalous indeed! to pay a fellow here seventy guineas for scratching out a head!’
“‘Sir!’ cried Dr. Delap,[[46]] ‘you must not run down Sir Joshua Reynolds, because he is Miss Burney’s friend.’
“‘Sir,’ answered he, ‘I don’t want to run the man down; I like him well enough in his proper place; he is as decent as any man of that sort I ever knew; but for all that, sir, his prices are shameful. Why, he would not [looking at the poor Doctor with an enraged contempt]—he would not do your head under seventy guineas!’
“‘Well,’ said Mrs. Thrale, ‘he had one portrait at the last Exhibition, that I think hardly could be paid enough for; it was of a Mr. Stuart; I had never done admiring it.’
“‘What stuff is this, ma’am!’ cried Mr. B——y; ‘how can two or three dabs of paint ever be worth such a sum as that?’