Mrs. Crewe, whose fancy was as fertile as her friendship was zealous,
perceiving the melancholy state of spirits into which the Doctor had
fallen, sought to awaken him again into new life and activity through
the kindly medium of his parental affections. She suggested to him,
therefore, the idea of a new periodical morning paper, serious and
burlesque, informing, yet amusing, upon _The Times as they Run_;
strictly anti-jacobinical, and professedly monarchical; but allowing no
party abuse, nor personal attack; and striving to fight the battles of
morals and manners, by enlisting reason on their side, and raising the
laugh against their foes.
_The Times as they Ran_, at that epoch, appeared big with every
species of danger that could issue, through political avenues, from
the universal sway of revolutionary systems which occupied, or
revolutionary schemes which bewildered mankind. All thoughts were
ingrossed by public affairs. Private life seemed as much a chimera of
imagination, as reverting to the pastoral seasons of the poets of old,
in wandering through valleys, or ascending mountains, crook in hand,
with sheep, deer, or goats.
Mr. Burke, in his unequalled and unrivalled _Essence of the French
Revolution_,—for such his Essay on that stupendous event may be
called, had sounded a bell of alarm throughout Europe; echoing and
re-echoing, aloud, aloft, around, with panic reverberation,
“Every man to his post! or
Havoc will let loose the dogs of war,”
with massacre, degradation, shame, and devastation, “involving
all—save the inflictors!”
Nor vain was the clangor of that bell. All who dreaded evils yet
untried, evils wrapped up in the obscurity of hidden circumstances;
dependent on the million of inlets to which accident opens an entrance;
and of uncertain catastrophe; still more than they recoiled from ills
which, however unpalatable, have been experienced, and are therefore
known not to outstretch the powers of endurance; caught its fearful
sound, and listened to its awful warnings: and the lament of Mr. Burke
that the times of chivalry were gone by, nearly re-animated their
return, from the eloquence with which he pointed them out as antidotes
to the anarchy of insubordination; and spurs to rescue mankind from
hovering degeneracy.
Fraught with these notions, Mrs. Crewe conceived an idea that a weekly
paper upon such subjects, treating them so variously as to keep alive
expectation, by essaying
“—— happily to steer
From grave to gay; from lively to severe,”
might turn to what Mr. Burke, and Dr. Burney, and she herself, deemed
the right way of seeing things, the motley many who, from wanting
reflection to think for themselves, are dangerously led to act by
others.
This weekly paper Mrs. Crewe purposed to call The Breakfast Table. And
it was her desire, expressed in the most flattering terms, that the
Doctor should bear a prominent part in it; but that his daughter should
be the editor and chief.
The letters of Mrs. Crewe on this plan are full of spirit and
ingenuity; and of comic as well as sagacious ideas. “If we are
saved,” she cries, “from the infection, _i. e._ the jacobinism of our
neighbours, it will be through the wise foresight of Mr. Burke; and
from seeing that _persiflage_ has been their bane, and that _Quiz_, if
we are not upon our guard, will be ours; and, above all, from taking
heed that Jacobinism does not carry the day in _polite companies_; for
Newgate never does mischief to society. No! ’tis your fine talkers, and
free-thinkers, and refiners, that are to be feared. Watch but the vital
parts, and the extremities will take care of themselves....
“I mentioned my idea of this paper to our Beaconsfield friends;[46] but
they have enough to do there...!
“I think, indeed, there should be a society to join in this plan;
which should include strictures upon life and manners at the end of
the eighteenth century; to come out in one sheet for breakfast tables.
How folks would read away, and talk, in all great towns, and in all
country-houses; nay, and in London itself; where I remember my poor
mother told me much of the effects produced formerly by periodical
papers; even Pamela, when it came out in that way. Now how well Madame
d’Arblay could manage such a work! and how one and all would join to
get epigrams for her; and bobs at the times, in prose and in verse: and
news from Paris; &c. &c. And we might all have a finger in the pie! and
try to laugh people out of their Jacobinism. Old anecdotes, characters,
and bits of poetry rummaged out of old authors; especially from some of
the quaint, but clever ancient French poets: and a thousand interesting
things that would be read, and tasted, and felt, if well introduced:
and if Madame d’Arblay’s name could be said to preside, it would suit
people’s laziness so well to have matters brought before them all ready
chosen and prepared...!
“And O! how Mr. Burke’s spirit would be _relevé_ by such a spur! which
is now choaked and kept down by gross abuse and disheartedness.
“Think of all this, Dr. Burney; it may employ you. Let it be a secret
at first, and I have no objection to cater for our society of writers.
People love to read the beauties of books; and we might pick out
bits of Mr. Burke’s, so as to impress and shame all out of at least
_creeping_ Jacobinism. I am certain, already, that Mr. Windham would
approve the plan. The only point is to do it well.”
Project upon project, scheme upon scheme, and letter upon letter
followed this opening, and sought, progressively, to make it effective
to the Doctor: while all, by the desire of Mrs. Crewe, was communicated
to Bookham, with the most cordial zeal for attracting its female
recluse from her obscurity, by placing her at the head of a design to
work at _mind_ and _morals_, in concert with the high names of Mr.
Windham, Mr. Canning, and the then Dean of Chester; with various other
honourable persons, marked out, but not yet engaged.
“Do ask Madame d’Arblay,” she continues, “to form some plan. We will
all help to address letters to her, if she will be ‘Dear Spec.’”
She then adds a wish that the nominal Editor should be supposed to
live in the neighbourhood of Sir Hugh Tyrold; whose simplicity of
truth, perplexity of doubts and humility, and laughable originality
of dialect, might produce comic entertainment to enliven the serious
disquisitions.
And, in conclusion, her filial heart, always wedded to the memory of
her distinguished mother, earnestly desired to make this work a mean to
bring forth some “novel characters” of that celebrated lady, that might
be taken from a posthumous manuscript which Mrs. Crewe, long since,
had given to this Memorialist, to finish—if she thought feasible—or
otherwise to edit; but which various impediments had, and still have,
kept unpublished in her hands.
Nothing could be more honourable than such a proposition, nor more
gratefully felt by the then Bookham, and afterwards West Hamble Female
Hermit: but she, who, from the origin of her first literary attempt,
might almost be called an accidental author, could by no means so new
model the natural shyness of her character, as to assume courage for
meeting the public eye with the opinions, injunctions, and admonitions
of a didactic one. Her answer, therefore, to her Father, which, after
communicating to Mrs. Crewe, Dr. Burney preserved, is here abridged
and copied.
“TO DR. BURNEY.
* * * * *
“I hardly know whether I am most struck with the fertility of the ideas
that Mrs. Crewe has started, or most gratified at their direction.
Certainly, I am flattered where most susceptible of pleasure, when
kindness such as hers would call me forth from my retirement, to second
views so important in their ends, and demanding such powers in their
progress. But though her opinion might give me courage, it cannot give
me means. I am too far removed from the scene of public life to compose
anything of public utility in the style she indicates. The manners as
they rise; the morals, or their deficiencies, as they preponderate,
should be viewed, for such a scheme, in all their variations, with
a diurnal eye. The editor of such a censorial and didactic work,
should be a watchful frequenter of public places, and live in the
midst of public people. The plan is so excellent, it ought to be well
adopted, and well fulfilled: but many circumstances would render its
accomplishment nearly impossible for _me_. Wholly to omit politics,
would mar all the original design: yet the personal hostility in which
all intermingling with them is entangled, would make a dreadful breach
into the peace of my happiness.” &c.
* * * * *
Then follows a statement of local obstacles to her presiding over such
a project, from the peculiar position of M. d’Arblay; which required
the most inflexible adherence to his cottage seclusion, till he could
dauntlessly spring from it in manifestation of his loyal principles.
“But tell Mrs. Crewe,” she continues, “I entreat you, my dearest
Father, that I am not only obliged, but made the happier by her kind
partiality; and that, if otherwise circumstanced, I should have
delighted to have entered into any scheme in which she would have taken
a part.”
* * * * *
Here, at once, ere, in fact, it was begun, this business ended:
Dr. Burney was acquiescent: and Mrs. Crewe was far too high-bred a
character to prosecute any scheme, or persist in any wish of her
own, that opposed the feelings of those whom she meant to please, or
to serve. The topic, therefore, from the most eager pressure, was
instantly cast into silence, from which it quietly dropt into oblivion.