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 genius of Pope. She had married Dr. Delany, a man
known to his contemporaries as a profound scholar and an 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 vigor of her faculties and the serenity of her temper,
enjoyed and deserved the favor 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, 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 Shakespeare? 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. But 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 which, 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 jail
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 manservant, 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 has 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 jewelry; 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, 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, honorable 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 the Third
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 young 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, honorable
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 her prison. The door closed. The key was turned. She, looking
back with tender regret on all that 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 even 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
honor 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 the 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 assemblage 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, lured 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? 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 mine 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 Frances 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
made her "what you call perspire!"
A more important occurrence was the King's visit to Oxford. Miss Burney
went in the royal train to Nuneham, was utterly neglected there in the
crowd, and could with difficulty find a servant to show the way to her
bedroom, or a hairdresser to arrange her curls. She had the honor of
entering Oxford in the last of a long string of carriages which formed
the royal procession, of walking after the Queen all day through
refectories and chapels, and of standing, half dead with fatigue and
hunger, while her august mistress was seated at an excellent cold
collation. At Magdalene College, Frances was left for a moment in a
parlor, where she sank down on a chair. A good-natured equerry saw that
she was exhausted, and shared with her some apricots and bread, which he
had wisely put into his pockets. At that moment the door opened; the
Queen entered; the wearied attendants sprang up; the bread and fruit
were hastily concealed. "I found," says poor Miss Burney, "that our
appetites were to be supposed annihilated, at the same moment that our
strength was to be invincible."
Yet Oxford, seen even under such disadvantages, "revived in her," to use
her own words, "a consciousness to pleasure which had long lain nearly
dormant." She forgot, during one moment, that she was a waiting maid,
and felt as a woman of true genius might be expected to feel amidst
venerable remains of antiquity, beautiful works of art, vast
repositories of knowledge, and memorials of the illustrious dead. Had
she still been what she was before her father induced her to take the
most fatal step of her life, we can easily imagine what pleasure she
would have derived from a visit to the noblest of English cities. She
might, indeed, have been forced to travel in a hack chaise, and might
not have worn so fine a gown of Chambery gauze as that in which she
tottered after the royal party; but with what delight would she have
then paced the cloisters of Magdalene, compared the antique gloom of
Merton with the splendor of Christ Church, and looked down from the dome
of the Radcliffe Library on the magnificent sea of turrets and
battlements below! How gladly would learned men have laid aside for a
few hours Pindar's Odes and Aristotle's Ethics, to escort the author of
Cecilia from college to college! What neat little banquets would she
have found set out in their monastic cells! With what eagerness would
pictures, medals, and illuminated missals have been brought forth from
the most mysterious cabinets for her amusement! How much she would have
had to hear and to tell about Johnson, as she walked over Pembroke, and
about Reynolds, in the antechapel of New College! But these indulgences
were not for one who had sold herself into bondage.
About eighteen months after the visit to Oxford, another event
diversified the wearisome life which Frances led at court. Warren
Hastings was brought to the bar of the House of Peers. The Queen and
Princesses were present when the trial commenced, and Miss Burney was
permitted to attend. During the subsequent proceedings a day rule for
the same purpose was occasionally granted to her; for the Queen took the
strongest interest in the trial, and when she could not go herself to
Westminster Hall, liked to receive a report of what had passed from a
person who had singular powers of observation, and who was, moreover,
acquainted with some of the most distinguished managers. The portion of
the Diary which relates to this celebrated proceeding is lively and
picturesque. Yet we read it, we own, with pain; for it seems to us to
prove that the fine understanding of Frances Burney was beginning to
feel the pernicious influence of a mode of life which is as incompatible
with health of mind as the air of the Pontine marshes with health of
body. From the first day she espouses the cause of Hastings with a
presumptuous vehemence and acrimony quite inconsistent with the modesty
and suavity of her ordinary deportment. She shudders when Burke enters
the hall at the head of the Commons. She pronounces him the cruel
oppressor of an innocent man. She is at a loss to conceive how the
managers can look at the defendant, and not blush. Windham comes to her
from the managers' box, to offer her refreshment. "But," says she, "I
could not break bread with him." Then, again, she exclaims, "Ah, Mr.
Windham, how came you ever engaged in so cruel, so unjust a cause?" "Mr.
Burke saw me," she says, "and he bowed with the most marked civility of
manner." This, be it observed, was just after his opening speech,--a
speech which had produced a mighty effect, and which, certainly, no
other orator that ever lived could have made. "My curtsy," she
continues, "was the most ungrateful, distant, and cold; I could not do
otherwise; so hurt I felt to see him the head of such a cause." Now, not
only had Burke treated her with constant kindness, but the very last act
which he performed on the day on which he was turned out of the Pay
Office, about four years before this trial, was to make Dr. Burney
organist of Chelsea Hospital. When, at the Westminster election, Dr.
Burney was divided between his gratitude for this favor and his Tory
opinions, Burke in the noblest manner disclaimed all right to exact a
sacrifice of principle. "You have little or no obligations to me," he
wrote; "but if you had as many as I really wish it were in my power, as
it is certainly in my desire, to lay on you, I hope you do not think me
capable of conferring them, in order to subject your mind or your
affairs to a painful and mischievous servitude." Was this a man to be
uncivilly treated by a daughter of Dr. Burney, because she chose to
differ from him respecting a vast and most complicated question, which
he had studied deeply during many years, and which she had never studied
at all? It is clear, from Miss Burney's own narrative, that, when she
behaved so unkindly to Mr. Burke, she did not even know of what Hastings
was accused. One thing, however, she must have known, that Burke had
been able to convince a House of Commons, bitterly prejudiced against
himself, that the charges were well founded, and that Pitt and Dundas
had concurred with Fox and Sheridan in supporting the impeachment.
Surely a woman of far inferior abilities to Miss Burney might have been
expected to see that this never could have happened unless there had
been a strong case against the late Governor General. And there was, as
all reasonable men now admit, a strong case against him. That there were
great public services to be set off against his great crimes is
perfectly true. But his services and his crimes were equally unknown to
the lady who so confidently asserted his perfect innocence and imputed
to his accusers, that is to say, to all the greatest men of all parties
in the state, not merely error, but gross injustice and barbarity.
She had, it is true, occasionally seen Mr. Hastings, and had found his
manners and conversation agreeable. But surely she could not be so weak
as to infer from the gentleness of his deportment in a drawing-room,
that he was incapable of committing a great state crime, under the
influence of ambition and revenge. A silly Miss, fresh from a boarding
school, might fall into such a mistake; but the woman who had drawn the
character of Mr. Monckton should have known better.