Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/296

288 "I know enough of that forty-three," she would cry good-naturedly; "I don't desire to hear any more of it!"

A distinguished visitor at Streatham was Mrs. Montagu, authoress of the "Essay on the Genius and Learning of Shakespeare," the most blue of the blue-stocking ladies who did homage to Johnson.

"To-morrow, sir, Mrs. Montagu dines here, and then you will have talk enough," says Mrs. Thrale. Dr. Johnson begins to seesaw, with a countenance strongly expressive of inward fun; then suddenly addresses Miss Burney—"Down with her, Burney! down with her, spare her not! attack her, fight her, and down with her at once! You are a rising wit, and she is at the top; and, when I was beginning the world and was nothing and nobody, the joy of my life was to fire at all the established wits, and then everybody loved to halloo me on. But there is no game now; everybody would be glad to see me conquered; but then, when I was new, to vanquish the great ones was all the delight of my poor little dear soul. So, at her, Burney—at her, and down with her!" But the prim little novelist will not bark, and Dr. Johnson "Evelinas" her, folds his ample arm around her not reluctant waist, and blows her trumpet for her—in vain. Mrs. Thrale also is charmed with her novel, and lionizes her to her heart's content, but good-naturedly attacks her morbid shyness. "Now you have a new edition coming out, why should you not put your name to it?" Cries Burney, "Oh, ma'am, I would not for the world!" "And why not?" exclaims her hostess; "come, let us have done now with all this diddle-daddle!" When at last Miss Burney was roughly handled by the pamphleteers of the day, and half starved herself for vexation, Mrs. Thrale wrote upbraiding her behaviour, but added: "What hurts me most is lest you should like me the less for this letter. Yet I will be true to my own sentiments and send it; if you think me coarse and indelicate, I can't help it. You are twenty odd years old, and I am past thirty-six—there's the true difference." (The little lady was past thirty-eight, if the unhappy truth be told.) "I have lost seven children, and been cheated out of two thousand a year, and I cannot, indeed I cannot, sigh and sorrow over pamphlets and paragraphs."

But, although Burney could not bark, she could bite. Among the vivid and sarcastic pictures she has drawn of the guests at Streatham is one of Boswell, just arrived from Scotland, and on a morning visit to Streatham, where she met him for the first time. At luncheon "little Burney" sat next to Johnson, and Boswell, driven from his usual post of honour, and knowing nothing as yet of "Evelina" or its authoress, sulkily drew another chair, as near as he could place it, behind them. His attention to Johnson's talk as usual amounted almost to pain. "His eyes goggled with eagerness; he leant his ear almost on the shoulder of the doctor; and his mouth dropt open to catch every syllable that might be uttered." While he was in this rapt state, Dr. Johnson, who had concluded him to be at the other end of the table, called out good-naturedly, "Bozzy!" and discovering by the sound of the reply how close Bozzy was, turned angrily round upon him, and clapping his hand rather loudly on his knee, said in a tone of displeasure, "What do you do there, sir? Go to the table, sir!" Off went poor Bozzy in sore affright to a distant seat; but presently was running about to look for something he wished to exhibit to the company. "What are you thinking of, sir?" cried the doctor again authoritatively; "why do you get up before the cloth is removed? Come back to your place, sir!"—adding, with hidden fun, as he recollected a favourite character in "Evelina," "Running about in the middle of meals! One would take you for a !Brangton!"

Among the Streathamite ladies was Miss Sophia Streatfield, a pupil of Mr. Thrale's old dominie, Dr. Collier, of Offley. She was about five years younger than Mrs. Thrale, and her beauty, coquetry, and reputation for learning made her a formidable rival. Mr. Thrale's head was completely turned by her, and his little wife, who endured with tolerable good-humour his flirtations which she did not see, was considerably provoked by this one which went on at a gala pace under her own eyes. A golden age was this for blue-stockingism in England! Mrs. Thrale was as jealous of Sophia's Greek as she was of her beauty. "Here is Sophia Streatfield again," she writes in her diary, "handsomer than ever, and flushed with new conquests. The Bishop of Chester feels her power, I am sure. She showed me a letter from him that was as tender and had all the tokens upon it