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[Illustration:
_E. Burney._ _A Dawson Ph.fc._ _C. Turner_
_Frances Burney._
]
FANNY BURNEY
AND HER FRIENDS
_SELECT PASSAGES FROM HER DIARY AND
OTHER WRITINGS_
EDITED BY
L. B. SEELEY, M.A.
_Sometime Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge_
AUTHOR OF
“HORACE WALPOLE AND HIS WORLD”
_NEW EDITION_
LONDON
SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED
ESSEX STREET, STRAND
1895
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Birth—Parentage—The Macburneys—Early Life of Dr. Burney—Fulk 1-31
Greville—Esther Sleepe—Lynn—Poland Street—Frances Burney’s
Brothers and Sisters—Her Backwardness in Childhood—Her
Mother’s Death—David Garrick—The Old Lady—The Wig-maker—
Neglect of Fanny’s Education—Her Taste for Scribbling—
Samuel Crisp—His Early Life—His Tragedy—Its Failure—His
Chagrin—His Life at Hampton—His Retirement from the World—
Crisp renews his Acquaintance with Burney—Becomes the
Adviser of the Family—Burney’s Amiable Temper—Chesington
Hall—Its Quaint Interior—Contrast between Fanny and her
Elder Sister—Burney’s Second Marriage—Change of Plans—Mrs.
Burney lectures Fanny—An _Auto da Fé_—Origin of ‘Evelina’—
Burney takes his Doctor’s Degree—His Essay on Comets—
Preparations for the ‘History of Music’—Musical Tour in
France and Italy—House in Queen Square—German Tour—Fanny’s
Occupation during his Absence—Removal to St. Martin’s
Street—Newton’s House—The Observatory—Fanny’s Arrival at
Womanhood
CHAPTER II.
Life in St. Martin’s Street—Increase of Fame and Friends— 32-59
Garrick’s First Call—Confusion—The Hairdresser—‘Tag-rag
and Bobtail’—The History of Histories—Imitation of Dr.
Johnson—The Great Roscius—Mr. Crisp’s Gout—Correspondence
between him and Fanny—Dr. Burney’s Concerts—Abyssinian
Bruce—Supper in St. Martin’s Street—Italian Singers—A
Musical Evening—Visit of Count Orloff—His Stature and
Jewels—Condescension—A Matrimonial Duet—The Empress’s
Miniature—Jemmy Twitcher—Present State of St. Martin’s
Street—Mr. and Mrs. Thrale—Dr. Johnson—Visit of the
Thrales and Johnson—Appearance of Dr. Johnson—His
Conversation—His Contempt for Music—Meeting of Dr. Johnson
and Mr. Greville—Mrs. Thrale Defiant—Signor Piozzi
CHAPTER III.
‘Evelina’—Date of its Composition—Negotiations with 60-99
Publishers—Dr. Burney’s Consent—Publication—Illness of the
Author—Visit to Chesington—Her Father reads the Book—Mrs.
Thrale and Mrs. Cholmondeley—Exciting News—Fanny’s
Success—Nancy Dawson—The Secret told to Mr. Crisp—
Characters in ‘Evelina’—Dinner at Streatham—Dr. Johnson—
David Garrick—The Unclubbable Man—Curiosity as to
Authorship of ‘Evelina’—The Bookseller in the Dark—Visits
to the Thrales—Table Talk—Mr. Smith—Goldsmith—Johnson and
the Scotch—Civil for Four—Sir Joshua Reynolds—Mrs.
Montagu—Boswell—The Branghtons—Mrs. Cholmondeley—Talk with
Sir Joshua—Is it True?—Mrs. Cholmondeley’s Whimsical
Manner—Visit to her House—Mr. Cumberland—A Hint for a
Comedy—A Charmed Circle—Sheridan—Not a Fair Question—
Pressed to Write for the Stage—Flattered by Compliments
CHAPTER IV.
Return to Streatham—Murphy the Dramatist—A Proposed Comedy— 100-131
‘The Witlings’—Adverse Judgment of Mr. Crisp and Dr.
Burney—Fanny to Mr. Crisp—Dr. Johnson on Miss Burney—A
Visit to Brighton—Cumberland—An Eccentric Character—Sir
Joshua’s Prices—Tragedies—Actors and Singers—Regrets for
the Comedy—Crisp’s Reply—The Lawrence Family at Devizes—
Lady Miller’s Vase—The Gordon Riots—Precipitate Retreat—
Grub Street—Sudden Death of Mr. Thrale—Idleness and Work—A
Sister of the Craft—The Mausoleum of Julia—Progress of
‘Cecilia’ through the Press—Crisp’s Judgment on ‘Cecilia’—
Johnson and ‘Cecilia’—Publication of ‘Cecilia’—Burke—His
Letter to Miss Burney—Assembly at Miss Monckton’s—New
Acquaintances—Soame Jenyns—Illness and Death of Crisp—Mrs.
Thrale’s Struggles—Ill-health of Johnson—Mr. Burney
Organist of Chelsea Hospital—Mrs. Thrale marries Piozzi—
Last Interview with Johnson—His Death
CHAPTER V.
Mrs. Delany—Her Childhood—Her First Marriage—Swift—Dr. 132-166
Delany—The Dowager Duchess of Portland—Mrs. Delany a
Favourite at Court—Her Flower-Work—Miss Burney’s First
Visit to Mrs. Delany—Meets the Duchess of Portland—Mrs.
Sleepe—Crisp—Growth of Friendship with Mrs. Delany—Society
at her House—Mrs. Delany’s Reminiscences—The Lockes of
Norbury Park—Mr. Smelt—Dr. Burney has an Audience of the
King and Queen—The King’s Bounty to Mrs. Delany—Miss
Burney Visits Windsor—Meets the King and Queen—‘Evelina’—
Invention Exhausted—The King’s Opinion of Voltaire,
Rousseau, and Shakespeare—The Queen and Bookstalls—
Expectation—Journey to Windsor—The Terrace—Dr. Burney’s
Disappointment—Proposal of the Queen to Miss Burney—Doubts
and Fears—An Interview—The Decision—Mistaken Criticism—
Burke’s Opinion—A Misconception—Horace Walpole’s Regret—
Miss Burney’s Journals of her Life at Court—Sketches of
Character—The King and Queen—Mrs. Schwellenberg—The
Queen’s Lodge—Miss Burney’s Apartments—A Day’s Duties—
Royal Snuff—Fictitious Names in the Diary—The Princesses—A
Royal Birthday—A Walk on the Terrace—The Infant Princess
Amelia
CHAPTER VI.
Royal Visit to Nuneham—A Present from the Queen—Official 167-188
Exhortations—Embarrassments at Nuneham—A Laborious Sunday—
Hairdressing—The Court visits Oxford—Journey thither—
Reception by the University—Address and Reply—Kissing
Hands—Christchurch—Fatigues of the Suite—Refreshment under
Difficulties—A Surprise—The Routine of Court Life—The
Equerries—Draughts in the Palace—Early Prayers—
Barley-water—The London Season—Mrs. Siddons—Mrs.
Schwellenberg’s Apartments—Her Tame Frogs—Her Behaviour to
Miss Burney—Cruel Treatment—A Change for the Better—
Newspaper Reports—Conversation with the Queen—Miss Burney
as Reader—Her Attainments, Tastes, and Power
CHAPTER VII.
The Trial of Warren Hastings—Westminster Hall—Description of 189-200
it on the Opening Day of the Trial—Edmund Burke—The other
Managers—Procession of the Peers—Entrance of the
Defendant—The Arraignment—Speech of Lord Chancellor
Thurlow—Reply of Warren Hastings—Opening of the Trial—Mr.
Windham—His Admiration of Dr. Johnson—His Reflections on
the Spectacle—Bearing of the Lord Chancellor—Windham on
Hastings—William Pitt—Major Scott—Conversation with
Windham—Partisanship—Close of the First Day’s Proceedings—
Conference on it with the Queen—Another Day at the Trial—
Burke’s Great Speech—Resemblance between Hastings and
Windham—Fox’s Eloquence—Death of Mrs. Delany
CHAPTER VIII.
The King’s Health—Royal Visit to Cheltenham—Excursions— 201-229
Robert Raikes—Colonel Digby—The Duke of York—The Court
attends the Musical Festival at Worcester—Return to
Windsor—M. de Lalande, the Astronomer—His Compliments—His
Volubility—Illness of the King—The King grows worse—‘The
Queen is my Physician’—Alarm and Agitation—Grief of the
Queen—The King Insane—Arrival of the Prince of Wales—
Paroxysm of the King at Dinner—The Queen Ill—The
Physicians—The Royal Pair separated—The Prince takes the
Government of the Palace—Prayers for the King’s Recovery—
The King and his Equerries—Sir Lucas Pepys—A Privy
Council—Preparations for leaving Windsor—Departure for
Kew—Mournful Spectacle—Mrs. Schwellenberg arrives
CHAPTER IX.
State of Kew Palace—Dr. Willis and his Son called in— 230-250
Progress under the New Doctors—Party Spirit—The Regency
Question—Attacks on the Queen—Fluctuations in the King’s
State—Violence of Burke—Extraordinary Scene between the
King and Miss Burney in Kew Gardens—Marked Improvement of
the King—The Regency Bill postponed—The King informs Miss
Burney of his Recovery—The Restoration—Demonstrations of
Joy—Return to Windsor—Old Routine resumed—Reaction
CHAPTER X.
Royal Visit to Weymouth—Lyndhurst—Village Loyalty—Arrival at 251-277
Weymouth—Bathing to Music—Mrs. Gwynn—Mrs. Siddons—The
Royal Party at the Rooms—First Sight of Mr. Pitt—The
Marquis of Salisbury—Royal Tour—Visit to Longleat—Mrs.
Delany—Bishop Ken—Tottenham Park—Return to Windsor—
Progress of the French Revolution—Colonel Digby’s
Marriage—Miss Burney’s Situation—A Senator—Tax on
Bachelors—Reading to the Queen—Miss Burney’s Melancholy—
Proposal for her Retirement—Her Tedious Solitude—Her
Literary Inactivity—Her Declining Health—A Friendly Cabal—
Windham and the Literary Club—James Boswell—Miss Burney’s
Memorial to the Queen—Leave of Absence proposed—The Queen
and Mrs. Schwellenberg—Serious Illness of Miss Burney—
Discussions on her Retirement—A Day at the Hastings Trial—
The Defence—A Lively Scene—The Duke of Clarence—Parting
with the Royal Family—Miss Burney receives a Pension—Her
Final Retirement
CHAPTER XI.
Chelsea Hospital—Tour to Devonshire—Visit to Bath— 278-292
Reminiscences—The Duchess of Devonshire—Return Home—
Literary Pursuits resumed—Attempts at Tragedy—Social
Engagements—Death of Sir Joshua Reynolds—A Public
Breakfast at Mrs. Montagu’s—Mrs. Hastings—Mr. Boswell—
Visit to Mrs. Crewe—The Burke Family—Meeting with Edmund
Burke—Burke and the French Revolution—Charles Fox—Lord
Loughborough—Mr. Erskine—His Egotism—The French Refugees
in England—Bury St. Edmunds—Madame de Genlis—The Duke de
Liancourt—The Settlement at Mickleham—Count de Narbonne—
The Chevalier d’Arblay—Visit of Miss Burney to Norfolk—
Death of Mr. Francis—Return to London
CHAPTER XII.
Miss Burney at Norbury Park—Execution of the French King— 293-314
Madame de Staël and Talleyrand at Mickleham—Miss Burney’s
Impressions of M. d’Arblay—Proposed Marriage—Visit to
Chesington—The Marriage takes place—A Happy Match—The
General as Gardener—Madame d’Arblay resumes her Pen—Birth
of a Son—‘Edwy and Elgiva’—Acquittal of Warren Hastings—
Publishing Plans—The Subscription List—Publication of
‘Camilla’—Visit of the Author to Windsor—Interview with
the King and Queen—A Compliment from their Majesties—The
Royal Family on the Terrace—Princess Elizabeth—Great Sale
of ‘Camilla’—Criticisms on the Work—Declension of Madame
d’Arblay’s Style—Camilla Cottage—Wedded Happiness—Madame
d’Arblay’s Comedy of ‘Love and Fashion’ withdrawn—Death of
Mrs. Phillips—Straitened Circumstances—The d’Arblays go to
France—Popularity of Bonaparte—Reception at the Tuileries
and Review—War between England and France—Disappointments—
Life at Passy—Difficulty of Correspondence—Madame
d’Arblay’s Desire to return to England—Sails from Dunkirk
CHAPTER XIII.
Madame d’Arblay’s Plans for her Son—Landing in England— 315-331
Arrival at Chelsea—Saddening Change in Dr. Burney—
Alexander d’Arblay at Cambridge—Publication of the
‘Wanderer’—Death of Dr. Burney—Madame d’Arblay presented
to Louis XVIII.—M. d’Arblay appointed to the Corps de
Gardes du Roi—Arrives in England and carries Madame back
to France—Madame d’Arblay presented to the Duchesse
d’Angoulême—The Hundred Days—Panic at Brussels—M. d’Arblay
invalided—Settles in England—His Death—Remaining Days of
Madame d’Arblay—Visit from Sir Walter Scott—The Memoirs of
Dr. Burney—Tributes to their value—Death of Alexander
d’Arblay—Death of Madame d’Arblay—Conclusion
Fanny Burney and her Friends.
-------
CHAPTER I.
Birth—Parentage—The Macburneys—Early Life of Dr. Burney—Fulk Greville—
Esther Sleepe—Lynn—Poland Street—Frances Burney’s Brothers and
Sisters—Her Backwardness in Childhood—Her Mother’s Death—David
Garrick—The Old Lady—The Wig-maker—Neglect of Fanny’s Education—Her
Taste for Scribbling—Samuel Crisp—His Early Life—His Tragedy—Its
Failure—His Chagrin—His Life at Hampton—His Retirement from the World—
Crisp renews his Acquaintance with Burney—Becomes the Adviser of the
Family—Burney’s Amiable Temper—Chesington Hall—Its Quaint Interior—
Contrast between Fanny and her Elder Sister—Burney’s Second Marriage—
Change of Plans—Mrs. Burney lectures Fanny—An _Auto da Fé_—Origin of
‘Evelina’—Burney takes his Doctor’s Degree—His Essay on Comets—
Preparations for the ‘History of Music’—Musical Tour in France and
Italy—House in Queen Square—German Tour—Fanny’s Occupation during his
Absence—Removal to St. Martin’s Street—Newton’s House—The Observatory—
Fanny’s Arrival at Womanhood.
Frances Burney was born at King’s Lynn on the 13th of June, 1752. She
was the second daughter, and third child, of Dr. Charles Burney, author
of the well-known ‘History of Music,’ by Esther Sleepe, his first wife.
It has been stated,[1] we know not on what authority, that Dr. Burney
was a descendant in the fifth degree of James Macburney, a native of
Scotland, who attended King James I. when he left that country to take
possession of the English throne. The doctor himself was certainly
unacquainted with this fact, if fact it be. His grandfather and father
were each named James Macburney, but they were both born at the village
of Great Hanwood, in Shropshire, where the former inherited a
considerable estate; there was no trace in their connections of Celtic
extraction; and Charles has recorded that he could never find at what
period any of his ancestors lived in Scotland or Ireland. Doubtless it
was the adventures of the two historical James Macburneys which led
Macaulay to conclude that the family was of Irish origin. James the
younger offended his father by eloping with an actress from the
Goodman’s Fields Theater. ‘The old gentleman could devise no more
judicious mode of wreaking vengeance on his undutiful boy than by
marrying the cook.’ He married some sort of domestic, at any rate, who
brought him a son, named Joseph, to whom he left all his property.
Joseph, however, soon ran through his fortune, and was reduced to earn
his bread as a dancing-master in Norfolk. His elder brother James
survived the actress, and though a poor widower with a swarm of
children, gained the hand of Miss Ann Cooper, an heiress and beauty, who
had refused the addresses of the celebrated Wycherley. After his second
marriage, James followed the profession of a portrait-painter, first at
Shrewsbury, and later at Chester. The number of his children rose to
twenty-two; the youngest being Charles, afterwards Dr. Burney, and a
twin sister, Susannah, who were born and baptized at Shrewsbury on the
12th of April, 1726; at which date their father still retained the name
of Macburney. When and why the Mac was dropped we are not informed, but
by the time Charles attained to manhood, the family in all its branches—
uncles and cousins, as well as brothers and sisters—had concurred in
adopting the more compact form of Burney.
The musical talents of Charles Burney showed themselves at an early age.
In his eighteenth year, the proficiency he had acquired under his eldest
half-brother, James Burney, organist of St. Mary’s, Shrewsbury,
recommended him to the notice of Dr. Arne, the composer of ‘Rule,
Britannia,’ who offered to take him as a pupil. In 1744, accordingly,
Charles was articled to the most famous English musician of that day,
and went to live in London. At the house of the no less famous Mrs.
Cibber,[2] who was sister of Dr. Arne, he had opportunities of mixing
with most of the persons then distinguished by their writings or their
performances in connection with the orchestra and the stage. At the end
of his third year with Arne, Burney acquired a still more useful patron.
Among the leaders of ton in the middle of last century was Fulk
Greville, a descendant of the favorite of Queen Elizabeth and friend of
Sir Philip Sidney. To a passion for field sports, horse-racing, and
gaming, this fine gentleman united an equally strong taste for more
refined pleasures, and his ample possessions enabled him to gratify
every inclination to the utmost. Greville met Burney at the shop of
Kirkman, the harpsichord-maker, and was so captivated with his playing
and lively conversation, that he paid Arne £300 to cancel the young
man’s articles, and took him to live with himself as a sort of musical
companion. The high-bred society to which he was now introduced prepared
Burney to take rank in later years as the most fashionable professor of
music, and one of the most polished wits of his time. In Greville’s town
circle, and at his country seat, Wilbury House, near Andover, his
dependent constantly encountered peers, statesmen, diplomatists,
macaronis, to whose various humours this son of a provincial
portrait-painter seems to have adapted himself as readily as if he had
been to the manner born. So firm a hold did he gain on his protector,
that neither the marriage of the latter, nor his own, appears in any
degree to have weakened his favour. When Greville chose to make a stolen
match with Miss Frances Macartney,[3] or, as the lady’s father expressed
it, ‘to take a wife out of the window whom he might just as well have
taken out of the door,’ Burney was employed to give the bride away. When
Burney himself became a benedict, Mr. and Mrs. Greville cordially
approved both the act and his choice, and Mrs. Greville subsequently
stood as godmother to Frances Burney.
It was in 1749 that Charles Burney took to wife the lady before
mentioned, who, on her mother’s side, was of French origin, and
grandchild of a Huguenot refugee named Dubois. Esther Sleepe herself was
bred in the City of London, and her future husband first saw her at the
house of his elder brother, Richard Burney, in Hatton Garden. To his
fashionable friends the marriage must have seemed an imprudent one, for
Miss Sleepe had no fortune to compensate for her obscure parentage. From
the ‘Memoirs of Dr. Burney,’[4] we learn that her father was a man of
ill conduct; but Fanny everywhere speaks with enthusiasm of her mother’s
mother. Somewhat strangely, this lady herself adhered to the Roman
Catholic creed, though she was the child of a man exiled by the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and though she suffered her own
daughter Esther to be brought up in the Anglican Communion. In view of
the union which Frances Burney afterwards contracted, it is as well to
bear in mind that one of her parents was partly of French extraction. In
consequence of his wife’s connections, Charles Burney on his marriage
hired a house in the City. He was presently elected organist of St.
Dionis Backchurch, produced several pieces of music, and laid himself
out to obtain pupils. These flocked to him from all sides. The Grevilles
had gone abroad shortly after he left them, but he could still count on
their influence, and that of the friends they had procured him, while he
found new supporters daily among the merchants and bankers east of
Temple Bar. His wife bore him a first-born son, who was baptized James,
according to the immemorial usage of the Burney race, and then a
daughter, who received her mother’s name of Esther. But when all things
looked fair and promising, the sky suddenly became overcast. The young
father’s health broke down: a violent attack of fever was succeeded by a
train of symptoms threatening consumption; and, as a last resource, he
was ordered by his medical adviser, the poet-physician Armstrong,[5] to
throw up his employments in London and go to live in the country.
In this emergency, Burney was offered and accepted the place of organist
at Lynn, whither he removed in 1751, and where he spent the nine
following years. His stipend was fixed at £100 a year, a handsome sum
for those days, and he largely added to it by giving music lessons in
the town, and in many of the great houses of Norfolk. The qualities
which had stood him in good stead in London proved equally acceptable to
the country gentlemen of East Anglia. ‘He scarcely ever entered one of
their houses upon terms of business without leaving it on terms of
intimacy.’ His journeys to Houghton, Holkham, Kimberley, Rainham and
Felbrig were performed on the back of his mare Peggy, who leisurely
padded along the sandy cross-roads, while the rider studied a volume of
Italian poetry with the aid of a dictionary which he carried in his
pocket. As Burney’s income grew, his family also increased. After his
third child, Frances, came another daughter, Susanna; next a second son,
who was called Charles, and then a fourth daughter, Charlotte. The keen
breezes from the Wash helped to brace his spare person, and though
constant riding about the country in winter was not desirable exercise,
Burney gradually reconciled himself to his provincial lot, which he
enlivened by laying plans for his ‘History of Music,’ corresponding with
the Grevilles and other old friends, and commencing an acquaintance by
letter with Dr. Johnson. In 1759, however, he gained some general
reputation by his musical setting of an ode for St. Cecilia’s Day, which
was performed with much applause at Ranelagh Gardens; and, stimulated by
the exhortations which reached him from various quarters, he prepared to
resume his career in the capital. Foremost in urging the step was Samuel
Crisp, whom he had met and taken for his mentor at Wilbury House, and of
whom we shall have more to say presently. To settle for life among the
foggy aldermen of Lynn, wrote Crisp, would be to plant his youth,
genius, hopes and fortune against a north wall. Burney took the warning,
and in 1760, having sufficiently recruited his constitution, he returned
to London with his wife and family.
He established himself in Poland Street, which, from having been in high
fashion, was then lapsing by degrees to the professional and the less
wealthy mercantile classes, though it still boasted among its
inhabitants the Duke of Chandos, besides several lesser personages whose
names were written in the peerage. This was the very situation for an
ambitious music-master of slender means but good connections. In a very
short time, we are told, Burney ‘had hardly an hour that was not
appropriated to some fair disciple.’ He began his round of lessons as
early as seven o’clock in the morning, and sometimes did not finish it
till eleven at night. He often dined in a hackney coach on the contents
of a sandwich-box and a flask of sherry and water, which he carried in
his pocket. The care of his six little ones of necessity devolved wholly
on their mother, who was well worthy of the charge. In talents and
accomplishments Mrs. Burney appears to have been at least the equal of
her husband. While she lived, a certain touch of Huguenot decision in
her added strength to his less strenuous nature; and her French blood
undoubtedly contributed its full share to the quick and lively parts
that in different degrees distinguished their children. These, as they
grew out of infancy, composed a group which, on every view that we get
of it, presents an extremely pleasant picture. In most cases, their
minds blossomed at an early period. The eldest daughter, Esther,
inherited her father’s musical genius; when only eight years of age she
performed with surprising skill on the harpsichord. James, the eldest
son, appears to have been a lad of spirit and vivacity. Beginning as ‘a
nominal midshipman’ at the age of ten, he chose the navy for his
profession, sailed twice round the world with Captain Cook, rose to the
rank of rear-admiral, and lived to have his ‘flashes of wild wit’
celebrated by Charles Lamb in one of the essays of ‘Elia.’ Susanna, the
favorite and special friend of our Fanny, has left letters worthy of
being printed on the same page with those of her famous sister, and her
power of writing showed itself sooner than did Fanny’s. Finally,
Charles,[6] the second son, though for some reason he quitted Cambridge
without taking a degree, made his mark in Greek criticism before
completing his twenty-fifth year; in that department of study, so speedy
a harvest affords sufficient proof of a forward spring. The fame of the
younger Dr. Charles Burney is now somewhat faded: in his prime, he was
classed with Porson and Parr as one of the three chief representatives
of English scholarship; and on his death his library was purchased by
the nation and placed in the British Museum.
The one marked exception to the rule of early development in the Burney
family was noted in the case of the daughter who was destined to be its
principal ornament. We are told that the most remarkable features of
Frances Burney’s childhood were her extreme shyness and her backwardness
at learning. At eight years of age, she did not even know her letters;
and her elder brother, who had a sailor’s love of practical jokes, used
to pretend to teach her to read, and give her the book upside down,
which, he said, she never found out. An officious acquaintance of her
mother suggested that the application of the little dunce might be
quickened by the rod, but the wiser parent replied that ‘she had no fear
about Fanny.’ Mrs. Burney, it is clear, favoured no forcing methods in
education. She was laid aside by illness shortly after the family’s
return to London, and, so long as her health lasted, seems to have given
regular teaching to the eldest of her daughters only, whose taste for
reading she very early began to form. “I perfectly recollect,” wrote
Fanny to Esther many years later, “child as I was, and never of the
party, this part of your education. At that very juvenile period, the
difference even of months makes a marked distinction in bestowing and
receiving instruction. I, also, was so peculiarly backward that even our
Susan stood before me; she could read when I knew not my letters. But,
though so sluggish to learn, I was always observant. Do you remember Mr.
Seaton denominating me at fifteen, the _silent, observant Miss Fanny_?
Well I recollect your reading with our dear mother all Pope’s works and
Pitt’s ‘Æneid.’ I recollect, also, your spouting passages from Pope,
that I learned from hearing you recite them, before—many years before—I
read them myself.”
Mrs. Burney died at the end of September, 1761. Towards the close of her
illness, Fanny and Susan, with their brother Charles, had been sent to
board with a Mrs. Sheeles, who kept a school in Queen Square, that they
might be out of the way; and this experienced judge of children was
greatly struck by the intensity of Fanny’s grief at a loss which girls
of nine are apt to realize very imperfectly.
The truth seems to be that Fanny’s backwardness and apparent dulness
were simply due to the numbing influence of nervousness and extreme
diffidence. Her father, the less indulgent to shyness in others because
he had experienced it in himself, for a long time did her very imperfect
justice. Looking back in later years, he could remember that her talent
for observing and representing points of character, her lively
invention, even her turn for composition, had shown themselves before
she had learnt to spell her way through the pages of a fairy tale. A
magician more potent than any books helped to call forth the germs of
her latent powers. Among the friends most intimate in Poland Street
during the months following Mrs. Burney’s death were David Garrick and
his engaging wife, La Violetta. While exerting themselves to console the
widower, this brilliant and kindly couple did not neglect his motherless
family. ‘Garrick, who was passionately fond of children, never withheld
his visits on account of the absence of the master of the house.’ If Mr.
Burney was not at home, the great actor, keenly alive to his own gift of
bestowing pleasure, would devote himself to entertaining the little
ones. The rapture with which his entrance was greeted by that small
audience charmed him as much as the familiar applause of Drury Lane. The
prince of comedians and mimics was content to lavish all the resources
of his art on a handful of girls and boys. When he left them, they spent
the rest of the day in recalling the sallies of his humour, and the
irresistible gestures which had set them off. So Fanny tells us, the
least noticed, probably, yet the most attentive and observant member of
the whole group. On many a happy night, the elder ones, in charge of
some suitable guardian, were permitted to occupy Mrs. Garrick’s private
box at the theatre. There they beheld ‘the incomparable Roscius’ take
the stage, and followed him with eyes of such eager admiration, that it
seemed—so their amused father told his friend—
‘They did, as was their duty,
Worship the shadow of his shoe-tie!’
Burney relates of Fanny that ‘she used, after having seen a play in Mrs.
Garrick’s box, to take the actors off, and _compose_ speeches for their
characters, for she could not read them.’ But, he continues, in company
or before strangers, she was silent, backward, and timid, even to
sheepishness; and, from her shyness, had such profound gravity and
composure of features, that those of Dr. Burney’s friends who went often
to his home, and entered into the different humours of the children,
never called Fanny by any other name, from the time she had reached her
eleventh year, than ‘the old lady.’
Yet the shyest children will now and then forget their shyness. This
seems to be the moral of a story which the worthy doctor goes on to tell
in his rather prolix and pompous style. “There lived next door to me, at
that time, in Poland Street, and in a private house, a capital
hair-merchant, who furnished perukes to the judges and gentlemen of the
law. The hair-merchant’s female children and mine used to play together
in the little garden behind the house; and, unfortunately, one day, the
door of the wig-magazine being left open, they each of them put on one
of those dignified ornaments of the head, and danced and jumped about in
a thousand antics, laughing till they screamed at their own ridiculous
figures. Unfortunately, in their vagaries, one of the flaxen wigs, said
by the proprietor to be worth upwards of ten guineas—in those days an
enormous price—fell into a tub of water, placed for shrubs in the little
garden, and lost all its gorgon buckle,[7] and was declared by the owner
to be totally spoilt. He was extremely angry, and chid very severely his
own children, when my little daughter, ‘the old lady,’ then ten years of
age, advancing to him, as I was informed, with great gravity and
composure, sedately said, ‘What signifies talking so much about an
accident? The wig is wet, to be sure; and the wig was a good wig, to be
sure: but ’tis of no use to speak of it any more, because _what’s done
can’t be undone_.’”
Meanwhile, little was done on any regular plan for Fanny’s education.
She had not been suffered to remain at the school in which she was
temporarily placed during her mother’s last illness, nor was she sent to
any other. When, after the lapse of two or three years, Burney found
himself in a position to put two of his girls to school at Paris, he
selected the third, Susanna, rather than Fanny, to accompany the eldest
sister, proposing to send Fanny and Charlotte together at a future time.
Two reasons were assigned for this arrangement. One was the notion that
Susanna, who inherited her father’s consumptive habit, required change
of climate more than the second daughter. The other was a fear lest
Fanny’s deep reverence for her Roman Catholic grandmother might incline
her to adopt the same form of faith, and thus render her perversion
easy, if, when so young, she fell within the influence of some
enterprising French chaplain. We cannot help suspecting, however, that
the true cause of Fanny being passed over on this occasion was an
impression that Susanna was a girl of brighter parts, and better fitted
to benefit by the teaching of a Paris _pension_.
From whatever motive, Fanny was left behind, nor was any instructor
provided for her at home. The widower disliked the idea of introducing a
governess into his house, though he had no time to spare even for
directing his daughter’s studies. She was thus entirely self-educated,
and had no other spur to exertion than her unbounded affection for her
father, who excused himself for his neglect of her training by the
reflection that ‘she had a natural simplicity and probity about her
which wanted no teaching.’ In her eleventh year she had learned to read,
and began to scribble little poems and works of invention, though in a
character that was illegible to everyone but herself. ‘Her love of
reading,’ we are told, ‘did not display itself till two or three years
later.’ Her father had a good library, over which she was allowed to
range at will; and in course of time she became acquainted with a fair
portion of its lighter contents. The solitary child kept a careful
account of the authors she studied, making extracts from them, and
adding remarks which, we are assured, showed that her mind was riper
than her knowledge. Yet she never developed any strong or decided taste
for literature. She never became even a devourer of books. Indeed, it
may be doubted whether she did not always derive more pleasure from her
own compositions than from those of the greatest writers. Plying her pen
without an effort, the leisure which most intellectual persons give to
reading, Fanny devoted in great part to producing manuscripts of her
own. Childish epics, dramas, and romances, were not the only ventures of
her youth: she began keeping a diary at the age of fifteen, and, in
addition to her published novels and sundry plays which have perished,
journals, memoirs, and letters, of which a small proportion only have
seen the light, occupied most of the vacant hours in her active
womanhood.
During this period of self-education, the person from whom Fanny
received most notice and attention appears to have been her father’s old
friend, Samuel Crisp. This gentleman had gone abroad while the Burneys
were in Norfolk, and had taken up his abode at Rome, where he passed
several years, improving his taste in music, painting, and sculpture,
and forgetting for a while the young English professor who had
interested him under Greville’s roof. Having at length returned to
England, he, some time after Mrs. Burney’s death, met Burney by accident
at the house of a common acquaintance. The casual encounter immediately
revived the old intimacy. Crisp at once found his way to the house in
Poland Street, and, like Garrick, was attracted by the group of children
there. As the two eldest of these and the lively Susanna were soon
afterwards removed to a distance, the chief share in his regard
naturally fell to the lot of Fanny. Hence, while all the children came
to look upon him with a sort of filial feeling, he was in a special
manner appropriated by Fanny as ‘her dearest daddy.’ And there were
points in Crisp’s temperament which harmonized well with the girl’s shy
yet aspiring character. Both, in their turn, set their hearts on the
attainment of literary renown; both had the same tendency to shrink into
themselves. Success changed Fanny from a silent domestic drudge into a
social celebrity; failure helped to change Crisp from a shining man of
fashion into a moody recluse.
The story of this strange man has been sketched by Macaulay, but it has
so close a bearing on our heroine’s life, that we cannot avoid shortly
retracing it here. A handsome person, dignified manners, excellent
talents, and an accomplished taste procured for Crisp, in his prime,
acceptance and favour, not only with Fulk Greville and his set, but also
with a large number of other persons distinguished in the great world.
Thus, he was admitted to the acquaintance of the highly descended and
wealthy Margaret Cavendish Harley, then Duchess Dowager of Portland,
whom we mention here because through her Crisp became known to Mrs.
Delany, by whom Fanny was afterwards introduced to the Royal Family.
Another of his friends was Mrs. Montagu, who then, as he used to say,
was ‘peering at fame,’ and gradually rising to the rank of a lady
patroness of letters. And among the most intimate of his associates was
the Earl of Coventry, at the time when that ‘grave young lord,’ as
Walpole calls him, after long dangling, married the most beautiful of
the beautiful Gunnings. Now, about the date when our Fanny first saw the
light, it was buzzed abroad in the coterie of Crisp’s admirers that
their hero had finished a tragedy on the story of Virginia. A lively
expectation was at once awakened. But Garrick, though a personal friend
of the author, hesitated and delayed to gratify the public with the rich
feast which was believed to be in store for it. The utmost efforts were
employed to overcome his reluctance. The great Mr. Pitt was prevailed on
to read the play, and to pronounce in its favour. Lord Coventry exerted
all his influence with the coy manager. Yet not until Lady Coventry
herself had joined her solicitations to those of her husband was
‘Virginia’ put in rehearsal at Drury Lane. The piece was produced in
February, 1754, and ran several nights, buoyed up by the acting and
popularity of Garrick, who contributed a remarkably good epilogue.[8]
But no patronage or support could keep alive a drama which, in truth,
had neither poetical merit nor the qualities of a good acting play to
recommend it. ‘Virginia’ was very soon withdrawn, and, as usual, the
writer, while cruelly mortified by his failure, attributed it to every
cause but the right one. Lord Coventry advised alterations, which Crisp
hastened to execute, but Garrick, though civil, was determined that so
ineffective a muse should not again cumber his stage. His firmness, of
course, cost him the friendship of the ungrateful Crisp, who, conscious
of considerable powers, and unable to perceive that he had mistaken
their proper application, inveighed with equal bitterness against
manager, performers, and the public, and in sore dudgeon betook himself
across the sea to Italy. Macaulay, indeed, will have it that his
disappointment ruined his temper and spirits, and turned him into ‘a
cynic, and a hater of mankind.’ But in this, as in too many of the
essayist’s trenchant statements, something of accuracy is sacrificed for
the sake of effect. Crisp appears to have enjoyed himself not a little
in Italy, and on his return, though he did not again settle in London,
he fixed his first abode as near to it as the courtly village of
Hampton, where he furnished a small house, filling it with pictures,
statuary, and musical instruments, as became a man of taste. Far from
shunning society in this luxurious retreat, he entertained so many
guests there that his hospitality in a short time made a serious inroad
on his small fortune. Chagrin at his imprudence brought on a severe
attack of gout; and then it was that, broken alike in health and
finances, he resolved on secluding himself from the world. Having sold
his villa and its contents, he removed a few miles off to a solitary
mansion belonging to an old friend, Christopher Hamilton, who, like
himself, had lost the battle of life, and desired to be considered as
dead to mankind.
Chesington Hall, which thenceforth became the joint residence of this
pair of hermits, stood on an eminence rising from a wide and nearly
desolate common, about midway between the towns of Epsom and Kingston;
the neglected buildings were crumbling to pieces from age, having been
begun in the same year in which Wolsey laid the first stone of Hampton
Court; and the homestead was surrounded by fields, that for a long
period had been so ploughed up as to leave no road or even regular
footpath open across them. In this hiding-place Crisp fixed his abode
for the rest of his life. So isolated was the spot that strangers could
not reach it without a guide. But the inhabitants desired to have as few
visitors as possible. Only as the spring of each year came round would
Crisp, while his strength allowed, quit his refuge for a few weeks, to
amuse himself with the picture-shows and concerts of the London season.
It seems to have been during one of these excursions that Burney met
Crisp again after their long separation. The revival of their friendship
gave the solitary man one more connecting link with the outside world.
Down to that time Crisp’s only visitor in his retreat seems to have been
his sister, Mrs. Sophia Gast, of Burford, in Oxfordshire. Now to Burney
also was entrusted the clue for a safe route across the wild common to
Chesington Hall, while from all others, including Mr. Greville, it was
still steadfastly withheld. There is no reason to suppose that the
acquaintances whom Crisp thus relinquished were more faithless than a
poor man’s great friends usually are. He had been flattered with hopes
of obtaining some public appointment through their interest; but his
health had failed before the value of the promises made to him could be
fairly tested. When restored strength might have rendered seclusion
irksome, and employment acceptable, his pride rebelled against further
solicitation, and fixed him in the solitude where his poverty and lack
of energy alike escaped reproach. Charles Burney alone, from whom he had
nothing to expect, and who had always looked up to him, was admitted
where others were excluded.
The modern village of Chesington lies about two miles to the north-west
of the railway-station at Ewell. Some patches of heathy common still
remain. Though not so solitary a place as in the days of which we write,
Chesington has still a lonely look.[9]
Crisp, in his sanctuary, and his occasional secret journeys to London,
resumed his office of mentor to Burney, and became also the confidential
adviser of Burney’s daughters. For such trust he was eminently
qualified; since, to borrow the words of Macaulay, though he was a bad
poet, he was a scholar, a thinker, and an excellent counsellor. He
surpassed his younger friend, Charles, in general knowledge and force of
mind, as much as he was surpassed by Charles in social tact and
pliability of temper. And Burney was far from resenting or grudging the
influence which Crisp acquired in his family; for Burney was a
sweet-natured as well as a sensible man. No pitiful vanity or
treacherous jealousy lay hid under his genial and gracious exterior.
Conscious, apparently, that both from too great easiness of disposition,
and from his manifold engagements, he was ill-fitted to discharge all
the duties devolving on him as sole surviving parent, he cordially
welcomed the assistance of his old and valued friend. Mrs. Thrale
afterwards complained that Dr. Burney liked to keep his hold on his
children; but the engrossing lady patroness seems to have meant only
that he objected, as well he might, to have Fanny disposed of for months
or years at a time without regard to his wishes or convenience. He was
never disturbed by unworthy alarms lest some interloping well-wisher
should steal away the hearts of his children from himself. He stooped to
no paltry manœuvres to prevent them from becoming too much attached
to this or that friend. He certainly did not interfere to check the
warmth of his daughters’ regard for the rugged old cynic of Chesington,
nor put any restraint on the correspondence which grew up between Fanny
and her ‘dearest daddy.’ And he reaped the full reward of his
unselfishness, or, we should rather say, of his straightforward good
sense. No son or daughter was ever estranged from him by the feeling
that his jealousy had robbed them of a useful connection or appreciative
ally. Fanny’s fondness for her adopted father, as might have been
expected, did not in the least diminish her love for her natural parent.
‘She had always a great affection for me,’ wrote Dr. Burney at the close
of his life. The latter was, indeed, the standard by which she generally
tried the claims of any other person to be considered admirable or
charming. In her twenty-sixth year she expressed her enthusiasm for her
newly-made friend, Mrs. Thrale, by saying: ‘I never before saw a person
who so strongly resembles my dear father.’ At forty-one, she described
her husband as being ‘so very like my beloved father in disposition,
humour, and taste, that the day never passes in which I do not exclaim:
“How you remind me of my father!”’
Crisp himself, at the time when Fanny made his acquaintance, had no
pretension to gentle manners or a graceful address; but, like many other
disappointed men who assume the character of misanthropes, he possessed
at bottom a warm, and even tender, heart, and was particularly fond of
young persons. In his intimate intercourse with the Burney family, all
ceremony was discarded; towards the junior members he adopted a plain,
rough style of speech, which, being unmistakably playful, left them
always quite at home with him. Very soon the death of Crisp’s companion
in retirement rendered the society of the Burneys more indispensable to
the survivor, while it placed him in a better position for receiving
these visits. The male line of the Hamiltons ended in Christopher, and
his dilapidated estate descended to a maiden sister, Mrs. Sarah
Hamilton. Rather than sell the property, this ancient lady, under
Crisp’s advice, divided the capacious old Hall between herself and
Farmer Woodhatch, who rented and cultivated what remained of the lands.
To assist her in keeping up the residence she still retained, Mrs.
Hamilton called in as ‘lady help’ a rustic niece, named Kitty Cooke, and
Crisp became her lodger, securing to his own use ‘a favourite apartment,
with a light and pleasant closet at the end of a long corridor.’ In this
closet a great part of Burney’s ‘History of Music’ was written. There
was a larger scheme, also, at this time, for turning the whole suite of
rooms into a boarding establishment, but applicants for accommodation in
so remote and obscure an abode were likely to be few in number. Mrs.
Gast, however, came thither from time to time, and Frances Burney and
her sisters were often there. We shall see, in due course, how the
animated scenes of the famous novel, ‘Cecilia,’ or most of them, were
elaborated within those mouldering walls. To the end of her life the
author’s thoughts wandered back with delight to the quaint old place.
Her memory let nothing slip: “not a nook or corner; nor a dark passage
‘leading to nothing’; nor a hanging tapestry of prim demoiselles and
grim cavaliers; nor a tall canopied bed tied up to the ceiling; nor
japan cabinets of two or three hundred drawers of different dimensions;
nor an oaken corner-cupboard, carved with heads, thrown in every
direction, save such as might let them fall on men’s shoulders; nor a
window stuck in some angle close to the ceiling of a lofty slip of a
room; nor a quarter of a staircase, leading to some quaint unfrequented
apartment; nor a wooden chimney-piece, cut in diamonds, squares, and
round knobs, surmounting another of blue and white tiles, representing,
_vis-à-vis_, a dog and a cat, as symbols of married life and
harmony.”[10]
The time arrived when, in accordance with their father’s original
design, Frances and Charlotte Burney should have been placed at school
in Paris in succession to Esther and Susanna. Burney presently made
another journey to the French capital to bring back the pair of sisters
who had completed the term of two years assigned for their education
there, but he was not accompanied by either of his other daughters. He
was not deterred from taking them by any misgiving as to the results of
his first experiment, which, we are assured, had fully answered his
expectations, but rather by some uncertainty of means and plans,
connected, perhaps, in part with his approaching second marriage. Some
lines from the pen of Susanna have been preserved, which are said to
have been written shortly after her return, and which, if the date
ascribed to them be correct, would show that the writer, who was then
barely fourteen, was a remarkably forward girl of her age. As this short
composition sketches in contrast Susanna’s two elder sisters, we give it
entire:
“Hetty seems a good deal more lively than she used to appear at Paris;
whether it is that her spirits are better, or that the great liveliness
of the inhabitants made her appear grave there by comparison, I know
not: but she was there remarkable for being _sérieuse_, and is here for
being gay and lively. She is a most sweet girl. My sister Fanny is
unlike her in almost everything, yet both are very amiable, and love
each other as sincerely as ever sisters did. The characteristics of
Hetty seem to be wit, generosity and openness of heart: Fanny’s—sense,
sensibility, and bashfulness, and even a degree of prudery. Her
understanding is superior, but her diffidence gives her a bashfulness
before company with whom she is not intimate, which is a disadvantage to
her. My eldest sister shines in conversation, because, though very
modest, she is totally free from any _mauvaise honte_: were Fanny
equally so, I am persuaded she would shine no less. I am afraid that my
eldest sister is too communicative, and that my sister Fanny is too
reserved. They are both charming girls—_des filles comme il y en a
peu_.”
Burney’s second marriage took place not long after the return of Esther
and Susanna from Paris. His choice on this occasion was an intimate
friend of the first Mrs. Burney, whom she succeeded after an interval of
six years. This lady was the widow of Mr. Stephen Allen, a merchant of
Lynn, and by him the parent of several children. The young Allens had
been playmates of the young Burneys. If not equal in mind or person to
the adored Esther Sleepe, Mrs. Allen was a handsome and well-instructed
woman, and proved an excellent stepmother to Fanny and her sisters, as
well as an admirable wife to their father. For some reason or other, the
nature of which does not very clearly appear, it was judged desirable
that not only the engagement between the widow and widower should be
kept secret, but that their wedding should be celebrated in private.
They were married some time in the spring of 1768, at St. James’s,
Piccadilly, by the curate, an old acquaintance of the bridegroom, their
intention being confided to three other friends only. Crisp, who was one
of these, had clearly no mind that Burney’s new connection should put an
end to their alliance, or deprive himself of the relief which the visits
of the widower and his children had afforded to the monotony of his
retirement. The freshly married couple carried their secret and their
happiness ‘to the obscure skirts of the then pathless, and nearly
uninhabited Chesington Common, where Mr. Crisp had engaged for them a
rural and fragrant retreat, at a small farm-house in a little hamlet a
mile or two from Chesington Hall.’
The secret, we are further told, as usual in matrimonial concealments,
was faithfully preserved for a time by careful vigilance, and then
escaped through accident. Betrayed by the loss of a letter, Mrs. Burney
came openly to town to be introduced to her husband’s circle, and
presently took her place at the head of his household in Poland Street.
The young people on both sides accepted their new relationships with
pleasure. The long-deferred scheme of sending Fanny and her youngest
sister to Paris was now finally abandoned. Susanna undertook to instruct
Fanny in French, and Charlotte was put to school in Norfolk. For some
years the united families spent their summer holidays at Lynn, where
Mrs. Burney had a dower-house. But, whether in town or country, Frances
and Susanna were specially devoted to each other. Susan alone was
Fanny’s confidante in her literary attempts.
As the latter’s age increased, her passion for writing became more
confirmed. Every scrap of white paper that could be seized upon without
question or notice was at once covered with her manuscript. She was not
long in finding out that her turn was mainly for story-telling and
humorous description. The two girls laughed and cried together over the
creations of the elder’s fancy, but the native timidity of the young
author, and still more, perhaps, her father’s low estimate of her
capacity, made her apprehend nothing but ridicule if what she scribbled
were disclosed to others. She worked then under the rose, imposing the
strictest silence on her faithful accomplice. When in London, she plied
her pen in a closet up two pair of stairs, that was appropriated to the
younger children as a playroom. At Lynn, she would shut herself up to
write in a summer-house, which went by the name of ‘The Cabin.’ Yet all
her simple precautions could not long elude the suspicion of her
sharp-sighted stepmother. The second Mrs. Burney was a bustling,
sociable person, who did not approve of young ladies creeping out of
sight to study; though herself fond of books, and, as we learn, a
particular admirer of Sterne’s ‘Sentimental Journey,’ then recently
published, she was a matron of the period, and could not tolerate the
idea of a young woman under her control venturing on the disesteemed
career of literature. The culprit, therefore, was seriously and
frequently admonished to check her scribbling propensity. Some morsels
of her compositions, falling into the hands of Mrs. Burney, appear to
have added point to the censor’s remarks. Fanny was warned not to waste
time and thought over idle inventions; and she was further cautioned,
and not unreasonably, according to the prevailing notions of the day, as
to the discredit she would incur if she came before the public as a
female novelist. The future author of ‘Cecilia’ was only too ready to
assent to this view, and to cry _peccavi_. She bowed before her
stepmother’s rebukes, and prepared herself inwardly for a great act of
sacrifice. Seizing an opportunity when her father was at Chesington, and
Mrs. Burney was in Norfolk, ‘she made over to a bonfire, in a paved
play-court, her whole stock’ of prose manuscripts.
The fact of the _auto da fé_ rests on the authority of the penitent
herself: her niece and biographer, Mrs. Barrett, adds that Susanna stood
by, weeping at the pathetic spectacle; but this is perhaps only a
legendary accretion to the tale. It seems certain that Fanny fell into
error, when, long years afterwards, she wrote of the incident as having
occurred on her fifteenth birthday.[11] Fanny was never very careful
about her dates, and she was unquestionably more than fifteen when her
father’s second marriage took place. In spite of this, we are not
warranted in questioning Mrs. Barrett’s express statement that her
aunt’s famous Diary was commenced at the age of fifteen. Though of that
portion of the Diary which belongs to the years preceding the
publication of ‘Evelina,’ only the opening passages have been printed,
and though the style of these may seem to betoken a more advanced age
than that mentioned, the whole was before the biographer when she wrote,
and the contents must have spoken for themselves.
Frances Burney had burned her papers with the full intention of breaking
off altogether the baneful habit of authorship. Doubtless, however, she
did not consider that her resolution of total abstinence debarred her
from keeping a journal; and she was not long in discovering that,
however steadfastly she might resist the impulses of her fancy, its
wings were always pluming themselves for a flight. The latest-born of
her literary bantlings committed to the flames had been a tale setting
forth the fortunes and fate of Caroline Evelyn, who was feigned to be
the daughter of a gentleman by a low-bred wife, and, after the death of
her father, to contract a clandestine marriage with a faithless baronet,
and then to survive her husband’s desertion of her just long enough to
give birth to a female child. The closing incident of this tragic and
tragically-destroyed production left a lively impression on the mind of
the writer. Her imagination dwelt on the singular situations to which
the infant, as she grew up, would be exposed by the lot that placed her
between the rival claims of her vulgar grandmother and her mother’s more
refined connections, and on the social contrasts and collisions, at once
unusual and natural, which the supposed circumstances might be expected
to occasion. In this way, from the ashes of the ‘History of Caroline
Evelyn’ sprang Frances Burney’s first published work, ‘Evelina; or, A
Young Lady’s Entrance into the World.’ We do not know how long a time
expired from the burning of her manuscripts before Fanny relapsed into
the sin of fiction-scribbling; but the flood of her invention probably
rose the faster for being pent up. Irresistibly and almost
unconsciously, she tells us, the whole story of ‘Evelina’ was laid up in
her memory before a paragraph had been committed to paper. Even when her
conscience had ceased to struggle, her opportunities for jotting down
the ideas which haunted her were few and far between. She had to write
in stolen moments, for she was under the eye of her stepmother. The
demands on her time, too, became greater than they had been when
Caroline Evelyn was her heroine. Her Diary occupied a large part of her
leisure, and her hours of regular employment were presently lengthened
by the work of transcribing for her father.
Charles Burney was now rising to eminence in his profession. To be
Master of the King’s Band was the highest honour then within the reach
of a musician, and Burney had been promised this appointment, though the
promise was broken in favour of a candidate supported by the Duke of
York.[12] In the summer of 1769, the Duke of Grafton was to be installed
as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. The poet Gray wrote the
Installation Ode. Burney proposed to set it to music, and to conduct the
performance at the ceremony, intending, at the same time, to take the
degree of Doctor of Music at Cambridge. The Chancellor Elect accepted
his offer as one which the composer’s rank well entitled him to make;
but it soon appeared that the ideas of the two men as to the relative
value of money and music were widely different. His Grace would consent
to allow for the expense of singers and orchestra only one-half the
amount which the conductor considered due to the occasion and his own
importance. Burney in disgust threw up his commission, and, without loss
of time, repaired to the sister University for his doctorate, which was
conferred on him in June, 1769; the exercise produced by him as his
qualification was so highly thought of that it was repeated three years
successively at choral meetings in Oxford, and was afterwards performed
at Hamburg under C. P. E. Bach.
Dr. Burney’s new title did not appear on his door-plate till a facetious
friend exhorted him to brazen it. But, retiring as he was, the
constitutional diffidence which his second daughter inherited was now
giving way in him before the consciousness of ability and attainments,
and the irresistible desire to establish a lasting reputation. In the
latter part of the same year, he ventured anonymously into print with
his first literary production. Ten years earlier, the return of Halley’s
Comet at the time predicted seems to have given him an interest in
astronomy, which he retained through life. There was again a comet
visible in 1769, and this drew from him an Essay on Comets, to which he
prefixed a translation from the pen of his first wife, Esther, of a
letter by Maupertuis.[13] But this pamphlet was only an experiment, and
being obviously the work of an amateur, attracted little notice. Having
once tried his ’prentice hand at authorship, he fixed his attention on
his proper subject, and devoted himself to his long-projected ‘History
of Music.’
He had for many years kept a commonplace book, in which he laid up
notes, extracts, abridgments, criticisms, as the matter presented
itself. So large was the collection thus accumulated that it seemed to
his family ‘as if he had merely to methodize his manuscripts, and
entrust them to a copyist, for completing his purpose.’ The copyist was
at hand in his daughter Frances, who became his principal secretary and
librarian. But, as the enterprise proceeded, the views of the historian
expanded. Much information that would now be readily supplied by public
journals or correspondence was then only to be obtained by personal
investigation on the spot. Early in 1770, Dr. Burney had determined that
it would be needful for him to undertake a musical tour through France
and Italy. He started on this expedition in June of that year, and did
not return until the following January. His absence gave Fanny a
considerable increase of leisure and opportunity for indulging her own
literary dreams and occupations. Her stepmother, as well as her father,
seems to have left her at liberty, for during part of this interval, at
least, the attention of Mrs. Burney was engaged in providing a better
habitation for her husband.
The house in Poland Street had been found too small to accommodate the
combined families. In addition to the children of their former
marriages, there had been born to the parents a son, who was baptized
Richard Thomas, and a daughter to whom they gave the name of Sarah
Harriet. Mrs. Burney now found, and having found, proceeded to purchase
and furnish, a large house in the upper part of Queen Square,
Bloomsbury, which then enjoyed an uninterrupted view of the Hampstead
and Highgate Hills. The new abode had once belonged to Alderman Barber,
the friend of Dean Swift; and the Burneys pleased themselves with the
thought that there the great saturnine humourist had been wont sometimes
to set the table in a roar. The removal was effected while the Doctor
was still on the Continent. On his arrival in London, he was welcomed to
the new home by his wife and children, and by the never-failing Mr.
Crisp. We hear, however, but little of this house in Queen Square, and
even less of Fanny’s doings there. Her father had scarcely time to
become acquainted with it before he was off to Chesington, where he
occupied himself for several weeks in preparing the journal of his tour
for the press. All his daughters were pressed into the service of
copying and recopying his manuscript, but the chief share of this labour
fell upon the scribbling Fanny. The book, which was called ‘The Present
State of Music in France and Italy,’ appeared in the season of 1771.
Thenceforth his friend Crisp’s retreat became Burney’s constant resort
when he had literary work in hand. A further production of his pen,
dealing with a matter of musical technique, came forth before the close
of the same year. At the beginning of July, 1772, he set out on another
tour, with the same object of collecting materials for his history, his
route being now through Germany and the Netherlands. During this second
pilgrimage, his family spent their time partly at Lynn, partly at
Chesington; and Fanny, as we are told,—apparently on the authority of
her unpublished Diaries—profiting by the opportunities which these
visits afforded, then “gradually arranged and connected the disjointed
scraps and fragments in which ‘Evelina’ had been originally written.”
But, careful to avoid offence, “she never indulged herself with reading
or writing except in the afternoon; always scrupulously devoting her
time to needlework till after dinner.”
The traveller’s absence lasted five months: he reached Calais on his
return in a December so boisterous that for nine days no vessel could
cross the Channel; and Fanny relates that, when at length the passage
was effected, he was too much exhausted by sea-sickness to quit his
berth, and, falling asleep, was carried back to France to encounter
another stormy voyage, and a repetition of his sea-sickness, before he
finally landed at Dover. The fatigues and hardships of his homeward
journey brought on a severe attack of rheumatism, to which he was
subject. Fanny and her sisters nursed him, sitting by his bedside, pen
in hand, to set down the narrative of his German tour as his sufferings
allowed of his dictating it. As soon as he was sufficiently recovered,
he went down to Chesington not forgetting to carry his secretaries with
him.
During this illness, or a relapse which followed it, the house in Queen
Square had to be relinquished from difficulties respecting the title;
and Mrs. Burney purchased and fitted up another in a central situation,
which was at once more convenient for her husband’s teaching
engagements, and more agreeable to him as being nearer to the opera, the
theatres, and the clubs. St. Martin’s Street, Leicester Fields, to which
the family removed, is now among the most dingy, not to say the most
squalid, of London streets; even in 1773, ‘its unpleasant site, its
confined air, and its shabby immediate neighbourhood,’ are spoken of as
drawbacks requiring compensation on an exchange from the fair and open
view of the northern heights, crowned with Caen Woods, which had faced
the windows in Bloomsbury. But, apart from the practical advantages
before mentioned, the new home was invested with a strong attraction for
the incomers in having been once inhabited by a personage whom our
astronomical Doctor revered, and taught his children to revere, as ‘the
pride of human nature.’ The belief that the house in Queen Square had
occasionally been visited by Dean Swift was nothing compared with the
certain knowledge that No. 1, St. Martin’s Street, had been the dwelling
of Sir Isaac Newton.[14] The topmost story was surmounted by an
‘observatory,’ having a leaden roof, and sides composed entirely of
small panes of glass, except such parts as were taken up by a cupboard,
fireplace and chimney. This structure being much dilapidated when Dr.
Burney entered into possession, his first act was to put what he looked
on as a special relic of his great predecessor into complete repair. The
house itself was sufficiently large for the new tenant’s family, as well
as for his books, ‘which now began to demand nearly equal
accommodation.’ Having recovered his health, and set his affairs in
order, the Doctor next resumed his daily round of lessons, and applied
himself to remedy any injury which his professional connection had
sustained from his two prolonged absences on the Continent. His pen was
laid aside for a time, but the German Tour was published before the end
of this year, and proved very successful. About the same time, its
author was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. The first volume of
his ‘History of Music’—in which work the main part of both his Tours was
incorporated—did not appear till 1776. We are now arrived at the time
when our heroine has attained majority. Her womanhood may be said to
have commenced with the removal to St. Martin’s Street. In our next
chapter we shall see how the first portion of it was spent.
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Footnote 1:
Owen and Blakeway’s ‘History of Shrewsbury,’ vol. ii., p. 388.
Footnote 2:
Actress and singer; married Theophilus Cibber, son of Colley Cibber.
She was a special favorite with Handel, who wrote much of his
contralto music for her. In the latter part of her career she was
associated with Garrick at Drury Lane. Born, 1714; died, 1766.
Footnote 3:
This lady wrote verses, and acquired some repute by a poem entitled ‘A
Prayer for Indifference.’
Footnote 4:
‘Memoirs of Dr. Burney, by his Daughter, Madame d’Arblay,’ 1832.
Footnote 5:
Author of a didactic poem, ‘The Art of Preserving Health.’
Footnote 6:
Born at Lynn, December 4, 1756; LL.D. Aberdeen, 1792; vicar of
Deptford, prebendary of Lincoln, chaplain to the King; died 1817.
Footnote 7:
The writer seems to have had in view the lines of Pope:
‘That live-long wig, which Gorgon’s self might own,
Eternal buckle takes in Parian stone.’
By the buckle of a wig was meant its stiff curl when in trim
condition.
Footnote 8:
Walpole to Bentley, March 6, 1754.
Footnote 9:
Thorne’s ‘Environs of London.’ The name is now written Chessington,
but we retain the spelling which was always used by Fanny Burney and
her friends.
Footnote 10:
‘Memoirs of Dr. Burney,’ vol. ii., p. 185.
Footnote 11:
Preface to the ‘Wanderer.’
Footnote 12:
Edward, brother of King George III.
Footnote 13:
The title-page runs: ‘An Essay towards the history of the principal
Comets that have appeared since 1742; with remarks and reflections
upon the present Comet; to which is prefixed a Letter,’ etc. London,
1769. It is a curious instance of Madame d’Arblay’s inaccuracy in the
matter of dates, that she writes in detail of this little tract, the
title of which she misquotes, as having been produced when ‘the comet
of the immortal Halley’ was being awaited. (‘Memoirs of Dr. Burney,’
vol. i., pp. 214-217.) But it was in 1759, not 1769, that Halley’s
Comet returned. For notices of the comet of 1769, see the _Gentleman’s
Magazine_ of that year.
Footnote 14:
The house is now No. 35. It was occupied by Newton from the time when
he became President of the Royal Society down to his death in 1727. He
did not actually die there, as has been sometimes stated, but at
Orbell’s Buildings, Kensington, whither he used to resort for change
of air. See _Notes and Queries_, Third Series, i. 29. For the number
of the house during Dr. Burney’s occupation, see a letter from him to
Fanny in her Diary, New Edition, vol. i., 297.
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