But how I blush when I think of Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. and Miss Thrale, Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Garrick, Miss More, Mrs. Chapone, Miss Gregory[54]—nay, Mrs. Montagu herself—being called upon to a scene such as this, not as personages of the drama; but as auditresses and spectatresses! I can only hope they all laugh,—for, if not, I am sure they must all scoff.
Dear, good—mistaken Mrs. Ord!—But my father says such panegyric, and such panegyrists, may well make amends for a little want of tact.
But I have not told you what was said by Mr. Cambridge, and I dare not! lest you should think that fervent friend a little non-compos! for ’twas higher and more piquant in eulogy than all the rest put together. ’Twas to my father, however, that he uttered his lively sentiments; for he studies little me as much as my little books; and he knew how he should double my gratification, by wafting his kind praise to me secretly, softly, and unsuspectedly, through so genial a channel.
How I wish you could catch a glimpse of my dear father upon these occasions! and see the conscious smiles, which, however decorously suppressed by pursing his lips, gleam through every turn, every line, every bit and morsel of his kind countenance during the processes of these agreeable flummeries—for such, I know, my dear Mr. Crisp will call them—and, helas! but too truly! Agreeable, however, they are! ’twere vain to deny that. And here—O how unexpected! I am always trembling in fear of a reverse—but not from you, my dearest Mr. Crisp, will it come to your faithful,
F. B.
Pleasant to Dr. Burney as was this tide of favour, by which he was exhilarated through this second publication of his daughter, it had not yet reached the climax to which it soon afterwards arose; which was the junction of the two first men of the country, if not of the age, in proclaiming each to the other, at an assembly at Miss Moncton’s, where they seated themselves by her side, their kind approvance of this work; and proclaiming it, each animated by the spirit of the other, “in the noblest terms that our language, in its highest glory, is capable of emitting.”
Such were the words of Dr. Johnson himself, in speaking afterwards to Dr. Burney of Mr. Burke’s share in this flattering dialogue; to which Dr. Burney ever after looked back as to the height of his daughter’s literary honours; though he could scarcely then foresee the extent, and the expansion, of that indulgent partiality with which each of them, ever after, invariably distinguished her to the last hour of their lives.
Thus salubriously for Dr. Burney had been cheered the opening winter of 1782, by the celebrated old Wits, Owen Cambridge and Soame Jenyns; through the philanthropy and good-humour which cheered for themselves and their friends the winter of their own lives: and thus radiant with a warmth which Sol in his summer’s glory could not deepen, had gone on the same winter to 1783, through the glowing suffrage of the two first luminaries that brightened the constellation of genius of the reign of George the Third,—Dr. Johnson and Edmund Burke——
But not in fair harmony of progression with this commencement proceeded the year 1783! its April had a harshness which its January had escaped. It brought with it no fragrance of happiness to Dr. Burney. With a blight opened this fatal spring, and with a blast it closed!