Sir Joshua next made Mrs. Burke greet the new comer into this select circle; which she did with marked distinction. She appears to be pleasing and sensible, but silent and reserved.
Sir Joshua then went through the same introductory etiquette with Mr. Richard Burke, the brother; Mr. William Burke, the cousin; and young Burke, the son of THE Burke. They all, in different ways, seem lively and agreeable; but at miles, and myriads of miles, from the towering chief.
How proud should I be to give you a sample of the conversation of Mr. Burke! But the subjects were, in general, so fleeting, his ideas so full of variety, of gaiety, and of matter; and he darted from one of them to another with such rapidity, that the manner, the eye, the air with which all was pronounced, ought to be separately delineated to do any justice to the effect that every sentence, nay, that every word produced upon his admiring hearers and beholders.
Mad again! says my Mr. Crisp; stark, staring mad!
Well, all the better; for “There is a pleasure in being mad,” as I have heard you quote from Nat Lee, or some other old play-wright, “that none but madmen know.”
I must not, however, fail to particularize one point of his discourse, because ’tis upon your own favourite hobby, politics: and my father very much admired its candour and frankness.
In speaking of the great Lord Chatham while he was yet Mr. Pitt, Mr. Burke confessed his Lordship to have been the only person whom he, Mr. Burke, did not name in parliament without caution. But Lord Chatham, he said, had obtained so preponderating a height of public favour, that though, occasionally, he could not concur in its enthusiasm, he would not attempt to oppose its cry. He then, however, positively, nay solemnly, protested, that this was the only subject upon which he did not talk with exactly the same openness and sincerity in the house as at the table.
He bestowed the most liberal praise upon Lord Chatham’s second son, the now young William Pitt, with whom he is acting; and who had not only, he said, the most truly extraordinary talents, but who appeared to be immediately gifted by nature with the judgment which others acquire by experience.
“Though judgment,” he presently added, “is not so rare in youth as is generally supposed. I have commonly observed, that those who do not possess it early are apt to miss it late.”
But the subject on which he most enlarged, and most brightened, was Cardinal Ximenes, which was brought forward, accidentally, by Miss Shipley.