Johnson;
and those of the Thrales by the authoress of the Ode to Indifference.
When Piozzi, therefore, arose, the party remained as little advanced
in any method or pleasure for carrying on the evening, as upon its
first entrance into the room....
"Dr. Burney now began to feel considerably embarrassed; though still
he cherished hopes of ultimate relief from some auspicious
circumstance that, sooner or later, would operate, he hoped, in his
favour, through the magnetism of congenial talents.
"Vainly, however, he sought to elicit some observations that might
lead to disserting discourse; all his attempts received only quiet,
acquiescent replies, 'signifying nothing.' Every one was awaiting
some spontaneous opening from Dr. Johnson.
"Mrs. Thrale, of the whole coterie, was alone at her ease. She feared
not Dr. Johnson; for fear made no part of her composition; and with
Mrs. Greville, as a fair rival genius, she would have been glad, from
curiosity, to have had the honour of a little tilt, in full
carelessness of its event; for though triumphant when victorious, she
had spirits so volatile, and such utter exemption from envy or
spleen, that she was gaily free from mortification when vanquished.
But she knew the meeting to have been fabricated for Dr. Johnson;
and, therefore, though not without difficulty, constrained herself to
be passive.
"When, however, she observed the sardonic disposition of Mr. Greville
to stare around him at the whole company in curious silence, she felt
a defiance against his aristocracy beat in every pulse; for, however
grandly he might look back to the long ancestry of the Brookes and
the Grevilles, she had a glowing consciousness that her own blood,
rapid and fluent, flowed in her veins from Adam of Saltsberg; and, at
length, provoked by the dullness of a taciturnity that, in the midst
of such renowned interlocutors, produced as narcotic a torpor as
could have been caused by a dearth the most barren of human
faculties; she grew tired of the music, and yet more tired of
remaining, what as little suited her inclinations as her abilities, a
mere cipher in the company; and, holding such a position, and all its
concomitants, to be ridiculous, her spirits rose rebelliously above
her control; and, in a fit of utter recklessness of what might be
thought of her by her fine new acquaintance, she suddenly, but
softly, arose, and stealing on tip-toe behind Signor Piozzi, who was
accompanying himself on the piano-forte to an animated _arria
parlante_, with his back to the company, and his face to the wall;
she ludicrously began imitating him by squaring her elbows, elevating
them with ecstatic shrugs of the shoulders, and casting up her eyes,
while languishingly reclining her head; as if she were not less
enthusiastically, though somewhat more suddenly, struck with the
transports of harmony than himself.
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