To begin with what still is famous in the annals of conversation, the Bas Bleu Societies.

The first of these was then in the meridian of its lustre, but had been instituted many years previously at Bath. It owed its name to an apology made by Mr. Stillingfleet, in declining to accept an invitation to a literary meeting at Mrs. Vesey’s, from not being, he said, in the habit of displaying a proper equipment for an evening assembly. “Pho, pho,” cried she, with her well known, yet always original simplicity, while she looked, inquisitively, at him and his accoutrements; “don’t mind dress! Come in your blue stockings!” With which words, humourously repeating them as he entered the apartment of the chosen coterie, Mr. Stillingfleet claimed permission for appearing, according to order. And those words, ever after, were fixed, in playful stigma, upon Mrs. Vesey’s associations.[45]

This original coterie was still headed by Mrs. Vesey, though it was transferred from Bath to London. Dr. Burney and this Memorialist were now initiated into the midst of it. And however ridicule, in public, from those who had no taste for this bluism; or envy, in secret, from those who had no admission to it, might seek to depreciate its merit, it afforded to all lovers of intellectual entertainment a variety of amusement, an exemption from form, and a carte blanche certainty of good-humour from the amiable and artless hostess, that rendered it as agreeable as it was singular: for Mrs. Vesey was as mirth-provoking from her oddities and mistakes, as Falstaff was wit-inspiring from his vaunting cowardice and sportive epicurism.

There was something so like the manoeuvres of a character in a comedy in the manners and movements of Mrs. Vesey, that the company seemed rather to feel themselves assembled, at their own cost and pleasure, in some public apartment, to saunter or to repose; to talk or to hold their tongues; to gaze around, or to drop asleep, as best might suit their humours; than drawn together to receive and to bestow, the civilities of given and accepted invitations.

Her fears were so great of the horror, as it was styled, of a circle, from the ceremony and awe which it produced, that she pushed all the small sofas, as well as chairs, pell-mell about the apartments, so as not to leave even a zig-zag path of communication free from impediment: and her greatest delight was to place the seats back to back, so that those who occupied them could perceive no more of their nearest neighbour than if the parties had been sent into different rooms: an arrangement that could only be eluded by such a twisting of the neck as to threaten the interlocutors with a spasmodic affection.

But there was never any distress beyond risibility: and the company that was collected was so generally of a superior cast, that talents and conversation soon found—as when do they miss it?—their own level: and all these extraneous whims merely served to give zest and originality to the assemblage.

Mrs. Vesey was of a character to which it is hardly possible to find a parallel, so untrue would it be to brand it with positive folly; yet so glaringly was it marked by almost incredible simplicity.

With really lively parts, a fertile imagination, and a pleasant quickness of remark, she had the unguardedness of childhood, joined to an Hibernian bewilderment of ideas that cast her incessantly into some burlesque situation; and incited even the most partial, and even the most sensitive of her own countrymen, to relate stories, speeches, and anecdotes of her astonishing self-perplexities, her confusion about times and circumstances, and her inconceivable jumble of recollections between what had happened, or what might have happened; and what had befallen others that she imagined had befallen herself; that made her name, though it could never be pronounced without personal regard, be constantly coupled with something grotesque.

But what most contributed to render the scenes of her social circle nearly dramatic in comic effect, was her deafness; for with all the pity due to that socialless infirmity; and all the pity doubly due to one who still sought conversation as the first of human delights, it was impossible, with a grave face, to behold her manner of constantly marring the pleasure of which she was in pursuit.

She had commonly two or three, or more, eartrumpets hanging to her wrists, or slung about her neck; or tost upon the chimney-piece or table; with intention to try them, severally and alternately, upon different speakers, as occasion might arise; and the instant that any earnestness of countenance, or animation of gesture, struck her eye, she darted forward, trumpet in hand, to inquire what was going on; but almost always arrived at the speaker at the moment that he was become, in his turn, the hearer; and eagerly held her brazen instrument to his mouth to catch sounds that were already past and gone. And, after quietly listening some minutes, she would gently utter her disappointment, by crying: “Well! I really thought you were talking of something?”

And then, though a whole group would hold it fitting to flock around her, and recount what had been said; if a smile caught her roving eye from any opposite direction, the fear of losing something more entertaining, would make her beg not to trouble them, and again rush on to the gayer talkers. But as a laugh is excited more commonly by sportive nonsense than by wit, she usually gleaned nothing from her change of place, and hastened therefore back to ask for the rest of what she had interrupted. But generally finding that set dispersing, or dispersed, she would look around her with a forlorn surprise, and cry: “I can’t conceive why it is that nobody talks tonight? I can’t catch a word!”

Or, if some one of peculiar note were engaging attention; if Sir William Hamilton, for example, were describing Herculaneum or Pompeii; or Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Hannah More were discussing some new author, or favourite work; or if the then still beautiful, though old, Duchess of Leinster, was encountering the beautiful and young Duchess of Devonshire; or, if Mr. Burke, having stept in, and, marking no one with whom he wished to exchange ideas, had seized upon the first book or pamphlet he could catch, to soothe his harassed mind by reading—which he not seldom did, and most incomparably, a passage or two aloud; circumstances of such a sort would arouse in her so great an earnestness for participation, that she would hasten from one spot to another, in constant hope of better fare; frequently clapping, in her hurry, the broad part of the brazen ear to her temple: but after waiting, with anxious impatience, for the development she expected, but waiting in vain, she would drop her trumpet, and almost dolorously exclaim: “I hope nobody has had any bad news to night? but as soon as I come near any body, nobody speaks!”

Yet, with all these peculiarities, Mrs. Vesey was eminently amiable, candid, gentle, and even sensible; but she had an ardour to know whatever was going forward, and to see whoever was named, that kept her curiosity constantly in a panic; and almost dangerously increased the singular wanderings of her imagination.

Here, amongst the few remaining men of letters of the preceding literary era, Dr. Burney met Horace Walpole, Owen Cambridge, and Soame Jenyns, who were commonly, then, denominated the old wits; but who rarely, indeed, were surrounded by any new ones who stood much chance of vying with them in readiness of repartee, pith of matter, terseness of expression, or pleasantry in expanding gay ideas.