Chapter 42

[Footnote 25: We find it difficult to understand Macaulay's estimate of “The Wanderer.” Later critics appear, in general, to have echoed Macaulay without being at the pains of reading the book. If it has not the naive freshness of “Evelina,” nor the sustained excellence of style of “Cecilia,” “The Wanderer” is inferior to neither in the “exhibition of human passions and whims.” The story is interesting and full of variety; the characters live, as none but the greatest novelists have known how to make them. In Juliet, Fanny has given us one of her most fascinating heroines, while her pictures of the fashionable society of Brighthelmstone are distinguished by a force and vivacity of satire which she has rarely surpassed. It is true that in both “The Wanderer” and “Camilla” we meet with occasional touches of that peculiar extravagance of style which disfigure, the “Memoirs of Dr. Burney,” but these passages, in the novels, are SO comparatively inoffensive, and so nearly forgotten in the general power and charm of the story that we scarcely care to instance them as serious blemishes--ED.]

[Footnote 26: This criticism of Madame D'Arblay appears to us somewhat too sweeping. It must be remembered that the persons of “one propensity,” instanced by Macaulay, are all to be found among the minor characters in her novels. The circumstances, moreover, under which they are introduced, are frequently such as to render the display of their particular humours not only excusable, but natural. But surely in others of her creations, in her heroines especially, she is justly entitled to the praise of having portrayed “characters in which no single feature is extravagantly overcharged.”--ED.]

[Footnote 27: This conjecture may be considered as finally disposed of by Dr. Johnson's explicit declaration that he never saw one word of “Cecilia” before it was printed.--ED.]

[Footnote 28: The above “flowers of rhetoric” are taken from the “Memoirs of Dr. Burney,” published in 1832; but it is scarcely just--indeed, it is wholly unjust--to include “Camilla” and “The Wanderer” under the same censure with that book. The literary style of the “Memoirs” is the more amazing, since we find Madame D'Arblay, in 1815, correcting in her son the very fault which is there indulged to so unfortunate an extent. She writes to him--“I beg you, when you write to me, to let your pen paint Your thoughts as they rise, not as you seek or labour to embellish them. I remember you once wrote me a letter so very fine from Cambridge, that, if it had not made me laugh, it would have made me sick.”--ED.]

[Footnote 29: “The Female Quixote” is the title of a novel by Charlotte Lenox, published in 1752. It was written as a satire upon the Heroic Romances, so popular in England during the seventeenth century, and the early part of the eighteenth; and scarcely claims to be considered as a picture of life and manners. It is a delightful book however, and the character of the heroine, Arabella, is invested with a charm which never, even in the midst of her wildest extravagancies, fails to make itself felt.--ED.]

[Footnote 30: Author of the famous “Short View of the Immorality and the Profaneness of the English Stage,” published in 1698; a book which, no doubt, struck at a real evil, but which is written in a spirit of violence and bigotry productive rather of amusement than of conviction. It caused, however, a tremendous sensation at the time, and its effect upon the English drama was very considerable; not an unmixed blessing either.--ED.]

[Footnote 31: Fanny Burney's step-mother.--ED.]

[Footnote 32: Dr. Burney's daughter by his second wife.]

[Footnote 33: “Evelina; or a Young Lady's Entrance into the World.--This novel has given us so much pleasure in the perusal, that we do not hesitate to pronounce it one of the most sprightly, entertaining, and agreeable productions of this kind that has of late fallen under our notice. A great variety of natural incidents, some of the comic stamp, render the narrative extremely interesting. The characters, which are agreeably diversified, are conceived and drawn with propriety, and supported with spirit. The whole is written with great ease and command of language. From this commendation we must, however, 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.” Monthly Review, April, 1778.]

[Footnote 34: “Evelina.--The history of a young lady exposed to very critical situations. There is much more merit, as well respecting style as character and incident, than is usually to be met with in modern novels.” London Review, Feb., 1778.]

[Footnote 35: Fanny was no mistress of numbers; but the sincerity and warm affection expressed in every line of the Ode prefixed to “Evelina,” would excuse far weaker verses. We quote it in full.--ED.

“Oh, Author of my being!--far more dear To me than light, than nourishment, or rest, Hygeia's blessings, Rapture's burning tear, Or the life-blood that mantles in-my breast! If in my heart the love of Virtue glows, 'Twas planted there by an unerring rule From thy example the pure flame arose, Thy life, my precept,--thy good works, my school. Could my weak pow'rs thy num'rous virtues trace, By filial love each fear should be repress'd; The blush of Incapacity I'd chace, And stand, Recorder of thy worth, confess'd But since my niggard stars that gift refuse, Concealment is the only boon I claim Obscure be still the unsuccessful Muse, Who cannot raise, but would not sink, thy fame, 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.”]

[Footnote 36: Lady Hales was the mother of Miss Coussmaker, having been twice married, the second time to Sir Thomas Pym Hales, Bart., who died in 1773. They were intimate friends of the Burneys.--ED.]

[Footnote 37: Dr. Burney had brought the work under the notice of Mrs. Thrale. Mrs. Cholmondeley was a sister of the famous actress, Peg Woffington. Her husband, the Hon. and Rev. Robert Cholmondeley, was the second son of the Earl of Cholmondeley, and nephew of Horace Walpole.--ED.]

[Footnote 38: The sum originally paid for “Evelina” was twenty pounds, to which ten Pounds more were added after the third edition. “Evelina” passed through four editions within a year.--ED.]

[Footnote 39: Mrs. Greville, the wife of Dr. Burney's friend and early patron, Fulke Greville, was Fanny's godmother, and the author of a much admired “Ode to Indifference.”--ED.]

[Footnote 40: Her cousin, Charles Rousseau Burney-Hetty's husband.--ED.]

[Footnote 41: A French authoress, who wrote about the middle of the eighteenth century. Her novels, according to Dunlop “A History of Fiction,” (chap. xiii.), “are distinguished by their delicacy and spirit.” Her best works ar: “Miss Jenny Salisbury,” “Le Marquis de Cressy,” “Letters of Lady Catesby,” etc.--ED.]

[Footnote 42: Mrs. Williams, the blind poetess, who resided in Dr. Johnson's house. She had written to Dr. Burney, requesting the loan of a copy of “Evelina.”--ED.]

[Footnote 43: William Seward “a great favourite at Streatham,” was the son of an eminent brewer, Mr. Seward, of the firm of Calvert and Seward, and was born in 1747. He was not yet a “literary lion,” but he published some volumes--“Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons”--at a later date. He died in 1799.--ED.]

[Footnote 44: Miss Frances Reynolds--Dr. Johnson's “Renny”--was the sister of the great Sir Joshua, and a miniature painter of some talent.--ED.]

[Footnote 45: Her brother.--ED.]

[Footnote 46: Bennet Lampton, of Langton in Lincolnshire, was an old and much loved friend of Dr. Johnson, and is frequently mentioned in Boswell's “Life.” He was born about 1737, was educated at Oxford, was a good Greek scholar, and, says Boswell, “a gentleman eminent not only for worth, and learning but for an inexhaustible fund of entertaining conversation.” He succeeded Johnson, on the death of the latter, as Professor of Ancient History to the Royal Academy, and died in 1801. Boswell has printed a charming letter, written by Johnson, a few months before his death, to Langton's little daughter Jane, then in her seventh year.--ED.]

[Footnote 47: “My master” was a Common appellation for Mr. Thrale,--and one which he seems, in earnest, to have deserved. “I know no man,” said Johnson, “who is more master of his wife and family than Thrale, he but holds up a finger, he is obeyed.” (Boswell.)--ED.]

[Footnote 48: Suspirius the Screech Owl. See “Rambler” for Oct. 9, 1750. (This is unjust to Goldsmith. The general idea of the character of Croaker, no doubt, closely resembles that of Suspirius, and was probably borrowed from Johnson; but the details which make the part so diverting are entirely of Goldsmith's invention, as anyone may see by comparing “The Good-natured Man” with “The Rambler.”)--ED.]]

[Footnote 49: Mrs. Thrale tells a good story of Johnson's irrational antipathy to the Scotch. A Scotch gentleman in London, “at his return from the Hebrides, asked him, with a firm tone of voice, 'what he thought of his country?' 'That it is a very vile country, to be sure, sir,' returned for answer Dr. Johnson. 'Well sir!' replies the other, somewhat mortified, 'God made it!' 'Certainly he did,' answers Mr. Johnson, again, 'but we must always remember that He made it for Scotchmen; and--comparisons are odious.” Mr. S.--“but God made hell!”--(Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson)--ED.]

[Footnote 50: Fanny's step-mother.--ED.]

[Footnote 51: Boswell prints these lines as follows:

“When first I drew my vital breath, A little minikin I came upon earth And then I came from a dark abode, Into this gay and gaudy world,”--ED,]

[Footnote 52: Malone gives some further particulars about Bet Flint in a note to Boswell's “Life of Johnson.” She was tried, and acquitted, at the Old Bailey in September, 1758, the prosecutrix, Mary Walthow, being unable to prove “that the goods charged to have been stolen (a counterpane, a silver spoon, two napkins, etc.) were her property. Bet does not appear to have lived at that time in a very genteel style; for she paid for her ready-furnished room in Meard's-court, Dean-street, Soho, from which these articles were alleged to be stolen, only five shillings a week.”--ED.]

[Footnote 53: Margaret Caroline Rudd was in great notoriety about the year 1776, from the fame of her powers of fascination, which, it was said, had brought a man to the gallows. This man, her lover, was hanged in January, 1776, for forgery, and the fascinating Margaret appeared as evidence against him. Boswell visited her in that year, and to a lady who expressed her disapprobation of such proceedings, Johnson said: “Nay, madam, Boswell is right: I should have visited her myself, were it not that they have got a trick of putting every thing into the newspapers.”--ED.]

[Footnote 54: Kitty Fisher--more correctly, Fischer, her father being a German--an even more famous courtesan, who enjoyed the distinction of having been twice painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds--ED.]

[Footnote 55: The blind poetess, and inmate of Dr. Johnson's house.--ED.]

[Footnote 56: Michael Lort, D.D., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and subsequently Greek Professor. He was born in 1725, and died in 1799.--ED.]

[Footnote 57: “I wished the man a dinner and sat still.”--Pope.]

[Footnote 58: The Miss Palmers were the nieces of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Mary, the elder, married, in 1792, the Earl of Inchiquin, afterwards created Marquis of Thomond; the younger, Theophila (“Offy”), married Robert Lovell Gwatkin, Esq. One of Sir Joshua's most charming pictures (“Simplicity”) was painted, in 1788, from Offy's little daughter. Lady Ladd was the sister of Mr. Thrale.--ED.]

[Footnote 59: Miss Thrale.--ED.]

[Footnote 60: Edmund Burke, our “greatest man since Milton,” as Macaulay called him.--ED.]

[Footnote 61: At Sir Joshua's town house, in Leicester Square. The house is now occupied by Messrs. Puttick and Simpson, the auctioneers.--ED.]

[Footnote 62: “de Mullin” is Mrs. Desmoulins, the daughter of Johnson's godfather, Dr. Swinfen, a physician in Lichfield. Left in extreme indigence by the deaths of her father and husband, she found for many years an asylum in the house of Dr. Johnson, whom she survived.--ED.]

[Footnote 63: Macbean was sometime Johnson's amanuensis. His “Dictionary of Ancient Geography” was published in 1773, with a Preface by Johnson.--ED.]

[Footnote 64: Robert Levett--not Levat, as Fanny writes it--was a Lichfield man, “an obscure practiser in physick amongst the lower people,” and an old acquaintance of Dr. Johnson's, in whose house he was supported for many years, until his death, at a very advanced age, in 1782, “So ended the long life of a very useful and very blameless man,” Johnson wrote, in communicating the intelligence to Dr. Lawrence.--ED.]

[Footnote 65: Boswell tells us nothing of Poll, except that she was a Miss Carmichael. Domestic dissensions seem to have been the rule with this happy family, but Johnson's long-suffering was inexhaustible, On one occasion he writes Mrs. Thrale, “Williams hates everybody; Levett hates Desmoulins, who does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll loves none of them.”--ED.]

[Footnote 66: The lives of Cowley and Waller, from Johnson's “Lives of the Poets.” They were not published till 1781, but were already in print.--ED.]

[Footnote 67: “The Theory and Regulation of Love: A Moral Essay.” By the Rev. John Norris, Oxford, 1688.--ED.]

[Footnote 68: Miss Gregory was the daughter of a Scotch physician. She married the Rev. Archibald Alison, and was the mother of Sir Archibald Alison, the historian.--ED.]

[Footnote 69: The house in which she died, in Portman Square.--ED.]

[Footnote 70: No doubt Simon Nicolas Henri Linguet, a French author, who published numerous works, historical and political, both before and after this date.--ED.]

[Footnote 71: In the original edition: perhaps “vexation” was the word intended.--ED.]

[Footnote 72: Sir John Ladd, Mr. Thrale's sister's son, a young profligate who subsequently married, not Miss Burney, but a woman of the town! Dr. Johnson's satirical verses on his coming of age are printed near the end of Boswell's “Life.”--ED.]

[Footnote 73: This was not the famous philosopher and statesman, but the Rev. Thomas Franklin, D.D., who was born in 1721, and died in 1784. He published various translations from the classics, as well as plays and miscellaneous works; but is best known for his translation of Sophocles, published in 1759.--ED.]

[Footnote 74: “Warley: a Satire,” then just published, by a Mr. Huddisford. “Dear little Burney's” name was coupled in it with that of Sir Joshua Reynolds, in a manner which seemed to imply that Sir Joshua had special reasons for desiring her approbation. It will be remembered that, before he knew that Miss Burney was the author of “Evelina,” Sir Joshua had jestingly remarked that if the author proved to be a woman, he should be sure to make love to her. See ante, p. 94.--ED.]

[Footnote 75: Mrs. Horneck and Mrs. Bunbury (her eldest daughter) had declared that they would walk a hundred and sixty miles, to see the author of “Evelina.”--ED.]

[Footnote 76: See note 37 ante.--ED,]

[Footnote 77: A kinsman of the great Edmund Burke, and, like him, a politician and member of Parliament. Goldsmith has drawn his character in “Retaliation.”

“Here lies honest William, whose heart was a mint, While the owner ne'er knew half the good that was in 't; The pupil of impulse, it forced him along, His conduct still right, with his argument wrong Still aiming at honour, yet fearing to roam, The coachman was tipsy, the chariot drove home; Would-you ask for his merits? alas! he had none; What was good was spontaneous, his faults were his own.”--ED.]

[Footnote 78: Henry Temple, second Viscount Palmerston, and father of the celebrated Lord Palmerston.--ED.]

[Footnote 79: Mrs. Cholmondeley imitates the language of Madame Duval, the French woman in “Evelina.”--ED.]

[Footnote 80: A character in “Evelina.”--ED.]

[Footnote 81: Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was born at Plympton, in Devonshire, in 1723--ED.]

[Footnote 82: Mr. Qwatkin afterwards married Miss Offy Palmer.--ED.]

[Footnote 83: Afterwards Lady Crewe; the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Greville, and a famous Political beauty. At a supper after the Westminster election on the Prince of Wales toasting, “True blue and Mrs. Crewe,” the lady responded, “True blue and all of you.”--ED.]

[Footnote 84: A celebrated Italian singer and intimate friend of the Burneys.--ED.]

[Footnote 85: See note [15: ante, p. xxvi. The intended marriage above referred to above came to nothing, Miss Cumberland, the eldest daughter of the dramatist subsequently marrying Lord Edward Bentinck, son of the Duke of Portland.--ED.]

[Footnote 86: Miss Hannah More, the authoress.--ED.]

[Footnote 87: Hannah More gave Dr. Johnson, when she was first introduced to him, such a surfeit of flattery, that at last, losing patience, he turned to her and said, “Madam, before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flattery is worth his having.”--ED.]

[Footnote 88: Mrs. Vesey was the lady at whose house were held the assemblies from which the term “blue-stocking” first came into use. (See ante.) Fanny writes of her in 1779, “She is an exceeding well-bred woman, and of agreeable manners; but all her name in the world must, I think, have been acquired by her dexterity and skill in selecting parties, and by her address in rendering them easy with one another--an art, however, that seems to imply no mean understanding.”--ED.]

[Footnote 89: Joseph Warton, author of the “Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope.”--ED.]

[Footnote 90: Sheridan was at this time manager of Drury-lane Theatre--ED.]

[Footnote 91: Sir P. J. Clerke's bill was moved on the 12th of February. It passed the first and second readings, but was afterwards lost on the motion for going into committee. It was entitled a “Bill for restraining any person, being a member of the House of Commons, from being concerned himself, or any person in trust for him, in any contract made by the commissioners of his Majesty's Treasury, the commissioners of the Navy, the board of Ordnance, or by any other person or persons for the public service, Unless the said contract shall be made at a public bidding.”--ED.]

[Footnote 93: Arthur Murphy, the well-known dramatic author, a very intimate friend of the Thrales. He was born in Ireland in 1727, and died at Knightsbridge in 1805. Among his most successful plays were “The Orphan of China” and “The Way to Keep Him.”--ED.]

[Footnote 94: “The Good-natured Man.”--ED]

[Footnote 95: Sophy Streatfield, a young lady who understood Greek, and was consequently looked upon as a prodigy of learning. Mrs. Thrale appears to have been slightly jealous of her about this time, though without serious cause. In January, 1779, she writes (in “Thraliana”): “Mr. Thrale has fallen in love, really and seriously, with Sophy Streatfield; but there is no wonder in that; she is very pretty, very gentle, soft and insinuating; hangs about him, dances round him, cries when she parts from him, squeezes his hand slily, and with her sweet eyes full of tears looks fondly in his face--and all for love of me, as she pretends, that I can hardly sometimes help laughing in her face. A man must not be a man, but an it, to resist such artillery.”--ED.]

[Footnote 96: Characters in the comedy which Fanny was then engaged upon.--ED.]

[Footnote 97: Sir Philip Jennings Clerke--ED.]

[Footnote 98: The Rev. John Delap, D.D., born 1725, died 1812. He was a man “of deep learning, but totally ignorant of life and manners,” and wrote several tragedies, two or three of which were acted, but generally without success,--ED.]

[Footnote 99: Mrs. Piozzi (then Mrs. Thrale) relates this story in her “Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson.” “I came into the room one evening where he [Johnson] and a gentleman [Seward], whose abilities we all respect exceedingly, were sitting. A lady [Miss Streatfield], who walked in two minutes before me, had blown 'em both into a flame by whispering something to Mr. S--d, which he endeavoured to explain away so as not to affront the doctor, whose suspicions were all alive. 'And have a care, sir,' said he, just as I came in, 'the Old Lion will not bear to be tickled.' The other was pale with rage, the lady wept at the confusion she had caused, and I could only say with Lady Macbeth--'Soh! you've displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting with most admired disorder.'”--ED.]

[Footnote 100: The following note is in the hand-writing of Miss Burney, at a subsequent period. The objection of Mr. Crisp to the MS play of 'The Witlings,' was its resemblance to Moliere's 'Femmes Savantes,' and consequent immense inferiority. It is, however, a curious fact, and to the author a consolatory one, that she had literally never read the 'Femmes Savantes' when she composed 'The Witlings.']

[Footnote 101: Mr. Rose Fuller.--ED.]

[Footnote 102: Anthony Chamier, M.P. for Tamworth, and an intimate friend of Dr. Burney's. He was Under Secretary of State from 1775 till his death in 1780. We find him at one of Dr. Burney's famous music-parties in 1775. Fanny writes of him then as “an extremely agreeable man, and the very pink of gallantry.” (“Early Diary,” vol, ii. p. 106.)--ED.]

[Footnote 103: Afterwards Sir William Weller Pepys, Master in Chancery, and brother of the physician, Sir Lucas Pepys. He was an ardent lover of literature, and gave “blue-stocking” parties, which Dr. Burney frequently attended. Fanny extols his urbanity and benevolence. See “Memoirs of Dr. Burney,” vol. ii. p. 285.--ED.]

[Footnote 104: His dog.--ED.]

[Footnote 105: Mrs. Pleydell was a friend of Dr. Burney's, and greatly admired for her beauty and the sweetness of her disposition. She was the daughter of Governor Holwell, one of the survivors from the Black Hole of Calcutta.--ED.]

[Footnote 106: Mr. Thrale was Member of Parliament for Southwark.--ED.]

[Footnote 107: Samuel Foote, the famous actor and writer of farces,--ED.]

[Footnote 108: Lady Diana Spencer, eldest daughter of Charles, second Duke of Marlborough. She was born in 1734, married in 1760 to Viscount Bolingbroke, divorced from him in 1768, and married soon after to Dr. Johnson's friend, Topham Beauclerk. Lady Di was an amateur artist, and the productions of her pencil were much admired by Horace Walpole and other persons of fashion. Elizabeth, Countess of Pembroke, was the sister of Lady Di Beauclerk, being the second daughter of the Duke of Marlborough.--ED.]

[Footnote 109: See note 15 ante.--ED.]

[Footnote 110: Young Cumberland, son of the author.--ED.]

[Footnote 111: General Blakeney.--ED.]

[Footnote 112: A character in Fanny's suppressed comedy, “The Witlings.”--ED.]

[Footnote 113: Not the celebrated George Selwyn, but a wealthy banker of that name.--ED.]

[Footnote 114: Lucrezia Agujari was one of the most admired Italian singers of the day. She died at Parma in 1783.--ED.]