Memoirs of Doctor Burney (Vol. 3 of 3) / Arranged from his own manuscripts, from family papers, and from personal recollections by his daughter, Madame d'Arblay

STRAWBERRY HILL.

Few amongst those who, at this period, honoured Dr. Burney with an increasing desire of intimacy, stood higher in fashionable celebrity than Horace Walpole,[12] and his civilities to the father were ever more accompanied by an at least equal portion of distinction for his daughter; with whom, after numerous invitations that circumstances had rendered ineffective, the Doctor, in 1786, had the pleasure of making a visit of some days to Strawberry Hill.

Mr. Walpole paid them the high and well understood compliment of receiving them without other company. No man less needed auxiliaries for the entertainment of his guests, when he was himself in good humour and good spirits. He had a fund of anecdote that could provide food for conversation without any assistance from the news of the day, or the state of the elements: and he had wit and general knowledge to have supplied their place, had his memory been of that volatile description that retained no former occurrence, either of his own or of his neighbour, to relate. He was scrupulously, and even elaborately well-bred; fearing, perhaps, from his conscious turn to sarcasm, that if he suffered himself to be unguarded, he might utter expressions more amusing to be recounted aside, than agreeable to be received in front. He was a witty, sarcastic, ingenious, deeply-thinking, highly-cultivated, quaint, though evermore gallant and romantic, though very mundane, old bachelor of other days.

But his external obligations to nature were by no means upon a par with those which he owed to her mentally: his eyes were inexpressive; and his countenance, when not worked upon by his elocution, was of the same description; at least in these his latter days.

Strawberry Hill was now exhibited to the utmost advantage. All that was peculiar, especially the most valuable of his pictures, he had the politeness to point out to his guests himself; and not unfrequently, from the deep shade in which some of his antique portraits were placed; and the lone sort of look of the unusually shaped apartments in which they were hung, striking recollections were brought to their minds of his Gothic story of the Castle of Otranto.

He shewed them, also, with marked pleasure, the very vase immortalized by Gray, into which the pensive, but rapacious Selima had glided to her own destruction, whilst grasping at that of her golden prey. On the outside of the vase Mr. Walpole had had labelled,

“’Twas on THIS lofty vase’s side.”

He accompanied them to the picturesque villa already mentioned, which had been graced by the residence of Lady Di. Beauclerk; but which, having lost that fair possessor, was now destined for two successors in the highly-talented Miss Berrys; of whom he was anticipating with delight the expected arrival from Italy. After displaying the elegant apartments, pictures, decorations, and beautiful grounds and views; all which, to speak in his own manner, had a sort of well-bred as well as gay and recreative appearance, he conducted them to a small but charming octagon room, which was ornamented in every panel by designs taken from his own tragedy of the Mysterious Mother, and executed by the accomplished Lady Di.

Dr. Burney beheld them with the admiration that could not but be excited by the skill, sensibility, and refined expression of that eminent lady artist: and the pleasure of his admiration happily escaped the alloy by which it would have been adulterated, had he previously read the horrific tragedy whence the subject had been chosen; a tragedy that seems written upon a plan as revolting to probability as to nature; and that violates good taste as forcibly as good feeling. It seems written, indeed, as if in epigrammatic scorn of the horrors of the Greek drama, by giving birth to conceptions equally terrific, and yet more appalling.

In the evening, Mr. Walpole favoured them with producing several, and opening some of his numerous repositories of hoarded manuscripts; and he pointed to a peculiar caravan, or strong box, that he meant to leave to his great nephew, Lord Waldegrave; with an injunction that it should not be unlocked for a certain number of years, perhaps thirty, after the death of Mr. Walpole; by which time, he probably calculated, that all then living, who might be hurt by its contents, would be above,—or beneath them.

He read several picked out and extremely clever letters of Madame du Deffand,[13] of whom he recounted a multiplicity of pleasant histories; and he introduced to them her favourite little lap-dog, which he fondled and cherished, fed by his side, and made his constant companion. There was no appearance of the roughness with which he had treated its mistress, in his treatment of the little animal; to whom, perhaps, he paid his court in secret penitence, as l’amende honorable for his harshness to its bequeather.

Horace Walpole was amongst those whose character, as far as it was apparent, had contradictory qualities so difficult to reconcile one with another, as to make its development, from mere general observation, superficial and unsatisfactory. And Strawberry Hill itself, with all its chequered and interesting varieties of detail, had a something in its whole of monotony, that cast, insensibly, over its visitors, an indefinable species of secret constraint; and made cheerfulness rather the effect of effort than the spring of pleasure; by keeping more within bounds than belongs to their buoyant love of liberty, those light, airy, darting, bursts of unsought gaiety, yclept animal spirits.

Nevertheless, the evenings of this visit were spent delightfully—they were given up to literature, and to entertaining, critical, ludicrous, or anecdotical conversation. Dr. Burney was nearly as full fraught as Mr. Walpole with all that could supply materials of this genus; and Mr. Walpole had so much taste for his society, that he was wont to say, when Dr. Burney was running off, after a rapid call in Berkeley-square, “Are you going already, Dr. Burney?—Very well, sir! but remember you owe me a visit!”

The pleasure, however, which his urbanity and unwearied exertions evidently bestowed upon his present guests, seemed to kindle in his mind a reciprocity of sensation that warmed him into an increase of kindness; and urged the most impressive desire of retaining them for a lengthened visit. He left no flattery of persuasion, and no bribery of promised entertainment untried to allure their compliance. The daughter was most willing: and the father was not less so; but his time was irremediably portioned out, and no change was in his power.

Mr. Walpole looked seriously surprised as well as chagrined at the failure of his eloquence and his temptations: though soon recovering his usual tone, he turned off his vexation with his characteristic pleasantry, by uncovering a large portfolio, and telling them that it contained a collection of all the portraits that were extant, of every person mentioned in the Letters of Madame de SevignÉ; “and if you will not stay at least another day,” he said, patting the portfolio with an air of menace, “you shan’t see one drop of them!”

Highly pleased and gratified, they came away with a positive engagement for a quick return; but an event was soon to take place which shewed, as usual, the nullity of any engagement for the future of Man to his fellow.

Clyx.com