_ENGLISH MEN OF LETTERS_
F A N N Y B U R N E Y
(M A D A M E D ’ A R B L A Y)
BY
A U S T I N D O B S O N
LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
N I N E T E E N H U N D R E D A N D F O U R
First Edition, 1903
Reprinted, 1904
_Copyright in the United States of America, 1903_
PREFACE
The main sources for this memoir of Frances or Fanny Burney,—afterwards
Madame D’Arblay,—in addition to her novels, the literature of the
period, and the works specified in the footnotes, are as follows:—
1. _Memoirs of Dr. Burney, arranged from his own Manuscript,
from Family Papers, and from Personal Recollections._ By his
Daughter, Madame D’Arblay. In Three Volumes. London: Moxon,
1832.
2. _Diary and Letters of Madame D’Arblay_, Author of “Evelina,”
“Cecilia,” etc. Edited by her Niece. [In Seven Volumes.] London:
Colburn, 1842-46. [The edition here used is Swan Sonnenschein’s
four volume issue of 1892.]
3. _The Early Diary of Frances Burney 1768-1778. With a
Selection from her Correspondence, and from the Journals of her
Sisters Susan and Charlotte Burney._ Edited by Annie Raine
Ellis. In Two Volumes. London: George Bell and Sons, 1889.
I am indebted to the kindness of Archdeacon Burney, Vicar of St. Mark’s,
Surbiton, for access to his unique extra-illustrated copy of the _Diary
and Letters_ of 1842-6, which contains, among other interesting MSS.,
the originals of Mrs. Thrale’s letter mentioned at page 86 of this
volume, and of Burke’s letter mentioned at page 124. Archdeacon Burney
is the possessor of Edward Burney’s portrait of his cousin (page 88); of
the Reynolds portraits of Dr. Burney and Garrick from the Thrale Gallery
(page 94); of a very fine portrait of Dr. Charles Burney by Lawrence;
and of a group by Hudson of Hetty Burney, her husband, Charles Rousseau
Burney, and her husband’s father, Richard Burney of Worcester.
I am also indebted to Mrs. Chappel of East Orchard, Shaftesbury,
granddaughter of Mrs. Barrett, the editor of the _Diary and Letters_,
for valuable information as to Burney relics in her possession.
A. D.
75, EATON RISE, EALING, W.,
_September 18, 1903_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
THE BURNEY FAMILY 1
CHAPTER II
NO. 1, ST. MARTIN’S STREET 31
CHAPTER III
THE STORY OF “EVELINA” 61
CHAPTER IV
THE SUCCESSFUL AUTHOR 88
CHAPTER V
“CECILIA”—AND AFTER 117
CHAPTER VI
THE QUEEN’S DRESSER 145
CHAPTER VII
HALF A LIFETIME 176
INDEX 207
Fanny Burney
CHAPTER I
THE BURNEY FAMILY
In the second half of the seventeenth century, there lived at the
village of Great Hanwood, four miles from Shrewsbury, a country
gentleman of a good estate, named James Macburney. In later life, he was
land-steward to the Earl of Ashburnham; and he rented or possessed a
house in the Privy Garden at Whitehall. Tradition traces his family to
Scotland, whence it was said to have arrived with James I. However this
may be,—and the point was not regarded as of much importance by his
descendants,—James Macburney married his Shropshire rector’s daughter;
begat a son; and in due time, became a widower. The son—also James
Macburney—was educated at Westminster School under the redoubtable Dr.
Busby. Then, taking to art, he worked as a pupil of the “eminent Face
Painter,” Michael Dahl. About 1697, at the age of nineteen, he ran away
with Rebecca Ellis, an actress in Giffard’s Company, and younger than
himself. Thereupon his irate father disinherited him, and in further
token of his displeasure, took to wife his own cook, by whom he had
another son called Joseph, who, as soon as he arrived at man’s estate,
removed all possible difficulties in regard to the succession by
dissipating the property. Having effected this with much promptitude, he
settled down contentedly as a Norfolk dancing master. Meanwhile, his
elder half-brother,—who, though lacking in discretion, had many
pleasing gifts (he was, in particular, an accomplished
violin-player),—being left, by the death of his actress-wife, with a
numerous family, wedded, for the second time, a beautiful young lady of
Shropshire, Mistress (_i.e._ Miss) Ann Cooper. Miss Cooper was currently
reported to have rejected Wycherley the dramatist, who, it may be
remembered, like the elder Macburney, was desirous of disappointing his
natural heir. Miss Cooper had some money; but James Macburney’s second
marriage increased the number of his children. The youngest members of
his family were twins, Susannah (who died early), and Charles,
afterwards the well-known historian of music, and the father of Fanny
Burney. Like his predecessors, he was born Macburney, but the “Mac” was
subsequently dropped.
Not long after Charles Burney’s birth, which took place on the 12th
April 1726, in Raven Street, Shrewsbury (a name probably derived from
the famous Raven Inn once familiar to Farquhar and “Serjeant Kite”),
James Burney, as we may now call his father, settled at Chester as a
portrait painter, leaving his little son at nurse in Condover, a village
near Shrewsbury. Here, with an affectionate foster mother, Charles
Burney throve apace, until he was transferred to the Chester Grammar
School. At this date his natural gifts were sufficiently manifest to
enable him at a pinch to act as deputy for the Cathedral organist.
Subsequently, he became the pupil of his half-brother, James, the
organist of St. Mary’s Church at Shrewsbury. Then, being again in
Chester when the famous Dr. Augustine Arne was passing through the town
on his return from Ireland to London, he was fortunate enough to be
taken as that master’s apprentice. This was in August 1744, when he was
eighteen, pleasant-mannered, intelligent, very musical, very versatile,
and—as he continued to be through life—an indefatigable worker. From
Arne he did not learn much except to copy music, and to drudge in the
Drury Lane Orchestra, which Arne conducted; and, although he had an
elder brother in London, he was left greatly to his own devices. But his
abilities and personal charm brought him many friends. He was frequently
at the house in Scotland Yard of Arne’s sister, Mrs. Cibber, the
foremost tragic actress of her day; and here he made acquaintance with
many notabilities. Handel was often among the visitors, playing
intricate fugues and overtures with his pudgy fingers upon the
harpsichord; and Garrick, with the wonderful eyes; and Garrick’s surly
old rival, the _bon-vivant_, James Quin; and Mason; and Thomson the poet
of _The Seasons_.
With Arne, Charles Burney would probably have remained, but for a
fortunate accident. At the shop of Jacob Kirkman, the German harpsichord
maker in Broad Street, Golden Square, he met Mr. Fulke Greville, a
descendant of Sidney’s friend, the famous Fulke Greville of Queen
Elizabeth’s days. The Greville of 1746 either possessed, or affected to
possess, many of the attributes of Bramston’s _Man of Taste_:—
“I would with _Jockeys_ from _Newmarket_ dine,
And to _Rough-riders_ give my choicest wine . . .
In _Fig_ the Prize-fighter by day delight,
And sup with _Colly Cibber_ ev’ry night.”
Like Bramston’s hero, he also dabbled in gardening. But his
accomplishments were not confined to pugilism and field sports. He
danced, fenced, drew, wrote verses, and trifled with metaphysics.
Lastly, he “_had_ an ear.” After the fashion of his day, he had doubted
whether any musician could possibly be a gentleman, but Charles Burney
undeceived him. The result was that Greville paid three hundred pounds
to cancel Burney’s engagement to Arne, and attached his new friend to
his own establishment in the capacity of musical companion. This curious
conjunction, which seems to have included a fair experience of
Greville’s other diversions, did no harm to Charles Burney. On the
contrary, at Greville’s country seat of Wilbury House in Wiltshire, he
met many interesting and some eminent people, who considerably enlarged
his social aptitudes. In 1747, however, his patron married a Miss
Frances Macartney,—the “Flora” of Horace Walpole’s _Beauties_,—making,
in his impatience of the conventional,—or _fogrum_ as it was then
styled,—a perfectly superfluous stolen match. “Mr. Greville”—said the
lady’s matter-of-fact father, when his pardon and blessing were formally
requested—“has chosen to take a wife out of the window, whom he might
just as well have taken out of the door.” Burney gave away the bride;
and after standing proxy for a duke at the baptism of the first
child,[1] would have accompanied the Grevilles to Italy. But at this
juncture he discovered that he, too, had an affair of the heart.
Thereupon Mr. Greville magnanimously released him from his engagement,
and left him to marry the woman of his choice.
She was a Miss Esther Sleepe, very attractive and very amiable. Her
mother, although of Huguenot origin, was a Roman Catholic. Esther
herself was a Protestant. She married Charles Burney about 1748, and
they went to live in the City. In 1749, her husband was appointed
organist of St. Dionis Backchurch, which had been rebuilt by Wren after
the Great Fire. Burney’s modest salary was £30 per annum. But he
composed music, and soon found many pupils. When his first child, called
Esther after her mother, was born, is not stated; but the register of
St. Dionis contains record of the birth, in June, 1750, of James Burney,
afterwards an admiral; and, in 1751, of a son Charles, who, apparently,
died early. Before this date, hard work and close application had begun
to tell upon the father of the little family, and he was advised by his
friend Dr. John Armstrong, the author of _The Art of Preserving Health_,
to try living in the country. He accordingly accepted the post of
organist, with a salary of £100 a year, at St. Margaret’s Church, King’s
Lynn, to which place he removed in 1751, his wife joining him some
months later. At King’s Lynn, on the 13th June, 1752, was born his
second daughter, Frances, or Fanny Burney, whose life-story forms the
theme of this volume. The name of Frances came to her from her
godmother, Mrs. Greville; and she was baptized at St. Nicholas, in Ann
Street. At Lynn were born two other children, Susanna, no doubt so named
after her father’s twin sister; and a second Charles, later a famous
Greek scholar, Rector of Deptford, and Chaplain to George III. The date
of Susanna’s birth is not known; but Charles Burney was born in
December, 1757.
At Lynn, in spite of an execrable instrument, and an irresponsive
audience, the new organist’s health speedily improved. His hearers, if
unmusical, were not unfriendly, and his own good qualities helped him as
of yore. “He scarcely ever entered a house upon terms of business,
without leaving it upon those of intimacy.” He gave music lessons in
many of the great Norfolk mansions,—at Houghton (Lord Orford’s), at
Holkham (the home of the Leicesters), at Rainham (General Lord
Townshend’s), and at Felbrigge Park (Mr. Windham’s),—padding along the
sandy crossroads to his destination upon his sure-footed mare “Peggy,”
with a certainty that permitted him to study Tasso or Metastasio in the
saddle, and even to consult a dictionary of his own composing which he
carried in his great-coat pocket. These things, added to correspondence
with the Greville circle, projects for a _History of Music_, increasing
means, and a pleasant home, made Lynn life very tolerable for a season.
But towards 1759 he seems to have wearied a little of his provincial
lot, added to which, friends began to counsel his return to town, and to
protest against his exile among “foggy aldermen.” “Really, among
friends,”—wrote one of them, to whom we shall often refer
hereafter,—“is not settling at Lynn planting your youth, genius, hopes,
fortune, etc., against a north wall? Can you ever expect ripe,
high-flavoured fruit, from such an aspect?” And then the writer went on
to adjure him to transplant his “spare person,” his “pretty mate,” and
his “brats” to the more congenial environment of the capital. He
eventually quitted Lynn in 1760 for London, which he had left about nine
years before.
At this date, he was four and thirty. He set up his tent in Poland
Street, then a rather more favoured place of residence than it is at
present, and having, beyond the Oxford Road (as Oxford Street was then
called), little but open fields and market gardens. Portman Square,
Manchester Square, Russell Square,—of all these not a stone had been
laid.[2] But Poland Street was not without aristocratic occupants. The
Duke of Chandos, Sir Willoughby Aston (with whose daughters the Miss
Burneys went to school at Paris), Lady Augusta Bridges and others were
all distinguished neighbours in this now dingy street—to say nothing of
the Cherokee King, who, when he visited England, actually, to the
delight of the Burney children, took lodgings “almost immediately
opposite.” At Poland Street Charles Burney rapidly became the music
master most in request with the fashionable world. Soon he had not an
hour of the day unoccupied, beginning his rounds as early as seven in
the morning, and finishing them, sometimes, only at eleven at night.
Often he dined in a hackney coach on the contents of a sandwich box and
a flask of sherry and water. But he must still have found time for
original work, since it was at Poland Street that, besides “Sonatas for
the Harpsichord,” he composed in 1763 the setting for Bonnell Thornton’s
Burlesque _Ode on St. Caecilia’s Day_, “adapted to the Antient British
Musick; viz.: the Salt Box, the Jew’s Harp, the Marrow-Bones and
Cleavers, the Hum-Strum or Hurdy-Gurdy,” and the rest, which was
performed at Ranelagh in masks, to the huge delectation of an audience
musical and unmusical, and the amusement of Dr. Johnson.[3] But the
pleasures of increasing popularity were dashed by domestic misfortune.
Mrs. Burney, the “pretty mate” of the last paragraph, having, in the new
home, given birth to a fourth daughter, Charlotte, sickened of
consumption. A visit to the Bristol Hot Wells (Clifton) proved
unavailing; and to the intense grief of her husband and family, she
died, after a brief illness, on the 28th September, 1761. She seems to
have been a most affectionate mother, and sympathised with her husband
in his bookish tastes. With one of his subsequent essays he published a
translation from Maupertuis, which she, naturally an excellent French
scholar, had executed; and her reading of Pope’s _Works_ and the
_Virgil_ of Spence’s friend Christopher Pitt, was one of the memories of
her daughters. But at the time of her death her eldest child was only
twelve, and her youngest a baby.
The little family at Poland Street, thus suddenly left motherless, must
have been an exceptionally interesting one. Esther, or Hetty, the
eldest, is described as extremely beautiful, and possessed of that
fortunate combination, good sense, good humour, and an abundant love of
fun. She was besides remarkably musical, and according to the
_Gentleman’s Magazine_, was wont to astonish her father’s guests, at a
very early age, by her skilful instrumentalism. James, the eldest son,
who, at the age of ten, entered the Navy under Admiral Montagu as a
nominal midshipman, was an unusually bright and manly lad, full of
vivacity and high spirits. When at school in his Norfolk home, he had
been taught by Eugene Aram. He could recall how that “melancholy man”
would pace the playground talking of strange deeds to the elder boys;
and he remembered well the memorable night in August 1758 when
“Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn,
Through the cold and heavy mist,
And Eugene Aram, walk’d between,
With gyves upon his wrist.”[4]
James Burney rose to eminence in his profession,—sailed twice round the
world with Captain Cook, was with him at his death, and lived to be a
fine specimen of the old-time sailor, cheery and humourous, unpolished
externally, but “gentle and humane” at heart. Charles Lamb loved him;
Southey depicts him in his Captainhood as “smoking after supper, and
letting out puffs at one corner of his mouth, and puns at the other”;
and he dropped Hazlitt out of his whist parties, to which he was as
attached as Mrs. Battle, because “W. H.” had affronted him by reviewing
his sister Fanny’s _Wanderer_ severely in the _Edinburgh_. In this brief
biography James Burney cannot often appear hereafter, which must excuse
these anticipations. The third child, Susanna, or, to be exact, Susanna
Elizabeth, was also remarkable for her sweetness and charm. Joseph
Baretti praised her _dolcissima voce_; her knowledge of music was
affirmed to be exact and critical; and her native literary faculty was
as fine, if not as imperative, as that of her sister Frances. Charles,
the second boy, was still in the nursery; and Charlotte was a baby.
Neither of these last can have had much influence on Frances, who with
Esther, Susanna and James made up the little group of clever children
which delighted Charles Burney’s friends, from Garrick to the singer
Pacchieroti. “All! _all! very clever girls_” (James was of course at
sea)—said this observer later in his queer broken English. “Sense and
_witta_ (_sic_) inhabit _here_. . . . All I meet with at Dr. Burney’s
house are superior to other people. I am myself the only _Bestia_ that
enters the house. I am, indeed, _a truly_ Beast”—by which the poor
gentleman in his humility, as Mrs. Ellis suggests, obviously intended no
more than is conveyed by the French _bête_.
In the above enumeration of Charles Burney’s children, Frances has been
intentionally passed over, and to Frances we now turn. Like many other
persons destined to make their mark in this world, she does not seem to
have impressed it greatly at the outset. Neither for beauty nor physique
was she notable in childhood; indeed she was both short and
short-sighted. She was besides extremely shy and silent, as well as
backward in most things. At the age of eight she had not learned to
read, and her sailor brother used often to divert himself by giving her
a book upside down in order to see what she would make of it. Mrs.
Burney’s friends used to call her the “little dunce”; but her shrewder
mother “had no fear of Fanny.” For it was observed, by those who looked
close, that her perceptive faculties were exceedingly acute; that, in a
quiet way, she noticed many things; that she was full of humour and
invention in her play; and that whenever she went with the rest to Mrs.
Garrick’s box at Drury Lane, although she could not read the piece
acted, she was quite capable of mimicking the actors, and even of
putting appropriate speeches into their mouths. These exhibitions,
however, she would only give in the strictest domestic privacy. Before
strangers, she became at once the demure, reserved, and almost sheepish
little person whom it was the custom to designate familiarly as “the old
lady.” An anecdote related by her father illustrates some of these
peculiarities of character. Next door to the Burneys in Poland Street
lived a wig-maker who supplied the voluminous full-bottomed periwigs
then favoured by the gentlemen of the Law. The Burney girls used to play
with the wig-maker’s daughters, and one day the playmates got access to
the wig-magazine. They then proceeded to array themselves in what
Fanny’s later friend Dr. Hawkesworth calls “the honours of the head,”
dancing about in great delight at their ridiculous figures.
Unfortunately one of the ten-guinea flaxen masterpieces soused suddenly
into a garden tub filled with water, and forthwith losing all its
portentous “Gorgon buckle,” was declared by the manufacturer to be
totally spoilt. “He was extremely angry,” says Fanny’s father, “and chid
very severely his own children; when my little daughter, the old lady,
then ten years of age [1762], advancing to him, as I was informed, with
great gravity and composure, sedately says; ‘What signifies talking so
much about an accident? The wig is wet, to be sure; and the wig was a
good wig, to be sure; but it’s of no use to speak of it any more;
because what’s done can’t be undone.’”[5] Dr. Johnson himself could not
have been more oracular, though he would probably have said (as indeed
he does in _Rasselas_)—“What cannot be repaired is not to be
regretted!”
At this point it becomes necessary to introduce a personage who, for the
future, plays no inconsiderable part in Frances Burney’s biography.
Mention has been made of a friend by whom Charles Burney was advised to
exchange the north wall of Lynn for a more congenial London aspect. This
was one Samuel Crisp, a gentleman twenty years older than Fanny’s
father, who had made his acquaintance when acting as musical companion
to Fulke Greville. Samuel Crisp was a person of some importance in his
day,—a man of taste and fashion, good-looking, well-mannered and
accomplished, having gifts both artistic and musical,—friendly alike
with the Duchess of Portland and Mrs. Montagu,—with Lady Coventry and
Richard Owen Cambridge, with Quin and Garrick. Like many of equal
abilities, he had dabbled in literature; and two years after Fanny’s
birth, Garrick had produced at Drury Lane, not without pressure from the
writer’s aristocratic supporters, a tragedy which Crisp had essayed upon
a subject already treated more than a hundred years before by John
Webster,—the story of Virginia. Crisp’s play cannot be said to have
failed, for it ran for two nights more than Johnson’s _Irene_. But, on
the other hand, it was not a genuine success, although Garrick, besides
supplying an excellent Prologue and Epilogue, himself acted Virginius to
the Virginia of Mrs. Cibber. The truth is, it was dull,—too dull even
to be galvanised into mock vitality by the energy of the manager. No
alterations could thenceforth persuade Garrick to revive it, and the
author was naturally deeply chagrined. In a frame of mind very
unfriendly to humanity in general, he carried his mortification to
Italy. Returning in due course somewhat soothed and restored, he settled
at Hampton, furnishing a house there so lavishly with guests, pictures,
bustos and musical instruments that he speedily began to exhaust his
sources of income. His annoyance at this discovery being aggravated by
gout, in a fit of spleen he sold his villa by the Thames; and
determining to realise Pope’s “the world forgetting, by the world
forgot,” took sanctuary with a friend in a secluded part of the country.
The retreat he selected was at Chessington, or—as it was then
spelled—Chesington Hall, a rambling and ruinous old house between
Kingston and Epsom. At this date, though on high ground, it stood in the
middle of a wild and almost trackless common, which separated it
effectually from the passing stranger. Its owner, Mr. Christopher
Hamilton, was an old friend of Crisp and, since the house was too large
for his means, only too pleased to welcome as an inmate, a companion who
would share his expenses. At Chessington Crisp lived many years, and at
Chessington he was buried. Until he became too infirm, he quitted it
annually for a few weeks every spring, when he repaired to Town to visit
his old haunts, look in at a concert or two, and run through the
principal picture galleries. Lord Macaulay has described him as “hiding
himself like a wild beast in a den,” in consequence of the failure of
his tragedy, which—as we have seen—was rather indulgently received, at
all events on the stage.[6] But Lord Macaulay had not before him all the
information we have at present. Although Crisp rated his tragic powers
too high, and consequently felt his qualified success more acutely, it
is probable that impaired health and reduced means had most to do with
his withdrawal to Chessington; and there is no particular evidence that
his seclusion, though strict, was savage. In one of his periodical
visits to London, he happened upon Burney; came at once to see him at
Poland Street; grew keenly interested in his motherless children, and
thenceforward continued to be the lifelong ally and adviser of the
family. Chessington Hall became a haven of rest for the Burneys,—“a
place of peace, ease, freedom and cheerfulness,” to which, even when it
was later turned into a boarding-house by Miss Hamilton, the father
retired to work at his books, and the children for change of air. As
Crisp grew older, they grew more and more necessary to his existence,
filling the dark passages and tapestried chambers of the old house with
fiddles and harpsichords, dancing, amateur acting, and all the stir and
bustle of their fresh and healthy vitality. Their company must have been
invaluable to a host, contracted, but by no means wedded, to melancholy;
and there is no doubt that in return his experience of the world, his
sterling good sense, and his educated taste were of the greatest service
to them. They brightened and cheered his life; but they also owed not a
little to the personage whom, in brief space, they came to designate
affectionately as “Daddy” Crisp.
For two or three years after Mrs. Burney’s death not much is known of
her husband’s doings. His grief at first was intense; but like many
sensible men, he at once sought to mitigate it by hard work, attempting
among other things a prose translation of Dante’s _Inferno_. In June,
1764, he paid a short visit to Paris in order to place Hetty and Susan
at school there. Fanny was older than Susan, but apart from her general
backwardness, her father seems to have apprehended that her very
emotional character (she had been overpowered with grief at her mother’s
death) might, when on the Continent, perhaps induce her to adopt the
creed of her grandmother, Mrs. Sleepe, to whom she was much attached. In
the French capital, Charles Burney found many friends, and under the
influence of Paris air, Paris clothes, Paris festivities and the
_Comédie Italienne_, began speedily—like Garrick in the same place a
few months afterwards—to recover his spirits, and interest himself once
more in his old pursuits. Either now or later, he set to work upon a
version of Rousseau’s musical _intermède_, the _Devin du Village_, under
the title of _The Cunning Man_.[7] Towards the end of June, he left
Hetty and Susan in the care of a certain Mme. St. Mart. They remained at
Paris for about two years, returning in 1767.
The first diarist of the family appears to have been Susan Burney, who
began her records at the early age of ten. Soon after her return home
she sketched the portraits of her two elder sisters. “The
characteristics of Hetty seem to be wit, generosity, and openness of
heart:—Fanny’s,—sense, sensibility, and bashfulness, and even a degree
of prudery. Her understanding is superior, but her diffidence gives her
a bashfulness before company with whom she is not intimate, which is a
disadvantage to her. My eldest sister shines in conversation, because,
though very modest, she is totally free from any _mauvaise honte_: were
Fanny equally so, I am persuaded she would shine no less. I am afraid
that my eldest sister is too communicative, and that my sister Fanny is
too reserved. They are both charming girls—_des filles comme il y en a
peu_.”[8] The words make one think that the composing of _Caractères_ or
_Portraits_ must have formed part of Mme. St. Mart’s _curriculum_. At
all events they are all we know of Frances Burney at this time, and they
coincide with what we have learned already. Doubtless, during the
absence of her sisters in France, she had been slowly developing. To her
busy father, although he left her much to herself, she was devotedly
attached; and she had grown almost as fond of the adopted parent who had
now become her “guide, philosopher and friend.” When Hetty and Susan
were away, she probably saw a great deal of Mr. Crisp, and in the
beginning of 1766 paid her first visit to the “dear, ever dear
Chesington” which was to figure so frequently in her future journals. It
had been her father’s intention that she and her younger sister
Charlotte should also have the advantage of two years’ schooling at Mme.
St. Mart’s establishment; but the project, first postponed, was
afterwards abandoned in consequence of Mr. Burney’s second marriage.
This took place in October, 1767. The lady, Elizabeth Allen, was the
widow of a wealthy Lynn wine-merchant. She had been the intimate friend
of the late Mrs. Burney, whose death she had deplored almost as much as
Mrs. Burney’s husband. She had three children; but, owing to losses in
her widowhood, apparently possessed nothing but a dower-house in the
churchyard of St. Margaret’s at Lynn. Coming to London for the education
of her eldest daughter, Maria, she renewed her acquaintance with the
Burneys. Handsome, intelligent, well-read, and something of a
blue-stocking to boot, she seems speedily to have inspired in Mr. Burney
an affection as genuine as her own for him. But as her Lynn relatives
were not likely to approve the match, seeing particularly that Mr.
Burney had six children of his own, the marriage took place privately at
St. James’s, Piccadilly; and the newly wedded pair, with the connivance
of the friendly Crisp, spent their honeymoon in a farm-house near
Chessington. Even then, the matter was kept quiet, being only revealed
at last by the misdelivery of a letter. After this, the second Mrs.
Burney took her place definitively as the mistress of the Poland Street
home, and the Lynn dower-house became an additional holiday resort for
the combined family. The children on both sides seem to have been
delighted with an alliance which brought them more intimately together;
and the new mamma increased rather than diminished the literary tone of
the house. “As Mrs. Stephen Allen,” says Mrs. Ellis, “she had held a
sort of _bas bleu_ meeting once a week; as Mrs. Burney, she received men
of letters, or art, almost daily, in an informal way.” One result of the
marriage, as already stated, was that Fanny and Charlotte did not go to
Paris. Charlotte was put to school in Norfolk; and it was arranged that
Susanna should teach Fanny French.
At the time of her father’s second marriage, Fanny Burney was in her
sixteenth year. Whether she had written much previous to the return of
her sisters from Paris, cannot be affirmed; but it is evident that, with
the advent of the diary-keeping Susanna, her native bias to scribbling
rapidly increased. Every available scrap of paper was covered with
stories and humourous sketches, confided only to the discreet ears of
the younger sister, who laughed and cried over these masterpieces in
secret. But it so chanced that Mrs. Burney the second, with all her
appreciation of the _monde parleur_, was also keenly alive to the
_misères du monde scribe_. Something led her to suspect that the girls
were writing a good deal more than in her opinion was good for them, and
the result was that they were gently but firmly admonished not to spend
too much time in idle crude inventions. Thus, one fine day, it came
about that, in the paved play-court at Poland Street, when her father
was at Chessington and her step-mother at Lynn, the docile Fanny “made
over to a bonfire” all her accumulated stock of prose compositions. In
the Preface to her last novel of _The Wanderer_, where it is added that
Susanna stood weeping by, the date of this holocaust is given as her
fifteenth birthday (June 1767). But as it obviously occurred some time
after her father’s second marriage in October of the same year, her
memory must have deceived her. Among the papers she burned was said to
be an entire work of fiction, to which we shall return.
Luckily,—although by this act she provisionally abjured authorship, and
the discredit supposed to attach in the polite world to female writers
and female writers of novels and romances in particular,—she did not
refrain from journal-keeping. For the date of her first entry in her
_Early Diary_ is May 30 [1768], at which time Mr. Burney’s second
marriage had been publicly acknowledged.
Before dealing with those portions of this chronicle which concern the
present chapter, it is necessary to say something of the proceedings of
the father of the family. In 1769 Mr. Burney, of whom we shall hereafter
speak as “Dr.” Burney, received his Mus. D. degree at Oxford, his
preliminary exercise being an anthem which was performed in the Music
School, where it “was received with universal applause.”[9] The chief
vocalist was one of the Doctor’s pupils, Miss Jenny Barsanti, often
referred to in the _Diary_; and Fanny wrote some congratulatory verses
to her father on his distinction, which, at all events, exhibit a knack
of rhyming. The receipt of his degree appears to have revived all Dr.
Burney’s dormant literary ambitions. In matters connected with his
profession he had always been an industrious note-taker; and he was also
much interested in astronomy. One of the results of this last taste was
an anonymous pamphlet prompted by the comet of 1769, at the close of
which year it was published. To this was appended the translation from
Maupertuis by the first Mrs. Burney, of which mention has been made. The
_Essay on Comets_ attracted no notice; but it served to strengthen its
author’s hand; and he began systematically to look over the
miscellaneous collections he had accumulated towards that _History of
Music_ of which he had dreamed at Lynn. In arranging and transcribing
the mass of material, Fanny fell naturally into the office of amanuensis
and keeper of the records. But these had not long been manipulated
before her father discovered that it would be necessary for him to make
a personal tour in France and Italy,—first, to procure information in
regard to ancient music, and secondly, to ascertain, by ear and eye, the
actual condition of the musical art on the Continent. At Paris he
visited Rousseau and Diderot, both of whom were interested and helpful.
At Ferney he had a chance interview with Voltaire, then seventy-eight
and wasted to a skeleton, but still working ten hours a day, and writing
without spectacles. Discord, rather than harmony, was the topic of this
conversation. The quarrels of authors—Voltaire held—were good for
letters, just as, in a free government, the quarrels of the great and
the clamours of the small were necessary to liberty. The silence of
critics (he said) did not so much prove the age to be correct, as dull.
Dr. Burney had started in June 1770; he did not return until January
1771, when he almost immediately buried himself at Chessington to
prepare his notes and journal for the press. In the following May his
book was printed under the title of _The Present State of Music in
France and Italy; or, the Journal of a Tour through those Countries,
undertaken to collect Materials for a General History of Music_; and it
obtained a considerable success. Copies went to Mason, Hawkesworth,
Garrick, and Crisp, all of whom had aided in its progress. Among its
other readers must have been Johnson, who told Mr. Seward that he had
“that clever dog, Burney” in his eye when, two years later, he wrote his
own _Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland_.[10]
During Dr. Burney’s absence abroad, his wife had found the Poland Street
house too small. She accordingly fixed upon a fresh residence in Queen
Square, Bloomsbury, which was then much more in the country than it is
at present. The new home was at the upper end of the square, which had
been considerately left open by the architect so as to afford a
delightful prospect, across Lamb’s Conduit Fields, of Highgate and
Hampstead, which Miss Burney—we regret to say—spells “Hygate and
Hamstead.” There was also a special interest in the house itself, for it
had once been inhabited by Queen Anne’s printer, Alderman Barber, the
“_Johannes Tonsor_” and “very good and old friend” of Swift; and it was
a fond tradition of the Burney household that the author of _Gulliver’s
Travels_ had often dined with Barber at Queen Square. But the _Journal
to Stella_, when it mentions Barber, invariably refers to him as in the
City; and it is probable that Swift visited him uniformly at his place
of business. In any case, the Queen Square house was “well fitted up,
convenient, and handsome.” Especially was there a closet or playroom up
two pair of stairs where Fanny could retire to compose her Diary, for
which task, during her father’s absence abroad, she had unexpected
opportunities. But she had also another, and more picturesque asylum in
her step-mother’s dower-house at Lynn. At the end of a long side garden
was a “Look Out” or Gazebo, called “The Cabin,” from which ships could
be seen on the Ouse. Here, except when she was driven from it to the
more secluded garden by the profane language of the seafaring
population, she was accustomed to write and dream at her ease.
Dr. Burney’s activity did not permit him to pause long after his first
book. Very soon we hear that he is learning German,—no doubt with a
purpose. In July, 1772, he set out upon a second tour, this time to
collect materials for his history in Germany and the Netherlands. During
his absence, which lasted five months, his family lived mainly at Lynn
and Chessington. In December he returned to England, terminating his
travels by an unique experience. Upon his passage to Dover, in the very
stormy winter of 1772, he was so exhausted by sea-sickness that he fell
asleep in his berth, and was carried back again to Calais. On reaching
Queen Square he had a severe illness, requiring to be carefully nursed
by his family; but, with his customary energy, dictated to his
daughters, from his bed, portions of the new Tour whenever the intervals
of pain permitted him to do so. As soon as he was convalescent, he
hastened off to Chessington, carrying his secretaries with him. The
result of his labours was at press in February, 1773, and was published
in May. It was received even more kindly than its predecessor, and
included detailed _Proposals_ for the forthcoming _General History of
Music_. Not many months after, in consequence of difficulties as to
title, the Queen Square house was given up, and the Burneys moved to
Leicester Fields.
With some account of the next new house, which had, even then, its
history, we may fitly open a fresh chapter. In closing this one,
however, something must be said as to that _Early Diary_ which Fanny
Burney began to keep in May 1768. When, in 1842-6, her _Diary and
Letters_ were edited by her sister Charlotte’s daughter, Mrs. Charlotte
Francis Barrett, an amiable and learned lady who happily combined a
knowledge of Hebrew with a genius for making jelly, it was thought right
to withhold the portions preceding the publication of _Evelina_, as
being “of a more private and personal nature than that which attaches to
the Journal after its writer became universally known.” But in 1889,
this earlier portion also was edited by the late Mrs. Annie Raine Ellis
from the original MSS. which the first writer, in her own words, had
freely “curtailed and erased of what might be mischievous from friendly
or Family Considerations.” One of the explanatory memoranda states, and
another repeats, that the record was begun at the age of fifteen.
Prefixed to the Diary, and “Addressed to a Certain Miss Nobody,” is a
whimsical Introduction, which Mrs. Barrett reproduced in _facsimile_ at
the beginning of the _Diary and Letters_ of 1842-6. This, of course, may
be earlier than the rest, as it is said to be on older paper, and in a
slightly different hand. The Diary that follows, as already stated, was
considerably revised by the writer in her old age; and, as reprinted in
1889, shows numerous omissions. Of the record for 1769, for example,
Mrs. Ellis says, “Much has been cut from the Diary of this year, and it
has many erasures. It appears to have been in two or three _cahiers_,
which all lie now within one quarto sheet of paper, so much are they
shrunk in size.” There are also large excisions in the accounts for 1771
and 1772; and the manuscript everywhere bears token of wholesale
obliterations. Where these are Miss Burney’s own, they are said to be so
effectual that scarcely a word can be read. In future chapters, we shall
take leave to make sundry extracts from the Burney chronicle; but in
this, where only a brief period (1768-73) is in question, we may fairly
confine our citations to a few notes, relating mainly to the diarist and
her method.
In the first lines of her address to Nobody, Miss Burney defines her
purpose. The reason, she says, which induces her to keep a Journal is
that, “when the hour arrives in which time is more nimble than memory,”
she may have some account of her “thoughts, manners, acquaintance and
actions.” Writing in the Cabin at Lynn a little later, she reverts to
this idea. “I cannot express the pleasure I have in writing down my
thoughts, at the very moment—my opinion of people when I first see
them, and how I alter, or how confirm myself in it—and I am much
deceived in my _fore sight_, if I shall not have very great delight in
reading this _living proof_ of my manner of passing my time, my
sentiments, my thoughts of people I know, and a thousand other things in
future—there is something to me very unsatisfactory in passing year
after year, without even a memorandum of what you did, etc.” Presently,
she has her difficulties. Dr. Burney comes upon a fugitive page of this
_chronique intime_, and though he does not forbid the practice, protests
that if he finds it lying about he will post it up in the market place.
Then one of her mother’s friends, Miss Dorothy Young (whom the first
Mrs. Burney on her death-bed had recommended her husband to marry) had
her doubts about this “most dangerous employment.” “Suppose now,” says
Miss Young, “your favourite wish were granted, and you were _to fall in
love_ [it may be noted that Fanny had already confided this tender
aspiration to her pages], and then the object of your passion were to
get sight of some part which related to himself?” Here was an appalling
suggestion, to which Fanny could only reply that she should have to take
a precipitate trip to Rosamond’s Pond in St. James’s Park, then the last
resort of the despairing. It is characteristic of this very early entry
in the Diary, that the conversation is given exactly as if it had been
reported in shorthand. As the record progresses, there are many similar
instances of this practice, which greatly irritated distrustful Mr.
Croker. “I shall recollect as much of the conversation as I can, and
make the parties speak for themselves,” Miss Burney writes of a long
interview with the currish misogynist and Tory, Dr. John Shebbeare. And
then follows a dialogue to which the names of the speakers are prefixed
as they would be in a play.
Some of the most interesting entries at this date relate to her reading,
and show that, instead of being, as Lord Macaulay supposed,[11] an
infrequent student of novels, her activity in this way was fully equal
to her opportunities. Richardson’s works she must have known intimately,
as she reminds her sister of their early love for him; she reads and
cries over and criticises the _Vicar of Wakefield_; she reads
_Rasselas_, and thinks the style and sentiments inimitable. The subject
however is dreadful. “How terrible is it to be told by a man of his
[Johnson’s] genius and knowledge, in so affectingly probable a manner,
that true, real, happiness is ever unattainable in this world!” The
_Sentimental Journey_,—which was a special favourite with her
step-mother,—she read three times; and, from a reference to “Hobby
Horses,” was probably acquainted with _Tristram Shandy_, or at all
events with its famous eighth chapter. Stranger still, she had not only
read Prévost’s _Doyen de Killérine_ (with which she is delighted), but
that very stimulating work, the _Vie de Marianne_ of Marivaux. Further,
she occasionally quotes much inferior productions, _e.g._ the _Henry and
Frances_ of Mrs. Griffiths, the _Lady Julia Mandeville_ of the
once-popular Mrs. Brooke, and the _Lydia_ of Shebbeare. These are
advanced mainly in answer to Lord Macaulay. But the _Diary_ contains
numerous references to studies of a sterner sort. Among the books she
speaks of reading, are Plutarch’s _Lives_, Pope’s _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_,
Hawkesworth’s _Telemachus_, Hume, Smollett, Smith’s _Thucydides_,
Middleton’s _Cicero_, Hooke’s _Roman_, and Stanyan’s _Grecian
History_,—all of which she professes to go through systematically. Here
is strong meat enough, one would imagine, for a budding Mme.
Roland;—certainly it would be a trying course, in the days when
skipping was unknown, for even that model and methodical student, Miss
Clarissa Harlowe. Moreover it proves plainly that Fanny’s close
attention to braid-stitch, cross-and-change, pinking, pointing,
frilling, and all the other niceties of that needlework which her
step-mother regarded as so important to young persons—did not leave her
without leisure for literature.
To give any detailed summary of the material contained in the first four
years of Miss Burney’s _Diary_ would be impracticable here. There are
several portraits which (like that of Dr. Shebbeare) show that the
writer’s pen is already working willingly and easily in what was to be
her most congenial field. There is a long description of the forgotten
Spanish traveller, Mr. Richard Twiss, a polyglot eccentric of the first
water; there is another of a delightful fop and cousin, Richard Burney,
of Worcester, Junr., the son of Dr. Burney’s elder brother; there is a
picturesque _Journal_, addressed to Susan in 1773, of a visit to
Teignmouth,—or “Tingmouth,” as the writer calls it,—which Mrs. Ellis
fairly characterises as “Fanny’s first book, privately circulated,” and
which contains some lively sketches of rural sports and watering-place
oddities. Some of these descriptions and portraits go off in letters to
“Daddy” Crisp at Chessington, who is delighted, and gives his “dearest
Fannikin” some very seasonable advice, which, in after years, she
unhappily neglected. “If once you set about framing studied letters,
that are to be correct, nicely grammatical, and run in smooth periods, I
shall mind them no otherwise than as newspapers of intelligence. . . .
There is no fault in an epistolary correspondence like stiffness and
study. Dash away whatever comes uppermost; the sudden sallies of
imagination, clap’d down on paper, just as they arise, are worth
folios. . . . Never think of being correct when you write to me.” Not
the least notable of Fanny’s records are the glimpses we get of some of
her father’s friends. One is poor mad Kit Smart, always needy and
out-at-elbows, with whom Burney had grown acquainted at Arne’s, and who
died in 1772 in the King’s Bench Prison. Another, who also died in this
period, is Hawkesworth, whose end, according to Fanny, was certainly
hastened by the attacks made upon him in connection with his subsidised
publication of Cook’s _Voyages_. Garrick more or less pervades the
chronicle, dashing into the house in the most unexpected manner; rushing
away with little Charlotte whom he declares to be the image of _Comedy_
in Reynolds’s picture; acting, grimacing, mimicking, posturing, and
altogether comporting himself in every respect like the excellent friend
and histrion he was. Fanny often sees him play—as Bayes in the
_Rehearsal_; as Richard the Third; as Lear, and as Abel Drugger in the
_Alchemist_. Of “crook’d back’d Richard” she says,—“It is inconceivable
how terribly great he is in this character! I will never see him so
disfigured again; he seemed so truly the monster he performed, that I
felt myself glow with indignation every time I saw him. The applause he
met with, exceeds all belief in the absent. I thought at the end they
would have torn the house down: our seats shook under us.” Of Lear,—“He
was exquisitely great; every idea I had formed of his talents, although
I have ever idolized him, was exceeded.” But she very properly blames
Cibber’s feeble alterations of Shakespeare’s work. As to Abel Drugger,
perhaps Garrick’s greatest part, she says:—“Never could I have imagined
such a metamorphose as I saw; the extreme meanness, the vulgarity, the
low wit, the vacancy of countenance, the appearance of _unlicked nature_
in all his motions.” These are more than the opinions of an “unlessoned
girl,” for they are confirmed to the full by experienced spectators such
as Lichtenberg and Mme. Necker. To Goldsmith, then not far from his end,
there is passing reference. “Dr. Goldsmith”—says the diary in May,
1773,—“has just brought on the stage a new comedy, called, ‘She stoops
to _Conquer_.’ We went to it with Mr. and Mrs. Young; it is very
laughable and comic; but I know not how it is, almost all diversions are
insipid at present to me, except the opera.” There is another mention of
Goldsmith a few pages further on. It relates to his projected
_Dictionary of Arts and Sciences_. Among other contributors, Dr. Burney
was to undertake the article “Musician.” But the plan never got beyond
the prospectus stage. Goldsmith died in the following year, and Dr.
Burney’s paper probably found its ultimate place in his own _History of
Music_.
-----
[1] This was Fanny Burney’s later friend,—the beautiful Mrs. Crewe of
Reynolds, and the “Amoret” of Sheridan and Charles Fox.
[2] _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, 1832, i. 134.
[3] Dr. Birkbeck Hill’s Boswell’s _Johnson_, 1887, i. 420. In a note
communicated by Burney in 1799 to the third edition of Boswell’s book,
he dates this performance “1769,” when (he says) he resided at Norfolk.
But his memory must have deceived him, for according to the _Annual
Register_ for 1763, the Burlesque was performed at Ranelagh on June 10
in that year, having been previously published as a pamphlet, which is
to be found in the British Museum; and it figures among the new books
for June, 1763, in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_. The point is a trifling
one, only important here because the success of the Ode has been
advanced as one of the things which decided its composer to leave Lynn
for London in 1760.
[4] Admiral Burney’s recollections are referred to in Hood’s “Preface”
to the separate issue of _The Dream of Eugene Aram_ published in 1831,
with William Harvey’s illustrations.
[5] _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, 1832, ii. 170-1.
[6] Crisp’s _Virginia_ was published anonymously by Tonson in 1754 with
a dedication to the writer’s friends, the Earl and Countess of Coventry.
[7] _The Cunning Man_ (_i.e._ fortune-teller or soothsayer) was produced
at Drury Lane in 1766 when Rousseau came to England, but it was coldly
received (_Biographia Dramatica_, 1812, ii. 145).
[8] In Letter LXIV. of _Evelina_, Miss Burney, applying this locution to
Lord Orville, attributes it to Marmontel. The above passage is printed
in the “Introduction” to the _Diary and Letters_, 1892, i. pp. xi-xii.
[9] _Oxford Journal_, 23 June 1769.
[10] Dr. Birkbeck Hill (Boswell’s _Johnson_, 1887, iv. 186 n.) seems,
perhaps not unnaturally, to doubt this, as Burney “writes chiefly of
music.” But it is confirmed by a passage in the _Early Diary_, 1889, i.
212. “He [Baretti] told my father that Dr. Johnson . . . has read both
his Tours with great pleasure, and has pronounced him to be _one of the
first writers of the age_ for travels!” Moreover, in the second Tour,
the author was less chary of personal anecdote. In Edward FitzGerald’s
letters, he draws Carlyle’s attention to some of the very interesting
particulars which the second Tour contains concerning Frederick the
Great (_More Letters of Edward FitzGerald_, 1901, p. 67). But Carlyle,
who quotes the visit to Voltaire from the first Tour, does not mention
the second at all.
[11] Lord Macaulay relied upon the fact, mentioned in the Dedication to
_The Wanderer_ (p. xxii), that Dr. Burney’s large library only contained
one novel, Fielding’s _Amelia_. But, as Mrs. Ellis pertinently remarks,
“Novels were brought into the house if they did not abide in it.”