Thus, when asked how he did, he answered “Ver well; not ver ill.” Or how he liked any thing, “Ver nice; not ver nasty.” Or what he thought of such a one, “Ver dood; not ver bad.”
On being presented by Captain Burney to the several branches of the family, when he came to this memorialist, who, from a bad cold, was enveloped in muslin wrappings, he inquired into the cause of her peculiar attire; and, upon hearing that she was indisposed, he looked at her for a moment with concern, and then, recovering to a cheering nod, said, “Ver well to-morrow morrow?”
There had been much variation, though no serious dissension, among the circumnavigators during the voyage, upon the manner of naming this stranger. Captain Burney joined those officers who called him Omai; but Omiah was more general; and Omy was more common still. The sailors, however, who brought him over, disdaining to scan the nicety of these three modes of pronunciation, all, to a man, left each of them unattempted and undiscussed, and, by universal, though ridiculous agreement, gave him no other appellation than that of Jack.
His after visits to the house of Dr. Burney were frequent, and evidently very agreeable to him. He was sure of a kind reception from all the family, and he was sincerely attached to Captain Burney; who was glad to continue with him the study of the Otaheitean language, preparatory to accompanying Captain Cooke in his third circumnavigation, when Omiah was to be restored to his own island and friends.
In the currency of this intercourse, remarks were incessantly excited, upon the powers of nature unassisted by art, compared with those of art unassisted by nature; and of the equal necessity of some species of innate aptness, in civilized as well as in savage life, for obtaining success in personal acquirements.
The diserters on the instruction of youth were just then peculiarly occupied by the letters of Lord Chesterfield; and Mr. Stanhope, their object, was placed continually in a parallel line with Omiah: the first, beginning his education at a great public school; taught from an infant all attainable improvements; introduced, while yet a youth, at foreign courts; and brought forward into high life with all the favour that care, expense, information, and refinement could furnish; proved, with all these benefits, a heavy, ungainly, unpleasing character: while the second, with neither rank nor wealth, even in his own remote island; and with no tutor but nature; changing, in full manhood, his way of life, his dress, his country, and his friends; appeared, through a natural facility of observation, not alone unlike a savage, but with the air of a person who had devoted his youth to the practice of those graces, which the most elaborately accomplished of noblemen had vainly endeavoured to make the ornament of his son.
MR. CRISP.
Another severe illness broke into the ease, the prosperity, and the muse of Dr. Burney, and drove him, perforce, to sojourn for some weeks at Chesington, with his friend, Mr. Crisp; whose character, in the biographical and chronological series of events, is thus forcibly, though briefly, sketched.
“To Crisp I repair’d—that best guide of my youth,