“A YOUNG LADY’S ENTRANCE INTO THE WORLD.”
A subject now propels itself forward that might better, it is probable,
become any pen than that on which it here devolves. It cannot, however,
be set aside in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, to whom, and to the end of
his life, it proved a permanent source of deep and bosom interest: and
the Editor, with less unwillingness, though with conscious awkwardness,
approaches this egotistic history, from some recent information that
the obscurity in which its origin was encircled, has left, even yet, a
spur to curiosity and conjecture.
It seems, therefore, a devoir due to the singleness of truth, to cut
short any future vague assertion on this small subject, by an explicit
narration of a simple, though rather singular tale; which, little as in
itself it can be worthy of public attention, may not wholly, perhaps,
be unamusing, from the celebrated characters that must necessarily be
involved in its relation; at the head of which, at this present moment,
she is tempted to disclose, in self-defence—a proud self-defence!—of
this personal obtrusion, the LIVING[21] names of Sir Walter Scott and
Mr. Rogers, who, in a visit with which they favoured her in the year
1826, repeated some of the fabrications to which this mystery of her
early life still gave rise; and condescended to solicit a recital of
the real history of Evelina’s _Entrance into the World_.
This she instantly communicated; though so incoherently, from the
embarrassment of the subject, and its long absence from her thoughts,
that, having since collected documents to refresh her memory, she
ventures, in gratefully dedicating the little incident to these
Illustrious Inquisitors, to insert its details in these memoirs—to
which, parentally, it in fact belongs.[22]
FRANCES, the second daughter of Dr. Burney, was during her childhood
the most backward of all his family in the faculty of receiving
instruction. At eight years of age she was ignorant of the letters of
the alphabet; though at ten, she began scribbling, almost incessantly,
little works of invention; but always in private; and in scrawling
characters, illegible, save to herself.
One of her most remote remembrances, previously to this writing mania,
is that of hearing a neighbouring lady recommend to Mrs. Burney, her
mother, to quicken the indolence, or stupidity, whichever it might be,
of the little dunce, by the chastening ordinances of Solomon. The
alarm, however, of that little dunce, at a suggestion so wide from
the maternal measures that had been practised in her childhood, was
instantly superseded by a joy of gratitude and surprise that still
rests upon her recollection, when she heard gently murmured in reply,
“No, no,—I am not uneasy about her!”
But, alas! the soft music of those encouraging accents had already
ceased to vibrate on human ears, before these scrambling pot-hooks had
begun their operation of converting into Elegies, Odes, Plays, Songs,
Stories, Farces,—nay, Tragedies and Epic Poems, every scrap of white
paper that could be seized upon without question or notice; for she
grew up, probably through the vanity-annihilating circumstances of this
conscious intellectual disgrace, with so affrighted a persuasion that
what she scribbled, if seen, would but expose her to ridicule, that her
pen, though her greatest, was only her clandestine delight.
To one confidant, indeed, all was open; but the fond partiality of
the juvenile Susanna made her opinion of little weight; though the
affection of her praise rendered the stolen moments of their secret
readings the happiest of their adolescent lives.
From the time, however, that she attained her fifteenth year, she
considered it her duty to combat this writing passion as illaudable,
because fruitless. Seizing, therefore, an opportunity, when Dr. Burney
was at Chesington, and the then Mrs. Burney, her mother-in-law, was
in Norfolk, she made over to a bonfire, in a paved play-court, her
whole stock of prose goods and chattels; with the sincere intention
to extinguish for ever in their ashes her scribbling propensity. But
Hudibras too well says—
“He who complies against his will,
Is of his own opinion still.”
This grand feat, therefore, which consumed her productions, extirpated
neither the invention nor the inclination that had given them birth;
and, in defiance of all the projected heroism of the sacrifice, the
last of the little works that was immolated, which was the History of
Caroline Evelyn, the Mother of Evelina, left, upon the mind of the
writer, so animated an impression of the singular situations to which
that Caroline’s infant daughter,—from the unequal birth by which she
hung suspended between the elegant connexions of her mother, and
the vulgar ones of her grandmother,—might be exposed; and presented
contrasts and mixtures of society so unusual, yet, thus circumstanced,
so natural, that irresistibly and almost unconsciously, the whole of _A
Young Lady’s Entrance into the World_, was pent up in the inventor’s
memory, ere a paragraph was committed to paper.
Writing, indeed, was far more difficult to her than composing; for that
demanded what she rarely found attainable—secret opportunity: while
composition, in that hey-day of imagination, called only for volition.
When the little narrative, however slowly, from the impediments that
always annoy what requires secrecy, began to assume a “questionable
shape;” a wish—as vague, at first, as it was fantastic—crossed the
brain of the writer, to “see her work in print.”
She communicated, under promise of inviolable silence, this idea to her
sisters; who entered into it with much more amusement than surprise, as
they well knew her taste for quaint sports; and were equally aware of
the sensitive affright with which she shrunk from all personal remark.
She now copied the manuscript in a feigned hand; for as she was the
Doctor’s principal amanuensis, she feared her common writing might
accidentally be seen by some compositor of the History of Music, and
lead to detection.
She grew weary, however, ere long, of an exercise so merely manual;
and had no sooner completed a copy of the first and second volumes,
than she wrote a letter, without any signature, to offer the unfinished
work to a bookseller; with a desire to have the two volumes immediately
printed, if approved; and a promise to send the sequel in the following
year.
This was forwarded by the London post, with a desire that the answer
should be directed to a coffee-house.
Her younger brother—the elder, Captain James, was ‘over the hills
and far away,’—her younger brother, afterwards the celebrated Greek
scholar, gaily, and without reading a word of the work, accepted a
share in so whimsical a frolic; and joyously undertook to be her agent
at the coffee-house with her letters, and to the bookseller with the
manuscript.
After some consultation upon the choice of a bookseller, Mr. Dodsley
was fixed upon; for Dodsley, from his father’s,—or perhaps
grand-father’s,—well chosen collection of fugitive poetry, stood
foremost in the estimation of the juvenile set.
Mr. Dodsley, in answer to the proposition, declined looking at any
thing that was anonymous.
The party, half-amused, half-provoked, sat in full committee upon this
lofty reply; and came to a resolution to forego the _eclât_ of the west
end of the town, and to try their fortune with the urbanity of the city.
Chance fixed them upon the name of Mr. Lowndes.
The city of London here proved more courtly than that of Westminster;
and, to their no small delight, Mr. Lowndes desired to see the
manuscript.
And what added a certain pride to the author’s satisfaction in this
assent, was, that the answer opened by
“Sir,”—
which gave her an elevation to manly consequence, that had not been
accorded to her by Mr. Dodsley, whose reply began
“Sir, or Madam.”
The young agent was muffled up now by the laughing committee, in an old
great coat, and a large old hat, to give him a somewhat antique as
well as vulgar disguise; and was sent forth in the dark of the evening
with the two first volumes to Fleet-street, where he left them to their
fate.
In trances of impatience the party awaited the issue of the examination.
But they were all let down into the very ‘Slough of Despond,’ when the
next coffee-house letter coolly declared, that Mr. Lowndes could not
think of publishing an unfinished book; though he liked the work, and
should be ‘ready to purchase and print it when it should be finished.’
There was nothing in this unreasonable; yet the disappointed author,
tired of what she deemed such priggish punctilio, gave up, for awhile,
and in dudgeon, all thought of the scheme.
Nevertheless, to be thwarted on the score of our inclination acts more
frequently as a spur than as a bridle; the third volume, therefore,
which finished _The young lady’s entrance into the world_, was, ere
another year could pass away, almost involuntarily completed and copied.
But while the scribe was yet wavering whether to abandon or to
prosecute her enterprise, the chasm caused by this suspense to the
workings of her imagination, left an opening from their vagaries to a
mental interrogatory, whether it were right to allow herself such an
amusement, with whatever precautions she might keep it from the world,
unknown to her father?
She had never taken any step without the sanction of his permission;
and had now refrained from requesting it, only through the confusion
of acknowledging her authorship; and the apprehension, or, rather, the
horror of his desiring to see her performance.
Nevertheless, reflection no sooner took place of action, than she
found, in this case at least, the poet’s maxim reversed, and that
‘The female who deliberates—is sav’d,’
for she saw in its genuine light what was her duty; and seized,
therefore, upon a happy moment of a kind _tête à tête_ with her father,
to avow, with more blushes than words, her secret little work; and her
odd inclination to see it in print; hastily adding, while he looked
at her, incredulous of what he heard, that her brother Charles would
transact the business with a distant bookseller, who should never know
her name. She only, therefore, entreated that he would not himself ask
to see the manuscript.
His amazement was without parallel; yet it seemed surpassed by his
amusement; and his laugh was so gay, that, revived by its cheering
sound, she lost all her fears and embarrassment, and heartily joined in
it; though somewhat at the expence of her new author-like dignity.
She was the last person, perhaps, in the world from whom Dr. Burney
could have expected a similar scheme. He thought her project, however,
as innocent as it was whimsical, and offered not the smallest
objection; but, kindly embracing her, and calling himself _le père
confident_, he enjoined her to be watchful that Charles was discreet;
and to be invariably strict in guarding her own incognita: and then,
having tacitly granted her personal petition, he dropt the subject.
With fresh eagerness, now, and heightened spirits, the incipient author
rolled up her packet for the bookseller; which was carried to him by a
newly trusted agent,[23] her brother being then in the country.
The suspense was short; in a very few days Mr. Lowndes sent his
approbation of the work, with an offer of 20_l._ for the manuscript—an
offer which was accepted with alacrity, and boundless surprise at its
magnificence!!
The receipt for this settlement, signed simply by “_the Editor of
Evelina_,” was conveyed by the new agent to Fleet-street.
In the ensuing January, 1778, the work was published; a fact which only
became known to its writer, who had dropped all correspondence with Mr.
Lowndes, from hearing the following advertisement read, accidentally,
aloud at breakfast-time, by Mrs. Burney, her mother-in-law.
_This day was published_,