Chelsea Hospital—Tour to Devonshire—Visit to Bath—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.
Miss Burney returned to her father, who, with his wife and his youngest
daughter Sarah, was then living in Chelsea Hospital. The family at this
time occupied rooms on the ground-floor, which not long afterwards were
exchanged for others in the top story. After resting three weeks at
home, she set out on a tour to the southwest of England, under the care
of her friend Mrs. Ord. The travellers journeyed by easy stages to
Sidmouth, taking Stonehenge on their way, and stopping at the principal
places which had been visited by the Court in the summer of 1789. Having
spent eight or nine days on the coast of South Devon, they turned
northwards, and proceeded by the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey to Bath.
That most famous of English watering-places was greatly altered from
what it had been when Fanny passed the season there with the Thrales
eleven years before. The circumference, she tells us, had trebled,
though the new buildings were scattered, and most of them unfinished.
“The hills are built up and down, and the vales so stocked with streets
and houses, that, in some places, from the ground-floor on one side a
street, you cross over to the attic of your opposite neighbour. It looks
a town of hills, and a hill of towns.” But the palaces of white stone
rising up on every hand interested her less than the old haunts with
which she was familiar—the North Parade, where she had lived with Mrs.
Thrale; the houses in the Circus, where she had visited Mrs. Montagu and
Mrs. Cholmley; the Belvedere, where she had talked with Mrs. Byron and
Lord Mulgrave. Nearly a month slipped away in reviving old
recollections, and in making some new acquaintances to replace the many
that had disappeared. The retired official was much flattered by an
introduction to the celebrated Duchess of Devonshire, and amused herself
with the thought that her first visit after leaving the Queen should be
paid to the greatest lady of the Opposition. Another month was divided
between Mickleham and Norbury Park, and by the middle of October Miss
Burney was again at Chelsea.
‘We shall expect you here to dinner by four,’ wrote her father. ‘The
great grubbery will be in nice order for you, as well as the little;
both have lately had many accessions of new books. The ink is good, good
pens in plenty, and the most pleasant and smooth paper in the world!
‘“Come, Rosalind, oh, come and see
What quires are in store for thee!”’
Are we wrong in thinking that these words express Dr. Burney’s anxiety
to see his daughter once more working as she had not worked since the
last sheet of ‘Cecilia’ was corrected for the press? In the succeeding
pages of the Diary we find more than one passage where the good man’s
eagerness for some new fruit of her talents is plainly confessed.
Friends had united to persuade him that he had but to recall her from
the royal dressing-room to her study, and fresh laurels, with abundant
riches, would surely and speedily be hers. He was naturally impatient
for some fulfilment of these prophecies. Rosalind appeared: she wore out
the quills, and covered the quires; but nothing came of her activity.
Her health was now fairly restored, and, in the first ardour of
composition, she felt that she could employ two pens almost incessantly.
Unhappily, her industry was devoted to a mistaken purpose. She had
brought with her from Windsor the rough drafts of two tragedies, and
without pausing to correct these, she occupied herself in writing a
third. A less hopeful enterprise could not have been conceived. She had
before her eyes the warning example of Mr. Crisp’s failure. Had this old
friend been living, he would doubtless have been wiser for his pupil
than he was for himself. It is certain that Nature had not designed the
Siddons for tragedy more distinctly than she intended Frances Burney for
comedy. With the exception of one or two powerful scenes, such as the
death of Harrel, Fanny’s chief successes had been won in the department
of humorous writing. It was her misfortune that she had at this moment
no literary adviser on whose judgment she could rely. Her acquaintance
with Arthur Murphy seems to have ceased; the Hastings trial, and the
debates on the Regency, had cooled her relations with Sheridan and
Burke. ‘Mr. Sheridan,’ she wrote, ‘I have no longer any ambition to be
noticed by.’ Her regard for Burke continued; but she had not yet met him
since her deliverance from captivity. Dr. Burney was told only that she
was engaged upon a play, and was made to understand that he must wait
until it was finished before he was indulged with a sight of the
manuscript. Towards the end of 1791 she writes: ‘I go on with various
writings, at different times, and just as the humour strikes. I have
promised my dear father a Christmas-box and a New Year’s gift; and
therefore he now kindly leaves me to my own devices.’ We do not find
that the anxious parent received either of the promised presents. The
daughter’s fit of application seems to have soon died away: in the early
part of 1792, her father was ill and occupied with his ailments; and by
the time he was able to think of other things, Fanny had ceased to
prepare for coming before the public. Her tragedies slept in her desk
for three years: when, at the end of that period, the earliest of them,
which had been begun at Kew and finished at Windsor, was put on the
stage, it was produced without revision, and failed—as, no doubt, it
would have done under any circumstances.
As Miss Burney’s strength returned, she seems to have fallen back into
the indolent life of visiting and party-going which she was leading when
she joined the Royal Household. She saw once more the failing Sir
Joshua, who had worked at her deliverance as if she had been his own
daughter; though he passed from the scene before she found an
opportunity of thanking him for his exertions. She attended a great
public breakfast given by Mrs. Montagu, whose famous Feather Room and
dining-room were thronged by hundreds of guests, and looked like a full
Ranelagh by daylight. At this entertainment she met Mrs. Hastings, whose
splendid dress, loaded with ornaments, gave her the appearance of an
Indian princess. At another breakfast Fanny encountered Boswell, who had
excited her displeasure by his revelation of Johnson’s infirmities, and
who provoked her again by telling anecdotes of the great Samuel, and
acting them with open buffoonery. During the Session, she spent much of
her time at the Hastings trial, listening to the defence conducted by
Law, Dallas, and Plomer, and rallying Windham on the sarcasms aimed by
Law at the heated rhetoric of Burke. The great orator himself she rarely
encountered on these occasions. In June, 1792, however, she spent a day
with him at Mrs. Crewe’s house on Hampstead Hill.
“The villa at Hampstead is small, but commodious. We were received by
Mrs. Crewe with much kindness. The room was rather dark, and she had a
veil to her bonnet, half down, and with this aid she looked still in a
full blaze of beauty.... She is certainly, in my eyes, the most
completely a beauty of any woman I ever saw. I know not, even now, any
female in her first youth who could bear the comparison. She uglifies
everything near her. Her son was with her. He is just of age, and
looks like her elder brother! he is a heavy, old-looking young man. He
is going to China with Lord Macartney.[108]
“My former friend, young Burke, was also there. I was glad to renew
acquaintance with him; though I could see some little strangeness in
him: this, however, completely wore off before the day was over. Soon
after entered Mrs. Burke, Miss French, a niece, and Mr. Richard Burke,
the comic, humorous, bold, queer brother of _the_ Mr. Burke.... Mrs.
Burke was just what I have always seen her, soft, gentle, reasonable,
and obliging; and we met, I think, upon as good terms as if so many
years had not parted us.
“At length Mr. Burke appeared, accompanied by Mr. Elliot. He shook
hands with my father as soon as he had paid his devoirs to Mrs. Crewe,
but he returned my curtsey with so distant a bow, that I concluded
myself quite lost with him, from my evident solicitude in poor Mr.
Hastings’s cause. I could not wish that less obvious, thinking as I
think of it; but I felt infinitely grieved to lose the favour of a man
whom, in all other articles, I so much venerate, and whom, indeed, I
esteem and admire as the very first man of true genius now living in
this country.
“Mrs. Crewe introduced me to Mr. Elliot: I am sure we were already
personally known to each other, for I have seen him perpetually in the
Managers’ Box, whence, as often, he must have seen me in the Great
Chamberlain’s. He is a tall, thin young man, plain in face, dress, and
manner, but sensible, and possibly much besides; he was reserved,
however, and little else appeared.
“The moment I was named, to my great joy I found Mr. Burke had not
recollected me. He is more near-sighted considerably than myself.
‘Miss Burney!’ he now exclaimed, coming forward, and quite kindly
taking my hand, ‘I did not see you;’ and then he spoke very sweet
words of the meeting, and of my looking far better than ‘while I was a
courtier,’ and of how he rejoiced to see that I so little suited that
station. ‘You look,’ cried he, ‘quite renewed, revived, disengaged;
you seemed, when I conversed with you last at the trial, quite
altered; I never saw such a change for the better as quitting a Court
has brought about!’
“Ah! thought I, this is simply a mistake from reasoning according to
your own feelings. I only seemed altered for the worse at the trial,
because I there looked coldly and distantly, from distaste and
disaffection to your proceedings; and I here look changed for the
better, only because I here meet you without the chill of
disapprobation, and with the glow of my first admiration of you and
your talents!
“Mrs. Crewe gave him her place, and he sat by me, and entered into a
most animated conversation upon Lord Macartney and his Chinese
expedition, and the two Chinese youths who were to accompany it. These
last he described minutely, and spoke of the extent of the undertaking
in high, and perhaps fanciful, terms, but with allusions and anecdotes
intermixed, so full of general information and brilliant ideas, that I
soon felt the whole of my first enthusiasm return, and with it a
sensation of pleasure that made the day delicious to me.
“After this my father joined us, and politics took the lead. He spoke
then with an eagerness and a vehemence that instantly banished the
graces, though it redoubled the energies, of his discourse. ‘The
French Revolution,’ he said, ‘which began by authorizing and
legalizing injustice, and which by rapid steps had proceeded to every
species of despotism except owning a despot, was now menacing all the
universe and all mankind with the most violent concussion of principle
and order.’ My father heartily joined, and I tacitly assented to his
doctrines, though I feared not with his fears.
“One speech I must repeat, for it is explanatory of his conduct, and
nobly explanatory. When he had expatiated upon the present dangers,
even to English liberty and property, from the contagion of havoc and
novelty, he earnestly exclaimed, ‘This it is that has made ME an
abettor and supporter of Kings! Kings are necessary, and, if we would
preserve peace and prosperity, we must preserve THEM. We must all put
our shoulders to the work! Ay, and stoutly, too!’...
“At dinner Mr. Burke sat next Mrs. Crewe, and I had the happiness to
be seated next Mr. Burke; and my other neighbour was his amiable son.
“The dinner, and the dessert when the servants were removed, were
delightful. How I wish my dear Susanna and Fredy[109] could meet this
wonderful man when he is easy, happy, and with people he cordially
likes! But politics, even on his own side, must always be excluded;
his irritability is so terrible on that theme that it gives
immediately to his face the expression of a man who is going to defend
himself from murderers....
“Charles Fox being mentioned, Mrs. Crewe told us that he had lately
said, upon being shown some passage in Mr. Burke’s book which he had
warmly opposed, but which had, in the event, made its own
justification, very candidly, ‘Well! Burke is right—but Burke is often
right, only he is right too soon.’
“‘Had Fox seen some things in that book,’ answered Mr. Burke, ‘as
soon, he would at this moment, in all probability, be first minister
of this country.’
“‘What!’ cried Mrs. Crewe, ‘with Pitt?—No!—no!—Pitt won’t go out, and
Charles Fox will never make a coalition with Pitt.’
“‘And why not?’ said Mr. Burke dryly! ‘why not this coalition as well
as other coalitions?’
“Nobody tried to answer this.
“‘Charles Fox, however,’ said Mr. Burke, afterwards, ‘can never
internally like the French Revolution. He is entangled; but, in
himself, if he should find no other objection to it, he has at least
too much taste for such a revolution.’...
“Mr. Richard Burke related, very comically, various censures cast upon
his brother, accusing him of being the friend of despots, and the
abettor of slavery, because he had been shocked at the imprisonment of
the King of France, and was anxious to preserve our own limited
monarchy in the same state in which it so long had flourished.
“Mr. Burke looked half alarmed at his brother’s opening, but, when he
had finished, he very good-humouredly poured out a glass of wine, and,
turning to me, said, ‘Come, then—here’s slavery for ever!’ This was
well understood, and echoed round the table with hearty laughter.
“‘This would do for you completely, Mr. Burke,’ said Mrs. Crewe, ‘if
it could get into a newspaper! Mr. Burke, they would say, has now
spoken out; the truth has come to light unguardedly, and his real
defection from the cause of true liberty is acknowledged. I should
like to draw up the paragraph!’
“‘And add,’ said Mr. Burke, ‘the toast was addressed to Miss Burney,
in order to pay court to the Queen!’”... After a stroll:
“The party returned with two very singular additions to its number—
Lord Loughborough, and Mr. and Mrs. Erskine. They have villas at
Hampstead, and were met in the walk; Mr. Erskine else would not,
probably, have desired to meet Mr. Burke, who openly in the House of
Commons asked him if he knew what friendship meant, when he pretended
to call him, Mr. Burke, his friend?
“There was an evident disunion of the cordiality of the party from
this time. My father, Mr. Richard Burke, his nephew, and Mr. Elliot
entered into some general discourse; Mr. Burke took up a volume of
Boileau, and read aloud, though to himself, and with a pleasure that
soon made him seem to forget all intruders: Lord Loughborough joined
Mrs. Burke, and Mr. Erskine, seating himself next to Mrs. Crewe,
engrossed her entirely, yet talked loud enough for all to hear who
were not engaged themselves.
“For me, I sat next Mrs. Erskine, who seems much a woman of the world,
for she spoke with me just as freely, and readily, and easily as if we
had been old friends.
“Mr. Erskine enumerated all his avocations to Mrs. Crewe, and, amongst
others, mentioned, very calmly, having to plead against Mr. Crewe upon
a manor business in Cheshire. Mrs. Crewe hastily and alarmed,
interrupted him, to inquire what he meant, and what might ensue to Mr.
Crewe? ‘Oh, nothing but the loss of the lordship upon that spot,’ he
coolly answered; ‘but I don’t know that it will be given against him:
I only know I shall have three hundred pounds for it.’
“Mrs. Crewe looked thoughtful; and Mr. Erskine then began to speak of
the new Association for Reform, by the friends of the people, headed
by Messrs. Grey and Sheridan, and sustained by Mr. Fox, and openly
opposed by Mr. Windham, as well as Mr. Burke. He said much of the use
they had made of his name, though he had never yet been to the
society; and I began to understand that he meant to disavow it; but
presently he added, ‘I don’t know whether I shall ever attend—I have
so much to do—so little time; however, the people must be supported.’
“‘Pray, will you tell me,’ said Mrs. Crewe dryly, ‘what you mean by
the people? I never knew.’
“He looked surprised, but evaded any answer, and soon after took his
leave, with his wife, who seems by no means to admire him as much as
he admires himself, if I may judge by short odd speeches which dropped
from her. The eminence of Mr. Erskine seems all for public life; in
private, his excessive egotisms undo him.
“Lord Loughborough instantly took his seat next to Mrs. Crewe; and
presently related a speech which Mr. Erskine has lately made at some
public meeting, and which he opened to this effect:—‘As to me,
gentlemen, I have some title to give my opinions freely. Would you
know what my title is derived from? I challenge any man to inquire! If
he ask my birth,—its genealogy may dispute with kings! If my wealth,
it is all for which I have time to hold out my hand! If my talents,—
No! of those, gentlemen, I leave you to judge for yourselves!’
“But I have now time for no more upon this day, except that Mr. and
Mrs. Burke, in making their exit, gave my father and me the most
cordial invitation to Beaconsfield in the course of the summer or
autumn. And, indeed, I should delight to accept it.”
The second half of this year was consumed by a round of visits,
commencing in town, and ending in Norfolk. On leaving London, Miss
Burney accompanied her eldest sister into Essex, where they spent some
time together at Halstead Vicarage. From this place, Fanny went alone to
stay at Bradfield Hall, near Bury St. Edmunds, with the family of the
agriculturist, Arthur Young,[110] who had married a sister of the second
Mrs. Burney.
All over the country, in the autumn of 1792, two subjects only were
talked of, the Revolution in France, and the adventures of the emigrants
to England. Little settlements of refugees had been, or were being,
formed in various districts. One coterie had established themselves at
Richmond, where they received much attention from Horace Walpole. Other
unfortunates found their way to Bury. A third colony, and not the least
important, sought retirement in the Vale of Mickleham. The fugitives, of
course, were not only of different ranks, but of different political
complexions. The Revolution had begun to devour its children; and some
of the exiles had helped to raise the passion which swept them away.
Suffolk had been visited in the spring by the celebrated Countess of
Genlis, governess to the children of Philip Egalité, Duke of Orleans.
This lady, who was now called Madame de Sillery, or Brulard, hired a
house at Bury for herself and her party, which included an authentic
Mademoiselle d’Orléans, besides the Pamela who afterwards married Lord
Edward Fitzgerald, and another young girl. Her establishment also
comprised a number of men, who were treated by the ladies sometimes as
servants, sometimes as equals. The vagaries of this curious household
and its mistress provoked comments which drove them from the county
before Miss Burney entered it. It was rumoured that Madame Brulard’s
departure was hastened by the arrival of the Duke de Liancourt, who
warmly denounced her influence over her infamous protector as a
principal cause of the French anarchy. Yet the nobleman just named was
himself known as a friend of the people. He it was who, bursting into
the King’s closet to report the fall of the Bastille, had been the first
to utter the word _Revolution_. Arthur Young, who, like most other
well-to-do Englishmen at that moment, was ready to forswear every
popular principle he had formerly professed, inveighed against the
Duke’s folly, while he pitied the misfortunes of a man to whom his
travels had laid him under obligation. Fanny met the new-comer at her
host’s table, and heard from his own lips the story of his escape from
France. Being in command at Rouen when news of the bloody Tenth of
August reached that city, and finding a price set on his head by the
Jacobins, De Liancourt, with some difficulty, made his way to the sea,
where he embarked in an open boat, and set sail, covered with faggots,
for the opposite coast. He entertained his friends at Bradfield Hall
with an account of his landing at Hastings, describing how he had walked
to the nearest public-house, and, to seem English, had called for ‘_pot
portère_,’ and then, being extremely thirsty, for another; how, overcome
by the strange liquor, he had been carried upstairs in a helpless state,
and put to bed; how he had woke up before day-break in a miserable room,
and fancied himself in a French _maison de force_; how, on creeping
cautiously below, the sight of the kitchen, with its array of bright
pewter plates and polished saucepans, had convinced him that he must be
in a more cleanly country than his native land. What had brought the
Duke to Bury we are not informed: he certainly would not have been at
home with Walpole’s friends, who seem to have been staunch adherents of
the _ancien régime_.
Some, though not all, of the strangers at Mickleham had advanced several
degrees beyond the timid constitutionalism of the Duke de Liancourt. The
origin and early history of this settlement were communicated to Fanny
by the journalizing letters of her sister, Mrs. Phillips. Two or three
families had united to take a house near the village, called Juniper
Hall, while another family hired a cottage at West Humble, which the
owner let with great reluctance, ‘upon the Christian-like supposition
that, being nothing but French papishes, they would never pay.’ The
party at the cottage were presided over by Madame de Broglie,
daughter-in-law of the Maréchal who had commanded the Royalist troops
near Paris. Among the first occupants of Juniper Hall were Narbonne,
recently Constitutionalist Minister of War, and Montmorency, _ci-devant
duc_, from whom had proceeded the motion for suppressing titles of
nobility in France. When Mrs. Phillips made the acquaintance of her new
neighbours, they had been reinforced by fresh arrivals, including an
officer of whom she had not yet heard. This was M. d’Arblay,[111] who,
Susan was told, had been Adjutant-General to her favourite hero,
Lafayette, when that leader surrendered himself to the Allies. On the
chief being sent prisoner to Olmutz, the subordinate was permitted to
withdraw into Holland, whence he was now come to join his intimate
friend and patron, Count Louis de Narbonne. ‘He is tall,’ wrote Mrs.
Phillips to her sister, ‘and a good figure, with an open and manly
countenance; about forty, I imagine.’
The letters from Mickleham were soon full of this General d’Arblay, who
won the heart of good Mrs. Phillips by his amiable manners, and his
attention to her children, while he fortified her in her French
politics, which, to say the truth, were too advanced for Fanny’s
acceptance. Both the General and Narbonne were attached to their
unfortunate master, but considered that they had been very badly treated
by Louis, and that it was impossible to serve him, because he could not
trust himself, and in consequence distrusted everybody else. D’Arblay
had been the officer on guard at the Tuileries on the night of the
famous Flight to Varennes. He had not been let into the secret of the
plan, but was left, without warning, to run the risk of being denounced
and murdered for having assisted the King’s escape.
Miss Burney was now in Norfolk with her sister Charlotte. But this visit
to her native county proved the reverse of joyful. Soon after her
arrival at Aylsham, Mr. Francis, her brother-in-law, was seized with an
attack of apoplexy, which ended in his death. During his illness, she
interested herself in the accounts of Juniper Hall—she had already heard
something of M. d’Arblay from the Duke de Liancourt—but her attention
was mainly engrossed by the distress of those around her. When all was
over, she remained to assist the widow in settling her affairs, and at
the close of the year accompanied her and the children to London.
-----
Footnote 108:
1737-1806. Lord Macartney’s mission to China was narrated in two
interesting works, _Macartney’s Journal_, and _Staunton’s ‘Account
of the Embassy.’_
Footnote 109:
Mrs. Locke.
Footnote 110:
Born in 1741, died in 1821; author of many works on agricultural and
economical subjects. His “Travels in France” were published in this
very year—1792.
Footnote 111:
Alexander d’Arblay was born at Joigny, near Paris. He entered the
French artillery at thirteen years of age. He was commandant at
Longwy, promoted into Narbonne’s regiment, and in 1792 made _maréchal
de camp_, or, as we should say, brigadier general.
-----