THE STORY OF _EVELINA_
At the beginning of 1778, English Literature, and especially that branch
of it which consists of fiction, seems to have been suffering from a
kind of sleeping sickness. The great masters who had followed upon
Richardson’s success with _Pamela_, were gone,—as was Richardson
himself. Fielding, whose last novel of _Amelia_ had appeared in 1751,
was dead; and his far younger rival, Smollett, whose _Humphry Clinker_
came twenty years later, was also dead. Sterne was dead; Goldsmith was
dead; and both _Tristram Shandy_ and the _Vicar of Wakefield_ had been a
considerable time before the public. Johnson, whose _Rasselas_ dated
from 1759, and Horace Walpole, whose _Castle of Otranto_ dated from
1764, were the only living writers of fiction of any eminence, for it is
impossible to give a very high place to the _Julia de Roubigné_ of
Sterne’s tearful imitator, Henry Mackenzie, or to the _Champion of
Virtue_, which Walpole’s disciple, Miss Clara Reeve, afterwards re-named
_The Old English Baron_. Both of these, however, belong to 1777. Apart
from them, there is nothing that rises above the average level of the
“books in marble covers
About smart girls and dapper lovers,”
which formed the staple product of the Circulating Library,—those
“_Ventures_ of Jack this, and the History of Betsy t’other, and Sir
Humphrys, and women with hard Christian names,” which exercised the
Nurse in Colman’s _Polly Honeycombe_. “And then”—says the Author in his
Prologue—
“And then so _sentimental_ is the Stile,
So chaste, yet so bewitching all the while!
Plot, and elopement, passion, rape, and rapture,
The total sum of ev’ry dear—dear—Chapter.”
Of these latter and minor performances, perhaps the only one which—for
the moment—deserves a passing mention is the _Excursion_ of Mrs.
Frances Brooke, already referred to in Chapter I. as the popular author
of _Lady Julia Mandeville_. The _Excursion_ has a certain faint interest
from the fact that, preceding _Evelina_ only by a few months, it deals,
to some extent, with a similar theme, since the heroine is described as
“a young lady of family but small fortune, with a mind sensible and
improved, but totally ignorant of the world,” who “launches out from the
country, steering, without a pilot or compass, through the rocks and
shelves of a London life.” One of her perils is, of course, a heartless
young nobleman, educated by his father “upon the detestable plan” of my
Lord Chesterfield, whose _Miscellaneous Works_ had then just been issued
by Dr. Maty. Fanny Burney knew Mrs. Brooke’s books, and had indeed made
her personal acquaintance, both in the studio of Miss Catherine Reid,
the “English Rosalba,” and at the Opera House in the Haymarket, of which
Mrs. Brooke was co-lessee with the actress, Mary Ann Yates. “Mrs. Brooke
is very short and fat, and squints”—writes Fanny of their first
interview, “but has the art of showing agreeable ugliness. She is very
well bred, and expresses herself with much modesty upon all subjects;
which in an _authoress_, a woman of _known_ understanding, is extremely
pleasing.” But save and except the very superficial resemblance referred
to above, there is no trace of any connection between the _Excursion_
and _Evelina_. Indeed, as for the _Excursion_, although Sylvanus Urban
contrives to give it a review of two or three columns,—a far longer
notice than he afterwards, and very tardily, accorded to _Evelina_,—it
is not more readable to-day than the same author’s _Lady Julia
Mandeville_, or her translations from the French,—that is to say, it is
not readable at all.
It has already been stated in Chapter I., that, amid the fuel of Miss
Burney’s Poland Street holocaust, was “an entire work of fiction.” This
was _The History of Caroline Evelyn_, of which we know no more than is
told us in the Preface to _The Wanderer_ and the _Memoirs of Dr.
Burney_. It was “the last of the little works that was immolated,” and
contained the history of Evelina’s mother, who, as appears from the
later novel dealing with her daughter’s entrance into the world, was the
only child of a gentleman of birth and education named Evelyn. Mr.
Evelyn having been unwise enough to marry a good-looking waitress at a
tavern, had in consequence migrated to France, where he died. His
daughter Caroline, after being brought up carefully by his old tutor,
the Rev. Mr. Villars, was sent for to Paris by her vulgar mother, who,
by this time had married again, her second husband being a Frenchman
named Duval. Oppressed by Mme. Duval, and menaced with an unsuitable
partner, Miss Evelyn rashly consented to marry, without witnesses, a
profligate young baronet, Sir John Belmont, who brought her back to
England. Here after the approved fashion of profligate young baronets in
novels, he, in due time, destroyed the marriage certificate, denying
that the ceremony had ever taken place. His broken-hearted wife sought
an asylum with her old guardian, Mr. Villars, and subsequently died in
giving birth to Evelina.
Such is the _History of Caroline Evelyn_, as it is summarised in the
opening letters of her daughter’s story; and such, we may imagine, in
expanded form, must have been the matter of the manuscript which was
burnt. Whatever was the precise date of its destruction, it must
obviously have been a very juvenile performance. It was certainly
written before its author had begun her Journal—in other words, before
she had begun, not only to record her thoughts and feelings, but to take
intelligent stock of the variations of humanity; and it must also have
been written before she had been subjected to the discipline of acting
as private secretary to her father. As to the plot, there was nothing in
that beyond the ability of an imaginative schoolgirl. Unfortunate
heroine, heartless parent, profligate baronet, private marriage, burnt
certificate,—these were the conventional material of contemporary
fiction, if indeed they did not come direct from _Grandison_ or
_Clarissa_. What would be interesting to know is, whether the _History
of Caroline Evelyn_ contained any promise of character-drawing, still
more of social satire and humourous incident. We suspect it did not. In
all likelihood, it was merely a sentimental exercise in the taste which
then represented the degradation of the Richardsonian method, as
modified by French imitators; and perhaps aimed at nothing more than
mild rivalry of the existing biographies of _Miss Polly Willis_, _Miss
Lucy Wellers_, _Miss Charlotte Villars_, and the rest of the ingenious
works enumerated at the end of the Preface to _Polly Honeycombe_.
There is no doubt that when Fanny Burney made dutiful sacrifice of the
_History of Caroline Evelyn_, she sincerely intended, in her own words,
“to extinguish for ever in its ashes her scribbling propensity.” But
_qui a bu, boira_. As we have seen, the checked impulse almost
immediately found its outlet in keeping a journal; and to keep a journal
was but, in another form, to exercise the prohibited gift and to gratify
the old ambition. The fire which “consumed her productions, extirpated
neither the invention nor the inclination that had given them birth”;
and, as time went on, she felt herself more and more disposed to revert
to her first conception, and to brood over the singular situation in
which Miss Evelyn’s daughter must find herself “between the elegant
connections of her mother, and the vulgar ones of her grandmother.”
Irresistibly and almost insensibly, she felt the whole story forming
itself gradually in her mind, and calling urgently to be written down,
long before a syllable was committed to paper. When she actually began
to write, is not clear. It was in 1768 that the diary opened; but there
are no hints of the composition of _Evelina_ for some time to come.
Probably it was written by fits and starts; and grew but very gradually
into shape, making its greatest progress during its writer’s visits to
Chessington, or in the leisure procured during her father’s two absences
on the continent. And much of it was no doubt penned in Newton’s old
observatory, remote from her step-mother’s watchful eye.
It must have been in 1776, after the publication of the first volume of
Dr. Burney’s _History of Music_, that Fanny began definitely to think of
print. Having been long accustomed to act as secretary for her father,
she grew apprehensive lest her ordinary script should be recognised at
press; and she therefore proceeded to transcribe her work “in a feigned
hand.” “The fear of discovery,” she writes, “or of suspicion in the
house, made the copying extremely laborious to me; for in the daytime, I
could only take odd moments, so that I was obliged to sit up the
greatest part of many nights, in order to get it ready.” By the time two
volumes were completed, she was sufficiently tired out—with “all this
_fagging_”—to wish to know whether her labour was likely to be in vain.
She accordingly wrote a letter to Dodsley of Pall Mall, without
signature, offering him what she had already prepared, and promising to
transmit the remainder in the following year. The reply was to be
addressed to the Orange Coffee House in the Haymarket, under cover to an
imaginary “Mr. Grafton.” Dodsley’s answer was to the effect that he
could not consider the work without being informed of the author’s name.
Thereupon Fanny, and her only confidantes, her sisters, after sitting in
committee upon this discouraging reply, decided that it would be wiser
to try a less fashionable publisher. They fixed upon Mr. Thomas Lowndes
of 77 Fleet Street, who expressed a desire to see the manuscript. It was
accordingly carried to Fleet Street, “in the dark of the evening,” by
Fanny’s brother Charles, who, having been admitted to the secret, was
disguised for the occasion by his sisters in appropriate costume. But
the bookseller’s reply, though one which might have been expected, was a
disappointment. Mr. Lowndes informed his correspondent at the Orange
Coffee House, that, while (with some reservations) he approved the
instalment submitted, he could not think of printing the book until it
was finished; and that he would consequently await the author’s
pleasure, hoping to receive it as soon as it was ready for type.
Here was a blow which, for the moment, suspended all further progress.
“I had hardly time,” says Fanny, “to write half a page in a day; and
neither my health nor inclination would allow me to continue my
_nocturnal_ scribbling for so long a time, as to write first, and then
copy, a whole volume.”[30] Nevertheless, she must have gone on with it
at intervals. In March, 1777, when, as already related, she went to
Chessington, she was certainly at work upon it. “Distant as you may
think us from the great world,” she writes to her sister Susan, “I
sometimes find myself in the midst of it, though nobody suspects the
brilliancy of the company I occasionally keep.” This is a transparent
reference to the characters of the book upon which she was engaged. In
April, she went to Worcester; and before starting, appears to have
determined that the time had arrived when she must divulge her secret to
her father. Hitherto she had never taken any serious step without his
knowledge; and on this occasion had refrained from obtaining his
concurrence, first from an unwillingness to acknowledge her authorship,
and secondly, from a dread that he might ask to see what she had
written. Upon this latter head, however, she was speedily reassured.
Although Dr. Burney—who, we must remember, was wholly without previous
information on the subject—treated the communication very lightly, he
was evidently surprised. In amused compliance with his daughter’s urgent
appeal for secrecy, he nevertheless forbore even to ask the title of the
book, or to make any further enquiries. He only requested to be
informed, from time to time, of its progress towards completion; and
then left Fanny to follow her own devices. Probably he thought no more
of the matter. Preoccupied with his own affairs, he can have attached
but slight importance to the intelligence conveyed to him; and certainly
never dreamed that his daughter’s attempt would be attended with
success. And so Fanny, having liberated her mind, and eased her filial
conscience, set off for Worcester.
When she got back to St. Martin’s Street, she finished the preparation
of vol. iii., which was handed to Mr. Lowndes, who, in a few days,
offered £20 for the manuscript,—“an offer which was accepted with
alacrity, and boundless surprise at its magnificence,” by the anonymous
author.[31] The next we hear of the book is in the middle of January,
1778. About this date, Edward Burney, the artist, who had been promoted
to the post of confidential agent in place of his cousin Charles, then
in the country, arrived with news that a parcel was waiting for “Mr.
Grafton” at the Orange Coffee House. It proved to contain a printed but
incomplete and unbound copy of _Evelina_, which was accompanied by a
letter from Mr. Lowndes, requesting that a “List of Errata” might be
supplied without delay. This was accordingly done; and the book was
returned to the publisher, by whom, shortly afterwards, it was
advertised in the _London Chronicle_ for January 27-9, and elsewhere, as
on sale, in three volumes, 12mo, price 7s. 6d. sewed, and 9s. bound,
under the title of _Evelina; or, A Young Lady’s Entrance into the
World_. Mrs. Burney read out the announcement at the St. Martin’s Street
breakfast table; but, being ignorant of the circumstances, naturally
failed to detect the signs of intelligence which passed between Fanny
and her sisters. Whether Dr. Burney was present, is not recorded; but as
he did not know the name of the book, what was to its writer the
earliest notification of its public appearance would probably have
escaped his attention. For some weeks nothing more was heard of the
matter, although, in March, the sisters and their cousin Edward, making
enquiry at Bell’s Library in the Strand, found that _Evelina_ was in
circulation; and that, as Fanny puts it, “a work which was so lately
lodged, in all privacy in her bureau, was now to be seen by every
butcher and baker, cobbler and tinker, throughout the three kingdoms for
the small tribute of three pence.” After this, Dr. Burney fell ill of
fever. Having helped to nurse him, Fanny herself had inflammation of the
lungs; and, in May, went off to Chessington to recruit. It was at
Chessington that she received, at this late hour, the first copy of her
book, for which she had hitherto applied unsuccessfully to Mr. Lowndes.
He now forwarded a set “most elegantly bound” (which may be taken as an
indication that it was growing in popularity), and this copy was
apparently followed by ten further copies. Some time, however, was still
to elapse before _Evelina_ became thoroughly well known, and we may
occupy the interval with an examination of its contents.[32]
The plot is neither very original nor very intricate. With the parentage
and early history of the heroine, Evelina Anville or, more properly,
Belmont, the reader has already been made acquainted. At the beginning
of the story, her low-born grandmother, Mme. Duval, having ignored her
for seventeen years, has begun to show disquieting signs of seeking to
obtain control over her, much to the dismay of her guardian, the
excellent Mr. Villars. But nothing happens until Mr. Villars, having
permitted Evelina to visit his and her friend, Lady Howard, at Howard
Grove, is unwillingly persuaded to let her accompany Lady Howard’s
daughter, Mrs. Mirvan, on a visit to London. Mrs. Mirvan is going to
town to meet her husband, a Captain in the Navy, newly returned from a
seven-years’ absence on a distant station. They take lodgings in
Queen-Anne-Street, Cavendish Square. From this point Evelina mainly
holds the pen. Almost as a matter of course, one of the first persons
they encounter is Mme. Duval, travelling with a Frenchman named Du Bois.
(Du Bois, it may be mentioned in parenthesis, was the name of Fanny’s
Huguenot grandfather.) To Mrs. Mirvan’s aristocratic acquaintances, Mme.
Duval speedily opposes her own vulgar connections, the Branghtons, a
silversmith’s family on Snow-Hill, with whom, in due time, originates
the suggestion that “Miss,” as they call Evelina, shall endeavour to
obtain recognition by her father,—an idea which obviously has its
source in their desire to secure Mme. Duval’s fortune for themselves. At
the instance of Mme. Duval, then staying at Howard Grove, Lady Howard
writes to Sir John Belmont, who returns an answer from the studious
ambiguity of which it is impossible to extract anything but a rather
contemptuous negative. The Mirvans, who have been temporising with Mme.
Duval in order to keep Evelina with them as long as possible, are now
obliged to surrender her for a time to her objectionable grandmother, by
whom she is carried to London and her Snow-Hill cousins. Eventually she
returns to Mr. Villars. But during her stay in Holborn, she has become
acquainted with one of the Branghtons’ lodgers, a young Scotchman in
destitute circumstances, named Macartney, whom she saves from suicide.
In Paris Macartney has fallen in love with a beautiful English girl, the
alleged daughter of a baronet, who turns out to be Sir John Belmont
himself. This girl is a certain Bessie Green, who has been palmed off
upon his paternal remorse as Caroline Evelyn’s child. Finally, at Bath,
things come right. While Evelina is there on a visit, her father arrives
to drink the waters, accompanied by the pseudo-Miss Belmont. But
Evelina’s striking resemblance to her dead mother is unmistakable; she
is at once acknowledged by Sir John Belmont with appropriate heroics,
and at the close of volume three, bestows her hand upon Lord Orville,
the best of a fair number of eligible and ineligible suitors.
This, reduced to an outline, is the plot of Miss Burney’s story; and
that it has any special novelty of construction, can scarcely be
contended. Nor, although she has adopted the “epistolary Style” of
Richardson, can it be said to bear any great likeness to the work of
that master. There is no endeavour after mental analysis; or—it may be
added—any obtrusive evidence of prolixity. The book does not, like the
novels of Fielding and Smollett, deal with humanity in the rough; but
rather with humanity in the circumscribed arena of domestic life. Its
distinctive merit consists in the skill and graphic power of the
character drawing; in the clever contrast of the different
individualities; in the author’s keen if somewhat crude sense of the
ridiculous; and, above all, in the sprightliness and vivacity of her
narrative, especially when she writes in the person of the heroine. And
this last, in great measure, is due to the fact that in Evelina Miss
Burney has portrayed her younger self. Until the publication of the
_Early Diary_, this, though conjectured, was not clearly established.
But a perusal of the letters to Mr. Crisp, of the Teignmouth and
Worcester Journals, and of half a dozen of the reported conversations,
shows clearly that Evelina Anville, narrating her adventures to Mr.
Villars, was using very much the same pen as Frances Burney had employed
for those _nouvelles à-la-main_ which, from time to time, she despatched
to “Daddy” Crisp at Chessington. The writer who describes the
theatricals at Barborne Lodge, or recounts the long conversations with
Mr. Barlow, is precisely the same person who, in the novel, reproduces
the small talk in the tea-room at the Pantheon, or records the
rough-and-tumble misadventures of Mme. Duval at Ranelagh. All these
people and places Miss Burney had seen; or if she had not, it needed
little but her perceptive faculty, her sense of humour, and her
dramatising gift, to enable her to invent similar characters, and
exhibit them in action.
It is possible, of course, that, in some cases, Miss Burney leaned upon
her predecessors, especially where her own experiences fell short. Lord
Orville, it has been suggested, is a recollection of the hero of _Sir
Charles Grandison_; Sir Clement Willoughby, of Sir Hargrave Pollexfen or
Mr. Greville in the same novel. That she should think of these
then-established types would, indeed, be only natural. But while
Richardson drew his male heroes mainly from his moral consciousness,
Miss Burney has rectified her puppets from her personal recollections.
Lord Orvilles, perhaps, were not very common in her environment. Still,
to say nothing of King in Lord Ogleby (she knew the _Clandestine
Marriage_ by heart), she had seen and heard a live fine gentleman in
Fulke Greville; and in Mr. Anthony Chamier and Mr. Charles Boone had
conversed with some flesh-and-blood specimens of men of the world, who
helped to make her characters, objectively at all events, more
convincingly real than those of Richardson. For Lord Orville—though
somewhat shadowy—is really a nobleman; and Sir Clement Willoughby, a
not-inconceivable specimen of the _genus_ “agreeable rake.” As to the
impertinent fop, Mr. Lovel, one can imagine that she would have little
difficulty in constructing him—with an added sprinkle of malice—out of
the “scraps and heel-taps” of her coxcomb cousin, Richard Burney of
Worcester, or of that other fantastic feather-head, the Spanish
traveller, Mr. Twiss. But the Lovels, and the Orvilles, and the
Willoughbys, clever as they are, would scarcely have made the fortune of
_Evelina_; still less would the benedictory Mr. Villars, the exemplary
Lady Howard, Mrs. Mirvan and her daughter, or that melancholy concession
to sentimentalism, Mr. Macartney. These belong to the working machinery
of the story; its prominent interest, apart from its accurate pictures
of contemporary character and manners, is concentrated upon the two
antagonists, Captain Mirvan and Mme. Duval, and upon the inimitably
vulgar Branghton group, which includes the Holborn beau, Mr. Smith.
Madame Duval, in particular, is drawn with remarkable vigour, though it
is difficult to imagine how, at any period of her life, an educated man
could possibly have married her. Her illiterate English with its cheap
French tags, her _Ma fois_ and her Shakespearean superlatives, all
combine to make a most graphic broad-comedy portrait. She would perhaps
have been better for a touch, which Goldsmith would certainly not have
omitted, of tenderness somewhere; as it is, the only sign of anything
approaching that quality is her solicitude for M. Du Bois, the poor
French gentleman who accompanies her,—one hardly knows why,—for he has
no very definite purpose in the book beyond swelling the list of
Evelina’s admirers, and opposing his courtesy and unobtrusive good
manners to the rudeness of his immediate associates. But though no
softer traits make us admire Mme. Duval, one can at least be sorry for
her. A certain amount of horse-play—and even the ruining of a new Lyons
silk costume—are perhaps permissible in a roaring farce; but to drag an
elderly woman forcibly along the high road, shake her furiously, deposit
her in a ditch (bumping her vigorously the while), and then tie her feet
together, leaving her “almost roaring, and in the utmost agony of rage
and terror”—certainly seems to be going to unusual lengths in the
pursuit of practical joking, even with a person who has so far forgotten
herself as to spit in your face. If Mme. Duval was not a person of
“position” in one sense, she was at least (as the Colonel says in
_Punch_) a person of exceedingly “uncomfortable position” in another.
Yet, as Miss Burney has depicted the episode, we must presume that she
has actually depicted something she had heard of or seen. And there is
no doubt that there was an under side to the often superficial and
conventional refinement of her day,—a side of absolute heartlessness
and insensibility, begotten of brutal pastimes, butcherly penal laws,
and a cynical disregard for the value of human life. Even in that
admirable comedy of Goldsmith which Miss Burney had seen played not so
very many years before the appearance of _Evelina_, there are traces of
this, though Goldsmith was the most amiable of men. Yet even Goldsmith
allows Tony Lumpkin to tell an audience that, after jolting two ladies,
one of them his own mother, to a jelly, he has finally lodged them in a
horsepond; and everyone seems to think the joke an excellent one. Nor
are there any indications that Johnson or Reynolds ever commented upon
the callous barbarity of the proceeding.
This being so, we could perhaps hardly expect any superfine delicacy
from the rough sailor whom Miss Burney has invented for Mme. Duval’s
discomfiture. Captain Mirvan is an officer of the Oakum and Hatchway
type rather than of the Lieutenant Bowling order. His twin aversions are
a fop and a Frenchman; and he meets them both; or rather, in place of
the latter, he meets an Englishwoman naturalised in France, which does
as well. Indeed, it is a little curious that, in his hatred of “Madam
Frog,” as he calls Evelina’s grandmother, Captain Mirvan entirely
overlooks the fact that Mme. Duval is really nothing more than a vulgar
English barmaid. Captain Mirvan is excellently conceived, but only
partially exhibited. To say nothing of the fact that he is a seaman on
shore, it would have been impossible for Evelina to depict him except in
expurgated form. She herself allows as much to Mr. Villars.
“Notwithstanding the attempts I so frequently make of writing some of
the Captain’s conversation, I can only give you a faint idea of his
language; for almost every other word he utters, is accompanied by an
oath, which, I am sure, would be as unpleasant for you to read, as for
me to write. And, besides, he makes use of a thousand sea-terms, which
are to me quite unintelligible.” Miss Burney had a brother who was a
lieutenant in the navy, and no doubt was sufficiently instructed as to
the manners and customs of the mariners of Cook’s day. She moreover
appreciated to the full their delight in hoaxes and practical jokes. As
regards their oaths and asseverations no one can blame her reticence,—a
reticence which was commended even by her contemporaries. But it is
permissible to criticism to observe that a Georgian ship-captain _ad
usum Delphini_, and deprived in great measure of his picturesque
nautical jargon is an artistic contradiction which it is difficult to
invest with complete and convincing reality. It is no doubt owing in
part to the absence of his uncouth amphibious atmosphere that Captain
Mirvan’s baiting of Mme. Duval leaves such an unpleasantly cold-blooded
impression upon the modern reader. On ship-board, and in his own
element, he was no doubt a brave man and a smart officer. On shore, he
is an unmitigated bear; and since Mme. Duval was in a way his guest, an
absolutely inconceivable host.
Of the Branghton family, Miss Burney has given, at the outset, a rather
fuller introductory description than she usually gives of her
characters. The father, Mme. Duval’s nephew, is a silversmith on
Snow-Hill, a man about forty, intelligent, but contracted and
prejudiced, having spent his life in the city, and contemptuous of all
who reside elsewhere. His son is “weaker in his understanding, and more
gay in his temper; but his gaiety is that of a foolish, over-grown
schoolboy, whose mirth consists in noise and disturbance. He disdains
his father for his close attention to business, and love of money;
though he seems himself to have no talents, spirit, or generosity, to
make him superior to either. His chief delight appears to be tormenting
and ridiculing his sisters, who, in return, most heartily despise him.”
The elder girl is not ill-looking; but is proud, ill-tempered and
conceited. “She hates the city, though without knowing why; for it is
easy to discover she has lived no where else.” The younger sister,
Polly, is “rather pretty, very foolish, very ignorant, very giddy and
very good natured.” This worshipful family, after the fashion of the
eighteenth century, live at the shop in the city, and let some of the
rooms. One of the garrets is occupied by the already mentioned Scotch
poet, Macartney, while the dining room is in possession of the Holborn
beau, who, besides keeping a foot-boy of his own, is—according to Miss
Polly Branghton—“quite like one of the quality, and dresses as fine,
and goes to balls and dances, and everything quite in taste.” Mr. Smith,
with his underbred gentility and his awkward sprightliness, is the most
vivid of the portraits in the book.
With enforced associates of this type, it is easy to conceive that
Evelina is continually involved in vexation and embarrassment, and even
landed in some equivocal situations. The Branghtons take her to the
Opera, but carry her to the shilling gallery. They take her to Vauxhall,
where, unlike Goldsmith’s pawnbroker’s widow, she _does_ contrive to see
the famous waterworks. But by the heedlessness of her cousins, she is
decoyed into the dubious Dark Walks, where she is rescued from a gang of
rakes by Sir Clement Willoughby, only to be subsequently subjected by
him to impertinent gallantries on his own account. After this, she goes
to a ball at the Long Room at Hampstead with Mme. Duval, where she has
the greatest difficulty in avoiding to “hop a dance” with the
importunate Holborn beau, who, in the phrase of his circle is “as fine
as fivepence.” At Marylebone Gardens an explosion of M. Torré’s
fireworks terrifies her into seeking the protection of some very
undesirable companions of her own sex, in whose compromising company, to
her intense annoyance, she is discovered both by Lord Orville and Sir
Clement Willoughby. Finally, after she has been pestered by the
attentions of Mr. Smith, and threatened by Mme. Duval with young
Branghton as a husband, the full measure of her mortification is filled
at Kensington Gardens, where, in a soaking shower, her cousins contrive
to borrow Lord Orville’s coach, in her name, although against her will.
As a result the coach is badly injured in taking these discreditable
connections to Snow Hill. There are other consequences to this
misadventure, but they cannot be touched upon here.
These scenes at the old London pleasure resorts of Evelina’s century—as
was admitted by her contemporaries—are depicted with full knowledge,
and with a spirit and animation not to be found elsewhere, though it is
difficult to make quotation from them without presenting them
imperfectly. One passage, however, which Johnson admired, we may venture
to cite, with the _caveat_ that a brick is not a building. The party are
in the Great Room at Vauxhall, looking at one of Hayman’s paintings;—we
may assume it, from the reference to Neptune, to be that which
commemorated Admiral Hawke’s defeat of the French in Quiberon Bay.
Evelina has asked M. Du Bois for an explanation of the subject: Mme.
Duval invokes the assistance of Mr. Smith, who, for the moment, is
sorely crestfallen at the superior ease and splendour of Sir Clement
Willoughby:—
“‘Don’t ask him [M. Du Bois]’—she cries—‘your best way is to ask Mr.
Smith, for he’s been here the oftenest. Come, Mr. Smith, I daresay you
can tell us all about them.’
“‘Why, yes, Ma’am, yes,’ said Mr. Smith: who, brightening up at this
application, advanced towards us, with an air of assumed importance,
which, however, sat very uneasily upon him, and begged to know what he
should explain first: ‘For I have attended,’ said he, ‘to all these
paintings, and know everything in them perfectly well; for I am rather
fond of pictures, Ma’am; and, really, I must say, I think a pretty
picture is a—a very—is really a very—is something very pretty——’
“‘So do I too,’ said Madame Duval, ‘but pray now, Sir, tell us who that
is meant for,’ pointing to a figure of Neptune.
“‘That!—Why, that, Ma’am, is,— . . . I can’t think how I come to be so
stupid, but really I have forgot his name;—and yet, I know it as well
as my own too,—however, he’s a _General_, Ma’am, they are all
Generals.’
“I saw Sir Clement bite his lips; and, indeed, so did I mine.
“‘Well,’ said Madame Duval, ‘it’s the oddest dress for a general ever I
see!’
“‘He seems so capital a figure,’ said Sir Clement to Mr. Smith, ‘that I
imagine he must be _Generalissimo_ of the whole army.’
“‘Yes, Sir, yes,’ answered Mr. Smith, respectfully bowing, and highly
delighted at being thus referred to, ‘you are perfectly right;—but I
cannot for my life think of his name;—perhaps, Sir, you may remember
it?’
“‘No, really,’ replied Sir Clement, ‘my acquaintance among the generals
is not so extensive.’
“The ironical tone of voice in which Sir Clement spoke, entirely
disconcerted Mr. Smith; who again retiring to a humble distance, seemed
sensibly mortified at the failure of the attempt to recover his
consequence.”
After volume two, we hear little of Mme. Duval or the Branghtons; and
Captain Mirvan only appears at the end of the book for the exposure of
the fop, Mr. Lovel, which he accomplishes with his customary cruelty.
Croker thought this latter part “very tedious,” but his objection was
not shared by Miss Burney’s first readers. There are, it is true, no
characters in it as broadly drawn as Captain Mirvan and Mme. Duval; but
those that are new, have all the trick of the time. Lord Merton and Mr.
Coverley are typical examples of the Georgian man of pleasure, and the
race of old women by which they settle their wager, could easily,
painful as it seemed to the lookers-on, have been paralleled from the
annals of the day. Indeed, something of the kind was devised by Garrick
for the diversions of his Hampton Villa. Lady Louisa Larpent is an
excellent specimen of the die-away, lackadaisical lady of quality who
must have abounded at the old watering places, while the remorseless
Mrs. Selwyn, secure in her age and independent means, and devoting
herself entirely to the reckless gratification of her caustic humour, is
again a thoroughly recognisable society type. In fact, these latter
personages are truer to the social conditions of the day than even
“Madam French” and the Captain, and only failed of equal applause
because they were less novel. So far from being tedious, the last volume
seems to us the most easily written. The intrigue, slight as it is, is
artfully entangled, and the style has the additional freedom which might
be expected from the fact that there was now a definite publisher in
sight, as soon as the work should be brought to an end.
Prefixed to _Evelina_ is a votive poem of five quatrains, a “Dedication
addressed to the Authors of the _Monthly_ and _Critical Reviews_,” and a
Preface. The verses, although headed “To **** *****,” are of course
intended for Dr. Burney.
“Oh! of my life at once the source and joy!
If e’er thy eyes these feeble lines survey,
Let not their folly their intent destroy;
Accept the tribute—but forget the lay”—
they conclude, and it would be idle to pretend that their affection is
not more manifest than their poetical merit. The “Dedication” and the
“Preface,” on the contrary, are well invented; and moreover, shew
plainly that, in serious or impersonal prose, the Johnsonian standard,
afterwards so obtrusive in the writer’s work, was already present to her
mind. Speaking, in the Preface, of her predecessors in fiction, she
says, “I yet presume not to attempt pursuing the same ground which they
have tracked; whence, though they may have cleared the weeds, they have
also culled the flowers; and, though they have rendered the path plain,
they have left it barren.” Again, “Whatever may be the fate of these
letters, the writer is satisfied they will meet with justice; and
commends them to the press, though hopeless of fame, yet not regardless
of censure.” These are sentences which, with their balanced turn, and
contrast of clauses, might have come direct from _Rasselas_ or the
_Rambler_. The same Preface contains a passage to which we are probably
indebted for much of that old persistent misconception as to the
author’s age, of which Croker (“no one could lash a woman like Rigby!”)
made such paltry capital. “To draw characters from nature, though not
from life, and to mark the manners of the times, is the attempted plan
of the following letters. For this purpose, a young female, educated in
the most secluded retirement, makes, _at the age of seventeen_ [the
italics are ours], her first appearance upon the great and busy stage of
life.” Here, no doubt, is the source and origin of the story which
Croker had “always seen and heard stated.” To any unprejudiced mind, it
must be obvious that Miss Burney is referring, not to her own age, but
to that of her heroine; and this is confirmed—if confirmation were
needed—by her Diary. “I have not pretended,” she writes in March, 1778,
“to shew the world what it actually is, but what it _appears_ to a girl
of seventeen:—and so far as that, surely any girl who is _past_
seventeen may safely do?” And yet, as late as 1871, a critic was found
to quote the words of the “Preface” and to contend, in Croker’s
interest, that Miss Burney was speaking of herself.[33]
The first of the Reviews to answer the appeal in the Dedication was not
either of those to which the author had referred. In the _London Review_
for February there was a tiny notice of three lines. But, considering
that it came from, or was approved by, the critic whom Macaulay
stigmatises as the “envious Kenrick,” it was not unfriendly. “There was
much more merit” in Evelina’s history, it said, “as well respecting
style, character and incident, than was generally to be found among our
modern novels.” The _Monthly Review_ (Mr. Ralph Griffiths) was the next
to take up the book, making its report in April. This was not long; but
it was excellent. It pronounced _Evelina_ to be “one of the most
sprightly, entertaining, and agreeable productions” of the kind which
had of late fallen under its notice. It praised the “great variety of
natural incidents,” and declared the characters to be “agreeably
diversified, conceived and drawn with propriety, and supported with
spirit.” “The whole,” it went on, “is written with great ease, and
command of language. From this commendation, however, we must except the
character of a son of Neptune, whose manners are rather those of a rough
uneducated country squire, than those of a genuine sea captain.” For the
_Critical Review_ Miss Burney had to wait until September, when Sylvanus
Urban also joined the concert. The notice in the _Critical Review_ was
the longest of all. It compared the writer with Richardson. It
considered the first and third volumes to be the best, and it praised
Mme. Duval and Captain Mirvan as, in great measure, original. With
respect to the author, whom it speaks of as “he,” it was still wholly in
the dark; and it commended the knowledge of the world and the experience
of life which the book contained. Mr. Urban contented himself with a
long extract from the “Preface,” and concluded, “Such is the just
account given of this work by the author; to which we shall only add
that these vols. will afford a pleasing innocent amusement, exhibiting,
in an easy style, many such characters as occur in the world, not raised
so high as to be extravagant, nor sunk so low as to be disgusting.”
There is no definite evidence that Miss Burney had any knowledge either
of Kenrick’s or Griffiths’ review, when, in May, she went to
Chessington. While she was at “Daddy” Crisp’s—as already related—the
first bound copy was received from Lowndes. But those in the secret had
kept it well, and it was not until June that it was really revealed. In
March, Fanny’s cousin Richard, recovering from an illness, had heard
_Evelina_ read aloud, and was taken into confidence; while in May, his
sister Bessy, one of the actors in the Worcester theatricals, had, in
her own phrase, “smoked” Fanny in the new book, which was beginning to
be talked about. But Fanny’s father, to whom _Evelina_ was dedicated,
was still wholly ignorant of the matter, and his diffident daughters did
not dare to undeceive him. At last, at the beginning of June, Charlotte
writes jubilantly that Papa has been looking at the review in the
_Monthly_, and has bought a copy of _Evelina_. He has been much affected
by the _Ode_, and is reading the book to Lady Hales and another friend.
He thinks the Preface and Dedication “_vastly strong and well written_,”
Susan reports to the author. The account of public places (he declares)
is “very animated, and natural, and not _common_”; and in his opinion,
Lowndes has had a very good bargain. By June 16 he has finished it. It
is “the best novel he knows,” says the proud father, “excepting
Fielding’s,” and in some respects it is better even than his. His only
objection is to Mirvan’s treatment of Lovel, which is “a brutality which
does not make one laugh.” Villars and Lord Orville he admired greatly;
and he has “blubbered” over the scenes at the end between Evelina and
Sir John Belmont. As to his lady auditors, they are still crying. For
Fanny’s sake (“Poor Fan’s _such_ a prude”), he will keep the secret
snug; but he evidently does not apprehend that its disclosure would
bring her any discredit. “For a young woman’s work, I look upon it to be
really WONDERFUL!”
All this Susan Burney recapitulates with abundant decorative detail to
the delighted author at Chessington, whose foremost anxiety had been as
to her father’s opinion. She herself has been reading the book aloud to
Mr. Crisp, who, good, easy man, has no suspicions, but is interested,
and tantalised into greater curiosity by having to wait patiently for
the successive volumes. Presently _Evelina_ is recommended by a lady to
Mrs. Thrale, who “likes it VASTLY—is EXTREMELY pleased with it.”
Whatever human _nature_ there may be in Mme. Riccoboni,[34] she tells
Mrs. Burney, who has been praising that writer, there is human _life_ in
_Evelina_, and the manners of the time. “It’s writ (she says) by
somebody that knows _the top and the bottom_, the _highest_ and _lowest_
of mankind.” Thereupon Mrs. Burney borrows it to read; and long letters
go off to Fanny embodying the remarks of both parents over the book as
they study it slowly in bed in the morning. Finally, as Dr. Burney has
obtained Fanny’s leave to tell Mrs. Thrale, Mrs. Burney also has to be
told. And then—crown of all things!—comes a congratulatory letter from
Mrs. Thrale herself, praising _Evelina_ for “probability of story,
elegance of sentiment, and general power over the mind, whether exerted
in humour or pathos.” But “the cream of the correspondence,” as Tony
Lumpkin calls it, is not for once in a postscript. It is in the middle.
Dr. JOHNSON has read the first two volumes, and protests there are
“passages in the book which might do honour to Richardson.” He is
hungering for the _dénoûment_, and is now hard at work on volume three.
This astounding intelligence has such an effect upon the author that, in
her own words, “it almost crazed her with agreeable surprise.” It gave
her such a flight of spirits that she then and there “danced a jigg to
Mr. Crisp, without any preparation, music, or explanation,—to his no
small amazement, and diversion.” She was an expert emulator of the
light-heeled Nancy Dawson; and the scene of this impromptu
performance—as she told Sir Walter Scott forty-eight years
afterwards—was a mulberry tree in the garden at Chessington.[35]
“Daddy” Crisp was now almost the only person out of the secret; and he
had to be enlightened. Dr. Burney took this duty upon himself when he
came down to Chessington in August to fetch away his daughter; and the
old man’s pride and surprise and delight were unbounded.
-----
[30] This suggests that, at the beginning of 1777, the _third_ volume
was not yet composed.
[31] After the third edition (1779) Lowndes paid her another £10, making
£30 in all (_Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, 1832, ii. 151).
[32] _Diary and Letters_, 1892, i. 10; _Memoirs of Dr. Burney_, 1832,
ii. 149; _Early Diary_, 1889, ii. 239 n.
[33] Forsyth, _Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century_, 1871, p.
325.
[34] Marie-Jeanne de Heurles de Laboras, Mme. Riccoboni, _d._ 1792,
translated Fielding’s _Amelia_ and Kelly’s _False Delicacy_ into French,
and continued Marivaux’ _Marianne_. She wrote several sentimental
novels, one of which Mrs. Brooke Englished as _Lady Catesby’s Letters_.
[35] _Journal of Sir Walter Scott_, 1891, i. 309.