7 January 1788 – 13 January 1788

I met Mr. Bryant, who came, by appointment to give me that pleasure. He was in very high spirits, full Of anecdote and amusement. He has as much good-humoured chit-chat and entertaining gossiping as if he had given no time to the classics and his studies, instead of having nearly devoted his life to them. One or two of his little anecdotes I will try to recollect. In the year thirty-three of this century, and in his own memory, there was a cause brought before a judge, between two highwaymen, who had quarrelled about the division of their booty; and these men had the effrontery to bring their dispute to trial. “In the petition of the plaintiff,” said Mr. Bryant, “he asserted that he had been extremely ill-used by the defendant: that they had carried on a very advantageous trade together, upon Black-heath, Hounslow-heath, Bagshot-heath, and other places; that their business chiefly consisted in watches, wearing apparel, and trinkets of all sorts, as well as large concerns between them in cash; that they had agreed to an equitable partition of all profits, and that this agreement had been violated. So impudent a thing, the judge said, was never before brought out in a court, and so he refused to pass sentence in favour of either of them, and dismissed them from the court.” Then he told us a great number of comic slip-slops, of the first Lord Baltimore, who made a constant misuse of one word for another: for instance, “I have been,” says he, “upon a little excoriation to see a ship lanced; and there is not a finer going vessel upon the face of God’s earth: you’ve no idiom how well it sailed.” Having given us this elegant specimen of the language of one lord, he proceeded to give us one equally forcible of the understanding of another. The late Lord Plymouth, meeting in a country town with a puppet-show, was induced to see it; and, from the high entertainment he received through Punch, he determined to buy him, and accordingly asked his price, and paid it, and carried the puppet to his country-house, that he might be diverted with him at any odd hour. Mr. Bryant protests he met the same troop Just as the purchase had been made, and went himself to the puppet-show, which was exhibited senza punch! Next he spoke upon the Mysteries, or origin of our theatrical entertainments, and repeated the plan and conduct Of several Of these strange compositions, in particular one he remembered which was called “Noah’s Ark,” and in which that patriarch and his sons, just previous to the Deluge, made it all their delight to speed themselves into the ark without Mrs. Noah, whom they wished to escape; but she surprised them just as they had embarked, and made so prodigious a racket against the door that, after a long and violent contention, she forced them to open it, and gained admission, having first content, them by being kept out till she was thoroughly wet to the skin. These most eccentric and unaccountable dramas filled up the chief of our conversation.

When we were summoned to the tea-room I met Miss de Luc coming out. I asked if she did not stay tea? “O How can I,” cried she, in a voice of distress, “when already, as there is company here without me, Mrs. Schwellenberg has asked me what I came for?” I was quite shocked for her, and could only shrug in dismay and let her pass. When there is no one else she is courted to stay! Mr. and Mrs. Fisher came soon after; and the Princesses Augusta and Amelia fetched away Mrs. Delany. Soon after Colonel Wellbred came, ushering in Mr. Fairly and his young son, who is at Eton school. I had seen Mr. F. but once since his great and heavy loss, though now near half a year had elapsed. So great a personal alteration in a few months I have seldom seen: thin, haggard, worn with care, grief, and watching—his hair turned grey—white, rather, and some of his front teeth vanished. He seemed to have suffered, through his feelings, the depredations suffered by Others through age and time. His demeanour, upon this trying occasion, filled me with as much admiration as his countenance did with compassion: calm, composed, and gentle, he seemed bent on appearing not only resigned, but cheerful. I might even have supposed him verging on being happy, had not the havoc of grief on his face, and the tone of deep melancholy in his voice, assured me his Solitude was all sacred to his sorrows. Mr. Fisher was very sad himself, grieving at the death of Dr. Harley, Dean of Windsor and Bishop of Hereford. He began, however, talking to me of these “Letters,” and, with him, I could speak of them, and of their publisher, without reserve: but the moment they were named Mrs. Schwellenberg uttered such hard and harsh things, that I could not keep my seat and the less, because, knowing my strong friendship there in former days, I was sure it was meant I should be hurt, I attempted not to speak, well aware all defence is irritation, where an attack is made from ill-nature, not justice. The gentle Mr. Fisher, sorry for the cause and the effect of this assault, tried vainly to turn it aside: what began with censure soon proceeded to invective; and at last, being really sick from crowding recollections of past scenes, where the person now thus vilified had been dear and precious to my very heart, I was forced, abruptly, to walk out of the room. It was indifferent to me whether or not my retreat was noticed. I have never sought to disguise the warm friendship that once subsisted between Mrs. Thrale and myself, for I always hoped that, where it was known, reproach might be spared to a name I can never hear without a secret pang, even when simply mentioned. Oh, then, how severe a one is added, when its sound is accompanied by the hardest aspersions! I returned when I could, and the subject was over. When all were gone Mrs. Schwellenberg said, “I have told it Mr. Fisher that he drove you out from the room, and he says he won’t not do it no more.” She told me next—that in the second volume I also was mentioned. Where she may have heard this I cannot gather, but it has given me a sickness at heart inexpressible. It is not that I expect severity: for at the time of that correspondence—at all times, indeed, previous to the marriage with Piozzi, if Mrs. Thrale loved not F. B., where shall we find faith in words, or give credit to actions? But her present resentment, however unjustly incurred, of my constant disapprobation of her conduct, may prompt some note, or other mark, to point out her change of sentiments—but let me try to avoid such painful expectations; at least, not to dwell upon them. O, little does she know how tenderly at this moment I could run again into her arms, so often opened to receive me with a cordiality I believed inalienable. And it was sincere then, I am satisfied: pride, resentment of disapprobation, and consciousness of unjustifiable proceedings—these have now changed her: but if we met, and she saw and believed my faithful regard, how would she again feel all her own return! Well, what a dream am I making!

Upon this ever-interesting subject, I had to-day a very sweet scene with the queen. While Mrs. Schwellenberg and myself were both in our usual attendance at noon, her majesty inquired of Mrs. Schwellenberg if she had yet read any of the “Letters”? “No,” she answered, “I have them not to read.” I then said she had been so obliging as to lend them to me, to whom they were undoubtedly of far greater personal value. “That is true,” said the queen; “for I think there is but little in them that can be of much consequence or value to the public at large.” “Your majesty, you will hurt Miss Burney if you speak about that; poor Miss Burney will be quite hurt by that.” The queen looked much surprised, and I hastily exclaimed, “O, no!—not with the gentleness her majesty names it.” Mrs. Schwellenberg then spoke in German; and, I fancy, by the names she mentioned, recounted how Mr. Turbulent and Mr. Fisher had “driven me out of the room.” The queen seemed extremely astonished, and I was truly vexed at this total misunderstanding; and that the goodness she has exerted upon this occasion should seem so little to have succeeded. But I could not explain, lest it should seem to reproach what was meant as kindness in Mrs. Schwellenberg, who had not yet discovered that it was not the subject, but her own manner of treating it, that was so painful to me. However, the instant Mrs. Schwellenberg left the room, and we remained alone, the queen, approaching me in the softest manner, and looking earnestly in my face, said, “You could not be offended, surely, at what I said.” “O no, ma’am,” cried I, deeply indeed penetrated by such unexpected condescension. “I have been longing to make a speech to your majesty upon this matter; and it was but yesterday that I entreated Mrs. Delany to make it for me, and to express to your majesty the very deep sense I feel of the lenity with which this Subject has been treated in my hearing.” “Indeed,” cried she, with eyes strongly expressive of the complacency with which she heard me, “I have always spoke as little as possible upon this affair. I remember but twice that I have named it: once I said to the Bishop of Carlisle, that I thought most of these letters had better have been spared the printing; and once to Mr. Langton, at the Drawing-room, I said, ‘Your friend Dr. Johnson, sir, has had many friends busy to publish his books, and his memoirs, and his meditations, and his thoughts; but I think he wanted one friend more.’ ‘What for? ma’am,’ cried he; ‘A friend to suppress them,’ I answered. And, indeed, this is all I ever said about the business.”

There is something in Colonel Wellbred so elegant, so equal, and so pleasing, it is impossible not to see him with approbation, and to speak of him with praise. But I found in Mr. Fairly a much greater depth of understanding, and all his sentiments seem formed upon the most perfect basis of religious morality. During the evening, in talking over plays and players, we all three united warmly in panegyric of Mrs. Siddons; but when Mrs. Jordan was named, Mr. Fairly and myself were left to make the best of her. Observing the silence of Colonel Wellbred, we called upon him to explain it. “I have seen her,” he answered, quietly, “but in one part.” “Whatever it was,” cried Mr. Fairly, “it must have been well done.” “Yes,” answered the colonel, “and so well that it seemed to be her real character: and I disliked her for that very reason, for it was a character that, off the stage or on, is equally distasteful to me—a hoyden.” I had had a little of this feeling myself when I saw her in “The Romp," where she gave me, in the early part, a real disgust; but afterwards she displayed such uncommon humour that it brought me to pardon her assumed vulgarity, in favour of a representation of nature, which, In its particular class, seemed to me quite perfect. At the usual tea-time I sent Columb, to see if anybody had come upstairs. He brought me word the eating-parlour was empty. I determined to go thither at once, with my work, that there might be no pretence to fetch me when the party assembled; but upon opening the door I saw Mr. Turbulent there, and alone! I entered with readiness into discourse with him, and showed a disposition to placid good-will, for with so irritable a spirit resentment has much less chance to do good than an appearance of not supposing it deserved. Our conversation was in the utmost gravity. He told me he was not happy, though owned he had everything to make him so; but he was firmly persuaded that happiness in this world was a real stranger. I combated this misanthropy in general terms; but he assured me that such was his unconquerable opinion of human life. How differently did I feel when I heard an almost similar sentiment from Mr. Fairly! In him I imputed it to unhappiness of circumstances, and was filled with compassion for his fate: in this person I impute it to something blameable within, and I tried by all the arguments I could devise to give him better notions. For him, however, I soon felt pity, though not of the same composition: for he frankly said he was good enough to be happy-that he thought human frailty incompatible with happiness, and happiness with human frailty, and that he had no wish so strong as to turn monk! I asked him if he thought a life of uselessness and of goodness the same thing? “I need not be useless,” he said; “I might assist by my counsels. I might be good in a monastery—in the world I cannot! I am not master of my feelings: I am run away by passions too potent for control!” This was a most unwelcome species of confidence, but I affected to treat it as mere talk, and answered it only slightly, telling him he spoke from the gloom of the moment. “No,” he answered, “I have tried in vain to conquer them. I have made vows—resolutions—all in vain! I cannot keep them!” “Is not weakness,” cried I, “sometimes fancied, merely to save the pain and trouble of exerting fortitude.” “No, it is with me inevitable. I am not formed for success in self-conquest. I resolve—I repent—but I fall! I blame— reproach—I even hate myself—I do everything, in short, yet cannot save myself! Yet do not,” he continued, seeing me shrink, “think worse of me than I deserve: nothing of injustice, of ill-nature, of malignancy—I have nothing of these to reproach myself with.” “I believe you,” I cried, “and surely, therefore, a general circumspection, an immediate watchfulness—-” “No, no, no—‘twould be all to no purpose.” “‘Tis that hopelessness which is most your enemy. If you would but exert your better reason—” “No, madam, no!—’tis a fruitless struggle. I know myself too well—I can do nothing so right as to retire—to turn monk—hermit.” “I have no respect,” cried I, “for these selfish seclusions. I can never suppose we were created in the midst of society, in order to run away to a useless solitude. I have not a doubt but you may do well, if you will do well.” Some time after he suddenly exclaimed, “Have you—tell me—have you, ma’am, never done what you repent?” O “yes!—at times.” “You have?” he cried, eagerly. “O yes, alas!—yet not, I think, very often—for it is not very often I have done anything!” “And what is it has saved you?” I really did not know well what to answer him; I could say nothing that would not sound like parade, or implied superiority. I suppose he was afraid himself of the latter; for, finding me silent, he was pleased to answer for me. “Prejudice, education, accident!—those have saved you.” “Perhaps so,” cried I. “And one thing more, I acknowledge myself obliged to, on various occasions—fear. I run no risks that I see—I run—but it is always away from all danger that I perceive.” “You do not, however, call that virtue, ma’am—you do not call that the rule of right?” “No—I dare not—I must be content that it is certainly not the rule of wrong.” He began then an harangue upon the universality of depravity and frailty that I heard with much displeasure; for, it seems to me, those most encourage such general ideas of general worthlessness who most wish to found upon them partial excuses for their own.