“Sir—you shall have it, certainly.”
“Accordingly,” Mr. Garrick continued, “the book—stupendously bound—I sent to him that very evening. But—scarcely had he taken the noble quarto in his hands, when—as Boswell tells me, he poured forth a Greek ejaculation, and a couplet or two from Horace; and then, in one of those fits of enthusiasm which always seem to require that he should spread his arms aloft in the air, his haste was so great to debarrass them for that purpose, that he suddenly pounces my poor Petrarca over his head upon the floor! Russia leather, gold border, and all! And then, standing for several minutes erect, lost in abstraction, he forgot, probably, that he had ever seen it; and left my poor dislocated Beauty to the mercy of the housemaid’s morning mop!”
Phill, the favourite little spaniel, was no more; but a young greyhound successor followed Mr. Garrick about the study, incessantly courting his notice, and licking his hands. “Ah, poor Phill!” cried he, looking at the greyhound contemptuously, “You will never take his place, Slabber-chops! though you try for it hard and soft. Soft enough, poor whelp! like all your race; tenderness without ideas.”
After he had said adieu, and left the room, he hastily came back, whimsically laughing, and said, “Here’s one of your maids down stairs that I love prodigiously to speak to, because she is so cross! She was washing, and rubbing and scrubbing, and whitening and brightening your steps this morning, and would hardly let me pass. Egad, Sir, she did not know the great Roscius! But I frightened her a little, just now: ‘Child,’ says I, ‘you don’t guess whom you have the happiness to see! Do you know I am one of the first geniuses of the age? You would faint away upon the spot if you could only imagine who I am!’”
Another time, an appointment having been arranged by Dr. Burney for presenting his friend Mr. Twining to Mr. Garrick, the two former, in happy conference, were enjoying the society of each other, while awaiting the promised junction with Mr. Garrick, when a violent rapping at the street door, which prepared them for his welcome arrival, was followed by a demand, through the footman, whether the Doctor could receive Sir Jeremy Hillsborough; a baronet who was as peculiarly distasteful to both the gentlemen, as Mr. Garrick was the reverse.
“For heaven’s sake, no!” cried Mr. Twining; and the Doctor echoing “No! No! No!” was with eagerness sending off a hasty excuse, when the footman whispered, “Sir, he’s at my heels! he’s close to the door! he would not stop!” And, strenuously flinging open the library door himself in a slouching hat, an old-fashioned blue rocolo, over a great-coat of which the collar was turned up above his ears, and a silk handkerchief, held, as if from the tooth-ache, to his mouth, the forbidden guest entered; slowly, lowly, and solemnly bowing his head as he advanced; though, quaker-like, never touching his hat, and not uttering a word.
The Doctor, whom Sir Jeremy had never before visited, and to whom he was hardly known, save by open dissimilarity upon some literary subjects; and Mr. Twining, to whom he was only less a stranger to be yet more obnoxious, from having been at variance with his family; equally concluded, from their knowledge of his irascible character, that the visit had no other view than that of demanding satisfaction for some offence supposed to have been offered to his high self-importance. And, in the awkwardness of such a surmise, they could not but feel disconcerted, nay abashed, at having proclaimed their averseness to his sight in such unqualified terms, and immediately within his hearing.
For a minute or two, with a silence like his own, they awaited an explanation of his purpose; when, after some hesitation, ostentatiously waving one hand, while the other still held his handkerchief to his mouth, the unwelcome intruder, to their utter astonishment, came forward; and composedly seated himself in an arm-chair near the fire; filling it broadly, with an air of domineering authority.
The gentlemen now looked at each other, in some doubt whether their visitor had not found his way to them from the vicinity of Moorfields.[61]