Frances Burney was descended from a family which bore the name of
Macburney, and which, though probably of Irish origin, had been long
settled in Shropshire and was possessed of considerable estates in that
county. Unhappily, many years before her birth, the Macburneys began, as
if of set purpose and in a spirit of determined rivalry, to expose and
ruin themselves. The heir apparent, Mr. James Macburney offended
his father by making a runaway match with an actress from
Goodman's-fields--The old gentleman could devise no more judicious mode
of wreaking vengeance on his undutiful boy than by marrying the cook.
The cook gave birth to a son, named Joseph, who succeeded to all the
lands of the family, while James was cut off with a shilling. The
favourite son, however, was so extravagant that he soon became as poor
as his disinherited brother. Both were forced to earn their bread by
their labour. Joseph turned dancing-master and settled in Norfolk.
James struck off the Mac from the beginning of his name and set up as
a portrait painter at Chester. Here he had a son, named Charles, well
known as the author of the “History of Music” and as the father of
two remarkable children, of a son distinguished by learning and of a
daughter still more honourably distinguished by genius.
Charles early showed a taste for that art of which, at a later period,
he became the historian. He was apprenticed to a celebrated musician[1]
in London, and he applied himself to study with vigour and success. He
early found a kind and munificent Patron in Fulk Greville, a highborn
and highbred man, who seems to have had in large measure all the
accomplishments and all the follies, all the virtues and all the vices,
which, a hundred years ago, were considered as making up the character
of a fine gentleman. Under such protection, the young artist had every
prospect of a brilliant career in the capital. But his health failed.
It became necessary for him to retreat from the smoke and river fog of
London to the pure air of the coast. He accepted the place of organist
at Lynn, and settled at that town with a young lady who had recently
become his wife.[2]
At Lynn, in June, 1752, Frances Burney was born.[3] Nothing in her
childhood indicated that she would, while still a young woman, have
secured for herself an honourable and permanent place among English
writers. She was shy and silent. Her brothers and sisters called her
a dunce, and not altogether without some show of reason; for at eight
years old she did not know her letters.
In 1760, Mr. Burney quitted Lynn for London, and took a house in
Poland-street; a situation which had been fashionable in the reign of
Queen Anne, but which, since that time, had been deserted by most of
its wealthy and noble inhabitants. He afterwards resided in St.
Martin's--street, on the south side of Leicestersquare. His house there
is still well known, and will continue to be well known as long as our
island retains any trace of civilisation; for it was the dwelling
of Newton, and the square turret which distinguishes it from all the
surrounding buildings was Newton's observatory.
Mr. Burney at once obtained as many pupils of the most respectable
description as he had time to attend, and was thus enabled to
support his family, modestly indeed, and frugally, but in comfort and
independence. His professional merit obtained for him the degree of
Doctor of Music from the University of Oxford;[4] and his works on
subjects connected with art gained for him a place, respectable, though
certainly not eminent, among men of letters.
The progress of the mind of Frances Burney, from her ninth to her
twenty-fifth year, well deserves to be recorded, When her education
had proceeded no further than the hornbook, she lost her mother, and
thenceforward she educated herself. Her father appears to have been as
bad a father as a very honest, affectionate and sweet-tempered man
can well be. He loved his daughter dearly; but it never seems to have
occurred to him that a parent has other duties to perform to children
than that of fondling them. It would indeed have been impossible for
him to superintend their education himself. His professional engagements
occupied him all day. At seven in the morning, he began to attend his
pupils, and, when London was full, was sometimes employed in teaching
till eleven at night. He was often forced to carry in his pocket a tin
box of sandwiches and a bottle of wine and water, on which he dined in
a hackney coach while hurrying from one scholar to another. Two of his
daughters he sent to a seminary at Paris; but he imagined that Frances
would run some risk of being perverted from the Protestant faith if she
were educated in a Catholic country, and he therefore kept her at home.
No governess, no teacher of any art or of any language was provided for
her. But one of her sisters showed her how to write; and, before she was
fourteen, she began to find pleasure in reading.
It was not, however, by reading that her intellect was formed. Indeed,
when her best novels were produced, her knowledge of books was very
small. When at the height of her fame, she was unacquainted with the
most celebrated works of Voltaire and Moliere; and, what seems still
more extraordinary, had never heard or seen a line of Churchill,
who, when she was a girl, was the most popular of living poets. It is
particularly deserving of observation that she appears to have been
by no means a novel reader. Her father's library was large, and he had
admitted into it so many books which rigid moralists generally exclude
that he felt uneasy, as he afterwards owned, when Johnson began to
examine the shelves. But in the whole collection there was only a single
novel, Fielding's “Amelia.”[5]
An education, however, which to most girls would have been useless, but
which suited Fanny's mind better than elaborate culture, was in constant
progress during her passage from childhood to womanhood. The great book
of human nature was turned over before her. Her father's social position
was very peculiar. He belonged in fortune and station to the middle
class. His daughters seemed to have been suffered to mix freely with
those whom butlers and waiting-maids call vulgar. We are told that they
were in the habit of playing with the children of a wigmaker who lived
in the adjoining house. Yet few nobles could assemble in the most
stately mansions of Grosvenor-square or St. James's Square a society so
various and so brilliant as was sometimes to be found in Dr. Burney's
cabin. His mind, though not very powerful or capacious, was restlessly
active; and, in the intervals of his professional pursuits, he had
contrived to lay up much miscellaneous information. His attainments,
the suavity of his temper and the general simplicity of his manners had
obtained for him ready admission to the first literary circles. While
he was still at Lynn, he had won Johnson's heart by sounding with honest
zeal the praises of the “English Dictionary.” In London, the two friends
met frequently and agreed most harmoniously. One tie, indeed,
was wanting to their mutual attachment. Burney loved his own art
passionately, and Johnson just knew the bell of St. Clement's church
from the organ. They had, however, many topics in common; and on winter
nights their conversations were sometimes prolonged till the fire
had gone out and the candles had burned away to the wicks. Burney's
admiration of the powers which had produced “Rasselas” and “The Rambler”
bordered on idolatry. He gave a singular proof of this at his first
visit to Johnson's ill-furnished garret. The master of the apartment was
not at home. The enthusiastic visitor looked about for some relic which
he could carry away, but he could see nothing lighter than the chairs
and the fireirons. At last he discovered an old broom, tore some
bristles from the stump, wrapped them in silver paper, and departed
as happy as Louis IX. when the holy nail of St. Denis was found.[6]
Johnson, on the other hand, condescended to growl out that Burney was an
honest fellow, a man whom it was impossible not to like.
Garrick, too, was a frequent visitor in Poland-street and St.
Martin's-street. That wonderful actor loved the society of children,
partly from good nature and partly from vanity. The ecstasies of mirth
and terror, which his gestures and play of countenance never failed to
produce in a nursery, flattered him quite as much as the applause of
mature critics. He often exhibited all his powers of mimicry for the
amusement of the little Burneys, awed them by shuddering and crouching
as if he saw a ghost, scared them by raving like a maniac in St. Luke's,
and then at once became an auctioneer, a chimney-sweeper or an old
woman, and made them laugh till the tears ran down their cheeks.
But it would be tedious to recount the names of all the men of letters
and artists whom Frances Burney had an opportunity of seeing and
hearing. Colman, Twining, Harris, Baretti, Hawkesworth, Reynolds, Barry,
were among those who occasionally surrounded the tea table and supper
tray at her father's modest dwelling. This was not all. The distinction
which Dr. Burney had acquired as a musician and as the historian of
music, attracted to his house the most eminent musical performers of
that age. The greatest Italian singers who visited England regarded him
as the dispenser of fame in their art, and exerted themselves to obtain
his suffrage. Pacchierotti became his intimate friend. The rapacious
Agujari, who sang for nobody else under fifty pounds an air, sang her
best for Dr. Burney without a fee; and in the company of Dr. Burney even
the haughty and eccentric Gabrielli constrained herself to behave with
civility. It was thus in his power to give, with scarcely any expense,
concerts equal to those of the aristocracy. On such occasions, the quiet
street in which he lived was blocked up by coroneted chariots, and his
little drawing-room was crowded with peers, peeresses, ministers and
ambassadors. On one evening, of which we happen to have a full account,
there were present Lord Mulgrave, Lord Bruce, Lord and Lady Edgecumbe,
Lord Barrington from the War office, Lord Sandwich from the Admiralty,
Lord Ashburnham, with his gold key dangling from his pocket, and the
French ambassador, M. De Guignes, renowned for his fine person and
for his success in gallantry. But the great show of the night was the
Russian ambassador, Count Orloff, whose gigantic figure was all in a
blaze with jewels, and in whose demeanour the untamed ferocity of the
Scythian might be discerned through a thin varnish of French Politeness.
As he stalked about the small parlour, brushing the ceiling with his
toupee, the girls whispered to each other, with mingled admiration and
horror, that he was the favoured lover of his august mistress; that he
had borne the chief part in the revolution to which she owed her throne;
and that his huge hands, now glittering with diamond rings, had given
the last squeeze to the windpipe of her unfortunate husband.
With such illustrious guests as these were mingled all the most
remarkable specimens of the race of lions, a kind of game which is
hunted in London every spring with more than Meltonian ardour and
perseverance. Bruce, who had washed down steaks cut from living oxen
with water from the fountains of the Nile, came to swagger and talk
about his travels. Ornai lisped broken English, and made all the
assembled musicians hold their ears by howling Otaheitean love-songs,
such as those with which Oberea charmed her Opano.
With the literary and fashionable society which occasionally met under
Dr. Burney's roof, Frances can scarcely be said to have mingled.[7] She
was not a musician, and could therefore bear no part in the concerts.
She was shy almost to awkwardness, and she scarcely ever joined in the
conversation. The slightest remark from a stranger disconcerted her,
and even the old friends of her father who tried to draw her out could
seldom extract more than a Yes or a No. Her figure was small, her face
not distinguished by beauty. She was therefore suffered to withdraw
quietly to the background, and, unobserved herself, to observe all that
passed. Her nearest relations were aware that she had good sense, but
seem not to have suspected that under her demure and bashful deportment
were concealed a fertile invention and a keen sense of the ridiculous.
She had not, it is true, an eye for the fine shades of character.
But every marked peculiarity instantly caught her notice and remained
engraven on her imagination. Thus while still a girl she had laid up
such a store of materials for fiction as few of those who mix much in
the world are able to accumulate during a long life. She had watched and
listened to people of every class, from princes and great officers
of state down to artists living in garrets and poets familiar with
subterranean cookshops. Hundreds of remarkable persons had passed in
review before her, English, French, German, Italian, lords and fiddlers,
deans of cathedrals and managers of theatres, travellers leading about
newly caught savages, and singing women escorted by deputy husbands.
So strong was the impression made on the mind of Frances by the society
which she was in the habit of seeing and hearing, that she began to
write little fictitious narratives as soon as she could use her pen
with ease, which, as we have said, was not very early. Her sisters were
amused by her stories. But Dr. Burney knew nothing of their existence;
and in another quarter her literary propensities met with serious
discouragement. When she was fifteen, her father took a second wife.[8]
The new Mrs. Burney soon found out that her daughter-in-law was fond of
scribbling, and delivered several good-natured lectures on the subject.
The advice no doubt was well meant, and might have been given by the
most judicious friend; for at that time, from causes to which we may
hereafter advert, nothing could be more disadvantageous to a young lady
than to be known as a novel writer. Frances yielded, relinquished her
favourite pursuit, and made a bonfire of all her manuscripts.[9]
She now hemmed and stitched from breakfast to dinner with scrupulous
regularity. But the dinners of that time were early; and the afternoon
was her own. Though she had given up novel-writing, she was still fond of
using her pen. She began to keep a diary, and she corresponded largely
with a person who seems to have had the chief share in the formation of
her mind. This was Samuel Crisp, an old friend of her father. His name,
well known, near a century ago, in the most splendid circles of London,
has long been forgotten. His history is, however, so interesting and
instructive, that it tempts us to venture on a digression. Long before
Frances Burney was born, Mr. Crisp had made his entrance into the world,
with every advantage. He was well connected and well educated. His face
and figure were conspicuously handsome; his manners were polished; his
fortune was easy; his character was without stain; he lived in the best
society; he had read much; he talked well; his taste in literature,
music, painting, architecture, sculpture, was held in high esteem.
Nothing that the world can give seemed to be wanting to his happiness
and respectability, except that he should understand the limits of his
powers, and should not throw away distinctions which were within his
reach in the pursuit of distinctions which were unattainable. “It is an
uncontrolled truth,” says Swift, “that no man ever made an ill figure
who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them.” Every
day brings with it fresh illustrations of this weighty saying; but the
best commentary that we remember is the history of Samuel Crisp. Men
like him have their proper place, and it is a most important one, in the
Commonwealth of Letters. It is by the judgment of such men that the rank
of authors is finally determined. It is neither to the multitude, nor to
the few who are gifted with great creative genius, that we are to look
for sound critical decisions. The multitude, unacquainted with the best
models, are captivated by whatever stuns and dazzles them. They deserted
Mrs. Siddons to run after Master Betty; and they now prefer, we have no
doubt, Jack Sheppard to Van Artevelde. A man of great original genius,
on the other hand, a man who has attained to mastery in some high
walk of art, is by no means to be implicitly trusted as a judge of the
performances of others. The erroneous decisions pronounced by such men
are without number. It is commonly supposed that jealousy makes them
unjust. But a more creditable explanation may easily be found. The very
excellence of a work shows that some of the faculties of the author have
been developed at the expense of the rest---for it is not given to the
human intellect to expand itself widely in all directions at once and
to be at the same time gigantic and well-proportioned. Whoever becomes
pre-eminent in any art, nay, in any style of art, generally does so by
devoting himself with intense and exclusive enthusiasm to the pursuit of
one kind of excellence. His perception of other kinds of excellence is
too often impaired. Out of his own department, he blames at random,
and is far less to be trusted than the mere connoisseur, who produces
nothing, and whose business is only to judge and enjoy. One painter
is distinguished by his exquisite finishing. He toils day after day
to bring the veins of a cabbage leaf, the folds of a lace veil, the
wrinkles of an old woman's face, nearer and nearer to perfection. In
the time which he employs on a square foot of canvas, a master of a
different order covers the walls of a palace with gods burying giants
under mountains, or makes the cupola of a church alive with seraphim and
martyrs. The more fervent the passion of each of these artists for his
art, the higher the merit of each in his own line, the more unlikely it
is that they will justly appreciate each other. Many persons, who never
handled a pencil, probably do far more justice to Michael Angelo than
would have been done by Gerard Douw, and far more justice to Gerard Douw
than would have been done by Michael Angelo.
It is the same with literature. Thousands, who have no spark of the
genius of Dryden or Wordsworth, do to Dryden the justice which has
never been done by Wordsworth, and to Wordsworth the justice which,
we suspect, would never have been done by Dryden. Gray, Johnson,
Richardson, Fielding, are all highly esteemed by the great body of
intelligent and well informed men. But Gray could see no merit in
“Rasselas,” and Johnson could see no merit in “The Bard.” Fielding
thought Richardson a solemn prig, and Richardson perpetually expressed
contempt and disgust for Fielding's lowness.
Mr. Crisp seems, as far as we can judge, to have been a man eminently
qualified for the useful office of a connoisseur. His talents and
knowledge fitted him to appreciate justly almost every species of
intellectual superiority. As an adviser he was inestimable. Nay, he
might probably have held a respectable rank as a writer if he would have
confined himself to some department of literature in which nothing more
than sense, taste, and reading was required. Unhappily, he set his heart
on being a great poet, wrote a tragedy in five acts on the death of
Virginia, and offered it to Garrick, who was his personal friend.
Garrick read, shook his head, and expressed a doubt whether it would
be wise in Mr. Crisp to stake a reputation, which stood high, on the
success of such a piece. But the author, blinded by self-love, set in
motion a machinery such as none could long resist. His intercessors were
the most eloquent man and the most lovely woman of that generation.
Pitt was induced to read “Virginia” and to pronounce it excellent. Lady
Coventry, with fingers which might have furnished a model to sculptors,
forced the manuscript into the reluctant hand of the manager; and, in
the year 1754, the play was brought forward.
Nothing that skill or friendship could do was omitted. Garrick wrote
both prologue and epilogue. The zealous friends of the author filled
every box; and, by their strenuous exertions, the life of the play
was prolonged during ten nights. But though there was no clamorous
reprobation, it was universally felt that the attempt had failed. When
“Virginia” was printed, the public disappointment was even greater than
at the representation. The critics, the Monthly Reviewers in particular,
fell on plot, characters, and diction without mercy, but, we fear, not
without justice. We have never met with a copy of the play; but if
we may judge from the lines which are extracted in the “Gentleman's
Magazine,” and which do not appear to have been malevolently selected,
we should say that nothing but the acting of Garrick and the partiality
of the audience could have saved so feeble and unnatural a drama from
instant damnation. The ambition of the poet was still unsubdued. When
the London season closed, he applied himself vigorously to the work
of removing blemishes. He does not seem to have suspected, what we are
strongly inclined to suspect, that the whole piece was one blemish, and
that the passages which were meant to be fine were, in truth, bursts of
that tame extravagance into which writers fall when they set themselves
to be sublime and pathetic in spite of nature. He omitted, added,
retouched, and flattered himself with hopes of a complete success in
the following year; but, in the following year, Garrick showed no
disposition to bring the amended tragedy on the stage. Solicitation
and remonstrance were tried in vain. Lady Coventry, drooping under that
malady which seems ever to select what is loveliest for its prey, could
render no assistance. The manager's language was civilly evasive; but
his resolution was inflexible. Crisp had committed a great error; but
he had escaped with a very slight penance. His play had not been hooted
from the boards. It had, on the contrary, been better received than
many very estimable performances have been--than Johnson's “Irene,” for
example, or Goldsmith's “Good-natured Man.” Had Crisp been wise, he
would have thought himself happy in having purchased self-knowledge so
cheap. He would have relinquished, without vain repinings, the hope
of poetical distinction, and would have turned to the many sources of
happiness which he still possessed. Had he been, on the other hand, an
unfeeling and unblushing dunce, he would have gone on writing scores of
bad tragedies in defiance of censure and derision. But he had too much
sense to risk a second defeat, yet too little to bear his first defeat
like a man. The fatal delusion that he was a great dramatist had taken
firm possession of his mind. His failure he attributed to every cause
except the true one. He complained of the ill-will of Garrick, who
appears to have done everything that ability and zeal could do, and
who, from selfish motives, would, of course, have been well pleased if
“Virginia” had been as successful as “The Beggar's Opera.” Nay, Crisp
complained of the languor of the friends whose partiality had given
him three benefit nights to which he had no claim. He complained of
the injustice of the spectators, when, in truth, he ought to have been
grateful for their unexampled patience. He lost his temper and spirits,
and became a cynic and a hater of mankind. From London be retired to
Hampton, and from Hampton to a solitary and long-deserted mansion, built
on a common in one of the wildest tracts of Surrey.[10] No road, not
even a sheepwalk, connected his lonely dwelling with the abodes of men.
The place of his retreat was strictly concealed from his old associates.
In the spring, he sometimes emerged, and was seen at exhibitions and
concerts in London. But he soon disappeared and hid himself, with no
society but his books, in his dreary hermitage. He survived his failure
about thirty years. A new generation sprang up around him. No memory
of his bad verses remained among men. His very name was forgotten. How
completely the world had lost sight of him will appear from a single
circumstance. We looked for his name in a copious Dictionary of Dramatic
Authors published while he was still alive, and we found only that Mr.
Samuel Crisp, of the Custom-house, had written a play called “Virginia,”
acted in 1754. To the last, however, the unhappy man continued to brood
over the injustice of the manager and the pit, and tried to convince
himself and others that he had missed the highest literary honours only
because he had omitted some fine passages in compliance with Garrick's
judgment. Alas for human nature, that the wounds of vanity should smart
and bleed so much longer than the wounds of affection! Few people, we
believe, whose nearest friends and relations died in 1754, had any acute
feeling of the loss in 1782. Dear sisters, and favourite daughters,
and brides snatched away before the honeymoon was passed, had been
forgotten, or were remembered only with a tranquil regret. But Samuel
Crisp was still mourning for his tragedy, like Rachel weeping for her
children, and would not be comforted. “Never,” such was his language
twenty-eight years after his disaster, “never give up or alter a tittle
unless it perfectly coincides with your inward feelings. I can say this
to my sorrow and my cost. But mum!” Soon after these words were written,
his life--a life which might have been eminently useful and happy--ended
in the same gloom in which, during more than a quarter of a century, it
had been passed. We have thought it worth while to rescue from oblivion
this curious fragment of literary history. It seems to us at once
ludicrous, melancholy, and full of instruction.[11]
Crisp was an old and very intimate friend of the Burneys. To them alone
was confided the name of the desolate old hall in which he hid himself
like a wild beast in a den. For them were reserved such remains of his
humanity as had survived the failure of his play. Frances Burney he
regarded as his daughter. He called her his Fannikin; and she in return
called him her dear Daddy. In truth, he seems to have done much more
than her real father for the development of her intellect; for though
he was a bad poet, he was a scholar, a thinker, and an excellent
counsellor. He was particularly fond of Dr. Burney's concerts. They had
indeed, been commenced at his suggestion, and when he visited London he
constantly attended them. But when he grew old, and when gout, brought
on partly by mental irritation, confined him to his retreat, he was
desirous of having a glimpse of that gay and brilliant world from which
he was exiled, and he pressed Fannikin to send him full accounts of
her father's evening parties. A few of her letters to him have been
published; and it is impossible to read them without discerning in them
all the powers which afterwards produced “Evelina” and “Cecilia”; the
quickness in catching every odd peculiarity of character and manner;
the skill in grouping; the humour, often richly comic, sometimes even
farcical.
Fanny's propensity to novel-writing had for a time been kept down. It
now rose up stronger than ever. The heroes and heroines of the tales
which had perished in the flames were still present to the eye of her
mind. One favourite story, in particular, haunted her imagination. It
was about a certain Caroline Evelyn, a beautiful damsel who made an
unfortunate love match and died, leaving an infant daughter. Frances
began to image to herself the various scenes, tragic and comic, through
which the poor motherless girl, highly connected on one side, meanly
connected on the other, might have to pass. A crowd of unreal beings,
good and bad, grave and ludicrous, surrounded the pretty, timid young
orphan; a coarse sea captain; an ugly, insolent fop, blazing in a
superb court dress; another fop, as ugly and as insolent, but lodged on
Snow-hill and tricked out in second-hand finery for the Hampstead ball;
an old woman, wrinkles and rouge, flirting her fan with the air of a
miss of seventeen and screaming in a dialect made up of vulgar French
and vulgar English; a poet, lean and ragged, with a broad Scotch accent.
By degrees these shadows acquired stronger and stronger consistence; the
impulse which urged Frances to write became irresistible; and the result
was the “History of Evelina.”
Then came, naturally enough, a wish, mingled with many fears, to
appear before the public; for, timid as Frances was, and bashful, and
altogether unaccustomed to hear her own praises, it is clear that she
wanted neither a strong passion for distinction, nor a just confidence
in her own powers. Her scheme was to become, if possible, a candidate
for fame without running any risk of disgrace. She had not money to bear
the expense of printing. It was therefore necessary that some bookseller
should be induced to take the risk; and such a bookseller was not
readily found. Dodsley refused even to look at the manuscript unless he
were intrusted with the name of the author. A publisher in Fleet-street,
named Lowndes, was more complaisant. Some correspondence took place
between this person and Miss Burney, who took the name of Grafton, and
desired that the letters addressed to her might be left at the Orange
Coffee-house. But, before the bargain was finally struck, Fanny thought
it her duty to obtain her father's consent. She told him that she had
written a book, that she wished to have his permission to publish it
anonymously, but that she hoped that he would not insist upon seeing it.
What followed may serve to illustrate what we meant when we said that
Dr. Burney was as bad a father as so goodhearted a man could possibly
be. It never seems to have crossed his mind that Fanny was about to take
a step on which the whole happiness of her life might depend, a step
which might raise her to an honourable eminence or cover her with
ridicule and contempt. Several people had already been trusted, and
strict concealment was therefore not to be expected. On so grave
an occasion, it was surely his duty to give his best counsel to his
daughter, to win her confidence, to prevent her from exposing herself
if her book were a bad one, and, if it were a good one, to see that the
terms which she made with the publisher were likely to be beneficial to
her. Instead of this, he only stared, burst out a-laughing, kissed her,
gave her leave to do as she liked, and never even asked the name of her
work. The contract with Lowndes was speedily concluded. Twenty pounds
were given for the copyright, and were accepted by Fanny with delight.
Her father's inexcusable neglect of his duty happily caused her no worse
evil than the loss of twelve or fifteen hundred pounds.[12]
After many delays, “Evelina” appeared in January, 1778.
Poor Fanny was sick with terror, and durst hardly stir out of doors.
Some days passed before anything was heard of the book. It had, indeed,
nothing but its own merits to push it into public favour. Its author was
unknown. The house by which it was published, was not, we believe, held
high in estimation. No body of partisans had been engaged to applaud.
The better class of readers expected little from a novel about a young
lady's entrance into the world. There was, indeed, at that time
a disposition among the most respectable people to condemn novels
generally: nor was this disposition by any means without excuse; for
works of that sort were then almost always silly and very frequently
wicked.
Soon, however, the first faint accents of praise began to be heard: The
keepers of the circulating libraries reported that everybody was asking
for “Evelina,” and that some person had guessed Anstey[13] to be the
author. Then came a favourable notice in the “London Review”; then
another still more favourable in the “Monthly.” And now the book found
its way to tables which had seldom been polluted by marble-covered
volumes. Scholars and statesmen, who contemptuously abandoned the crowd
of romances to Miss Lydia Languish and Miss Sukey Saunter, were not
ashamed to own that they could not tear themselves away from “Evelina.”
Fine carriages and rich liveries, not often seen east of Temple-bar,
were attracted to the publisher's shop in Fleet-street. Lowndes was
daily questioned about the author, but was himself as much in the dark
as any of the questioners. The mystery, however, could not remain a
mystery long. It was known to brothers and sisters, aunts and cousins:
and they were far too proud and too happy to be discreet. Dr. Burney
wept over the book in rapture. Daddy Crisp shook his fist at his
Fannikin in affectionate anger at not having been admitted to her
confidence. The truth was whispered to Mrs. Thrale: and then it began to
spread fast.
The book had been admired while it had been ascribed to men of letters
long conversant with the world and accustomed to composition. But when
it was known that a reserved, silent young woman had produced the best
work of fiction that had appeared since the death of Smollett,
the acclamations were redoubled. What she had done was, indeed,
extraordinary. But, as usual, various reports improved the story till
it became miraculous. “Evelina,” it was said, was the work of a girl of
seventeen. Incredible as this tale was, it continued to be repeated down
to our own time. Frances was too honest to confirm it. Probably she was
too much a woman to contradict it; and it was long before any of her
detractors thought of this mode of annoyance. Yet there was no want of
low minds and bad hearts in the generation which witnessed her first
appearance. There was the envious Kenrick and the savage Wolcot, the
asp George Stevens and the polecat John Williams. It did not, however,
occur to them to search the parish register of Lynn, in order that they
might be able to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly
chivalrous exploit was reserved for a bad writer[14] of our own time,
whose spite she had provoked by not furnishing him with materials for a
worthless edition of Boswell's “Life of Johnson,” some sheets of which
our readers have doubtless seen round parcels of better books.
But we must return to our story. The triumph was complete. The timid and
obscure girl found herself on the highest pinnacle of fame. Great men,
on whom she had gazed at a distance with humble reverence, addressed
her with admiration, tempered by the tenderness due to her sex and age.
Burke, Windham, Gibbon, Reynolds, Sheridan, were among her most ardent
eulogists. Cumberland[15] acknowledged her merit, after his fashion,
by biting his lips and wriggling in his chair whenever her name was
mentioned. But it was at Streatham that she tasted, in the highest
perfection, the sweets of flattery mingled with the sweets of
friendship. Mrs. Thrale, then at the height of prosperity and
popularity--with gay spirits, quick wit, showy, though superficial,
acquirements, pleasing, though not refined, manners, a singularly
amiable temper and a loving heart-felt towards Fanny as towards a
younger sister. With the Thrales, Johnson was domesticated. He was an
old friend of Dr. Burney; but he had probably taken little notice of Dr.
Burney's daughters; and Fanny, we imagine, had never in her life dared
to speak to him, unless to ask whether he wanted a nineteenth or a
twentieth cup of tea. He was charmed by her tale, and preferred it to
the novels of Fielding, to whom, indeed, he had always been grossly
unjust. He did not, indeed, carry his partiality so far as to place
“Evelina” by the side of “Clarissa” and “Sir Charles Grandison”; yet
he said that his little favourite had done enough to have made even
Richardson feel uneasy. With Johnson's cordial approbation of the book
was mingled a fondness, half gallant, half paternal, for the writer;
and this fondness his age and character entitled him to show without
restraint. He began by putting her hand to his lips. But he soon clasped
her in his huge arms, and immediately implored her to be a good girl.
She was his pet, his dear love, his dear little Burney, his little
character-monger. At one time, he broke forth in praise of the good
taste of her caps. At another time, he insisted on teaching her Latin.
That, with all his coarseness and irritability, he was a man of sterling
benevolence, has long been acknowledged. But how gentle and endearing
his deportment could be, was not known till the recollections of Madame
D'Arblay were published.
We have mentioned a few of the most eminent of those who paid their
homage to the author of “Evelina.” The crowd of inferior admirers would
require a catalogue as long as that in the second book of the “Iliad.”
In that catalogue would be Mrs. Cholmondeley, the sayer of odd things;
and Seward, much given to yawning; and Baretti, who slew the man in the
Haymarket; and Paoli, talking broken English; and Langton, taller by the
head than any other member of the club; and Lady Millar, who kept a vase
wherein fools were wont to put bad verses; and Jerningham, who wrote
verses fit to be put into the vase of Lady Millar; and Dr. Franklin--not,
as some have dreamed, the great Pennsylvanian Dr. Franklin, who could
not then have paid his respects to Miss Burney without much risk of
being hanged, drawn, and quartered, but Dr. Franklin the less.
It would not have been surprising if such success had turned even a
strong head and corrupted even a generous and affectionate nature. But
in the “Diary,” we can find no trace of any feeling inconsistent with a
truly modest and amiable disposition. There is, indeed, abundant proof
that Frances enjoyed with an intense, though a troubled, joy, the
honours which her genius had won; but it is equally clear that her
happiness sprang from the happiness of her father, her sister, and her
dear Daddy Crisp. While flattered by the great, the opulent and the
learned, while followed along the Steyne at Brighton and the Pantiles at
Tunbridge Wells by the gaze of admiring crowds, her heart seems to have
been still with the little domestic circle in St. Martin's Street. If she
recorded with minute diligence all the compliments, delicate and coarse,
which she heard wherever she turned, she recorded them for the eyes of
two or three persons who had loved her from infancy, who had loved her
in obscurity, and to whom her fame gave the purest and most exquisite
delight. Nothing can be more unjust than to confound these outpourings
of a kind heart, sure of perfect sympathy, with the egotism of a
bluestocking who prates to all who come near her about her own novel or
her own volume of sonnets.
It was natural that the triumphant issue of Miss Burney's first venture
should tempt her to try a second. “Evelina,” though it had raised her
fame, had added nothing to her fortune. Some of her friends urged her to
write for the stage. Johnson promised to give her his advice as to the
composition. Murphy, who was supposed to understand the temper of the
pit as well as any man of his time, undertook to instruct her as to
stage effect. Sheridan declared that he would accept a play from her
without even reading it. Thus encouraged, she wrote a comedy named “The
Witlings.” Fortunately, it was never acted or printed. We can, we think,
easily perceive, from the little which is said on the subject in the
“Diary,” that “The Witlings” would have been damned, and that Murphy
and Sheridan thought so, though they were too polite to say so. Happily
Frances had a friend who was not afraid to give her pain. Crisp, wiser
for her than he had been for himself, read the manuscript in his lonely
retreat and manfully told her that she had failed, and that to remove
blemishes here and there would be useless; that the piece had abundance
of wit but no interest, that it was bad as a whole; that it would remind
every reader of the “Femmes Savantes,” which, strange to say, she had
never read, and that she could not sustain so close a comparison with
Moliere. This opinion, in which Dr. Burney concurred, was sent to
Frances in what she called “a hissing, groaning, catcalling epistle.”
But she had too much sense not to know that it was better to be hissed
and catcalled by her Daddy than by a whole sea of heads in the pit of
Drury-lane theatre; and she had too good a heart not to be grateful for
so rare an act of friendship. She returned an answer which shows how
well she deserved to have a judicious, faithful, and affectionate
adviser. “I intend,” she wrote, “to console myself for your censure by
this greatest proof I have received of the sincerity, candour, and, let
me add, esteem of my dear daddy. And, as I happen to love myself
more than my play, this consolation is not a very trifling one. This,
however, seriously I do believe, that when my two daddies put their
heads together to concert that hissing, groaning, catcalling epistle
they sent me, they felt as sorry for poor little Miss Bayes as she
could possibly do for herself. You see I do not attempt to repay your
frankness with an air of pretended carelessness. But, though somewhat
disconcerted just now, I will promise not to let my vexation live out
another day. Adieu, my dear daddy; I won't be mortified and I won't be
downed; but I will be proud to find I have, out of my own family, as
well as in it, a friend who loves me well enough to speak plain truth to
me.”
Frances now turned from her dramatic schemes to an undertaking far
better suited to her talents. She determined to write a new tale on a
plan excellently contrived for the display of the powers in which her
superiority to other writers lay. It was, in truth, a grand and various
picture gallery, which presented to the eye a long series of men and
women, each marked by some strong peculiar feature. There were avarice
and prodigality, the pride of blood and the pride of money, morbid
restlessness and morbid apathy, frivolous garrulity, supercilious
silence, a Democritus to laugh at everything and a Heraclitus to lament
over everything. The work proceeded fast, and in twelve months was
completed.
It wanted something of the simplicity which had been among the most
attractive charms of “Evelina”; but it furnished ample proof that the
four years, which had elapsed since “Evelina” appeared, had not been
unprofitably spent. Those who saw “Cecilia” in manuscript pronounced it
the best novel of the age. Mrs. Thrale laughed and wept over it. Crisp
was even vehement in applause, and offered to insure the rapid and
complete success of the book for half-a-crown. What Miss Burney received
for the copyright is not mentioned in the “Diary”; but we have
observed several expressions from which we infer that the sum was
considerable. That the sale would be great, nobody could doubt; and
Frances now had shrewd and experienced advisers, who would not suffer
her to wrong herself. We have been told that the publishers gave her two
thousand pounds, and we have no doubt that they might have given a still
larger sum without being losers.[16]
“Cecilia” was published in the summer of 1782. The curiosity of the town
was intense. We have been informed by persons who remember those days,
that no romance of Sir Walter Scott was more impatiently awaited or more
eagerly snatched from the counters of the booksellers. High as public
expectation was, it was amply satisfied; and “Cecilia” was placed, by
general acclamation, among the classical novels of England.
Miss Burney was now thirty. Her youth had been singularly prosperous;
but clouds soon began to gather over that clear and radiant dawn. Events
deeply painful to a heart so kind as that of Frances followed each other
in rapid succession. She was first called upon to attend the deathbed of
her best friend, Samuel Crisp. When she returned to St. Martin's Street
after performing this melancholy duty, she was appalled by hearing that
Johnson had been struck with paralysis, and, not many months later, she
parted from him for the last time with solemn tenderness. He wished to
look on her once more; and on the day before his death she long remained
in tears on the stairs leading to his bedroom, in the hope that she
might be called in to receive his blessing. But he was then sinking
fast, and, though he sent her an affectionate message, was unable to see
her. But this was not the worst. There are separations far more cruel
than those which are made by death. Frances might weep with proud
affection for Crisp and Johnson. She had to blush as well as to weep for
Mrs. Thrale.
Life, however, still smiled upon her. Domestic happiness, friendship,
independence, leisure, letters, all these things were hers; and she
flung them all away.
Among the distinguished persons to whom Miss Burney had been introduced,
none appears to have stood higher in her regard than Mrs. Delany. This
lady was an interesting and venerable relic of a past age. She was the
niece of George Granville, Lord Lansdowne, who, in his youth, exchanged
verses and compliments with Edmund Waller, and who was among the first to
applaud the opening talents of Pope. She had married Dr. Delany, a man
known to his contemporaries as a profound scholar and eloquent preacher,
but remembered in our time chiefly as one of that small circle in
which the fierce spirit of Swift, tortured by disappointed ambition,
by remorse, and by the approaches of madness, sought for amusement
and repose. Dr. Delany had long been dead. His widow, nobly descended,
eminently accomplished, and retaining, in spite of the infirmities
of advanced age, the vigour of her faculties, and the serenity of her
temper, enjoyed and deserved the favour of the royal family. She had a
pension of three hundred a-year; and a house at Windsor, belonging to
the crown, had been fitted up for her accommodation. At this house, the
king and queen sometimes called, and found a very natural pleasure
in thus catching an occasional glimpse of the private life of English
families.
In December, 1785, Miss Burney was on a visit to Mrs. Delany at Windsor.
The dinner was over. The old lady was taking a nap. Her grandniece,
a little girl of seven, was playing at some Christmas game with
the visitors, when the door opened, and a stout gentleman entered
unannounced, with a star on his breast, and “What? what? what?” in his
mouth. A cry of “The king!” was set up. A general scampering followed.
Miss Burney owns that she could not have been more terrified if she had
seen a ghost. But Mrs. Delany came forward to pay her duty to her royal
friend, and the disturbance was quieted. Frances was then presented, and
underwent a long examination and cross-examination about all that she
had written, and all that she meant to write. The queen soon made her
appearance, and his majesty repeated, for the benefit of his consort,
the information which he had extracted from Miss Burney. The good
nature of the royal pair might have softened even the authors of the
“Probationary Odes,”[17] and could not but be delightful to a young lady
who had been brought up a Tory. In a few days the visit was repeated.
Miss Burney was more at ease than before. His majesty, instead of
seeking for information, condescended to impart it, and passed sentence
on many great writers, English and foreign. Voltaire he pronounced
a monster. Rousseau he liked rather better. “But was there ever,” he
cried, “such stuff as great part of Shakspeare? Only one must not say
so. But what think you? What? Is there not sad stuff? What? What?”
The next day Frances enjoyed the privilege of listening to some equally
valuable criticism uttered by the queen touching Goethe, and Klopstock,
and might have learned an important lesson of economy from the mode in
which her majesty's library had been formed. “I picked the book up on a
stall,” said the queen. “Oh, it is amazing what good books there are on
stalls!” Mrs. Delany, who seems to have understood from these words that
her majesty was in the habit of exploring the booths of Moorfields
and Holywell-street in person, could not suppress an exclamation of
surprise. “Why,” said the queen, “I don't pick them up myself. I have a
servant very clever; and if they are not to be had at the booksellers,
they are not for me more than for another.” Miss Burney describes this
conversation as delightful; and, indeed, we cannot wonder that, with her
literary tastes, she should be delighted at hearing in how magnificent a
manner the greatest lady in the land encouraged literature.
The truth is, that Frances was fascinated by the condescending kindness
of the two great personages to whom she had been presented. Her father
was even more infatuated than herself. The result was a step of which
we cannot think with patience, but recorded as it is with all its
consequences in these volumes deserves at least this praise, that it has
furnished a most impressive warning.
A German lady of the name of Haggerdorn, one of the keepers of the
queen's robes, retired about this time, and her majesty offered the
vacant post to Miss Burney. When we consider that Miss Burney was
decidedly the most popular writer of fictitious narrative then living,
that competence, if not opulence, was within her reach, and that she was
more than usually happy in her domestic circle, and when we compare the
sacrifice which she was invited to make with the remuneration which was
held out to her, we are divided between laughter and indignation.
What was demanded of her was that she should consent to be almost as
completely separated from her family and friends as if she had gone to
Calcutta, and almost as close a prisoner as if she had been sent to gaol
for a libel; that with talents which had instructed and delighted the
highest living minds, she should now be employed only in mixing snuff
and sticking pins; that she should be summoned by a waiting-woman's bell
to a waiting-woman's duties; that she should pass her whole life under
the restraints of a paltry etiquette, should sometimes fast till she was
ready to swoon with hunger, should sometimes stand till her knees gave
way with fatigue; that she should not dare to speak or move without
considering how her mistress might like her words and gestures. Instead
of those distinguished men and women, the flower of all political
parties, with whom she had been in the habit of mixing on terms of equal
friendship, she was to have for her perpetual companion the chief
keeper of the robes, an old hag from Germany, of mean understanding, of
insolent manners, and of temper which, naturally savage, had now been
exasperated by disease. Now and then, indeed, poor Frances might console
herself for the loss of Burke's and Windham's society by joining in the
“celestial colloquy sublime” of his majesty's equerries.
And what was the consideration for which she was to sell herself to this
slavery? A peerage in her own right? A pension of two thousand a-year
for life? A seventy-four for her brother in the navy? A deanery for her
brother in the church? Not so. The price at which she was valued was
her board, her lodging, the attendance of a man-servant, and two hundred
pounds a-year.
The man who, even when hard pressed by hunger, sells his birthright for
a mess of pottage, is unwise. But what shall we say of him who parts
with his birthright and does not get even the pottage in return? It is
not necessary to inquire whether opulence be an adequate compensation
for the sacrifice of bodily and mental freedom; for Frances Burney paid
for leave to be a prisoner and a menial. It was evidently understood as
one of the terms of her engagement, that, while she was a member of the
royal household, she was not to appear before the public as an author;
and, even had there been no such understanding, her avocations were such
as left her no leisure for any considerable intellectual effort. That
her place was incompatible with her literary pursuits was indeed frankly
acknowledged by the king when she resigned. “She had given up,” he said,
“five years of her pen.” That during those five years she might, without
painful exertion, without any exertion that would not have been a
pleasure, have earned enough to buy an annuity for life much larger than
the precarious salary which she received at Court, is quite certain. The
same income, too, which in St. Martin's Street would have afforded her
every comfort, must have been found scanty at St. James's. We cannot
venture to speak confidently of the price of millinery and jewellery;
but we are greatly deceived if a lady, who had to attend Queen Charlotte
on many public occasions, could possibly save a farthing out of a salary
of two hundred a-year. The principle of the arrangement was, in short,
simply this, that Frances Burney should become a slave, and should be
rewarded by being made a beggar.
With what object their majesties brought her to their palace, we must
own ourselves unable to conceive. Their object could not be to encourage
her literary exertions; for they took her from a situation in which it
was almost certain that she would write and put her into a situation in
which it was impossible for her to write. Their object could not be to
promote her pecuniary interest for they took her from a situation where
she was likely to become rich, and put her into a situation in which
she could not but continue poor. Their object could not be to obtain an
eminently useful waiting-maid; for it is clear that, though Miss Burney
was the only woman of her time who could have described the death of
Harrel,[18] thousands might have been found more expert in tying ribbons
and filling snuff-boxes. To grant her a pension on the civil list would
have been an act of judicious liberality honourable to the Court. If
this was impracticable, the next best thing was to let her alone. That
the king and queen meant her nothing but kindness, we do not in the
least doubt. But their kindness was the kindness of persons raised high
above the mass of mankind, accustomed to be addressed with profound
deference, accustomed to see all who approach them mortified by their
coldness and elated by their smiles. They fancied that to be noticed by
them, to be near them, to serve them, was in itself a kind of happiness;
and that Frances Burney ought to be full of gratitude for being
permitted to purchase, by the surrender of health, wealth, freedom,
domestic affection and literary fame, the privilege of standing behind a
royal chair and holding a pair of royal gloves.
And who can blame them? Who can wonder that princes should be under such
a delusion when they are encouraged in it by the very persons who suffer
from it most cruelly? Was it to be expected that George III. and Queen
Charlotte should understand the interest of Frances Burney better, or
promote it with more zeal, than herself and her father? No deception was
practised. The conditions of the house of bondage were set forth with
all simplicity. The hook was presented without a bait; the net was
spread in sight of the bird, and the naked hook was greedily swallowed,
and the silly bird made haste to entangle herself in the net.
It is not strange indeed that an invitation to Court should have caused
a fluttering in the bosom of an inexperienced woman. But it was the duty
of the parent to watch over the child, and to show her, that on one
side were only infantine vanities and chimerical hopes, on the other,
liberty, peace of mind, affluence, social enjoyments, honourable
distinctions. Strange to say, the only hesitation was on the part of
Frances. Dr. Burney was transported out of himself with delight. Not
such are the raptures of a Circassian father who has sold his pretty
daughter well to a Turkish slave merchant. Yet Dr. Burney was an amiable
man a man of good abilities, a man who had seen much of the world. But
he seems to have thought that going to Court was like going to heaven;
that to see princes and princesses was a kind of beatific vision; that
the exquisite felicity enjoyed by royal persons was not confined to
themselves, but was communicated by some mysterious efflux or reflection
to all who were suffered to stand at their toilettes or to bear their
trains. He overruled all his daughter's objections, and himself escorted
her to prison. The door closed. The key was turned. She, looking back
with tender regret on all she had left, and forward with anxiety and
terror to the new life on which she was entering, was unable to speak
or stand; and he went on his way homeward rejoicing in her marvellous
prosperity.
And now began a slavery of five years, of five years taken from the best
part of life, and wasted in menial drudgery or in recreations duller
than menial drudgery, under galling restraints and amidst unfriendly or
uninteresting companions. The history of an ordinary day was this: Miss
Burney had to rise and dress herself early, that she might be ready to
answer the royal bell, which rang at half after seven. Till about eight
she attended in the queen's dressing-room, and had the honour of lacing
her august mistress's stays, and of putting on the hoop, gown, and
neck-handkerchief. The morning was chiefly spent in rummaging drawers,
and laying fine clothes in their proper places. Then the queen was to
be powdered and dressed for the day. Twice a week her majesty's hair was
curled and craped; and this operation appears to have added a full hour
to the business of the toilette. It was generally three before Miss
Burney was at liberty. Then she had two hours at her own disposal. To
these hours we owe great Part of her “Diary.” At five she had to
attend her colleague, Madame Schwellenberg, a hateful old toadeater, as
illiterate as a chambermaid, as proud as a Whole German Chapter, rude,
peevish, unable to bear solitude, unable to conduct herself with common
decency in society. With this delightful associate, Frances Burney had
to dine and pass the evening. The pair generally remained together from
five to eleven, and often had no other company the whole time, except
during the hour from eight to nine, when the equerries came to tea. If
poor Frances attempted to escape to her own apartment, and to forget her
wretchedness over a book, the execrable old woman railed and stormed,
and complained that she was neglected. Yet, when Frances stayed, she was
constantly assailed with insolent reproaches. Literary fame was, in
the eyes of the German crone, a blemish, a proof that the person--who
enjoyed it was meanly born, and out of the pale of good society. All her
scanty stock of broken English was employed to express the contempt
with which she regarded the author of “Evelina” and “Cecilia.” Frances
detested cards, and indeed knew nothing about them; but she soon
found that the least miserable way of passing an evening with Madame
Schwellenberg was at the card-table, and consented, with patient
sadness, to give hours which might have called forth the laughter and
tears of many generations to the king of clubs and the knave of spades.
Between eleven and twelve, the bell rang again. Miss Burney had to pass
twenty minutes or half an hour in undressing the queen, and was then at
liberty to retire and to dream that she was chatting with her brother by
the quiet hearth in St. Martin's Street, that she was the centre of an
admiring assembly at Mrs. Crewe's, that Burke was calling her the first
woman of the age, or that Dilly was giving her a cheque for two thousand
guineas.
Men, we must suppose, are less patient than women; for we are utterly
at a loss to conceive how any human being could endure such a life while
there remained a vacant garret in Grub-street, a crossing in want of
a sweeper, a parish workhouse or a parish vault. And it was for such
a life that Frances Burney had given up liberty and peace, a happy
fireside, attached friends, a wide and splendid circle of acquaintance,
intellectual pursuits, in which she was qualified to excel, and the sure
hope of what to her would have been affluence.
There is nothing new under the sun. The last great master of Attic
eloquence and Attic wit has left us a forcible and touching description
of the misery of a man of letters, who, lulled by hopes similar to those
of Frances, had entered the service of one of the magnates of Rome.
“Unhappy that I am,” cries the victim of his own childish ambition:
“would nothing content me but that I must leave mine old pursuits and
mine old companions, and the life which was without care, and the sleep
which had no limit save mine own pleasure, and the walks which I was
free to take where I listed, and fling myself into the lowest pit of a
dungeon like this? And, O God! for what? Is this the bait which enticed
me? Was there no way by which I might have enjoyed in freedom comforts
even greater than those which I now earn by servitude? Like a lion which
has been made so tame that men may lead him about by a thread, I am
dragged up and down, with broken and humbled spirit, at the heels of
those to whom, in my own domain, I should have been an object of awe and
wonder. And, worst of all, I feel that here I gain no credit, that here
I give no pleasure. The talents and accomplishments, which charmed a
far different circle, are here out of place. I am rude in the arts of
palaces, and can ill bear comparison with those whose calling from their
youth up has been to flatter and to sue. Have I, then, two lives, that,
after I have wasted one in the service of others, there may yet remain
to me a second, which I may live unto myself?”
Now and then, indeed, events occurred which disturbed the wretched
monotony of Francis Burney's life. The Court moved from Kew to Windsor,
and from Windsor back to Kew. One dull colonel went out of waiting, and
another dull colonel came into waiting. An impertinent servant made a
blunder about tea, and caused a misunderstanding between the gentlemen
and the ladies. A half-witted French Protestant minister talked oddly
about conjugal fidelity. An unlucky member of the household mentioned a
passage in the “Morning Herald” reflecting on the queen; and forthwith
Madame Schwellenberg, began to storm in bad English, and told him that
he had made her “what you call perspire!”