But more peculiarly this new residence was opened by the distinction of a new acquaintance, who was then as much the immediate lion of the day, as had been the last new acquaintance, Omiah, who had closed the annals of the residence in Queen-Square.
This personage was no other than the famous Mr. Bruce, who was just returned to England, after having been wandering, and thought to be lost, during four years, in the deserts and sands of the
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hitherto European-untrodden territory of Africa, in search of the source, or sources, of the Nile.
The narrations, and even the sight of Mr. Bruce, were at this time vehemently sought, not only by all London, but, as far as written intercourse could be stretched, by all Europe.
The tales spread far and wide, first of his extraordinary disappearance from the world, and next of his unexpected re-appearance in the heart of Africa, were so full of variety, as well as of wonder, that they raised equal curiosity in the most refined and the most uncultivated of his contemporaries.
Amongst these multifarious rumours, there was one that aroused in Dr. Burney a more eager desire to see and converse with this eminent traveller, than was felt even by the most ardent of the inquirers who were pressing upon him, in successive throngs, for intelligence.
The report here alluded to, asserted, that Mr. Bruce had discovered, and personally visited, the long-famed city of Thebes; and had found it such as Herodotus had described: and that he had entered and examined its celebrated temple; and had made, and brought home, a drawing of the Theban harp, as beautiful in its execution as in its
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form, though copied from a model of at least three thousand years old.
Mr. Bruce had brought, also, from Egypt, a drawing of an Abyssinian lyre in present use.
The assiduity of Dr. Burney in devising means of introduction to whosoever could increase, or ameliorate, the materials of his history, was not here put to any proof. Mr. Bruce had been an early friend of Mrs. Strange, and of her brother, Mr. Lumisden; and that zealous lady immediately arranged a meeting between the parties at her own house.
As this celebrated narrator made the opening of his career as an author, in the History of Music of Dr. Burney; to the éclat of which, on its first appearance, he not slightly contributed, by bestowing upon it the two admirable original drawings above-mentioned, with a letter historically descriptive of their authenticity; some account of him seems naturally to belong to this place: and the Editor is persuaded, that two or three genuine, though juvenile letters which she wrote, at the time, to Mr. Crisp, may be more amusing to the reader, from their natural flow of youthful spirits, in describing the manners and conversation of this extraordinary wanderer, than any more steady recollections that
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could at present be offered from the same pen. And, led by this persuasion, she here copies a part of her early and confidential correspondence with her father’s, her family’s, and her own first friend.[47]
“To Samuel Crisp, Esq.
“Chesington, near Kingston, Surrey.
“St. Martins Street, 1775.
“Well, now then, my dear Daddy,[48] I have got courage to obey your call for more! more! more! without fear of fatiguing you, for I have seen the great man-mountain, Mr. Bruce; and have been in
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his high and mighty presence three times; as I shall proceed to tell you in due form and order, and with all the detail you demand.
“MEETING THE FIRST
took place at the tea-table, at Mrs. Strange, to which my mother, by appointment, had introduced her Lynn friends, Mr. and Mrs. Turner, who were extremely curious to see Mr. Bruce. My dear father was to have escorted us; but that provoking mar-plot, commonly called Business, came, as usual, in the way, and he could only join us afterwards.
“The man-mountain, and Mr. and Mrs. Turner, were already arrived; and no one else was invited, or, at least, permitted to enter.
“Mr. Bruce, as we found, when he arose—which he was too stately to do at once—was placed on the largest easy chair; but which his vast person covered so completely, back and arms, as well as seat, that he seemed to have been merely placed on a stool; and one was tempted to wonder who had ventured to accommodate him so slightly. He is the tallest man you ever saw in your life—at least, gratis. However, he has a very good figure, and is rather handsome; so that there is nothing alarming, or
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uncomely, or, I was going to say, ungenial—but I don’t think that is the word I mean—in his immense and authoritative form.
“My mother was introduced to him, and placed by his side; but, having made her a cold, though civilish bow, he took no further notice even of her being in the room. I, as usual, glided out of the way, and got next to Miss Strange, who is agreeable and sensible: and who, seeing me, I suppose, very curious upon the subject, gave me a good deal of information about Man-Mountain.
“As he is warmly attached to Mrs. Strange and her family, he spends all his disengaged evenings at their house, where, when they are alone, he is not only chatty and easy, but full of comic and dry humour; though, if any company enters, he sternly, or gloatingly, Miss Strange says, shuts up his mouth, and utters not a word—except, perhaps, to her parrot; which, I believe, is a present from himself. Certainly he does not appear more elevated above the common race in his size, than in his ideas of his own consequence. Indeed, I strongly surmise, that he is not always without some idea how easy it would be to him—and perhaps how pleasant—in case any one should dare to offend him,
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to toss a whole company of such pigmies as the rest of mankind must seem to him, pell-mell down stairs,—if not out of the window.
“There is some excuse, nevertheless, for this proud shyness, because he is persuaded that nobody comes near him but either to stare at him as a curiosity, or to pick his brains for their own purposes: for, when he has deigned to behave to people as if he considered himself as their fellow-creature, every word that has been drawn from him has been printed in some newspaper or magazine; which, as he intends to publish his travels himself, is abominably provoking; and seems to have made him suspicious of some dark design, or some invidious trick, when any body says to him ‘How do you do, Sir?’ or, ‘Pray, Sir, what’s o’clock?’
“And, after all, if his nature in itself is as imperious as his person and air are domineering, it is hardly fair to expect that having lived so long among savages should have softened his manners.
“Well, when all the placements, and so forth, were over, we went to tea. There’s an event for you, my dear Sir!
“There was, however, no conversation. Mr. Bruce’s grand air, gigantic height, and forbidding
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brow, awed every body into silence, except Mrs. Strange; who, with all her wit and powers, found it heavy work to talk without reply.
“But Mr. Turner suffered the most. He is, you know, a very jocular man, and cannot bear to lose his laugh and his bon mot. Yet he durst not venture at either; though he is so accustomed to indulge in both, and very successfully, in the country, that he seemed in blank dismay at finding himself kept in such complete subordination by the fearful magnitude of Mr. Bruce, joined to the terror of his looks.
“Mrs. Turner, still less at her ease, because still less used to the company of strangers, attempted not to obtain any sort of notice. Yet, being gay in her nature, she, too, did not much like being placed so totally in the back ground. But she was so much impressed by the stateliness of this renowned traveller, that I really believe she sat saying her prayers half the evening, that she might get away from the apartment without some affront.
“Pray have you happened to read a paragraph in the newspapers, importing that Mr. Bruce was dying, or dead? My father, who had seen him alive and well the day before it appeared, cut it out, and
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wafered it upon a sheet of paper, and sent it to him without comment.
“My mother now inquired of Mr. Bruce whether he had seen it?
“‘Yes,’ answered he, coolly; ‘but they are welcome to say what they please of me. I read my death with great composure.’ Then, condescending to turn to me,—though only, I doubt not, to turn away from my elders,—he added: ‘Were you not sorry, Miss Burney, to hear that I was dead?’
“Finding him thus address himself, and rather courteously, for he really smiled, to so small a personage as your very obedient servant, Mr. Turner, reviving, gathered courage to open his mouth, and, with a put-on air of easy jocularity, ventured to exclaim, with a laugh, ‘Well, sir, as times go, I think, when they killed you, it is very well they said no harm of you.’
“‘I know of no reason they had!’ replied Mr. Bruce, in so loud a tone, and with an air of such infinite haughtiness, that poor Mr. Turner, thus repulsed in his first attempt, never dared to again open his lips.
“Soon afterwards, a servant came into the room, with General Melville’s compliments, and he begged
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to know of Mrs. Strange whether it was true that Mr. Bruce was so dangerously ill.
“‘Yes!’ cried he, bluffly; ‘tell the General I am dead.’
“‘Ay, poor soul! poor mon!’ cried Mrs. Strange, ‘I dare say he has been vexed enough to hear such a thing! Poor honest mon! I dare be sworn he never wronged or deceived a human being in all his life.’
“‘Will you, faith?’ cried Mr. Bruce: ‘Will you be sworn to that? It’s more than I would dare to be for any man alive! Do you really think he has risen to the rank of General, with so little trouble?’
“‘Troth, yes,’ she answered; ‘you men, you know, never deceive men! you have too much honour for that. And as to us women,—ah, troth! the best among you canno’ deceive me! for whenever you say pretty things to me, I make it a rule to believe them all to be true: so the prettier the better!’
“Miss Bell Strange, the youngest daughter, a very sensible little girl, about ten years old, now brought him his tea. He took it, in chucking her under the chin; which was evidently very annoying to her, as a little womanly consciousness is just stealing
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upon her childhood: but, not heeding that, he again turned to me, and said, ‘Do you know, Miss Burney, that I intend to run away with Bell? We are going to Scotland together. She won’t let me rest till I take her to Gretna Green.’
“‘La! how can you say so, sir,?’ cried Bell, colouring, and much fidgetted. ‘Pray, Ma’am, don’t believe it!’
“‘Why, how now, Bell?—What! won’t you go?’
“‘No, sir, I won’t!’ answered Bell, very demurely.
“‘Well,’ cried he, with a scoffing smile, and rising, ‘this is the first lady that ever refused me.’
“He then inquired of Mrs. Strange whether she had heard any thing lately of Lord R., of whom they joined in drawing a most odious character; especially for his avarice. And when they had finished the portrait, Mr. Bruce, advancing his great figure towards me, exclaimed, ‘And yet this man is my rival!’
“‘Really?’ cried I, hardly knowing what he expected I should say, but afraid to affront him by a second total silence.
“‘O, it’s true!’ returned he, in a tone that implied
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though not credible; ‘Is it not true, Mrs. Strange, that he is my rival?’
“‘Troth, they say so,’ answered she, calmly.
“‘I wonder he should dare!’ cried my mother. ‘I wonder he should not apprehend that the long residence in Egypt of Mr. Bruce, had made him so well acquainted with magic, that’—
“‘O,’ interrupted Mr. Bruce, coolly, ‘I shall not poison him. But I may bribe his servant to tie a rope across his staircase, on some dark night, and then, as I dare say the miserly wretch never allows himself a candle to go up and down stairs, he may get a tumble, and break his neck.’
“This idea set him into a fit of laughter quite merry to behold; and as I caught, from surprise, a little of its infection, he was again pleased to address himself to me, and to make inquiry whether I was musical; expressing his hopes that he should hear me play, when Mrs. Strange fulfilled her engagement of bringing him to our house; adding, that he had a passionate love of music.
“‘I was once,’ said Mrs. Strange, ‘with a young lady, a friend of mine, when she was at a concert for the first time she ever heard any music, except nursery lullabys, or street holla-balloos, or perhaps
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a tune on a fiddle by some poor blind urchin. And the music was very pretty, and quite tender; and she liked it so well, it almost made her swoon; and she could no’ draw her breath; and she thrilled all over; and sat sighing and groaning, and groaning and sighing, with over-much delight, till, at last, she burst into a fit of tears, and sobbed out, ‘I can’t help it!’
“‘There’s a woman,’ said Mr. Bruce, with some emotion, ‘who could never make a man unhappy! Her soul must be all harmony.’
“My dear father now arrived; and he and Mr. Bruce talked apart for the rest of the evening, upon the harp and the letter.
“But when the carriage was announced, imagine my surprise to see this majestic personage take it into his fancy to address something to me almost in a whisper! bending down, with no small difficulty, his head to a level with mine. What it was I could not hear. Though perhaps ’twas some Abyssinian compliment that I could not understand! It’s flattery, however, could not have done me much mischief, after Miss Strange’s information, that, when he is not disposed to be social with the company at large, he always singles out for notice the youngest
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female present—except, indeed, a dog, a bird, a cat, or a squirrel, be happily at hand.
“As I had no ‘retort courteous’ ready, he grandly re-erected himself to the fullest extent of his commanding height; setting me down, I doubt not, in his black book, for a tasteless imbecile. Every body, however, as all his motions engage all attention, looked so curious, that my only gratitude for his condescension, was heartily wishing him at one of the mouths of his own famous Nile.
“Will you not wish me there too, my dearest Mr. Crisp, for this long detail, without one word of said Nile, and its endless sources? or of Thebes and its hundred gates? or of the two harps of harps that are to decorate the History of Music? But nothing of all this occurred; except it might be in his private confab. with my father.
“You demanded, however, an account of his manner, his air, and his discourse; and what sort of mode, or fashion, he had brought over from Ethiopia.
“And here, so please you, all that is at your feet.
“I have only to add, that his smile, though rare, is really graceful and engaging. But his
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laugh, when his dignity is off its guard, and some sportive or active mischief comes across his ideas—such as the image of his miserly rival, Lord R., dangling from a treacherous rope on his own staircase; or tumbling headlong down,—is a chuckle of delight that shines his face of a bright scarlet, and shakes his whole vast frame with a boyish ecstacy.
“But I forgot to mention, that while Mr. Bruce was philandering with little Miss Bell Strange, who, with comic childish dignity, resented his assumed success, he said he believed he had discovered the reason of her shyness; ‘Somebody has told you, I suppose, Bell, that when I am taken with a hungry fit in my rambles, I make nothing of seizing on a young bullock, and tying him by the horns to a tree, while I cut myself off a raw beef-steak, and regale myself upon it with its own cold gravy? according to my custom in Abyssinia? Perhaps, Bell, you may think a young heifer might do as well? and are afraid you might serve my turn, when my appetite is rather keen, yourself? Eh, Bell?’

“You have accepted Meeting the First with so
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much indulgence, my dear Mr. Crisp, that I am all alertness for presenting you with
MEETING THE SECOND,
which took place not long after the First, already recorded in these my elaborate annals.
“My father invited Mr. Twining, the great Grecian, to said meeting. What a contrast did he form with Mr. Bruce, the great Ethiopian! I have already described Mr. Twining to you, though very inadequately; for he is so full of merits, it is not easy to find proper phrases for him. There is only our dear Mr. Crisp whom we like and love half as well.
“Mr. Twining, with all his excellencies,—and he is reckoned one of the first scholars living; and is now engaged in translating Aristotle,—is as modest and unassuming as Mr. Bruce is high and pompous. He came very early, frankly owning, with a sort of piteous shrug, that he really had not bronze to present himself when the party should be assembled, before so eminent, but tremendous a man, as report painted Mr. Bruce; though he was extremely gratified to nestle himself into a corner, as a private spectator.
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“Mrs. Strange, with her daughter, arrived next; and told us that his Abyssinian Majesty, as she calls Mr. Bruce, had dined at General Melville’s, but would get away as quickly as possible.
“We waited tea, in our old-fashioned manner, a full hour; but no Mr. Bruce. So then we—or rather I—made it. And we all united to drink it. There, Sir; there’s another event for you!
“Mr. Twining entreated that we might no longer postpone the concert, and was leading the way to the library, where it was to be held; but just then, a thundering rap at the door raised our expectations, and stopt our steps;—and Mr. Bruce was announced.
“He entered the room with the state and dignity of a tragedy giant.
“We soon found that something had displeased him, and that he was very much out of humour: and when Mrs. Strange inquired after General Melville, he answered her, with a face all made up of formidable frowns, that the General had invited a most stupid set of people to meet him. He had evidently left the party with disgust. Perhaps they had asked him whether there were any real men and women in Abyssinia, or only bullocks and heifers.
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“He took his tea in stern silence, without deigning to again open his lips, till it was to demand a private conference with my father. They then went together to the study,—erst Sir Isaac Newton’s—which is within the library.
“In passing through the latter, they encountered Mr. Twining, who would hastily have shrunk back; but my father immediately, and with distinction to Mr. Twining, performed the ceremony of introduction. Mr. Bruce gravely bowed, and went on; and he was then shut up with my father at least an hour, in full discussion upon the Theban harp, and the letter for the history.
“Mr. Twining returned, softly and on tiptoe, to the drawing room; and advancing to Mrs. Strange and my mother, with uplifted hands and eyes, exclaimed, ‘This is the most awful man I ever saw!—I never felt so little in all my life!’
“‘Well, troth,’ said Mrs. Strange, ‘never mind! If you were six feet high he would overlook you; and he can do no more now.’
“Mr. Twining then, to recover breath he said, sat down, but declared he was in fear of his life; ‘for if Mr. Bruce,’ he cried, ‘should come in hastily, and,............