Chapter XX: Part 20

_Dec. 13._--Our dinner was as usual, the Smelts, Messrs. de Luc and Turbulent, and Miss Planta; and the last only was gone when Mr. and Mrs. Hayes arrived. Mrs. Hayes is a really pretty as well as a pretty sort of woman,[228] and modest, well-bred, and sensible--and the afternoon, with the assistance of Mr. Smelt, did very well. They went early home, and both the Smelts were called to the queen's rooms; M. de Luc said he must retire to write down “some thoughts upon an experiment in his head,” and only Mr. Turbulent remained.

I found the partner of my confinement a man of uncommon capacity, but something there was hung about him, or hung about me, that prevented my assimilating-with him in anything. I saw he was endowed with great powers of agreeability; but I thought him obtrusive; and that alone is a drawback to all merit, that I know not how to pass over. He spoke his opinions with great openness, equally upon people and things; but it seemed rather from carelessness than confidence, and I 'know him too little to feel obliged in his trust.

The talk was chiefly upon mere general subjects, till by 'some accident the approaching birth-day of the queen was mentioned. He then inquired of me how I should like the state business of that day?

I told him I knew nothing of what I had to expect from it. He undertook readily to inform me. He said I was to be sumptuously arrayed, to sit in one of the best rooms at St. James's, and there to receive all the ladies of the queen in particular, and to do the honours to all the gentlemen also, belonging to the establishment.

I laughed, and told him he had painted to me a scene of happiness peculiarly adapted to my taste!

He did not concern himself to examine whether or not I was serious, but said he supposed, of course, the dignity of such a matter of state could not be disagreeable to me, and added, he should take the liberty to wish me joy of the day, among the rest, when it arrived, and to see me in my glory. After this he said, “You have now nearly seen the whole of everything that will come before you: in a very short time you will have passed six months here, and then you will know your life for as many, and twice and thrice as many years. You will have seen everybody and everything, and the same round will still be the same, year after year, without intermission or alteration.”

AN EQUERRY ON THE COURT CONCERT.

_Dec. 26_--Colonel Goldsworthy ran on, till General Bude reminded him it was time they should appear in the concert-room.

“Ay,” cried he, reluctantly, “now for the fiddlers! There I go, plant myself against the side of the chimney, stand first on one foot, then on the other, hear over and over again all that fine squeaking, and then fall fast asleep, and escape by mere miracle from flouncing down plump in all their faces.”

“What would the queen say if you did that?”

“O, ma'am, the queen would know nothing of the matter; she'd only suppose it some old double bass that tumbled.”

“Why, could not she see what it was?”

“O no! ma'am, we are never in the room with the queen! that's the drawing-room, beyond, where the queen sits; we go no farther than the fiddling-room. As to the queen, we don't see her week after week sometimes. The king, indeed, comes there to us, between whiles, though that's all as it happens, now Price is gone. He used to play at backgammon with Price.”

“Then what do you do there?”

“Just what I tell you--nothing at all, but stand as furniture. But the worst is, sometimes, when my poor eye-peepers are not quite closed, I look to the music-books to see what's coming; and there I read 'Chorus of Virgins:' so then, when they begin, I look about me. A chorus of virgins, indeed! why, there's nothing but ten or a dozen fiddlers! not a soul beside! it's as true as I'm alive! So then, when we've stood supporting the chimney-piece about two hours, why then, if I'm not called upon, I shuffle back out of the room, make a profound bow to the harpsichord, and I'm off.”

DR. HERSCHFL'S LARGE TELESCOPE.

_Dec. 30._--This morning my dear father carried me to Dr. Herschel. That great and very extraordinary man received us with almost open arms, He is very fond of my father, who is one of the Council of the Royal Society this year, as well as himself, and he has much invited me when we have met at the Lodge or at Mr. de Luc's.

At this time of day there was nothing to see but his instruments: those, however, are curiosities sufficient. His immense new telescope, the largest ever constructed, will still, I fear, require a year or two more for finishing, but I hope it will then reward his labour and ingenuity by the new views of the heavenly bodies, and their motions, which he flatters himself will be procured by it. Already, with that he has now in use, he has discovered fifteen hundred universes! How many more he can find who can conjecture? The moon, too, which seems his favourite object, has already afforded him two volcanoes; and his own planet, the Georgium sidus,[229] has now shewn two satellites. From such a man what may not astronomy expect, when an instrument superior in magnitude to any ever yet made, and constructed wholly by himself or under his own eye, is the vehicle of his observation?

I wished very much to have seen his sister, whose knowledge in his own science is so extraordinary, and who herself was the first discoverer of the last comet; but she had been up all night, and was then in bed.

Mr. Smelt joined us by appointment; and the Bishop of Worcester came afterwards, with Dr. Douglas, to whom I was then introduced. He is the famous editor, who has published and revised and corrected so many works: among them the last voyage round the world.

By the invitation of Mr. Herschel, I now took a walk which will sound to you rather strange: it was through his telescope and it held me quite upright, and without the least inconvenience; so would it have done had I been dressed in feathers and a bell hoop--such is its circumference. Mr. Smelt led the way, walking also upright; and my father followed. After we were gone, the bishop and Dr. Douglas were tempted, for its oddity, to make the same promenade.

ILLNESS, AND SOME REFLECTIONS IT GAVE RISE TO.

_Wednesday, Jan. 10, 1787._--This morning, when I was hurrying to the queen, I met Mr. Fairly, who said he was waiting to see me. Very melancholy he looked-very much changed from what I had seen him. His lady, to whom he is much attached, is suffering death by inches, from the most painful of all complaints, a cancer. His eldest son, who seems about twelve years old, was with him. He was going, he said, to place him at Eton.

The day following I was taken very ill myself; a bilious fever, long lurking, suddenly seized me, and a rheumatism in my head at the same time. I was forced to send to Mr. Battiscombe for advice, and to Miss Planta to officiate for me at night with the queen.

Early the next morning Miss Planta came to me from the queen, to desire I would not be uneasy in missing my attendance, and that I would think of nothing but how to take care of myself. This, however, was not all, for soon after she came herself, not only to my room, but to my bedside, and, after many enquiries, desired me to say sincerely what I should do if I had been so attacked at home.

A blister, I said, was all I could devise; and I had one accordingly, which cured the head, and set me at ease. But the fever had been long gathering, and would not so rapidly be dismissed. I kept my bed this day and the next. The third day I was sufficiently better to quit my bed and bedroom; and then I had not only another visit from the queen, but also from the two eldest princesses.

_Tuesday, Jan. 16_--Was the day appointed for removing to town for the winter; from which time we were only to come to Windsor for an occasional day or two every week.

I received a visit, just before I set out, from the king. He came in alone, and made most gracious enquiries into my health, and whether I was sufficiently recovered for the journey.

The four days of my confinement, from the fever after the pain, were days of meditation the most useful: I reflected upon all my mental sufferings in the last year; their cause seemed inadequate to their poignancy. In the hour of sickness and confinement, the world, in losing its attractions, forfeits its regrets:--a new train of thinking, a new set of ideas, took possession of all my faculties; a steady plan, calm, yet no longer sad, deliberately formed itself in my mind; my affliction was already subsided; I now banished, also, discontent. I found myself as well off, upon reflection, as I could possibly merit, and better, by comparison, than most of those around me. The beloved friends of my own heart had joined me unalterably, inviolably to theirs--who, in number, who, in kindness, has more?

Now, therefore, I took shame to myself, and resolved to be. And my success has shown me how far less chimerical than it appears is such a resolution. To be patient under two disappointments now no longer recent;--to relinquish, without repining, frequent intercourse with those I love;--to settle myself in my monastery, without one idea of ever quitting it; to study for the approbation of my lady abbess, and make it a principal source of content, as well as spring of action;--and to associate more cheerily with my surrounding nuns and monks;--these were the articles which were to support my resolution.

I thank God I can tell my dearest friends I have observed them all; and, from the date of this illness to the time in which I am now drawing out my memorandums, I can safely affirm I know not that I have made one break with myself in a single promise here projected.

And now, I thank God, the task is at an end;-what I began from principle, and pursued from resolution, is now a mere natural conduct. My destiny is fixed, and my mind is at ease; nay, I even think, upon the whole, that my lot is, altogether, the best that can betide me, except for one flaw in its very vitals, which subjects me at times, to a tyranny wholly subversive of all power of tranquillity.

END OF VOL. 1.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Dr. Arne.--ED.]

[Footnote 2: The lady's maiden name was Esther Sheepe. She was, by the mother's side, of French extraction, from a family of the name of Dubois--a name which will be remembered as that of one of the characters in her daughter Fanny's first novel, “Evelina.”--ED.]

[Footnote 3: She was born on the 13th of June, 1752--ED.]

[Footnote 4: This degree was conferred upon him on Friday, the 23rd of June, 1769.--ED.]

[Footnote 5: The “Early Diary of Frances Burney, from 1768 to 1778,” recently published, throws some new light upon her education. It is her own statement that her father's library contained but one novel--“Amelia”; yet as a girl we find her acquainted with the works of Richardson and Sterne, of Marivaux and Provost, with “Rasselas” and the “Vicar of Wakefield.” in history and poetry, moreover, she appears to have been fairly well read, and she found constant literary employment as her father's amanuensis. As to Voltaire, she notes, on her twenty-first birthday, that she has just finished the “Heoriade”; but her remarks upon the book prove how little she was acquainted with the author. She thinks he “has made too free with religion in giving words to the Almighty. But M. Voltaire, I understand, is not a man of very rigid principles at least not in religion” (!).--ED.]

[Footnote 6: This is not quite accurate. Burney secured the relic in the manner described, not, however, to gratify his own enthusiasm, but to comply with the request of his friend Mr. Bewley, of Massingham, Norfolk, that he would procure for him some memento of the great Dr. Johnson. The tuft of the Doctor's hearth-broom, which Burney sent him, half in jest, was preserved with the greatest care by its delighted recipient. “He thinks it more precious than pearls,” wrote Fanny. (“Early Diary,” vol. i, p. 169.) This incident occurred in 1760.--ED.]

[Footnote 7: The “Early Diary,” however, proves that, in spite of her shyness, Fanny was very much at home in the brilliant society which congregated at her father's house, and occasionally took her full share in the conversation. Nor do we find her by any means avoiding the diversions common to young ladies of her age and station. She goes to dances, to the play, to the Opera, to Ranelagh, and even, on one memorable occasion, to a masquerade--“a very private one,” however.”--ED.]

[Footnote 8: Mrs. Stephen Allen, a widow, of Lynn. She was married to Dr. Burney (not yet Doctor, however) in October, 1767. His first wife died on the 28th of September, 1761.--ED.]

[Footnote 9: There is some difficulty here as to the chronology. “This sacrifice,” says the editor of “The Diary,” “was made in the young authoress's fifteenth year.” This could not be; for the sacrifice was the effect, according to the editor's own showing of the remonstrances of the second Mrs. Burney; and Frances was in her sixteenth year when her father's second marriage took place.]

[Footnote 10: Chesington, lying between Kingston and Epsom.--ED.]

[Footnote 11: The picture drawn by Macaulay of Mr. Crisp's wounded vanity and consequent misanthropy is absurdly overcharged. In the first place, his play of “Virginia,” which was first produced at Drury Lane on the 25th of February, 1754, actually achieved something like a succes d'estime. It ran eleven nights, no contemptible run for those days; was revived both at Drury Lane and at Covent Garden; was printed and reprinted; and all this all in his own lifetime. It had, in fact, at least as much success as it deserved, though, doubtless, too little to satisfy the ambition of its author. In the second place, there is absolutely no evidence whatever that his life was long embittered by disappointment connected with his tragedy. It is clear, from Madame D'Arblay's “Memoirs of Dr. Burney,” that Mr. Crisp's retirement to Chesington, many years after the production of “Virginia,” was mainly due to a straitened income and the gout. Nor was his seclusion unenlivened by friendship. The Burneys, in particular, visited him from time to time; and Fanny has left us descriptions of scenes of almost uproarious gaiety, enacted at Chesington by this gloomy recluse and his young friends. But we shall hear more of Chesington and its inmates hereafter--ED.]

[Footnote 12: Scarcely, we think; when her fame was at its height, Fanny Burney received no more than 250 pounds for her second novel, “Cecilia.” See the “Early Diary,” vol. ii. p. 307.--ED.]

[Footnote 13: Christopher Anstey, the author of that amusing and witty poetical satire, the “New Bath Guide.”--ED.]

[Footnote 14: John Wilson Croker.--ED.]

[Footnote 15: Richard Cumberland's fame as playwright and novelist can hardly be said to have survived to the present day. Sheridan caricatured him as Sir Fretful Plagiary, in the “Critic.” We shall meet with him hereafter in “The Diary.”--ED.]

[Footnote 16: See note ante, p. xxiv.]

[Footnote 17: “Probationary Odes for the Laureateship,” a volume of lively satirical verse published after the appointment of Sir Thomas Warton to that office on the death of William Whitehead, in 1785.--ED.]

[Footnote 18: See “Cecilia,” Book V. chap. 6.--ED.]

[Footnote 19: In “Cecilia.”--ED.]

[Footnote 20: The “Mr. Fairly” of “The Diary.”--ED. [21: Macaulay is mistaken. Fanny did receive the gown, a “lilac tabby,” and wore it on the princess royal's birthday, September 29, 1786.--ED.]

[Footnote 22: The fifth volume of “The Diary” concludes with Fanny's marriage to M. d'Arblay. The seven volumes of the original edition were published at intervals, from 1842 to 1846.---ED.]

[Footnote 23: The rumour was probably not far from correct. “Camilla” was published by subscription, at one guinea the set, and the subscribers numbered over eleven hundred. Four thousand copies were printed, and three thousand five hundred were sold in three months. Within six weeks of its publication, Dr. Burney told Lord Orford that about two thousand pounds had already been realized.--ED.]

[Footnote 24: Fanny's tragedy of “Edwy and Elgiva”, written during the period of her slavery at court, was produced by Sheridan at Drury-lane in March, 1795. It proved a failure, although the leading parts were played by Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. This tragedy, which was never published, is occasionally referred to in her letters of that year. See also an article by Mr. E. S. Shuckburgh, in “Macmillan's Magazine” for February, 1896.---ED.]

[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.]

[Footnote 115: The Rev. Henry Bate, afterwards Sir Henry Bate Dudley, editor of the “Morning Post” from its establishment in 1772 till 1780, in which year his connection with that paper came to an end in consequence of a quarrel with his coadjutors. On the 1st of November, 1780, he brought out the “Morning Herald” in opposition to his old paper, the “Post.” He assumed the name of Dudley in 1784, was created a baronet in 1813, and died in 1824. Gainsborough has painted the portrait of this ornament of the Church, who was notorious, in his younger days, for his physical strength, and not less so for the very unclerical use which he made of it. He was popularly known as the “Fighting Parson.”--ED.]

[Footnote 116: Mr. Smelt was a friend of Dr. Burney's, and highly esteemed by Fanny both for his character and talents. He had been tutor to the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.). We shall meet with him later.--ED.]

[Footnote 117: This boy was afterwards the celebrated painter, Sir Thomas Lawrence, President of the Royal Academy.--ED.]

[Footnote 118: Constantine John Phipps, second Baron Mulgrave in the Irish peerage. He was born in 1744; served with distinction in the navy, and made a voyage of discovery towards the North Pole in 1773. His account of this voyage was published in the following year. He became Baron Mulgrave on the death of his father, the first Baron, in 1775; was raised to the English peerage under the title of Lord Mulgrave in 1790, and died in 1792.--ED.]

[Footnote 119: Mrs. Byron was the wife of Admiral the Hon. John Byron (“Foul-weather Jack”), and grandmother of the poet. Her daughter Augusta subsequently married Vice-Admiral Parker, and died in 1824.--ED.]

[Footnote 120: Mrs. Dobson was authoress of an abridged translation of “Petrarch's Life,” and of the “History of the Troubadours.”--ED.]

[Footnote 121: Dr. Harrington was a physician, and a friend of Dr. Burney. His son, “Mr. Henry”--the Rev. Henry Harrington--was the editor of “Nugaae Antiquae.”--ED.]

[Footnote 122: The rough-mannered, brutal sea-captain in “Evelina.”--ED.]

[Footnote 123: Lady Miller, of Bath Easton--the lady of the Vase. Horace Walpole gives an amusing description of the flummery which was indulged in every week at Bath Easton under her presidency. “You must know, that near Bath is erected a new Parnassus, composed of three laurels, a myrtle-tree, a weeping-willow, and a view of the Avon, which has now been christened Helicon. Ten years ago there lived a Madam [Briggs], an old rough humourist, who passed for a wit; her daughter, who passed for nothing, married to a captain [Miller], full of good-natured officiousness. These good folks were friends of Miss Rich, who carried me to dine with them at Bath Easton, now Pindus. They caught a little of what was then called taste, built, and planted, and begot children, till the whole caravan were forced to go abroad to retrieve. Alas! Mrs. Miller is returned a beauty, a genius, a Sappho, a tenth muse, as romantic as Mademoiselle Scuderi, and as sophisticated as Mrs. Vesey. The captain's fingers are loaded with cameos, his tongue runs over with virtu; and that both may contribute to the improvement of their own country, they have introduced bouts-rimes as a new discovery. They hold a Parnassus-fair every Thursday, give out rhymes and themes, and all the flux of quality at Bath contend for the prizes. A Roman vase, dressed with pink ribands and myrtles, receives the poetry, which is drawn out every festival: six judges of these Olympic games retire and select the brightest compositions, which the respective successful acknowledge, kneel to Mrs. Calliope (Miller), kiss her fair hand, and are crowned by it with myrtle.” Works, vol. v. P. 183--ED.]

[Footnote 124: Not our old acquaintance, Mrs. Cholmondeley, but a lady whom Fanny met for the first time during this season at Bath.--ED.]

[Footnote 125: See ante, note 121.--ED.]

[Footnote 126: Beattie's “Essay on Truth,” published in 1770, and containing a feeble attack on Hume. Commonplace as the book is, it was received with rapture by the Orthodox, and Reynolds painted a fine picture of Beattie, standing with the “Essay” under his arm, while the angel of Truth beside him, drives away three demonic figures, in whose faces we trace a resemblance to the portraits of Hume, Voltaire, and Gibbon. For this piece of flattery the painter was justly rebuked by Goldsmith, whose sympathies were certainly not on the side of infidelity. “It very ill becomes a mann of your eminence and character,” said the poet, “to debase so high a genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as Beattie. Beattie and his book will be forgotten in ten years, while Voltaire's fame will last for ever. Take care it does not perpetuate this picture, to the shame of such a man as you.”--ED.]

[Footnote 127: Charlotte Lewis.--ED.]

[Footnote 128: Sir Clement Willoughby, a rakish baronet in “Evelina.”--ED.]

[Footnote 129: This flirtation came to nothing, as Captain Brisbane proved himself a jilt. The following month Miss Burney wrote to Mrs. Thrale as follows:--“Your account of Miss M--'s being taken in, and taken in by Captain Brisbane, astonishes me! surely not half we have heard either of her adorers, or her talents, can have been true. Mrs. Byron has lost too little to have anything to lament, except, indeed, the time she sacrificed to foolish conversation, and the civilities she threw away upon so worthless a subject. Augusta has nothing to reproach herself with, and riches and wisdom must be rare indeed, if she fares not as well with respect to both, as she would have done with an adventurer whose pocket, it seems, was as empty as his head.”--ED.]

[Footnote 130: Sir John Fielding, the magistrate; brother of the novelist.--ED.]

[Footnote 131: Mr. Thrale's brewery in Southwark. His town house in Grosvenor Square was threatened by the mob, but escaped destruction.--ED.]

[Footnote 132: The manager of Mr. Thrale's brewery.--ED.]

[Footnote 133: James Harris, of Salisbury, and his family. Mr. Harris was the author of “Hermes, an Enquiry concerning Universal Grammar,” and was characterised by Dr. Johnson as a “sound, solid scholar.” He was an enthusiast on the subject of music, and had made Dr. Burney's acquaintance at the opera in 1773.--ED.]

[Footnote 134: Fanny's younger sister, some of whose lively and amusing letters and fragments of journal are printed in the “Early Diary.” Unlike Fanny, she was a bit of a flirt, and she seems to have been altogether a very charming young woman, who fully sustained the Burney reputation for sprightliness and good humour.--ED.]

[Footnote 135: This letter was written in reply to a few words from Mrs. Thrale, in which, alluding to her husband's sudden death, she begs Miss Burney to “write to me--pray for me!” The hurried note from Mrs. Thrale is thus endorsed by Miss Burney:--“Written a few hours after the death of Mr. Thrale, which happened by a sudden stroke of apoplexy, on the morning of a day on which half the fashion of London had been invited to an intended assembly at his house in Grosvenor Square.” [Mr. Thrale, who had long suffered from ill health, had been contemplating a journey to Spa, and thence to Italy. His physicians, however, were strongly opposed to the scheme, and Fanny writes, just before his death, that it was settled that a great meeting of hi friends should take place, and that they should endeavour to prevail with him to give it up; in which she has little doubt of their succeeding.]--ED.]

[Footnote 136: Sir Philip Jennings Clerke.--ED.]

[Footnote 137: Mauritius Lowe, a natural son of Lord Southwell. He sent a large picture of the Deluge to the Royal Academy in 1783, and was so distressed at its rejection, that Johnson compassionately wrote to Sirjoshua Reynolds in his behalf, entreating that the verdict might be re-considered. His intercession was successful, and the picture was admitted. We know nothing of Mr. Lowe's work.--ED.]

[Footnote 138: Afterwards Sir William P. Weller Pepys. See note 103, ante.--ED.]

[Footnote 139: “The moment he was gone, 'Now,' says Dr. Johnson, 'is Pepys gone home hating me, who love him better than I did before. He spoke in defence of his dead friend; but though I hope I spoke better, who spoke against him, yet all my eloquence will gain me nothing but an honest man for my enemy!'” (Mrs. Piozzi's “Anecdotes of Johnson.”)--ED.]

[Footnote 140: The celebrated Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, equally famous for her personal attractions and her political enthusiasm in the Whig interest. Her canvassing, and, it is said, her kisses, largely contributed to the return of Charles james Fox for Westminster in the election of 1784. She was the daughter of John, first Earl Spencer; was born 1757; married, 1774, to William, fifth Duke of Devonshire; and died, 1806. Her portrait was painted by both Reynolds and Gainsborough. Mary Isabella, Duchess of Rutland, was the youngest daughter of the Duke of Beaufort, and was married, in 1775, to Charles Mariners, fourth Duke of Rutland. She died, 1831.--ED.]

[Footnote 141: Susan and Sophy were younger daughters of Mrs. Thrale--ED.]

[Footnote 142: The manager of Mr. Thrale's brewery.--ED.]

[Footnote 143: i.e. To Streatham: Fanny had been home in the interval.--ED.]

[Footnote 144: Of Bath Easton: husband of the lady of the “Vase.” See note [123], ante, P. 174.--ED.]

[Footnote 145: Captain Molesworth Phillips, who had recently married Susan Burney.--ED.]

[Footnote 146: Gasparo Pacchierotti, a celebrated Italian singer, and a very intimate friend of the Burney family.--ED.]

[Footnote 147: “Variety,” a comedy, was produced at Drury Lane, Feb. 25, 1782, and ran nine nights. Genest calls it a dull play, with little or no plot. The author is unknown.--ED.]

[Footnote 148: Dr. Jonathan Shipley.--ED.]

[Footnote 149: The husband of Fanny Burney's sister, Susan.--ED.]

[Footnote 150: Poor Lady Di was throughout unfortunate in her marriages. Her first husband, Lord Bolingbroke, to whom she was married in 1757, brutally used her, and drove her to seek elsewhere the affection which he failed to bestow. She was divorced from him in 1768, and married, immediately afterwards, to Topham Beauclerk, who, in his turn, ill-treated her. Mr. Beauclerk died in March, 1780. He was greatly esteemed by Johnson, but his good qualities appear to have been rather of the head than of the heart.--ED.]

[Footnote 151: Her cousin Edward Burney, the painter. A reproduction of his portrait of Fanny forms the frontispiece to the present volume.--ED.]

[Footnote 152: Pasquale Paoli, the famous Corsican general and patriot. He maintained the independence of his country against the Genoese for nearly ten years. In 1769, upon the submission of Corsica to France, to which the Genoese had ceded it, Paoli settled in England, where he enjoyed a pension of 1200 pounds a year from the English Government. More details respecting this delightful interview between Fanny and the General are given in the “Memoirs of Dr. Burney” (vol. ii. p. 255), from which we select the following extracts:--

“He is a very pleasing man; tall and genteel in his person, remarkably attentive, obliging, and polite; and as soft and mild in his speech, as if he came from feeding sheep in Corsica, like a shepherd; rather than as if he had left the warlike field where he had led his armies to battle.

“When Mrs. Thrale named me, he started back, though smilingly, and said; 'I am very glad enough to see you in the face, Miss Evelina, which I have wished for long enough. O charming book! I give it you my word I have read it often enough. It is my favourite studioso for apprehending the English language; which is difficult often. I pray you, Miss Evelina, write some more little volumes of the quickest.'

“I disclaimed the name, and was walking away; but he followed me with an apology. 'I pray your pardon, Mademoiselle. My ideas got in a blunder often. It is Miss Borni what name I meant to accentuate, I pray your pardon, Miss Evelina.'”--ED.]

[Footnote 153: “Memoirs of Dr. Burney,” vol. ii. p. 110.]

[Footnote 154: The physician, afterwards Sir Lucas Pepys.--ED.]

[Footnote 155: A character in “Cecilia.”--ED.]

[Footnote 156: The master of the ceremonies.]

[Footnote 157: Philip Metcalf, elected member of Parliament for Horsham, together with Mr. Crutchley, in 1784.--ED.]

[Footnote 158: Miss Burney had seen this gentleman a few days previously and thus speaks of him in her “Diary.”--“Mr. Kaye of the Dragoons,--a baronet's son, and a very tall, handsome, and agreeable-looking young man; and, is the folks say, it is he for whom all the belles here are sighing. I was glad to see he seemed quite free from the nonchalance, impertinence of the times.”--ED.]

[Footnote 159: Afterwards Countess of Cork and Orrery.]

[Footnote 160: The Thrales and Fanny were now again in London, whither they returned from Brighton, November 20. Mrs. Thrale had taken a house in Argyle-street,--ED.]

[Footnote 161: Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley, daughter of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford; married, in 1734, to the second Duke of Portland, She inherited from her father a taste for literature. She was the constant associate of Mrs. Delaney, and an old friend of Mr. Crisp. Of Mrs. Delany we shall give some account hereafter--ED.]

[Footnote 162: Mrs. Greville's maiden name was Frances Macartney.--ED.]