[From _The Edinburgh Review_, January, 1843]
ART. IX.--_Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay_. 5 vols. 8vo. London,
1842.
Though the world saw and heard little of Madame D'Arblay during the last
forty years of her life, and though that little did not add to her fame,
there were thousands, we believe, who felt a singular emotion when they
learned that she was no longer among us. The news of her death carried
the minds of men back at one leap, clear over two generations, to the
time when her first literary triumphs were won. All those whom we have
been accustomed to revere as intellectual patriarchs, seemed children
when compared with her; for Burke had sate up all night to read her
writings, and Johnson had pronounced her superior to Fielding, when
Rogers was still a schoolboy, and Southey still in petticoats. Yet more
strange did it seem that we should just have lost one whose name had
been widely celebrated before any body had heard of some illustrious men
who, twenty, thirty, or forty years ago, were, after a long and splendid
career, borne with honour to the grave. Yet so it was. Frances Burney
was at the height of fame and popularity before Cowper had published his
first volume, before Person had gone up to college, before Pitt had
taken his seat in the House of Commons, before the voice of Erskine had
been once heard in Westminster Hall. Since the appearance of her first
work, sixty-two years had passed; and this interval had been crowded,
not only with political, but also with intellectual revolutions.
Thousands of reputations had, during that period, sprung up, bloomed,
withered, and disappeared. New kinds of composition had come into
fashion, had gone out of fashion, had been derided, had been forgotten.
The fooleries of Della Crusca, and the fooleries of Kotzebue, had for a
time bewitched the multitude, but had left no trace behind them; nor had
misdirected genius been able to save from decay the once flourishing
school of Godwin, of Darwin, and of Radcliffe. Many books, written for
temporary effect, had run through six or seven editions, and had then
been gathered to the novels of Afra Behn, and the epic poems of Sir
Richard Blackmore. Yet the early works of Madame D'Arblay, in spite of
the lapse of years, in spite of the change of manners, in spite of the
popularity deservedly obtained by some of her rivals, continued to hold
a high place in the public esteem. She lived to be a classic. Time set
on her fame, before she went hence, that seal which is seldom set except
on the fame of the departed. Like Sir Condy Rackrent in the tale, she
survived her own wake, and overheard the judgment of posterity.
Having always felt a warm and sincere, though not a blind admiration for
her talents, we rejoiced to learn that her Diary was about to be made
public. Our hopes, it is true, were not unmixed with fears. We could not
forget the fate of the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, which were published ten
years ago. The unfortunate book contained much that was curious and
interesting. Yet it was received with a cry of disgust, and was speedily
consigned to oblivion. The truth is, that it deserved its doom. It was
written in Madame D'Arblay's later style--the worst style that has ever
been known among men. No genius, no information, could have saved from
proscription a book so written. We, therefore, open the Diary with no
small anxiety, trembling lest we should light upon some of that peculiar
rhetoric which deforms almost every page of the Memoirs, and which it is
impossible to read without a sensation made up of mirth, shame and
loathing. We soon, however, discovered to our great delight that this
Diary was kept before Madame D'Arblay became eloquent. It is, for the
most part, written in her earliest and best manner; in true woman's
English, clear, natural, and lively. The two works are lying side by
side before us, and we never turn from the Memoirs to the Diary without
a sense of relief. The difference is as great as the difference between
the atmosphere of a perfumer's shop, fetid with lavender water and
jasmine soap, and the air of a heath on a fine morning in May. Both
works ought to be consulted by every person who wishes to be well
acquainted with the history of our literature and our manners. But to
read the Diary is a pleasure; to read the Memoirs will always be a task.
* * * * *
The progress of the mind of Frances Burney, from her ninth to her
twenty-fifth year, well deserves to be recorded. When her education had
proceeded no further than the horn-book, she lost her mother, and
thenceforward she educated herself. Her father appears to have been as
bad a father as a very honest, affectionate, and sweet-tempered man can
well be. He loved his daughter dearly; but it never seems to have
occurred to him that a parent has other duties to perform to children
than that of fondling them. It would indeed have been impossible for him
to superintend their education himself. His professional engagements
occupied him all day. At seven in the morning he began to attend his
pupils, and, when London was full, was sometimes employed in teaching
till eleven at night. He was often forced to carry in his pocket a tin
box of sandwiches, and a bottle of wine and water, on which he dined in
a hackney-coach while hurrying from one scholar to another. Two of his
daughters he sent to a seminary at Paris; but he imagined that Frances
would run some risk of being perverted from the Protestant faith if she
were educated in a Catholic country, and he therefore kept her at home.
No governess, no teacher of any art or of any language, was provided for
her. But one of her sisters showed her how to write; and, before she was
fourteen, she began to find pleasure in reading.
It was not, however, by reading that her intellect was formed. Indeed,
when her best novels were produced, her knowledge of books was very
small. When at the height of her fame, she was unacquainted with the
most celebrated works of Voltaire and Molière; and, what seems still
more extraordinary, had never heard or seen a line of Churchill, who,
when she was a girl, was the most popular of living poets. It is
particularly deserving of observation, that she appears to have been by
no means a novel-reader. Her father's library was large; and he had
admitted into it so many books which rigid moralists generally exclude,
that he felt uneasy, as he afterwards owned, when Johnson began to
examine the shelves. But in the whole collection there was only a single
novel, Fielding's Amelia.
An education, however, which to most girls would have been useless, but
which suited Fanny's mind better than elaborate culture, was in constant
progress during her passage from childhood to womanhood. The great book
of human nature was turned over before her. Her father's social position
was very peculiar. He belonged in fortune and station to the middle
class. His daughters seem to have been suffered to mix freely with those
whom butlers and waiting-maids call vulgar. We are told that they were
in the habit of playing with the children of a wig-maker who lived in
the adjoining house. Yet few nobles could assemble in the most stately
mansions of Grosvenor Square or St. James's Square, a society so various
and so brilliant as was sometimes to be found in Dr. Burney's cabin. His
mind, though not very powerful or capacious, was restlessly active; and,
in the intervals of his professional pursuits, he had contrived to lay
up much miscellaneous information. His attainments, the suavity of his
temper, and the gentle simplicity of his manners, had obtained for him
ready admission to the first literary circles. While he was still at
Lynn, he had won Johnson's heart by sounding with honest zeal the
praises of the English Dictionary. In London the two friends met
frequently, and agreed most harmoniously. One tie, indeed, was wanting
to their mutual attachment. Burney loved his own art passionately; and
Johnson just knew the bell of St. Clement's church from the organ. They
had, however, many topics in common; and on winter nights their
conversations were sometimes prolonged till the fire had gone out, and
the candles had burned away to the wicks. Burney's admiration of the
powers which had produced Rasselas and The Rambler, bordered on
idolatry. He gave a singular proof of this at his first visit to
Johnson's ill-furnished garret. The master of the apartment was not at
home. The enthusiastic visitor looked about for some relique which he
might carry away; but he could see nothing lighter than the chairs and
the fire-irons. At last he discovered an old broom, tore some bristles
from the stump, wrapped them in silver paper, and departed as happy as
Louis IX when the holy nail of St. Denis was found. Johnson, on the
other hand, condescended to growl out that Burney was an honest fellow,
a man whom it was impossible not to like.
Garrick, too, was a frequent visitor in Poland Street and St. Martin's
Lane. That wonderful actor loved the society of children, partly from
good-nature, and partly from vanity. The ecstasies of mirth and terror
which his gestures and play of countenance never failed to produce in a
nursery, flattered him quite as much as the applause of mature critics.
He often exhibited all his powers of mimicry for the amusement of the
little Burneys, awed them by shuddering and crouching as if he saw a
ghost, scared them by raving like a maniac in St. Lukes', and then at
once became an auctioneer, a chimney-sweeper, or an old woman, and made
them laugh till the tears ran down their cheeks.
But it would be tedious to recount the names of all the men of letters
and artists whom Frances Burney had an opportunity of seeing and
hearing. Colman, Twining, Harris, Baretti, Hawkesworth, Reynolds, Barry,
were among those who occasionally surrounded the tea-table and
supper-tray at her father's modest dwelling. This was not all. The
distinction which Dr. Burney had acquired as a musician, and as the
historian of music, attracted to his house the most eminent musical
performers of that age. The greatest Italian singers who visited England
regarded him as the dispenser of fame in their art, and exerted
themselves to obtain his suffrage. Pachierotti became his intimate
friend. The rapacious Agujari, who sang for nobody else under fifty
pounds an air, sang her best for Dr. Burney without a fee; and in the
company of Dr. Burney even the haughty and eccentric Gabrielli
constrained herself to behave with civility. It was thus in his power to
give, with scarcely any expense, concerts equal to those of the
aristocracy. On such occasions the quiet street in which he lived was
blocked up by coroneted chariots, and his little drawing-room was
crowded with peers, peeresses, ministers, and ambassadors. On one
evening, of which we happen to have a full account, there were present
Lord Mulgrave, Lord Bruce, Lord and Lady Edgecumbe, Lord Barrington from
the War-Office, Lord Sandwich from the Admiralty, Lord Ashburnham, with
his gold key dangling from his pocket, and the French Ambassador, M. De
Guignes, renowned for his fine person and for his success in gallantry.
But the great show of the night was the Russian Ambassador, Count
Orloff, whose gigantic figure was all in a blaze with jewels, and in
whose demeanour the untamed ferocity of the Scythian might be discerned
through a thin varnish of French politeness. As he stalked about the
small parlour, brushing the ceiling with his toupee, the girls whispered
to each other, with mingled admiration and horror, that he was the
favoured lover of his august mistress; that he had borne the chief part
in the revolution to which she owed her throne; and that his huge hands,
now glittering with diamond rings, had given the last squeeze to the
windpipe of her unfortunate husband.
With such illustrious guests as these were mingled all the most
remarkable specimens of the race of lions--a kind of game which is
hunted in London every spring with more than Meltonian ardour and
perseverance. Bruce, who had washed down steaks cut from living oxen
with water from the fountains of the Nile, came to swagger and talk
about his travels. Omai lisped broken English, and made all the
assembled musicians hold their ears by howling Otaheitean love-songs,
such as those with which Oberea charmed her Opano.
With the literary and fashionable society which occasionally met under
Dr. Burney's roof, Frances can scarcely be said to have mingled. She was
not a musician, and could therefore bear no part in the concerts. She
was shy almost to awkwardness, and scarcely ever joined in the
conversation. The slightest remark from a stranger disconcerted her; and
even the old friends of her father who tried to draw her out could
seldom extract more than a Yes or a No. Her figure was small, her face
not distinguished by beauty. She was therefore suffered to withdraw
quietly to the background, and, unobserved herself, to observe all that
passed. Her nearest relations were aware that she had good sense, but
seem not to have suspected, that under her demure and bashful deportment
were concealed a fertile invention and a keen sense of the ridiculous.
She had not, it is true, an eye for the fine shades of character. But
every marked peculiarity instantly caught her notice and remained
engraven on her imagination. Thus, while still a girl, she had laid up
such a store of materials for fiction as few of those who mix much in
the world are able to accumulate during a long life. She had watched and
listened to people of every class, from princes and great officers of
state down to artists living in garrets, and poets familiar with
subterranean cook-shops. Hundreds of remarkable persons had passed in
review before her, English, French, German, Italian, lords and fiddlers,
deans of cathedrals and managers of theatres, travellers leading about
newly caught savages, and singing women escorted by deputy-husbands.
So strong was the impression made on the mind of Frances by the society
which she was in the habit of seeing and hearing, that she began to
write little fictitious narratives as soon as she could use her pen with
ease, which, as we have said, was not very early. Her sisters were
amused by her stories. But Dr. Burney knew nothing of their existence;
and in another quarter her literary propensities met with serious
discouragement. When she was fifteen, her father took a second wife. The
new Mrs. Burney soon found out that her daughter-in-law was fond of
scribbling, and delivered several good-natured lectures on the subject.
The advice no doubt was well-meant, and might have been given by the
most judicious friend; for at that time, from causes to which we may
hereafter advert, nothing could be more disadvantageous to a young lady
than to be known as a novel-writer. Frances yielded, relinquished her
favourite pursuit, and made a bonfire of all her manuscripts.[1]
[1] There is some difficulty here as to the chronology. "This
sacrifice," says the editor of the Diary, "was made in the young
authoress's fifteenth year." This could not be; for the sacrifice
was the effect, according to the editor's own showing, of the
remonstrances of the second Mrs. Burney; and Frances was in her
sixteenth year when her father's second marriage took place.
She now hemmed and stitched from breakfast to dinner with scrupulous
regularity. But the dinners of that time were early; and the afternoon
was her own. Though she had given up novel-writing, she was still fond
of using her pen. She began to keep a diary, and she corresponded
largely with a person who seems to have had the chief share in the
formation of her mind. This was Samuel Crisp, an old friend of her
father. His name, well known, near a century ago, in the most splendid
circles of London, has long been forgotten.
Crisp was an old and very intimate friend of the Burneys. To them alone
was confided the name of the desolate old hall in which he hid himself
like a wild beast in a den. For them were reserved such remains of his
humanity as had survived the failure of his play. Frances Burney he
regarded as his daughter. He called her his Fannikin, and she in return
called him her dear Daddy. In truth, he seems to have done much more
than her real father for the development of her intellect; for though he
was a bad poet, he was a scholar, a thinker, and an excellent
counsellor. He was particularly fond of Dr. Burney's concerts. They had,
indeed, been commenced at his suggestion, and when he visited London he
constantly attended them. But when he grew old, and when gout, brought
on partly by mental irritation, confined him to his retreat, he was
desirous of having a glimpse of that gay and brilliant world from which
he was exiled, and he pressed Fannikin to send him full accounts of her
father's evening parties. A few of her letters to him have been
published; and it is impossible to read them without discerning in them
all the powers which afterwards produced Evelina and Cecilia, the
quickness in catching every odd peculiarity of character and manner, the
skill in grouping, the humour, often richly comic, sometimes even
farcical.
Fanny's propensity to novel-writing had for a time been kept down. It
now rose up stronger than ever. The heroes and heroines of the tales
which had perished in the flames, were still present to the eye of her
mind. One favourite story, in particular, haunted her imagination. It
was about a certain Caroline Evelyn, a beautiful damsel who made an
unfortunate love match, and died, leaving an infant daughter. Frances
began to imagine to herself the various scenes, tragic and comic,
through which the poor motherless girl, highly connected on one side,
meanly connected on the other, might have to pass. A crowd of unreal
beings, good and bad, grave and ludicrous, surrounded the pretty, timid,
young orphan; a coarse sea-captain; an ugly insolent fop, blazing in a
superb court-dress; another fop, as ugly and as insolent, but lodged on
Snow Hill, and tricked out in second-hand finery for the Hampstead ball;
an old woman, all wrinkles and rouge, flirting her fan with the air of a
Miss of seventeen, and screaming in a dialect made up of vulgar French
and vulgar English; a poet lean and ragged, with a broad Scotch accent.
By degrees these shadows acquired stronger and stronger consistence: the
impulse which urged Frances to write became irresistible; and the result
was the history of Evelina.
Then came, naturally enough, a wish, mingled with many fears, to appear
before the public; for, timid as Frances was, and bashful, and
altogether unaccustomed to hear her own praises, it is clear that she
wanted neither a strong passion for distinction, nor a just confidence
in her own powers. Her scheme was to become, if possible, a candidate
for fame without running any risk of disgrace. She had no money to bear
the expense of printing. It was therefore necessary that some bookseller
should be induced to take the risk; and such a bookseller was not
readily found. Dodsley refused even to look at the manuscript unless he
were trusted with the name of the author. A publisher in Fleet Street,
named Lowndes, was more complaisant. Some correspondence took place
between this person and Miss Burney, who took the name of Grafton, and
desired that the letters addressed to her might be left at the Orange
Coffee-House. But, before the bargain was finally struck, Fanny thought
it her duty to obtain her father's consent. She told him that she had
written a book, that she wished to have his permission to publish
[Transcriber's note: "published" in original] it anonymously, but that
she hoped that he would not insist upon seeing it. What followed may
serve to illustrate what we meant when we said that Dr. Burney was as
bad a father as so good-hearted a man could possibly be. It never seems
to have crossed his mind that Fanny was about to take a step on which
the whole happiness of her life might depend, a step which might raise
her to an honourable eminence, or cover her with ridicule and contempt.
Several people had already been trusted, and strict concealment was
therefore not to be expected. On so grave an occasion, it was surely his
duty to give his best counsel to his daughter, to win her confidence, to
prevent her from exposing herself if her book were a bad one, and, if it
were a good one, to see that the terms which she made with the publisher
were likely to be beneficial to her. Instead of this, he only stared,
burst out a laughing, kissed her, gave her leave to do as she liked, and
never even asked the name of her work. The contract with Lowndes was
speedily concluded. Twenty pounds were given for the copyright, and were
accepted by Fanny with delight. Her father's inexcusable neglect of his
duty, happily caused her no worse evil than the loss of twelve or
fifteen hundred pounds.
After many delays Evelina appeared in January 1778. Poor Fanny was sick
with terror, and durst hardly stir out of doors. Some days passed before
any thing was heard of the book. It had, indeed, nothing but its own
merits to push it into public favour. Its author was unknown. The house
by which it was published, was not, we believe, held in high estimation.
No body of partisans had been engaged to applaud. The better class of
readers expected little from a novel about a young lady's entrance into
the world. There was, indeed, at that time a disposition among the most
respectable people to condemn novels generally; nor was this disposition
by any means without excuse; for works of that sort were then almost
always silly, and very frequently wicked.
Soon, however, the first faint accents of praise began to be heard. The
keepers of the circulating libraries reported that every body was asking
for Evelina, and that some person had guessed Anstey to be the Author.
Then came a favourable notice in the London Review; then another still
more favourable in the Monthly. And now the book found its way to tables
which had seldom been polluted by marble-covered volumes. Scholars and
statesmen who contemptuously abandoned the crowd of romances to Miss
Lydia Languish and Miss Sukey Saunter, were not ashamed to own that they
could not tear themselves away from Evelina. Fine carriages and rich
liveries, not often seen east of Temple Bar, were attracted to the
publisher's shop in Fleet Street. Lowndes was daily questioned about the
author; but was himself as much in the dark as any of the questioners.
The mystery, however, could not remain a mystery long. It was known to
brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins: and they were far too proud and
too happy to be discreet. Dr. Burney wept over the book in rapture.
Daddy Crisp shook his fist at his Fannikin in affectionate anger at not
having been admitted to her confidence. The truth was whispered to Mrs.
Thrale; and then it began to spread fast.
The book had been admired while it was ascribed to men of letters long
conversant with the world, and accustomed to composition. But when it
was known that a reserved, silent young woman had produced the best work
of fiction that had appeared since the death of Smollett, the
acclamations were redoubled. What she had done was, indeed,
extraordinary. But, as usual, various reports improved the story till it
became miraculous. Evelina, it was said, was the work of a girl of
seventeen. Incredible as this tale was, it continued to be repeated down
to our own time. Frances was too honest to confirm it. Probably she was
too much a woman to contradict it; and it was long before any of her
detractors thought of this mode of annoyance. Yet there was no want of
low minds and bad hearts in the generation which witnessed her first
appearance. There was the envious Kenrick and the savage Wolcot, the asp
George Steevens and the polecat John Williams. It did not, however,
occur to them to search the parish-register of Lynn, in order that they
might be able to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly
chivalrous exploit was reserved for a bad writer of our own time, whose
spite she had provoked by not furnishing him with materials for a
worthless edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson, some sheets of which our
readers have doubtless seen round parcels of better books.
But we must return to our story. The triumph was complete. The timid and
obscure girl found herself on the highest pinnacle of fame. Great men,
on whom she had gazed at a distance with humble reverence, addressed her
with admiration, tempered by the tenderness due to her sex and age.
Burke, Windham, Gibbon, Reynolds, Sheridan, were among her most ardent
eulogists. Cumberland acknowledged her merit, after his fashion, by
biting his lips and wriggling in his chair whenever her name was
mentioned. But it was at Streatham that she tasted, in the highest
perfection, the sweets of flattery, mingled with the sweets of
friendship. Mrs. Thrale, then at the height of prosperity and
popularity--with gay spirits, quick wit, showy though superficial
acquirements, pleasing though not refined manners, a singularly amiable
temper, and a loving heart--felt towards Fanny as towards a younger
sister. With the Thrales Johnson was domesticated. He was an old friend
of Dr. Burney; but he had probably taken little notice of Dr. Burney's
daughters, and Fanny, we imagine, had never in her life dared to speak
to him, unless to ask whether he wanted a nineteenth or a twentieth cup
of tea. He was charmed by her tale, and preferred it to the novels of
Fielding, to whom, indeed, he had always been grossly unjust. He did
not, indeed, carry his partiality so far as to place Evelina by the side
of Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison; yet he said that his favourite
had done enough to have made even Richardson feel uneasy. With Johnson's
cordial approbation of the book was mingled a fondness, half gallant
half paternal, for the writer; and his fondness his age and character
entitled him to show without restraint. He began by putting her hand to
his lips. But soon he clasped her in his huge arms, and implored her to
be a good girl. She was his pet, his dear love, his dear little Burney,
his little character-monger. At one time, he broke forth in praise of
the good taste of her caps. At another time, he insisted on teaching her
Latin. That, with all his coarseness and irritability, he was a man of
sterling benevolence, has long been acknowledged. But how gentle and
endearing his deportment could be, was not known till the Recollections
of Madame D'Arblay were published.
We have mentioned a few of the most eminent of those who paid their
homage to the author of Evelina. The crowd of inferior admirers would
require a catalogue as long as that in the second book of the Iliad. In
that catalogue would be Mrs. Cholmondeley, the sayer of odd things, and
Seward, much given to yawning, and Baretti, who slew the man in the
Haymarket, and Paoli, talking broken English, and Langton, taller by the
head than any other member of the club, and Lady Millar, who kept a vase
wherein fools were wont to put bad verses, and Jerningham, who wrote
verses fit to be put into the vase of Lady Millar, and Dr. Franklin--
not, as some have dreamed, the great Pennsylvanian Dr. Franklin, who
could not then have paid his respects to Miss Burney without much risk
of being hanged, drawn, and quartered, but Dr. Franklin the less--
[Greek: _Aias
meion, outi tosos ge osos Telamonios Aias,
alla polu meion._]
It would not have been surprising if such success had turned even a
strong head, and corrupted even a generous and affectionate nature. But,
in the Diary, we can find no trace of any feeling inconsistent with a
truly modest and amiable disposition. There is, indeed, abundant proof
that Frances enjoyed, with an intense, though a troubled, joy, the
honours which her genius had won; but it is equally clear that her
happiness sprang from the happiness of her father, her sister, and her
dear Daddy Crisp. While flattered by the great, the opulent, and the
learned, while followed along the Steyne at Brighton and the Pantiles at
Tunbridge Wells by the gaze of admiring crowds, her heart seems to have
been still with the little domestic circle in St. Martin's Street. If
she recorded with minute diligence all the compliments, delicate and
coarse, which she heard wherever she turned, she recorded them for the
eyes of two or three persons who had loved her from infancy, who had
loved her in obscurity, and to whom her fame gave the purest and most
exquisite delight. Nothing can be more unjust than to confound these
outpourings of a kind heart, sure of perfect sympathy, with the egotism
of a blue-stocking, who prates to all who come near her about her own
novel or her own volume of sonnets.
It was natural that the triumphant issue of Miss Burney's first venture
should tempt her to try a second. Evelina, though it had raised her
fame, had added nothing to her fortune. Some of her friends urged her to
write for the stage. Johnson promised to give her his advice as to the
composition. Murphy, who was supposed to understand the temper of the
pit as well as any man of his time, undertook to instruct her as to
stage-effect. Sheridan declared that he would accept a play from her
without even reading it. Thus encouraged she wrote a comedy named The
Witlings. Fortunately it was never acted or printed. We can, we think,
easily perceive from the little which is said on the subject in the
Diary, that The Witlings would have been damned, and that Murphy and
Sheridan thought so, though they were too polite to say so. Happily
Frances had a friend who was not afraid to give her pain. Crisp, wiser
for her than he had been for himself, read the manuscript in his lonely
retreat, and manfully told her that she had failed, that to remove
blemishes here and there would be useless, that the piece had abundance
of wit but no interest, that it was bad as a whole, that it would remind
every reader of the _Femmes Savantes_, which, strange to say, she had
never read, and that she could not sustain so close a comparison with
Molière. This opinion, in which Dr. Burney concurred, was sent to
Frances in what she called a "hissing, groaning, cat-calling epistle."
But she had too much sense not to know that it was better to be hissed
and cat-called by her Daddy than by a whole sea of heads in the pit of
Drury-Lane Theatre; and she had too good a heart not to be grateful for
so rare an act of friendship. She returned an answer which shows how
well she deserved to have a judicious, faithful, and affectionate
adviser. "I intend," she wrote, "to console myself for your censure by
this greatest proof I have ever received of the sincerity, candour, and,
let me add, esteem, of my dear daddy. And as I happen to love myself
rather more than my play, this consolation is not a very trifling one.
This, however, seriously I do believe, that when my two daddies put
their heads together to concert that hissing, groaning, cat-calling
epistle they sent me, they felt as sorry for poor little Miss Bayes as
she could possibly do for herself. You see I do not attempt to repay
your frankness with the air of pretended carelessness. But, though
somewhat disconcerted just now, I will promise not to let my vexation
live out another day. Adieu, my dear daddy! I won't be mortified, and I
won't be _downed_; but I will be proud to find I have, out of my own
family, as well as in it, a friend who loves me well enough to speak
plain truth to me."
Frances now turned from her dramatic schemes to an undertaking far
better suited to her talents. She determined to write a new tale, on a
plan excellently contrived for the display of the powers in which her
superiority to other writers lay. It was in truth a grand and various
picture-gallery, which presented to the eye a long series of men and
women, each marked by some strong peculiar feature. There were avarice
and prodigality, the pride of blood and the pride of money, morbid
restlessness and morbid apathy, frivolous garrulity, supercilious
silence, a Democritus to laugh at every thing, and a Heraclitus to
lament over every thing. The work proceeded fast, and in twelve months
was completed. It wanted something of the simplicity which had been
among the most attractive charms of Evelina; but it furnished ample
proof that the four years which had elapsed since Evelina appeared, had
not been unprofitably spent. Those who saw Cecilia in manuscript
pronounced it the best novel of the age. Mrs. Thrale laughed and wept
over it. Crisp was even vehement in applause, and offered to insure the
rapid and complete success of the book for half a crown. What Miss
Burney received for the copyright is not mentioned in the Diary; but we
have observed several expressions from which we infer that the sum was
considerable. That the sale would be great nobody could doubt; and
Frances now had shrewd and experienced advisers, who would not suffer
her to wrong herself. We have been told that the publishers gave her two
thousand pounds, and we have no doubt that they might have given a still
larger sum without being losers.
Cecilia was published in the summer of 1782. The curiosity of the town
was intense. We have been informed by persons who remember those days,
that no romance of Sir Walter Scott was more impatiently awaited, or
more eagerly snatched from the counters of the booksellers. High as
public expectation was, it was amply satisfied; and Cecilia was placed,
by general acclamation, among the classical novels of England.
Miss Burney was now thirty. Her youth had been singularly prosperous;
but clouds soon began to gather over that clear and radiant dawn. Events
deeply painful to a heart so kind as that of Frances, followed each
other in rapid succession. She was first called upon to attend the
death-bed of her best friend, Samuel Crisp. When she returned to St.
Martin's Street, after performing this melancholy duty, she was appalled
by hearing that Johnson had been struck with paralysis; and, not many
months later, she parted from him for the last time with solemn
tenderness. He wished to look on her once more; and on the day before
his death she long remained in tears on the stairs leading to his
bedroom, in the hope that she might be called in to receive his
blessing. But he was then sinking fast, and, though he sent her an
affectionate message, was unable to see her. But this was not the worst.
There are separations far more cruel than those which are made by death.
Frances might weep with proud affection for Crisp and Johnson. She had
to blush as well as to weep for Mrs. Thrale.
Life, however, still smiled upon her. Domestic happiness, friendship,
independence, leisure, letters, all these things were hers; and she
flung them all away.
* * * * *
Then the prison was opened, and Frances was free once more. Johnson, as
Burke observed, might have added a striking page to his poem on the
Vanity of Human Wishes, if he had lived to see his little Burney as she
went into the palace and as she came out of it.
The pleasures, so long untasted, of liberty, of friendship, of domestic
affection, were almost too acute for her shattered frame. But happy days
and tranquil nights soon restored the health which the Queen's toilette
and Madame Schwellenberg's card-table had impaired. Kind and anxious
faces surrounded the invalid. Conversation the most polished and
brilliant revived her spirits. Travelling was recommended to her; and
she rambled by easy journeys from cathedral to cathedral, and from
watering-place to watering-place. She crossed the New Forest, and
visited Stonehenge and Wilton, the cliffs of Lyme, and the beautiful
valley of Sidmouth. Thence she journeyed by Powderham Castle, and by the
ruins of Glastonbury Abbey, to Bath, and from Bath, when the winter was
approaching, returned well and cheerful to London. There she visited her
old dungeon, and found her successor already far on the way to the
grave, and kept to strict duty, from morning till midnight, with a
sprained ankle and a nervous fever.
At this time England swarmed with French exiles driven from their
country by the Revolution. A colony of these refugees settled at Juniper
Hall in Surrey, not far from Norbury Park, where Mr. Lock, an intimate
friend of the Burney family, resided. Frances visited Norbury, and was
introduced to the strangers. She had strong prejudices against them; for
her Toryism was far beyond, we do not say that of Mr. Pitt, but that of
Mr. Reeves; and the inmates of Juniper Hall were all attached to the
constitution of 1791, and were therefore more detested by the Royalists
of the first emigration than Petion or Marat. But such a woman as Miss
Burney could no longer resist the fascination of that remarkable
society. She had lived with Johnson and Windham, with Mrs. Montague and
Mrs. Thrale. Yet she was forced to own that she had never heard
conversation before. The most animated eloquence, the keenest
observation, the most sparkling wit, the most courtly grace, were united
to charm her. For Madame de Staël was there, and M. de Talleyrand. There
too was M. de Narbonne, a noble representative of French aristocracy;
and with M. de Narbonne was his friend and follower General D'Arblay, an
honourable and amiable man, with a handsome person, frank soldier-like
manners, and some taste for letters.
The prejudices which Frances had conceived against the constitutional
royalists of France rapidly vanished. She listened with rapture to
Talleyrand and Madame de Staël, joining with M. D'Arblay in execrating
the Jacobins, and in weeping for the unhappy Bourbons, took French
lessons from him, fell in love with him, and married him on no better
provision [Transcriber's note: "pro-provision" in original] than a
precarious annuity of one hundred pounds.
* * * * *
We now turn from the life of Madame D'Arblay to her writings. There can,
we apprehend, be little difference of opinion as to the nature of her
merit, whatever differences may exist as to its degree. She was
emphatically what Johnson called her, a character-monger. It was in the
exhibition of human passions and whims that her strength lay; and in
this department of art she had, we think, very distinguished skill.
Highest among those who have exhibited human nature by means of
dialogue, stands Shakespeare. His variety is like the variety of nature,
endless diversity, scarcely any monstrosity. The characters of which he
has given us an impression, as vivid as that which we receive from the
characters of our own associates, are to be reckoned by scores. Yet in
all these scores hardly one character is to be found which deviates
widely from the common standard, and which we should call very eccentric
if we met it in real life. The silly notion that every man has one
ruling passion, and that this clue, once known, unravels all the
mysteries of his conduct, finds no countenance in the plays of
Shakespeare. There man appears as he is, made up of a crowd of passions,
which contend for the mastery over him, and govern him in turn. What is
Hamlet's ruling passion? Or Othello's? Or Harry the Fifth's? Or
Wolsey's? Or Lear's? Or Shylock's? Or Benedick's? Or Macbeth's? Or that
of Cassius? Or that of Falconbridge? But we might go on for ever. Take a
single example--Shylock. Is he so eager for money as to be indifferent
to revenge? Or so eager for revenge as to be indifferent to money? Or so
bent on both together as to be indifferent to the honour of his nation
and the law of Moses? All his propensities are mingled with each other;
so that, in trying to apportion to each its proper part, we find the
same difficulty which constantly meets us in real life. A superficial
critic may say, that hatred is Shylock's ruling passion. But how many
passions have amalgamated to form that hatred? It is partly the result
of wounded pride: Antonio has called him dog. It is partly the result of
covetousness: Antonio has hindered him of half a million; and, when
Antonio is gone, there will be no limit to the gains of usury. It is
partly the result of national and religious feeling: Antonio has spit on
the Jewish gaberdine; and the oath of revenge has been sworn by the
Jewish Sabbath. We might go through all the characters which we have
mentioned, and through fifty more in the same way; for it is the
constant manner of Shakespeare to represent the human mind as lying, not
under the absolute dominion of one despotic propensity, but under a
mixed government, in which a hundred powers balance each other.
Admirable as he was in all parts of his art, we most admire him for
this, that, while he has left us a greater number of striking portraits
than all other dramatists put together, he has scarcely left us a single
caricature.
Shakespeare has had neither equal nor second. But among the writers who,
in the point which we have noticed, have approached nearest to the
manner of the great master, we have no hesitation in placing Jane
Austen, a woman of whom England is justly proud. She has given us a
multitude of characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such
as we meet every day. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from
each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings. There
are, for example, four clergymen, none of whom we should be surprised to
find in any parsonage in the kingdom, Mr. Edward Ferrars, Mr. Henry
Tilney, Mr. Edmund Bertram, and Mr. Elton. They are all specimens of the
upper part of the middle class. They have all been liberally educated.
They all lie under the restraints of the same sacred profession. They
are all young. They are all in love. Not one of them has any hobbyhorse,
to use the phrase of Sterne. Not one has a ruling passion, such as we
read of in Pope. Who would not have expected them to be insipid
likenesses of each other? No such thing. Harpagon is not more unlike to
Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger,
than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend
brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate, that they
elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we
know them to exist only by the general effect to which they have
contributed.
A line must be drawn, we conceive, between artists of this class, and
those poets and novelists whose skill lies in the exhibiting of what Ben
Jonson called humours. The words of Ben are so much to the purpose, that
we will quote them--
When some one peculiar quality
Doth so possess a man, that it doth draw
All his affects, his spirits, and his powers,
In their confluxions all to run one way,
This may be truly said to be a humour.
There are undoubtedly persons, in whom humours such as Ben describes
have attained a complete ascendency. The avarice of Elwes, the insane
desire of Sir Egerton Brydges for a barony to which he had no more right
than to the crown of Spain, the malevolence which long meditation on
imaginary wrongs generated in the gloomy mind of Bellingham, are
instances. The feeling which animated Clarkson and other virtuous men
against the slave-trade and slavery, is an instance of a more honourable
kind.
Seeing that such humours exist, we cannot deny that they are proper
subjects for the imitations of art. But we conceive that the imitation
of such humours, however skilful and amusing, is not an achievement of
the highest order; and, as such humours are rare in real life, they
ought, we conceive, to be sparingly introduced into works which profess
to be pictures of real life. Nevertheless, a writer may show so much
genius in the exhibition of these humours, as to be fairly entitled to a
distinguished and permanent rank among classics. The chief seats of all,
however, the places on the dais and under the canopy, are reserved for
the few who have excelled in the difficult art of portraying characters
in which no single feature is extravagantly overcharged.
If we have expounded the law soundly, we can have no difficulty in
applying it to the particular case before us. Madame D'Arblay has left
us scarcely any thing but humours. Almost every one of her men and women
has some one propensity developed to a morbid degree. In Cecilia, for
example, Mr. Delvile never opens his lips without some allusion to his
own birth and station; or Mr. Briggs, without some allusion to the
hoarding of money; or Mr. Hobson, without betraying the self-indulgence
and self-importance of a purse-proud upstart; or Mr. Simkins, without
uttering some sneaking remark for the purpose of currying favour with
his customers; or Mr. Meadows, without expressing apathy and weariness
of life; or Mr. Albany, without declaiming about the vices of the rich
and the misery of the poor; or Mrs. Belfield, without some indelicate
eulogy on her son; or Lady Margaret, without indicating jealousy of her
husband. Morrice is all skipping, officious impertinence, Mr. Gosport
all sarcasm, Lady Honoria all lively prattle, Miss Larolles all silly
prattle. If ever Madame D'Arblay aimed at more, as in the character of
Monckton, we do not think that she succeeded well.
We are, therefore, forced to refuse to Madame D'Arblay a place in the
highest rank of art; but we cannot deny that, in the rank to which she
belonged, she had few equals, and scarcely any superior. The variety of
humours which is to be found in her novels is immense; and though the
talk of each person separately is monotonous, the general effect is not
monotony, but a very lively and agreeable diversity. Her plots are
rudely constructed and improbable, if we consider them in themselves.
But they are admirably framed for the purpose of exhibiting striking
groups of eccentric characters, each governed by his own peculiar whim,
each talking his own peculiar jargon, and each bringing out by
opposition the oddities of all the rest. We will give one example out of
many which occur to us. All probability is violated in order to bring
Mr. Delvile, Mr. Briggs, Mr. Hobson, and Mr. Albany into a room
together. But when we have them there, we soon forget probability in the
exquisitely ludicrous effect which is produced by the conflict of four
old fools, each raging with a monomania of his own, each talking a
dialect of his own, and each inflaming all the others anew every time he
opens his mouth.
Yet one word more. It is not only on account of the intrinsic merit of
Madame D'Arblay's early works that she is entitled to honourable
mention. Her appearance is an important epoch in our literary history.
Evelina was the first tale written by a woman, and purporting to be a
picture of life and manners, that lived or deserved to live. The Female
Quixote is no exception. That work has undoubtedly great merit, when
considered as a wild satirical harlequinade; but, if we consider it as a
picture of life and manners, we must pronounce it more absurd than any
of the romances which it was designed to ridicule.
Indeed, most of the popular novels which preceded Evelina, were such as
no lady would have written; and many of them were such as no lady could
without confusion own that she had read. The very name of novel was held
in horror among religious people. In decent families which did not
profess extraordinary sanctity, there was a strong feeling against all
such works. Sir Anthony Absolute, two or three years before Evelina
appeared, spoke the sense of the great body of sober fathers and
husbands, when he pronounced the circulating library an evergreen tree
of diabolical knowledge. This feeling, on the part of the grave and
reflecting, increased the evil from which it had sprung. The novelist,
having little character to lose, and having few readers among serious
people, took without scruple liberties which in our generation seem
almost incredible.
Miss Burney did for the English novel what Jeremy Collier did for the
English drama; and she did it in a better way. She first showed that a
tale might be written in which both the fashionable and the vulgar life
of London might be exhibited with great force, and with broad comic
humour, and which yet should not contain a single line inconsistent with
rigid morality, or even with virgin delicacy. She took away the reproach
which lay on a most useful and delightful species of composition. She
vindicated the right of her sex to an equal share in a fair and noble
province of letters. Several accomplished women have followed in her
track. At present, the novels which we owe to English ladies form no
small part of the literary glory of our country. No class of works is
more honourably distinguished by fine observation, by grace, by delicate
wit, by pure moral feeling. Several among the successors of Madame
D'Arblay have equalled her; two, we think, have surpassed her. But the
fact that she has been surpassed, gives her an additional claim to our
respect and gratitude; for in truth we owe to her, not only Evelina,
Cecilia, and Camilla, but also Mansfield Park and the Absentee.