“‘Ay,’ said he, ‘I’m sorry he did not come down with you. I liked him better than those others: not much of a fine gentleman, indeed, but a clever fellow—a deal of knowledge—got a deuced good understanding!’... “I am absolutely almost ill with laughing. This Mr. B——y half convulses me; yet I cannot make you laugh by writing his speeches, because it is the manner which accompanies them that, more than the matter, renders them so peculiarly ridiculous. His extreme pomposity, the solemn stiffness of his person, the conceited twinkling of his little old eyes, and the quaint importance of his delivery, are so much more like some pragmatical old coxcomb represented on the stage, than like anything in real and common life, that I think, were I a man, I should sometimes be betrayed into clapping him for acting so well. As it is, I am sure no character in any comedy I ever saw has made me laugh more extravagantly. “He dines and spends the evening here constantly, to my great satisfaction. “At dinner, when Mrs. Thrale offers him a seat next her, he regularly says: “‘But where are _les charmantes_?’ meaning Miss T. and me. ‘I can do nothing till they are accommodated!’ “And, whenever he drinks a glass of wine, he never fails to touch either Mrs. Thrale’s or my glass, with ‘_est-il-permis?_’ “But at the same time that he is so courteous, he is proud to a most sublime excess, and thinks every person to whom he speaks honoured beyond measure by his notice,—nay, he does not even look at anybody without evidently displaying that such notice is more the effect of his benign condescension, than of any pretension on their part to deserve such a mark of his perceiving their existence. But you will think me mad about this man.... “As he is notorious for his contempt of all artists, whom he looks upon with little more respect than upon day-labourers, the other day, when painting was discussed, he spoke of Sir Joshua Reynolds as if he had been upon a level with a carpenter or farrier. “‘Did you ever,’ said Mrs. Thrale, ‘see his Nativity?’ “‘No, madam,—but I know his pictures very well; I knew him many years ago, in Minorca; he drew my picture there, and then he knew how to take a moderate price; but now, I vow, ma’am, ’tis scandalous— scandalous indeed! to pay a fellow here seventy guineas for scratching out a head!’ “‘Sir!’ cried Dr. Delap,[46] ‘you must not run down Sir Joshua Reynolds, because he is Miss Burney’s friend.’ “‘Sir,’ answered he, ‘I don’t want to run the man down; I like him well enough in his proper place; he is as decent as any man of that sort I ever knew; but for all that, sir, his prices are shameful. Why, he would not [_looking at the poor Doctor with an enraged contempt_]— he would not do _your_ head under seventy guineas!’