Fanny Burney (Madame D'Arblay)
- -
- 100%
- +
Prefixed to Evelina is a votive poem of five quatrains, a “Dedication addressed to the Authors of the Monthly and Critical Reviews,” and a Preface. The verses, although headed “To **** *****,” are of course intended for Dr. Burney.
“Oh! of my life at once the source and joy! If e’er thy eyes these feeble lines survey,Let not their folly their intent destroy; Accept the tribute – but forget the lay” —they conclude, and it would be idle to pretend that their affection is not more manifest than their poetical merit. The “Dedication” and the “Preface,” on the contrary, are well invented; and moreover, shew plainly that, in serious or impersonal prose, the Johnsonian standard, afterwards so obtrusive in the writer’s work, was already present to her mind. Speaking, in the Preface, of her predecessors in fiction, she says, “I yet presume not to attempt pursuing the same ground which they have tracked; whence, though they may have cleared the weeds, they have also culled the flowers; and, though they have rendered the path plain, they have left it barren.” Again, “Whatever may be the fate of these letters, the writer is satisfied they will meet with justice; and commends them to the press, though hopeless of fame, yet not regardless of censure.” These are sentences which, with their balanced turn, and contrast of clauses, might have come direct from Rasselas or the Rambler. The same Preface contains a passage to which we are probably indebted for much of that old persistent misconception as to the author’s age, of which Croker (“no one could lash a woman like Rigby!”) made such paltry capital. “To draw characters from nature, though not from life, and to mark the manners of the times, is the attempted plan of the following letters. For this purpose, a young female, educated in the most secluded retirement, makes, at the age of seventeen [the italics are ours], her first appearance upon the great and busy stage of life.” Here, no doubt, is the source and origin of the story which Croker had “always seen and heard stated.” To any unprejudiced mind, it must be obvious that Miss Burney is referring, not to her own age, but to that of her heroine; and this is confirmed – if confirmation were needed – by her Diary. “I have not pretended,” she writes in March, 1778, “to shew the world what it actually is, but what it appears to a girl of seventeen: – and so far as that, surely any girl who is past seventeen may safely do?” And yet, as late as 1871, a critic was found to quote the words of the “Preface” and to contend, in Croker’s interest, that Miss Burney was speaking of herself.33
The first of the Reviews to answer the appeal in the Dedication was not either of those to which the author had referred. In the London Review for February there was a tiny notice of three lines. But, considering that it came from, or was approved by, the critic whom Macaulay stigmatises as the “envious Kenrick,” it was not unfriendly. “There was much more merit” in Evelina’s history, it said, “as well respecting style, character and incident, than was generally to be found among our modern novels.” The Monthly Review (Mr. Ralph Griffiths) was the next to take up the book, making its report in April. This was not long; but it was excellent. It pronounced Evelina to be “one of the most sprightly, entertaining, and agreeable productions” of the kind which had of late fallen under its notice. It praised the “great variety of natural incidents,” and declared the characters to be “agreeably diversified, conceived and drawn with propriety, and supported with spirit.” “The whole,” it went on, “is written with great ease, and command of language. From this commendation, however, we must except the character of a son of Neptune, whose manners are rather those of a rough uneducated country squire, than those of a genuine sea captain.” For the Critical Review Miss Burney had to wait until September, when Sylvanus Urban also joined the concert. The notice in the Critical Review was the longest of all. It compared the writer with Richardson. It considered the first and third volumes to be the best, and it praised Mme. Duval and Captain Mirvan as, in great measure, original. With respect to the author, whom it speaks of as “he,” it was still wholly in the dark; and it commended the knowledge of the world and the experience of life which the book contained. Mr. Urban contented himself with a long extract from the “Preface,” and concluded, “Such is the just account given of this work by the author; to which we shall only add that these vols. will afford a pleasing innocent amusement, exhibiting, in an easy style, many such characters as occur in the world, not raised so high as to be extravagant, nor sunk so low as to be disgusting.”
There is no definite evidence that Miss Burney had any knowledge either of Kenrick’s or Griffiths’ review, when, in May, she went to Chessington. While she was at “Daddy” Crisp’s – as already related – the first bound copy was received from Lowndes. But those in the secret had kept it well, and it was not until June that it was really revealed. In March, Fanny’s cousin Richard, recovering from an illness, had heard Evelina read aloud, and was taken into confidence; while in May, his sister Bessy, one of the actors in the Worcester theatricals, had, in her own phrase, “smoked” Fanny in the new book, which was beginning to be talked about. But Fanny’s father, to whom Evelina was dedicated, was still wholly ignorant of the matter, and his diffident daughters did not dare to undeceive him. At last, at the beginning of June, Charlotte writes jubilantly that Papa has been looking at the review in the Monthly, and has bought a copy of Evelina. He has been much affected by the Ode, and is reading the book to Lady Hales and another friend. He thinks the Preface and Dedication “vastly strong and well written,” Susan reports to the author. The account of public places (he declares) is “very animated, and natural, and not common”; and in his opinion, Lowndes has had a very good bargain. By June 16 he has finished it. It is “the best novel he knows,” says the proud father, “excepting Fielding’s,” and in some respects it is better even than his. His only objection is to Mirvan’s treatment of Lovel, which is “a brutality which does not make one laugh.” Villars and Lord Orville he admired greatly; and he has “blubbered” over the scenes at the end between Evelina and Sir John Belmont. As to his lady auditors, they are still crying. For Fanny’s sake (“Poor Fan’s such a prude”), he will keep the secret snug; but he evidently does not apprehend that its disclosure would bring her any discredit. “For a young woman’s work, I look upon it to be really wonderful!”
All this Susan Burney recapitulates with abundant decorative detail to the delighted author at Chessington, whose foremost anxiety had been as to her father’s opinion. She herself has been reading the book aloud to Mr. Crisp, who, good, easy man, has no suspicions, but is interested, and tantalised into greater curiosity by having to wait patiently for the successive volumes. Presently Evelina is recommended by a lady to Mrs. Thrale, who “likes it vastly – is extremely pleased with it.” Whatever human nature there may be in Mme. Riccoboni,34 she tells Mrs. Burney, who has been praising that writer, there is human life in Evelina, and the manners of the time. “It’s writ (she says) by somebody that knows the top and the bottom, the highest and lowest of mankind.” Thereupon Mrs. Burney borrows it to read; and long letters go off to Fanny embodying the remarks of both parents over the book as they study it slowly in bed in the morning. Finally, as Dr. Burney has obtained Fanny’s leave to tell Mrs. Thrale, Mrs. Burney also has to be told. And then – crown of all things! – comes a congratulatory letter from Mrs. Thrale herself, praising Evelina for “probability of story, elegance of sentiment, and general power over the mind, whether exerted in humour or pathos.” But “the cream of the correspondence,” as Tony Lumpkin calls it, is not for once in a postscript. It is in the middle. Dr. Johnson has read the first two volumes, and protests there are “passages in the book which might do honour to Richardson.” He is hungering for the dénoûment, and is now hard at work on volume three. This astounding intelligence has such an effect upon the author that, in her own words, “it almost crazed her with agreeable surprise.” It gave her such a flight of spirits that she then and there “danced a jigg to Mr. Crisp, without any preparation, music, or explanation, – to his no small amazement, and diversion.” She was an expert emulator of the light-heeled Nancy Dawson; and the scene of this impromptu performance – as she told Sir Walter Scott forty-eight years afterwards – was a mulberry tree in the garden at Chessington.35
“Daddy” Crisp was now almost the only person out of the secret; and he had to be enlightened. Dr. Burney took this duty upon himself when he came down to Chessington in August to fetch away his daughter; and the old man’s pride and surprise and delight were unbounded.
CHAPTER IV
THE SUCCESSFUL AUTHOR
Once – so runs the story – when Miss Burney was dining with Sir Joshua Reynolds at that pleasant villa upon Richmond Hill which had been built for him by Chambers the architect, she chanced to see him looking at her in a peculiar way. “I know what you are thinking about,” – she said. “Ay,” he replied, “you may come and sit to me now whenever you please.” He had at last caught her special attitude, – her distinctive phase. “I hope he will take your picture,” “Daddy” Crisp had said, when she first made the artist’s acquaintance; – “who knows, but the time may come when your image may appear.. like Garrick with the Comic and Tragic Muse contending for you?” Thalia and Melpomene were certainly to contend for the author of Evelina, and that at no distant date. There is however no picture of Fanny Burney in the Reynolds Gallery. Hoppner painted her later; but Hoppner is not Sir Joshua. Her best likeness, one of two from the same hand, is by her cousin, Edward Burney, who, it is hinted, surveyed his model —
“in the lightOf tender personal regards,” —and – it is also hinted – possibly slightly flattered her.
Edward Burney’s portrait, which is prefixed to the Diary and Letters of 1842-6, had been mezzotinted two years earlier by Charles Turner on a larger scale. It is said to represent Miss Burney at the age of thirty, having been painted at Chessington in August 1782. She wears a hat and feathers; and her hair is frizzed out in the approved fashion of the day. Her attitude is conventional: – she sits demurely erect, with formally posed hands. But her eyes are brimming with latent animation; and the corners of the lips are lifted with a lurking sense of fun. Of the sitter’s stature the picture gives little indication. She is reported, however, to have been extremely slight and frail of make – “a small cargo for the Chessington coach,” said Mr. Crisp. It was perhaps owing to this that she preserved so long her youthful and almost girlish appearance. As to her eyes, which, in the portrait, look large and luminous, we have her own assurance that they were greenish gray; and from the fact that she was called “the dove” by one of her Tunbridge friends, we must assume that they resembled those of Mrs. Delany, who is praised by her adoring husband for “what Solomon calls ‘dove’s eyes.’ ” Her complexion was brown; and she is affirmed to have been rather French-looking. Beautiful of feature, perhaps, she could scarcely be called. But it is admitted that she had great charm of expression, and a countenance which was quick to betray every passing emotion. “Poor Fanny’s face” – said her father – “tells us what she thinks whether she will or no”; and she confirms this herself by lamenting her lack of power to command her features. She “rouged” readily – to use her own euphemism for blushing. For the rest, she was all her life ailing and delicate. But like many valetudinarians, she succeeded in surviving her robuster relatives. She out-lasted all her sisters except one; and she lived to the age of eighty-seven.36
When Dr. Burney fetched his daughter from Chessington, it had been arranged that they should stop at Streatham Place on their way back to town. This they did; and Fanny’s diary gives a full account of what she pronounces to be “the most consequential day she had spent since her birth.” Mrs. Thrale was very gracious, and very discreet, only mentioning Evelina in order to refer to Dr. Johnson’s genuine admiration for the book. Mr. Seward, whom we remember as one of the visitors to St. Martin’s Street, was not by any means so considerate, bluntly blurting out his praises in the most embarrassing manner. At dinner a place was left next Miss Burney for Dr. Johnson, who presently appeared. The Doctor was as delicate as Mrs. Thrale, only touching indirectly and circuitously upon the burning topic. Asked by Mrs. Thrale to have some little pies of mutton, he declared gallantly that sitting next Miss Burney made him too proud to eat mutton. Later, after some rambling talk about the wear and tear of Garrick’s face, he went on to speak of Dr. Burney’s rival, Sir John Hawkins, whom he can scarcely be said to have extolled. He believed him “an honest man at the bottom; but to be sure,” he continued, “he is penurious, and he is mean, and it must be owned he has a degree of brutality, and a tendency to savageness, that cannot easily be defended.” Giving an instance of Sir John’s “unclubbable” character, he added that it reminded him of a lady with whom he had once travelled, who, stopping at an inn in her own coach and four, called for – a pint of ale! quarrelling moreover with the waiter for not giving full measure. And here came in another adroit allusion to Evelina. “Mme. Duval” – said the Doctor – “could not have done a grosser thing!” – a sentiment which of course convulsed the company, and threw the young person at his side into the most delicious confusion. Altogether the visit was delightful; and when Fanny and her father got into the chaise to go, it was a settled thing that she was to come again to Streatham, and for a much longer stay.
When she reached St. Martin’s Street, there were further honours in store for her. Hetty had lately met Frances Reynolds, who was full of the new novel, “though without a shadow of suspicion as to the scribbler.” This, of itself, was not much; but Miss Reynolds also announced that her brother, Sir Joshua, having begun it when “he was too much engaged to go on with it, was so much caught, that he could think of nothing else, and was quite absent all the day, not knowing a word that was said to him; and, when he took it up again, found himself so much interested in it, that he sat up all night to finish it!” He would give fifty pounds, he had subsequently declared, to know the author, and other people were equally inquisitive. After this interesting piece of intelligence, Fanny thought she would herself go to Mr. Thomas Lowndes, and ascertain in what way that gentleman was satisfying the eagerness of enquirers. As she could not trust herself to speak, her step-mother went with her. They began by buying a copy, and then asked Mr. Lowndes – a pompous and consequential personage who happened to be in the shop – if he could tell them who wrote it. No, he replied, he did not know himself. Pressed further, he said that the author was a gentleman of the other end of the town; and, in response to renewed cross-questioning on Mrs. Burney’s part, affirmed that he was a master of his subject, and well versed in the manners of the times. Moreover, that he (Mr. Lowndes) had at first thought Evelina was by Horace Walpole, who had once published a book in the same “snug manner,”37 but he did not think so now. (Other people, it may be noted, had attributed it to Christopher Anstey of the New Bath Guide, then some dozen years old, – a work which Miss Anville and Lord Orville peruse together at Mrs. Beaumont’s.) Finally, out of sheer inability to satisfy his interrogator, Mr. Lowndes hinted darkly, “with a most important face,” that he had been told that the authorship of Evelina was a piece of real secret history, which could consequently never be known. This final piece of information was too much for the listener, who “was obliged to look out at the shop-door” for the remainder of the interview. To the modern student Fanny’s investigations would have been more satisfying if they had thrown some definite light on the progress of the book from the publisher’s point of view. In spite of various statements to the contrary, it seems clear that when, in August, 1778, she and her step-mother went to Fleet Street, Mr. Lowndes was still selling the first impression. The second edition is dated 1779; and in October, 1796, the author wrote that “the first edition of Evelina was of eight hundred, the second of five hundred, and the third of a thousand” copies. On the other hand, Lowndes, who should certainly have been acquainted with the facts, informed Dr. Burney, in an unpublished letter of 1782, that he only printed a first edition of five hundred. Whichever be the correct version of the story, it is pretty clear that the sale for the first twelve months can scarcely be regarded as extraordinary.38
Before the end of August Mrs. Thrale called at St. Martin’s Street, and carried off her new friend to Streatham Place; and at Streatham Place Fanny practically remained for the rest of 1778. The inviting white house with its wooded park, or enclosure, where – to use Susan Burney’s expression – the “cattle, poultry, and dogs all ran freely about without annoying each other,” has now long been a thing of the past, having been pulled down in 1863. Its site was the southern side of the lower common between Streatham and Tooting. It was a three-storied building, with many cheerful rooms which Fanny’s records make familiar to us. The saloon was hung with sky blue; and there was a parlour for the more crowded dinner parties, decorated with prints by Hogarth and others which, probably inaccurately, are described as being “pasted” on the walls. The library, also used frequently as a breakfast room, had been built by Mr. Thrale about 1773, and was kept stocked with books by Johnson, who here – said Mrs. Thrale – “talked Ramblers,” while she read aloud the last proofs of the Lives of the Poets. Above the book-cases, hung the famous Thrale Gallery, dispersed in 1816, – portraits by Sir Joshua of Johnson, of Burke, of the artist himself, of Goldsmith, Garrick, Murphy, Baretti, Dr. Burney and other visitors to the house. Over the fireplace, and also by Reynolds, was the double picture of Mrs. Thrale and Queenie, which was exhibited in the Grosvenor Gallery in 1884. In the grounds, besides plantations, and high-walled kitchen gardens with ice-houses and pineries, there was an encircling shrubbery which bordered a gravelled walk of nearly two miles. There was also a spring pond, dug by Thrale, which, apparently in imitation of Duck Island in St. James’s Park, boasted its Dick’s Island; and there was “a cool summer-house,” where Johnson wrote and studied, and Fanny read, or essayed to read, Irene. It must have been a most delightful country-house, meriting fully the Doctor’s grateful eulogy that “none but itself could be its parallel.” “I have found nothing,” he wrote from Lichfield in 1767, “that withdraws my affections from the friends whom I left behind, or which makes me less desirous of reposing at that place which your kindness and Mr. Thrale’s allows me to call my home.” “These are as good people,” he said to Miss Burney in the first days of her visit, “as you can be with; you can go to no better house; they are all good nature; nothing makes them angry.”
He himself seems to have softened with his environment. Although, as Fanny says, the freedom with which he condemned what he disapproved was astonishing, and his strength of language would to most persons be intolerable, he presented, upon the whole, a far more benignant aspect than that in which he is usually exhibited by Boswell. He is Johnson in clover, and en belle humeur; happier and more at ease than he is elsewhere, and therefore more agreeable. To the yet undisclosed author of Evelina he is especially gracious, and even affectionate. He kisses her hand; makes her sit by him; pays her elaborate compliments; and no one, when he pleased, could do that better. “Harry Fielding,” he protested, “never drew so good a character” as her Mr. Smith. “Such a fine varnish of low politeness! – such a struggle to appear a gentleman! Madam [to Mrs. Thrale], there is no character better drawn anywhere – in any book, or by any author” – an extravagance which almost leads one particular author present to “poke herself under the table.” He bursts out with sudden quotations from Evelina: – with Miss Branghton’s, “Only think, Polly! Miss has danced with a Lord!” – he rallies poor Mr. Seward on his resemblance to the Holborn beau. – “Why you only want a tambour waistcoat, to look like Mr. Smith!” Then he is heard grumbling to himself over a letter from Fanny’s medical adviser, Dr. Jebb, whose penmanship is that of a tradesman. “Mr. Branghton would have written his name with just such beastly flourishes!” But perhaps the acme of his amiable speeches is his frank comparison of “dear little Burney,” as he comes to call her, with Fielding and Richardson. “Richardson,” he said, “would have been really afraid of her; there is merit,” he went on, “in Evelina which he could not have borne. No; it would not have done! unless, indeed, she would have flattered him prodigiously. Harry Fielding, too, would have been afraid of her; there is nothing so delicately finished in all Harry Fielding’s works as in Evelina.” Then, shaking his head at her, he exclaimed, “O, you little character-monger you!” – an appellation which must be admitted to be singularly appropriate. On another occasion, he declared that she was his “hero.” “Dr. Goldsmith was my last; but I have had none since his time, till my little Burney came.”39 “I admire her” – he said again, and to her face – “for her observation, for her good sense, for her humour, for her discernment, for her manner of expressing them, and for all her writing talents.” Decidedly it was good to be praised by Johnson; and one may well forgive Miss Burney for doubting whether she could possibly live up to his laudation.
Visitors to Streatham Place came and went so freely that it is difficult to chronicle them. Among the rest was that accomplished esprit fort, Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, to whom Mrs. Thrale could not deny herself the pleasure of exhibiting her own special prize and discovery, the author of Evelina. Mrs. Montagu came to Streatham by invitation, accompanied by her friend, Miss Gregory. Dr. Johnson was very anxious that “Burney” should attack the “Queen of the Blue Stockings,” much as, in his own hot youth, he had hawked at all established wits. But Mrs. Thrale, finding that Mrs. Montagu knew nothing of Evelina, disclosed the secret of the authorship so abruptly, that Fanny fairly took to her heels and fled. Hence she saw less of the great lady than she would otherwise; and between the extreme blame of “Daddy” Crisp and the extreme praise of Mrs. Thrale, was not perhaps greatly prepossessed in favour of Mrs. Montagu, who, moreover, had been so ill-advised as never to have heard of Evelina. But Mrs. Montagu was very well-bred and polite; and easily fell in with Dr. Johnson’s suggestion that Miss Burney should accompany the rest of those present to the housewarming with which she hoped shortly to open her new abode in Portman Square, – that famous mansion of the feather-hangings celebrated by Cowper’s —
“The Birds put off their every hueTo dress a room for Montagu.”It was in reference to a suggestion by Mrs. Montagu that Fanny’s dedication was good enough to have been written by her father – a suggestion which, with all her filial affection, Fanny could scarcely be expected to welcome very warmly – that Johnson uttered one of his common-sense deliverances on criticism. “You must not mind that” – he said of Mrs. Montagu’s impolitic remark, – “for such things are always said where books are successful. There are three distinct kinds of judges upon all new authors or productions; the first are those who know no rules, but pronounce entirely from their natural taste and feelings; the second are those who know and judge by rules; and the third are those who know, but are above the rules. These last are those you should wish to satisfy. Next to them rate the natural judges; but ever despise those opinions that are formed by the rules.” Of this second class, his own “Dick Minim” is an admirable exemplification.40