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Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 “‘Consider,’ continued Sir Joshua, ‘you have already had all the
applause and fame you can have given you in the closet; but the
acclamation of a theatre will be new to you.’
“And then he put down his trumpet, and began a violent clapping
of his hands.
“I actually shook from head to foot! I felt myself already in Drury
Lane, amidst the hubbub of a first night.
“‘Oh no!’ cried I; ‘there may be a noise, but it will be just the
reverse.’ And I returned his salute with a hissing.
“Mr. Sheridan joined Sir Joshua very warmly.
“‘Oh, sir!’ cried I; ‘you should not run on so—you don’t know what
mischief you may do!’
“Mr. Sheridan: I wish I may—I shall be very glad to be accessory.”

We gather from the remarks made by Mrs. Cholmondeley and

Sheridan in the preceding extracts that Miss Burney at this time
looked much younger than she really was. With her low stature,
slight figure, and timid air, she did not seem quite the woman.
Probably this youthful appearance may have helped to set afloat the
rumour which confounded the age of her heroine with her own. An
unmarried lady of six-and-twenty could hardly be expected to enter
a formal plea of not guilty to the charge of being only a girl; yet we
shall see presently that Mrs. Thrale was pretty well informed as to
the number of Fanny’s years.
Some readers may be tempted to think that, with all her coyness,
she was enraptured by the pursuit of her admirers. This is only to
say that she was a woman. We must remember, moreover, that the
Diary which betrays her feelings was not written with any design of
publication, but consisted of private letters, addressed chiefly to her
sister Susan, and intended to be shown to no one out of her own
family, save her attached Daddy Crisp. ‘If,’ says Macaulay very fairly,
‘she recorded with minute diligence all the compliments, delicate and
coarse, which she heard wherever she turned, she recorded them
for the eyes of two or three persons who had loved her from infancy,
who had loved her in obscurity, and to whom her fame gave the
purest and most exquisite delight. Nothing can be more unjust than
to confound these outpourings of a kind heart, sure of perfect
sympathy, with the egotism of a blue stocking, who prates to all who
come near her about her own novel or her own volume of sonnets.’

31. ‘There was no want of low minds and bad hearts in the
generation which witnessed her first appearance. There was the
envious Kenrick and the savage Wolcot, the asp George Steevens
and the polecat John Williams. It did not, however, occur to them to
search the parish register of Lynn, in order that they might be able
to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly chivalrous
exploit was reserved for a bad writer of our own time, whose spite
she had provoked by not furnishing him with materials for a
worthless edition of Boswell’s Life of Johnson, some sheets of which
our readers have doubtless seen round parcels of better books.’—
Macaulay’s Essay. This passage has been often quoted and admired.
Yet is not such writing rather too much in the style of Mr. Bludyer,
who, the reader will remember, was reproached with mangling his
victims? Compare Macaulay’s swashing blow with the deadly thrust
of a true master of sarcasm. ‘Nobody was stronger in dates than Mr.
Rigby; ... detail was Mr. Rigby’s forte; ... it was thought no one could
lash a woman like Rigby. Rigby’s statements were arranged with a
formidable array of dates—rarely accurate.’—Coningsby.

32. The first edition consisted of 800 copies, the second of 500,
the third of 1,000. A fourth edition, the extent of which was not
divulged, followed in the autumn. After the third edition, Lowndes
paid the author a further sum of ten pounds in full satisfaction of
any claim or expectation which she or her friends might found on
the continued success of the book.

33. Mr. Crisp to Miss Burney, January, 1779: “Do you remember,
about a dozen years ago, how you used to dance ‘Nancy Dawson’ on
the grass-plot, with your cap on the ground, and your long hair
streaming down your back, one shoe off, and throwing about your
head like a mad thing!”
 34. The sea-captain in ‘Evelina.’

35. Diary, i., p. 18; Memoirs, ii., p. 149.

36. Lockhart’s ‘Life of Scott.’ vi., p. 388. There seems to be some

trifling discrepancy between the different accounts, both as to the
date and the exact occasion of this incident.

37. ‘I have this to comfort me: that, the more I see of sea-
captains, the less reason I have to be ashamed of Captain Mirvan;
for they have all so irresistible a propensity to wanton mischief, to
roasting beaux and detesting old women, that I quite rejoice I
showed the book to no one ere printed, lest I should have been
prevailed upon to soften his character.’—Diary, May 28, 1780.

38. Suspirius the Screech Owl. See ‘Rambler’ for Tuesday, October
9, 1750.

39. She was then building her famous house in Portman Square.

40. Mrs. Horneck was the wife of General Horneck. Her two
daughters, Mrs. Bunbury and Miss Horneck (afterwards Mrs.
Gwynn), were celebrated beauties, and their portraits rank among
the best productions of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s pencil. Mary Horneck
was Goldsmith’s Jessamy Bride, and became the wife of one of
George III.’s equerries; her sister married Harry Bunbury, ‘the
graceful and humorous amateur artist,’ as Thackeray calls him, ‘of
those days, when Gilray had but just begun to try his powers.’

41. Henry Temple, second Viscount Palmerston, father of the

Prime Minister.

42. Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Greville; afterwards Lady Crewe.

43. Well known as the founder of the bas bleu meetings, and the
author of the name. Mr. Edward Stillingfleet, a writer on natural
history, who was one of her favourite guests, always wore blue
stockings, and a phrase used by her, ‘Come in your blue stockings,’
or ‘We can do nothing without the blue stockings,’ caused the bas
bleu to be adopted as the symbol of her literary parties.
 CHAPTER IV.

Return to Streatham—Murphy the Dramatist—A Proposed Comedy—‘The

Witlings’—Adverse Judgment of Mr. Crisp and Dr. Burney—Fanny to Mr. Crisp—
Dr. Johnson on Miss Burney—A Visit to Brighton—Cumberland—An Eccentric
Character—Sir Joshua’s Prices—Tragedies—Actors and Singers—Regrets for the
Comedy—Crisp’s Reply—The Lawrence Family at Devizes—Lady Miller’s Vase—
The Gordon Riots—Precipitate Retreat—Grub Street—Sudden Death of Mr.
Thrale—Idleness and Work—A Sister of the Craft—The Mausoleum of Julia—
Progress of ‘Cecilia’ through the Press—Crisp’s Judgment on ‘Cecilia’—Johnson
and ‘Cecilia’—Publication of ‘Cecilia’—Burke—His Letter to Miss Burney—
Assembly at Miss Monckton’s—New Acquaintances—Soame Jenyns—Illness and
Death of Crisp—Mrs. Thrale’s Struggles—Ill-health of Johnson—Mr. Burney
Organist of Chelsea Hospital—Mrs. Thrale marries Piozzi—Last Interview with
Johnson—His Death.

In February, 1779, Miss Burney returned to Streatham. A bedroom

was set apart for her exclusive use. She became almost as much a
recognised member of the family as Dr. Johnson had for many years
been. Nearly all the remainder of 1779 was spent with her new
friends, either at Streatham, Tunbridge Wells, or Brighton. Her father
could scarcely regain possession of her, even for a few days, without
a friendly battle. Johnson always took the side of the resisting party.
In one of these contests, when Burney urged that she had been
away from home too long: ‘Sir,’ cried Johnson, seizing both her
hands to detain her, ‘I do not think it long; I would have her always
come! and never go!’ In February, the first new face she saw at Mrs.
Thrale’s was that of Arthur Murphy,[44] playwright and translator of
Tacitus. Mrs. Thrale charged her to make herself agreeable to this
gentleman, whose knowledge of the stage might be of service to her
in relation to the comedy which her friends were urging her to write.
The exhortation was unneeded, for almost the first words uttered by
Murphy in her presence won Fanny’s heart. Mrs. Thrale, missing Dr.
Burney, who after his weekly lesson had returned to town without
taking leave, inveighed against him as a male coquet: he only, she
said, gave enough of his company to excite a desire for more.
Murphy was ready with his compliment.
‘Dr. Burney,’ he replied, ‘is indeed a most extraordinary man; I
think I don’t know such another: he is at home upon all subjects,
and upon all so agreeable! he is a wonderful man.’
Noting down this pretty speech led the diarist to record some
words which had passed between Johnson and herself on the same
theme:

“‘I love Burney,’ said the Doctor; ‘my heart goes out to meet him.’
“‘He is not ungrateful, sir,’ cried I: ‘for most heartily does he love
you.’
“‘Does he, madam? I am surprised at that.’
“‘Why, sir? Why should you have doubted it?’
“‘Because, madam, Dr. Burney is a man for all the world to love; it
is but natural to love him.’
“I could almost have cried with delight at this cordial, unlaboured
éloge.”

An admirer of her father was a man whom Fanny could trust at

once, and she soon had confidences with Murphy, as well as with
Johnson, on the subject of her projected play. In May, the first draft
was submitted to the former, who bestowed on it abundance of
flattery. Mrs. Thrale also was warm in its praise. But the piece, when
finished, had to be submitted to critics who felt a deeper interest,
and a stronger sense of responsibility. The manuscript was carried
by Dr. Burney to Crisp at Chesington, and the two old friends sat in
council on it. “I should like,” wrote Fanny to Crisp, “that your first
reading should have nothing to do with me—that you should go
quick through it, or let my father read it to you—forgetting all the
time, as much as you can, that Fannikin is the writer, or even that it
is a play in manuscript, and capable of alterations;—and, then, when
you have done, I should like to have three lines, telling me, as nearly
as you can trust my candour, its general effect. After that take it to
your own desk, and lash it at your leisure. Adieu, my dear daddy! I
shall hope to hear from you very soon, and pray believe me yours
ever and ever.”
The comedy was intended to be called ‘The Witlings,’ and seems
to have borne a strong resemblance to the Femmes Savantes. We
have not the letter containing Crisp’s judgment, but he told his
disciple plainly that her production would be condemned as a pale
copy of Molière’s piece. We gather also from subsequent
correspondence that both he and Dr. Burney felt ‘The Witlings,’ to be
a failure, even when considered on its own merits. It was some
consolation to Fanny that she had never read Molière, but she
sought no saving for her self-love. Here is her answer to her daddy:

“Well! ‘there are plays that are to be saved, and plays that are not
to be saved!’ so good-night, Mr. Dabbler!—good-night, Lady Smatter,
—Mrs. Sapient,—Mrs. Voluble,—Mrs. Wheedle,—Censor,—Cecilia,—
Beaufort,—and you, you great oaf, Bobby!—good-night! good-night!
And good-morning, Miss Fanny Burney!—I hope now you have
opened your eyes for some time, and will not close them in so
drowsy a fit again—at least till the full of the moon.
I won’t tell you I have been absolutely ravie with delight at the fall
of the curtain; but I intend to take the affair in the tant mieux
manner, and to console myself for your censure by this greatest
proof I have ever received of the sincerity, candour, and, let me add,
esteem, of my dear daddy. And as I happen to love myself rather
more than my play, this consolation is not a very trifling one.
As to all you say of my reputation and so forth, I perceive the
kindness of your endeavours to put me in humour with myself, and
prevent my taking huff, which if I did, I should deserve to receive,
upon any future trial, hollow praise from you—and the rest from the
public.
As to the MS., I am in no hurry for it. Besides, it ought not to
come till I have prepared an ovation, and the honours of conquest
for it.
 The only bad thing in this affair is, that I cannot take the comfort
of my poor friend Dabbler, by calling you a crabbed fellow, because
you write with almost more kindness than ever; neither can I
(though I try hard) persuade myself that you have not a grain of
taste in your whole composition.
This, however, seriously I do believe,—that when my two daddies
put their heads together to concert for me that hissing, groaning,
catcalling epistle they sent me they felt as sorry for poor little Miss
Bayes as she could possibly do for herself.
You see I do not attempt to repay your frankness with the art of
pretended carelessness. But though somewhat disconcerted just
now, I will promise not to let my vexation live out another day. I
shall not browse upon it, but, on the contrary, drive it out of my
thoughts, by filling them up with things almost as good of other
people’s.
Our Hettina is much better; but pray don’t keep Mr. B. beyond
Wednesday, for Mrs. Thrale makes a point of my returning to
Streatham on Tuesday, unless, which God forbid, poor Hetty should
be worse again.
Adieu, my dear daddy, I won’t be mortified, and I won’t be
downed,—but I will be proud to find I have, out of my own family,
as well as in it, a friend who loves me well enough to speak plain
truth to me.
Always do thus, and always you shall be tried by,
Your much obliged
And most affectionate,
Frances Burney.”

The manuscript comedy does not appear to have been shown to

Dr. Johnson. This was not for want of encouragement. He was
extremely willing to read it, or have it read to him, but desired that
his opinion should be taken before that of Murphy, who was to judge
of the stage effect, and as the latter had already offered his services,
the scrupulous author felt that this could not be. Fanny continued to
grow in favour with Johnson. His expressions of affection became
stronger, his eulogy of her novel more unmeasured.
 “I know,” he said on one occasion, “none like her, nor do I believe
there is, or there ever was, a man who could write such a book so
young.”
“I suppose,” said Mrs. Thrale, “Pope was no older than Miss
Burney when he wrote ‘Windsor Forest;’[45] and I suppose ‘Windsor
Forest’ is equal to ‘Evelina!’”
‘Windsor Forest,’ though, according to Pope himself, it was in part
written at the age of sixteen, was finished and published when the
poet was twenty-five. But Johnson would by no means allow that
‘Windsor Forest’ was so remarkable a work as ‘Evelina.’ The latter, he
said, seemed a work that should result from long experience and
deep and intimate knowledge of the world; yet it had been written
without either.
“Miss Burney,” added the sage, “is a real wonder. What she is, she
is intuitively. Dr. Burney told me she had had the fewest advantages
of any of his daughters, from some peculiar circumstances. And such
has been her timidity, that he himself had not any suspicion of her
powers.”
About this time, Johnson began teaching his favourite Latin, an
attention with which she would gladly have dispensed, thinking it an
injury to be considered a learned lady.
In the autumn of this year, Miss Burney accompanied the Thrales
to Tunbridge Wells, and thence to Brighton. Her Diary contains some
lively sketches of incidents on the Pantiles and the Steyne, for which
we cannot find space. At Brighton she encountered Sir Fretful
Plagiary:

“‘It has been,’ said Mrs. Thrale warmly, ‘all I could do not to
affront Mr. Cumberland to-night!’
“‘Oh, I hope not!’ cried I; ‘I would not have you for the world!’
“‘Why, I have refrained; but with great difficulty!’
“And then she told me the conversation she had just had with
him. As soon as I made off, he said, with a spiteful tone of voice:
“‘Oh, that young lady is an author, I hear!’
“‘Yes,’ answered Mrs. Thrale, ‘author of Evelina!’
“‘Humph—I am told it has some humour!’
 “‘Ay, indeed! Johnson says nothing like it has appeared for years!’
“‘So,’ cried he, biting his lips, and waving uneasily in his chair, ‘so,
so!’
“‘Yes,’ continued she; ‘and Sir Joshua Reynolds told Mr. Thrale he
would give fifty pounds to know the author!’
“‘So, so—oh, vastly well!’ cried he, putting his hand on his
forehead.
“‘Nay,’ added she, ‘Burke himself sat up all night to finish it!’
“This seemed quite too much for him; he put both his hands to his
face, and waving backwards and forwards, said:
“‘Oh, vastly well!—this will do for anything!’ with a tone as much
as to say, Pray, no more! Then Mrs. Thrale bid him good-night,
longing, she said, to call Miss Thrale first, and say, ‘So you won’t
speak to my daughter?—why, she is no author!’”

At another time, Mrs. Thrale said:

“Let him be tormented, if such things can torment him. For my
part I’d have a starling taught to halloo ‘Evelina’!”
At Brighton, also, Miss Burney met with one of those humorous
characters which her pen loved to describe:

“I must now have the honour to present to you a new

acquaintance, who this day dined here-Mr. B——-y, an Irish
gentleman, late a commissary in Germany. He is between sixty and
seventy, but means to pass for about thirty; gallant, complaisant,
obsequious, and humble to the fair sex, for whom he has an awful
reverence; but when not immediately addressing them, swaggering,
blustering, puffing, and domineering. These are his two apparent
characters; but the real man is worthy, moral, religious, though
conceited and parading.
“He is as fond of quotations as my poor ‘Lady Smatter,’ and, like
her, knows little beyond a song, and always blunders about the
author of that.... His whole conversation consists in little French
phrases, picked up during his residence abroad, and in anecdotes
and storytelling, which are sure to be re-told daily and daily in the
same words....
 “Speaking of the ball in the evening, to which we were all going,
‘Ah, madam!’ said he to Mrs. Thrale, ‘there was a time when—tol-de-
rol, tol-de-rol [rising, and dancing and singing], tol-de-rol!—I could
dance with the best of them; but, now a man, forty and upwards, as
my Lord Ligonier used to say—but—tol-de-rol!—there was a time!’
“‘Ay, so there was, Mr. B——y,’ said Mrs. Thrale, ‘and I think you
and I together made a very venerable appearance!’
“‘Ah! madam, I remember once, at Bath, I was called out to dance
with one of the finest young ladies I ever saw. I was just preparing
to do my best, when a gentleman of my acquaintance was so cruel
as to whisper me—’B——y! the eyes of all Europe are upon you!‘—
for that was the phrase of the times. ‘B——y!’ says he, ’the eyes of
all Europe are upon you!‘—I vow, ma’am, enough to make a man
tremble!—tol-de-rol, tol-de-rol! [dancing]—the eyes of all Europe are
upon you!—I declare, ma’am, enough to put a man out of
countenance!”
“Dr. Delap, who came here some time after, was speaking of
Horace.
“‘Ah! madam,’ cried Mr. B——y, ‘this Latin—things of that kind—we
waste our youth, ma’am, in these vain studies. For my part, I wish I
had spent mine in studying French and Spanish—more useful,
ma’am. But, bless me, ma’am, what time have I had for that kind of
thing? Travelling here, over the ocean, hills and dales, ma’am—
reading the great book of the world—poor ignorant mortals, ma’am
—no time to do anything.’
“‘Ay, Mr. B——y,’ said Mrs. Thrale, ‘I remember how you downed
Beauclerk and Hamilton, the wits, once at our house, when they
talked of ghosts!’
“‘Ah! ma’am, give me a brace of pistols, and I warrant I’ll manage
a ghost for you! Not but Providence may please to send little spirits
—guardian angels, ma’am—to watch us: that I can’t speak about. It
would be presumptuous, ma’am—for what can a poor, ignorant
mortal know?’
“‘Ay, so you told Beauclerk and Hamilton.’
“‘Oh yes, ma’am. Poor human beings can’t account for anything—
and call themselves esprits forts. I vow ’tis presumptuous, ma’am!
Esprits forts, indeed! they can see no farther than their noses, poor,
ignorant mortals! Here’s an admiral, and here’s a prince, and here’s a
general, and here’s a dipper—and poor Smoker, the bather, ma’am!
What’s all this strutting about, and that kind of thing? and then they
can’t account for a blade of grass!’
“After this, Dr. Johnson being mentioned,
“‘Ay,’ said he, ‘I’m sorry he did not come down with you. I liked
him better than those others: not much of a fine gentleman, indeed,
but a clever fellow—a deal of knowledge—got a deuced good
understanding!’...
“I am absolutely almost ill with laughing. This Mr. B——y half
convulses me; yet I cannot make you laugh by writing his speeches,
because it is the manner which accompanies them that, more than
the matter, renders them so peculiarly ridiculous. His extreme
pomposity, the solemn stiffness of his person, the conceited
twinkling of his little old eyes, and the quaint importance of his
delivery, are so much more like some pragmatical old coxcomb
represented on the stage, than like anything in real and common
life, that I think, were I a man, I should sometimes be betrayed into
clapping him for acting so well. As it is, I am sure no character in
any comedy I ever saw has made me laugh more extravagantly.
“He dines and spends the evening here constantly, to my great
satisfaction.
“At dinner, when Mrs. Thrale offers him a seat next her, he
regularly says:
“‘But where are les charmantes?’ meaning Miss T. and me. ‘I can
do nothing till they are accommodated!’
“And, whenever he drinks a glass of wine, he never fails to touch
either Mrs. Thrale’s or my glass, with ‘est-il-permis?’
“But at the same time that he is so courteous, he is proud to a
most sublime excess, and thinks every person to whom he speaks
honoured beyond measure by his notice,—nay, he does not even
look at anybody without evidently displaying that such notice is more
the effect of his benign condescension, than of any pretension on
their part to deserve such a mark of his perceiving their existence.
But you will think me mad about this man....
 “As he is notorious for his contempt of all artists, whom he looks
upon with little more respect than upon day-labourers, the other
day, when painting was discussed, he spoke of Sir Joshua Reynolds
as if he had been upon a level with a carpenter or farrier.
“‘Did you ever,’ said Mrs. Thrale, ‘see his Nativity?’
“‘No, madam,—but I know his pictures very well; I knew him
many years ago, in Minorca; he drew my picture there, and then he
knew how to take a moderate price; but now, I vow, ma’am, ’tis
scandalous—scandalous indeed! to pay a fellow here seventy
guineas for scratching out a head!’
“‘Sir!’ cried Dr. Delap,[46] ‘you must not run down Sir Joshua
Reynolds, because he is Miss Burney’s friend.’
“‘Sir,’ answered he, ‘I don’t want to run the man down; I like him
well enough in his proper place; he is as decent as any man of that
sort I ever knew; but for all that, sir, his prices are shameful. Why,
he would not [looking at the poor Doctor with an enraged contempt]
—he would not do your head under seventy guineas!’
“‘Well,’ said Mrs. Thrale, ‘he had one portrait at the last Exhibition,
that I think hardly could be paid enough for; it was of a Mr. Stuart; I
had never done admiring it.’
“‘What stuff is this, ma’am!’ cried Mr. B——y; ‘how can two or
three dabs of paint ever be worth such a sum as that?’
“‘Sir,’ said Mr. Selwyn (always willing to draw him out), ‘you know
not how much he is improved since you knew him in Minorca; he is
now the finest painter, perhaps, in the world.’
“‘Pho, pho, sir!’ cried he, ‘how can you talk so? you, Mr. Selwyn,
who have seen so many capital pictures abroad?’
“‘Come, come, sir,’ said the ever odd Dr. Delap, ‘you must not go
on so undervaluing him, for, I tell you, he is a friend of Miss
Burney’s.’
“‘Sir,’ said Mr. B——y, ‘I tell you again I have no objection to the
man; I have dined in his company two or three times; a very decent
man he is, fit to keep company with gentlemen; but, ma’am, what
are all your modern dabblers put together to one ancient? Nothing!
—a set of—not a Rubens among them! I vow, ma’am, not a Rubens
among them!’...
 “Whenever plays are mentioned, we have also a regular speech
about them.
“‘I never,’ he says, ‘go to a tragedy,—it’s too affecting; tragedy
enough in real life: tragedies are only fit for fair females; for my
part, I cannot bear to see Othello tearing about in that violent
manner;—and fair little Desdemona—ma’am, ’tis too affecting! to
see your kings and your princes tearing their pretty locks,—oh,
there’s no standing it! ‘A straw-crown’d monarch,’—what is that, Mrs.
Thrale?
‘A straw-crown’d monarch in mock majesty.’

I can’t recollect now where that is; but for my part, I really cannot
bear to see such sights. And then out come the white handkerchiefs,
and all their pretty eyes are wiping, and then come poison and
daggers, and all that kind of thing,—Oh, ma’am, ’tis too much; but
yet the fair tender hearts, the pretty little females, all like it!’
“This speech, word for word, I have already heard from him
literally four times.
“When Mr. Garrick was mentioned, he honoured him with much
the same style of compliment as he had done Sir Joshua Reynolds.
“‘Ay, ay,’ said he, ‘that Garrick is another of those fellows that
people run mad about. Ma’am, ’tis a shame to think of such things!
an actor living like a person of quality! scandalous! I vow,
scandalous!’
“‘Well,—commend me to Mr. B——y!’ cried Mrs. Thrale, ‘for he is
your only man to put down all the people that everybody else sets
up.’
“‘Why, ma’am,’ answered he, ‘I like all these people very well in
their proper places; but to see such a set of poor beings living like
persons of quality,—’tis preposterous! common sense, madam,
common sense is against that kind of thing. As to Garrick, he is a
very good mimic, an entertaining fellow enough, and all that kind of
thing; but for an actor to live like a person of quality—oh,
scandalous!’
 “Some time after, the musical tribe was mentioned. He was at
cards at the time with Mr. Selwyn, Dr. Delap, and Mr. Thrale, while
we ‘fair females,’ as he always calls us, were speaking of Agujari. He
constrained himself from flying out as long as he was able; but upon
our mentioning her having fifty pounds a song, he suddenly, in a
great rage, called out, ‘Catgut and rosin!—ma’am, ’tis scandalous!’
“We all laughed, and Mr. Selwyn, to provoke him on, said:
“‘Why, sir, how shall we part with our money better?’
“‘Oh fie! fie!’ cried he, ‘I have not patience to hear of such folly;
common sense, sir, common sense is against it. Why, now, there was
one of these fellows at Bath last season, a Mr. Rauzzini,[47]—I vow I
longed to cane him every day! such a work made with him! all the
fair females sighing for him! enough to make a man sick!’”

At the beginning of 1780, Miss Burney was troubled about her

suppressed comedy. She wrote to Mr. Crisp:

“As my play was settled, I entreated my father to call on Mr.

Sheridan, in order to prevent his expecting anything from me, as he
had had a good right to do, from my having sent him a positive
message that I should, in compliance with his exhortations at Mrs.
Cholmondeley’s, try my fortune in the theatrical line, and send him a
piece for this winter. My father did call, but found him not at home,
neither did he happen to see him till about Christmas. He then
acquainted him that what I had written had entirely dissatisfied me,
and that I desired to decline for the present all attempts of that sort.
“Mr. Sheridan was pleased to express great concern,—nay, more,
to protest he would not accept my refusal. He begged my father to
tell me that he could take no denial to seeing what I had done—that
I could be no fair judge for myself—that he doubted not but what it
would please, but was glad I was not satisfied, as he had much
rather see pieces before their authors were contented with them
than afterwards, on account of sundry small changes always
necessary to be made by the managers, for theatrical purposes, and
to which they were loth to submit when their writings were finished
to their own approbation. In short, he said so much, that my father,
ever easy to be worked upon, began to waver, and told me he
wished I would show the play to Sheridan at once.”

As the result of this, Fanny conceived a plan for revising and

altering her piece, which she submitted to her daddy. Crisp
answered:
“The play has wit enough and enough—but the story and the
incidents don’t appear to me interesting enough to seize and keep
hold of the attention and eager expectations of the generality of
audiences. This, to me, is its capital defect.” He went on to suggest
that this fault, being fundamental, admitted of no remedy. And then
in reference to a proposed trip to Italy, he added: “They tell me of a
delightful tour you are to make this autumn on the other side of the
water, with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, Dr. Johnson, Mr. Murphy, etc. Where
will you find such another set? Oh, Fanny, set this down as the
happiest period of your life; and when you come to be old and sick,
and health and spirits are fled (for the time may come), then live
upon remembrance, and think that you have had your share of the
good things of this world, and say: For what I have received, the
Lord make me thankful!”
The autumnal trip to the Continent did not take place, but in April
the Thrales and Miss Burney went by easy stages to Bath:

“The third day we reached Devizes.

“And here, Mrs. Thrale and I were much pleased with our hostess,
Mrs. Lawrence, who seemed something above her station in her inn.
While we were at cards before supper, we were much surprised by
the sound of a piano-forte. I jumped up, and ran to listen whence it
proceeded. I found it came from the next room, where the overture
to the ‘Buona Figliuola’ was performing. The playing was very
decent, but as the music was not quite new to me, my curiosity was
not whole ages in satisfying itself, and therefore I returned to finish
the rubber.
“Don’t I begin to talk in an old-cattish manner of cards?
“Well, another deal was hardly played, ere we heard the sound of
a voice, and out I ran again. The singing, however, detained me not
long, and so back I whisked: but the performance, however
indifferent in itself, yet surprised us at the Bear at Devizes, and,
therefore, Mrs. Thrale determined to know from whom it came.
Accordingly, she tapped at the door. A very handsome girl, about
thirteen years old, with fine dark hair upon a finely-formed forehead,
opened it. Mrs. Thrale made an apology for her intrusion, but the
poor girl blushed and retreated into a corner of the room: another
girl, however, advanced, and obligingly and gracefully invited us in,
and gave us all chairs. She was just sixteen, extremely pretty, and
with a countenance better than her features, though those were also
very good. Mrs. Thrale made her many compliments, which she
received with a mingled modesty and pleasure, both becoming and
interesting. She was, indeed, a sweetly-pleasing girl.
“We found they were both daughters of our hostess, and born and
bred at Devizes. We were extremely pleased with them, and made
them a long visit, which I wished to have been longer. But though
those pretty girls struck us so much, the wonder of the family was
yet to be produced. This was their brother, a most lovely boy of ten
years of age, who seems to be not merely the wonder of their
family, but of the times, for his astonishing skill in drawing.[48] They
protest he has never had any instruction, yet showed us some of his
productions that were really beautiful. Those that were copies were
delightful—those of his own composition amazing, though far
inferior. I was equally struck with the boy and his works.
“We found that he had been taken to town, and that all the
painters had been very kind to him, and Sir Joshua Reynolds had
pronounced him, the mother said, the most promising genius he had
ever met with. Mr. Hoare[49] has been so charmed with this sweet
boy’s drawings that he intends sending him to Italy with his own
son.
“This house was full of books, as well as paintings, drawings, and
music; and all the family seem not only ingenious and industrious,
but amiable; added to which, they are strikingly handsome.”

A chief topic of conversation at this time in Bath was Lady Miller’s

vase at Batheaston. Horace Walpole mentions this vase, and the use
to which it was put: ‘They hold a Parnassus-fair every Thursday, give
out rhymes and themes, and all the flux at Bath contend for the
prizes. A Roman vase, dressed with pink ribbons and myrtles,
receives the poetry, which is drawn out every festival. Six judges of
these Olympic games retire, and select the brightest composition.’
Fanny met Lady Miller, whom she describes with her usual candour:
‘Lady Miller is a round, plump, coarse-looking dame of about forty,
and while all her aim is to appear an elegant woman of fashion, all
her success is to seem an ordinary woman in very common life, with
fine clothes on. Her habits are bustling, her air is mock-important,
and her manners very inelegant.’ In the midst of a round of gaieties,
the Thrale party attended a reception at Batheaston. The rooms
were crowded; but it being now June, the business of the vase was
over for that season, and the sacred vessel itself had been removed.
On returning to their lodging, they received the news of the Gordon
Riots. Next morning Mrs. Thrale had letters acquainting her that her
town-house had been three times attacked, but saved by the
Guards, with the children, plate, and valuables, which were
removed. Streatham had also been threatened and emptied of all its
furniture. The same day a Bath newspaper denounced Mr. Thrale as
a papist. The brewer was now in a critical state of health, and it
became necessary to remove him without exciting his alarm. Miss
Burney was employed to break the matter to him, and obtained his
consent to an immediate departure. Arriving at Salisbury on the 11th
of June, they were reassured by information that order had been
restored in London, and Lord George Gordon sent to the Tower. In
London the friends parted, and Fanny returned to her father’s house.
Johnson met her at Sir Joshua’s a few days after, and mention being
made of a house in Grub Street that had been destroyed by the
mob, proposed that they should go there together, and visit the
seats of their progenitors.
The latter part of this year, and part of 1781, were spent by Miss
Burney chiefly in writing ‘Cecilia.’ While thus occupied she passed
most of her time at Chesington. In February, 1781, she writes from
that place to Mrs. Thrale: “I think I shall always hate this book,
which has kept me so long away from you, as much as I shall always
love ‘Evelina,’ which first comfortably introduced me to you.” Shortly
after the date of this letter, the writer returned home, apparently for
the purpose of meeting the Thrales, who were fixed for the winter in
Grosvenor Square. She found them engaged in giving parties to half
London. In the midst of their entertainments Mr. Thrale died
suddenly from a stroke of apoplexy. Fanny could not desert her
friend in such trouble. So soon as the widow could bear any society,
she summoned her young companion to Streatham, and kept her
there, with hardly an interval, till the summer was over. It does not
appear that Fanny was at all averse to be detained, but so long a
stay was not to her advantage. Her hostess, of course, was much
engrossed by the late brewer’s affairs. Dr. Johnson, as one of the
executors, was similarly employed; and though Miss Burney, from
time to time, saw something of him, as well as of his co-executors,
Mr. Cator[50] and Mr. Crutchley,[51] she met with little in the narrowed
and secluded household to compensate her for her loss of time. If
she busied herself at all with ‘Cecilia’ during this period, she seems
to have accomplished very little. At any rate, both her fathers
became impatient of her inaction. Prompted from Chesington, Dr.
Burney would have recalled his daughter, but found himself
powerless against the self-willed little lady of Thrale Hall. The more
resolute Crisp then took the field in person,[52] and in spite of his
infirmities, repaired to Streatham, whence he carried off the captive
authoress, and straightway consigned her to what he called the
Doctor’s Conjuring Closet, at his own abode. There Fanny was held
to her task till the beginning of 1782, when she was called home to
be present at the marriage of her sister Susan to Captain Phillips;
after which Dr. Burney kept her stationary in St. Martin’s Street till
she had written the word ‘Finis’ on the last proof-sheet of ‘Cecilia.’
However, when the new novel was fairly in the printer’s hands, the
author was again seen in London society. At a party, given by a Mrs.
Paradise, she was introduced to a sister of her craft:

“Mrs. Paradise, leaning over the Kirwans and Charlotte, who hardly
got a seat all night for the crowd, said she begged to speak to me. I
squeezed my great person out, and she then said:
 “‘Miss Burney, Lady Say and Sele desires the honour of being
introduced to you.’
“Her ladyship stood by her side. She seems pretty near fifty—at
least turned forty; her head was full of feathers, flowers, jewels, and
gew-gaws, and as high as Lady Archer’s; her dress was trimmed
with beads, silver, Persian sashes, and all sort of fine fancies; her
face is thin and fiery, and her whole manner spoke a lady all alive.
“‘Miss Burney,’ cried she, with great quickness, and a look all
curiosity, ‘I am very happy to see you; I have longed to see you a
great while; I have read your performance, and I am quite delighted
with it. I think it’s the most elegant novel I ever read in my life. Such
a style! I am quite surprised at it. I can’t think where you got so
much invention!’
“‘You may believe this was a reception not to make me very
loquacious. I did not know which way to turn my head.
“‘I must introduce you,’ continued her ladyship, ‘to my sister; she’ll
be quite delighted to see you. She has written a novel herself; so
you are sister authoresses. A most elegant thing it is, I assure you;
almost as pretty as yours, only not quite so elegant. She has written
two novels, only one is not so pretty as the other. But I shall insist
upon your seeing them. One is in letters, like yours, only yours is
prettiest; it’s called the “Mausoleum of Julia!”’
“What unfeeling things, thought I, are my sisters! I’m sure I never
heard them go about thus praising me!
“Mrs. Paradise then again came forward, and, taking my hand, led
me up to her ladyship’s sister, Lady Hawke, saying aloud, and with a
courteous smirk, ‘Miss Burney, ma’am, authoress of “Evelina.”’...
“Lady Hawke arose and curtseyed. She is much younger than her
sister, and rather pretty; extremely languishing, delicate, and
pathetic; apparently accustomed to be reckoned the genius of her
family, and well contented to be looked upon as a creature dropped
from the clouds....
“‘My sister intends,’ said Lady Say and Sele, ‘to print her
“Mausoleum,” just for her own friends and acquaintances.’
“‘Yes,’ said Lady Hawke: ‘I have never printed yet.’...
 “‘Well,’ cried Lady Say, ‘but do repeat that sweet part that I am so
fond of—you know what I mean; Miss Burney must hear it—out of
your novel, you know!’
“Lady H.: No, I can’t; I have forgot it.
“Lady S.: Oh, no! I am sure you have not; I insist upon it.
“Lady H.: But I know you can repeat it yourself; you have so fine
a memory; I am sure you can repeat it.
“Lady S.: Oh, but I should not do it justice! that’s all—I should not
do it justice!
“Lady Hawke then bent forward, and repeated: ‘If, when he made
the declaration of his love, the sensibility that beamed in his eyes
was felt in his heart, what pleasing sensations and soft alarms might
not that tender avowal awaken!’
“‘And from what, ma’am,’ cried I, astonished, and imagining I had
mistaken them, ‘is this taken?’
“‘From my sister’s novel!’ answered the delighted Lady Say and
Sele, expecting my raptures to be equal to her own; ‘it’s in the
“Mausoleum,”—did not you know that? Well, I can’t think how you
can write these sweet novels! And it’s all just like that part. Lord
Hawke himself says it’s all poetry. For my part, I’m sure I never
could write so. I suppose, Miss Burney, you are producing another—
a’n’t you?’
“‘No, ma’am.’
“‘Oh, I dare say you are. I dare say you are writing one at this
very minute!’”
Years afterwards, when Miss Burney had entered the royal
household, Queen Charlotte lent her a presentation copy of a novel
which her Majesty had received from Lady Hawke. The book proved
to be the “Mausoleum of Julia,” then at length given to the public. “It
is all of a piece,” laughed Fanny, on reading it—“all love, love, love,
unmixed and unadulterated with any more worldly materials.”

‘Cecilia’ was now passing slowly through the press, amidst the
comments and flattering predictions of the few friends who were
permitted to see the manuscript. Mrs. Thrale and Queeny reddened
their eyes over the pages; Dr. Burney found them more engrossing
even than ‘Evelina;’ but the author’s only real adviser was her ‘other
daddy.’ Crisp was a close, but not an overbearing critic; he had great
faith in his Fannikin, and he was restrained, besides, by rankling
memories of his unfortunate ‘Virginia.’ ‘Whomever you think fit to
consult,’ he wrote, ‘let their talents and taste be ever so great, hear
what they say, but never give up, or alter a tittle, merely on their
authority, nor unless it perfectly accords with your own inward
feelings. I can say this to my sorrow and to my cost. But mum!’ And
if Crisp was somewhat dogmatic, he was also a sanguine admirer,
declaring that he would insure the rapid and complete success of the
novel for half a crown. Miss Burney, too, though bashful in a
drawing-room, had plenty of self-reliance in her study, and was by
no means disposed to be often seeking counsel. Macaulay, always
confident in his conjectures, will have it that she received assistance
from Johnson. But he had before him, in the Diary, a distinct
assertion to the contrary, stated to have been made by the Doctor
himself some time after the publication. If we may trust Fanny,
Johnson said: ‘Ay, some people want to make out some credit to me
from the little rogue’s book. I was told by a gentleman this morning
that it was a very fine book if it was all her own. “It is all her own,”
said I, “for me, I am sure; for I never saw one word of it before it
was printed.”’[53] Macaulay did not mean to emulate Croker; he was
betrayed by fancied resemblances of style, than which nothing can
be more deceptive. The probability is that the manuscript was not
submitted to Johnson, lest he should be held to have written what
he only corrected.
‘Cecilia; or, The Memoirs of an heiress,’ was published in July,
1782. “We have been informed,” says Macaulay, “by persons who
remember those days, that no romance of Sir Walter Scott was more
impatiently awaited, or more eagerly snatched from the counters of
the booksellers.” The first edition, which was exhausted in the
following October, consisted of two thousand copies; and Macaulay
was told by someone, not named, that an equal number of pounds
was received by the author for her work. There is no producible
authority for the latter statement, and we cannot but think that it is
an exaggeration, arising out of some confusion between the amount
paid for the copyright, and the number of copies first printed. At any
rate, the sum mentioned does not seem to square with some
expressions used by Burke, who about this time began to take a
personal interest in Miss Burney.
The great statesman was introduced to her, a few days before her
second novel appeared, at a dinner given by Sir Joshua in his house
on Richmond Hill. At the end of July he addressed her in a letter of
congratulation: ‘You have crowded,’ he wrote, ‘into a few small
volumes an incredible variety of characters; most of them well
planned, well supported, and well contrasted with each other. If
there be any fault in this respect, it is one in which you are in no
great danger of being imitated. Justly as your characters are drawn,
perhaps they are too numerous. But I beg pardon; I fear it is quite
in vain to preach economy to those who are come young to
excessive and sudden opulence. I might trespass on your delicacy if
I should fill my letter to you with what I fill my conversation to
others. I should be troublesome to you alone if I should tell you all I
feel and think on the natural vein of humour, the tender pathetic, the
comprehensive and noble moral, and the sagacious observation, that
appear quite throughout that extraordinary performance.’ To be
addressed in such terms by such a man was enough to turn the
head of any young writer; and this letter may be regarded as
marking the topmost point in Fanny’s literary career.
Four months afterwards she encountered Mr. Burke again at Miss
Monckton’s[54] assembly. The gathering was a brilliant one: most of
the ladies present were going to the Duchess of Cumberland’s, and
were in full dress, oppressed by the weight of their sacques and
ruffles; but as soon as Burke and Sir Joshua Reynolds entered,
Frances Burney had no eyes for anyone else. When the knight had
paid his compliments, Burke sat down beside her, and a conversation
ensued, in which the great man used the words to which we have
referred. He began by repeating and amplifying the praises of his
letter; and then, not to appear fulsome, proceeded to find fault: the
famous masquerade he thought too long, and that something might
be spared from Harrel’s grand assembly; he did not like Morrice’s
part at the Pantheon, and he wished the conclusion either more
happy or more miserable; ‘for in a work of imagination,’ said he,
‘there is no medium.’ But, he added, there was one further fault
more serious than any he had mentioned, and that was the disposal
of the book: why had not Mr. Briggs, the city gentleman of the novel,
been sent for? he would have taken care that it should not be parted
with so much below par. Had two thousand pounds, or any sum
approaching that, been given for the copyright, the price could not
have been considered insufficient. We are obliged, therefore, to
conclude that the story told to the Edinburgh Reviewer was
apocryphal.[55]
The list of Miss Burney’s friends continued to enlarge itself. In the
winter of 1782-3, besides being made free of certain fashionable
houses, such as Miss Monckton’s and Mrs. Walsingham’s,[56] she
became known to the two ‘old wits,’ Owen Cambridge and Soame
Jenyns,[57] to Erskine, the Wartons, Benjamin West, Jackson of
Exeter, William Windham, Dr. Parr, Mrs. Delany, and a host of others,
till she began ‘to grow most heartily sick of this continual round of
visiting, and these eternal new acquaintances.’ Soame Jenyns came
to meet her at a reception arranged by his special request, and, at
seventy-eight, arrayed himself for the occasion in a Court suit of
apricot-coloured silk, lined with white satin, making all the slow
speed in his power to address her, as she entered, in a studied
harangue on the honour, and the pleasure, and the what not, of
seeing so celebrated an authoress; while the whole of a large
company rose, and stood to listen to his compliments.
But the time was coming when Frances was to learn that life has
its trials even for the most favoured children of fortune. In the spring
of 1783, Mr. Crisp’s old enemy the gout fixed upon his head and
chest; and, after an illness of some duration, he sank under the
attack. His fits of gout had latterly become so constant that at first
the fatal seizure caused little apprehension. In the early part of his
sufferings Fanny sent frequent letters to cheer him. ‘God bless,’ she
writes, ‘and restore you, my most dear daddy! You know not how
kindly I take your thinking of me, and inquiring about me, in an
illness that might so well make you forget us all; but Susan assures
me your heart is as affectionate as ever to your ever and ever
faithful and loving child.’ As soon as danger was declared, she
hastened to Chesington. She attended the old man throughout his
last few days; he called her, at parting, ‘the dearest thing to him on
earth;’ and her passionate sorrow for his death excited the alarm,
though not the jealousy, of her natural father.[58]
And this loss was not the only trouble of that year. Mrs. Thrale had
for some time been meditating her foolish second marriage. As soon
as ‘Cecilia’ was off her mind, Miss Burney had resumed her visits to
Streatham. She at once found that her friend was changed. Mrs.
Thrale had become absent, restless, moody. The secret of her
attachment to Piozzi was not long in being disclosed to Fanny, who
could give her comfort, though not sympathy. The latter remained
long enough at Streatham to witness the gradual estrangement of
her hostess from Dr. Johnson. One morning the Doctor accompanied
his little Burney in the carriage to London: as they turned into
Streatham Common, he exclaimed, pointing backwards: ‘That house
is lost to me for ever!’ A few weeks later, the house was let to Lord
Shelburne. Mrs. Thrale retired to Brighton, and afterwards coming to
town, passed the winter in Argyle Street. Frances spent much time
with her there. But in the beginning of April the uneasy widow went
with her three eldest daughters to take up her abode at Bath, till she
could make up her mind to complete the match which all her friends
disapproved. Crisp’s illness becoming serious shortly afterwards, left
Fanny no time at first to grieve over this separation. She felt it all the
more on her return to St. Martin’s Street after her daddy’s death.
And in the summer, Dr. Johnson’s health, which for some time had
been steadily declining, was broken down by a stroke of paralysis.
She visited him frequently at his house in Bolt Court. One evening,
when she with her father and some others were sitting with him, he
turned aside to her, and, grasping her hand, said: ‘The blister I have
tried for my breath has betrayed some very bad tokens; but I will
not terrify myself by talking of them. Ah, priez Dieu pour moi!’
One ray of comfort the close of 1783 brought with it. On the day
on which the Ministry to which he belonged was dissolved, Mr. Burke
appointed Dr. Burney organist of Chelsea Hospital, at the
insignificant, though augmented salary of £50 a year, regretting that
while he had been Paymaster-General, nothing more worthy of the
Doctor’s acceptance had fallen to his disposal. About this incident
Miss Burney writes: ‘You have heard the whole story of Mr. Burke,
the Chelsea Hospital, and his most charming letter? To-day he
called, and, as my father was out, inquired for me. He made a
thousand apologies for breaking in upon me, but said the business
was finally settled at the Treasury. Nothing could be more delicate,
more elegant than his manner of doing this kindness. I don’t know
whether he was most polite, or most friendly, in his whole behaviour
to me. I could almost have cried when he said, “This is my last act in
office.” He said it with so manly a cheerfulness, in the midst of
undisguised regret. What a man he is!’
The record of 1784 in the Diary is very short. The chief incidents
are the marriage of Mrs. Thrale to Piozzi, and the death of Dr.
Johnson. Enough, and more than enough, has been written on the
subject of the marriage. Most of the lady’s contemporaries spoke of
it as if it had been some disgraceful offence. Many in later times
have adopted the same tone. Dr. Burney had introduced Piozzi to the
Thrales, and for this and other reasons, the Doctor and his family
were disposed to be more lenient in their judgment. Dr. Burney said:
‘No one could blame Piozzi for accepting a gay rich widow. What
could a man do better?’ And the singing-master was a quiet,
inoffensive person. Still, as to the lady, it could not be forgotten that
she had young daughters, whose prospects she had no right to
prejudice by a match so unequal and so generally condemned. It is,
therefore, not surprising that when the wedding took place about
the middle of this year, and Mrs. Piozzi wrote, demanding cordial
congratulations, Miss Burney was unable to reply with warmth
enough to satisfy her. The intimate friendship and correspondence of
six years, therefore, came to an end. Fanny, who was the last to
write, attributed the rupture, at one time, to the cause just
mentioned, and, at another, to the resentment of Piozzi, when
informed of her constant opposition to the union.
Some months later, Miss Burney had her final interview with Dr.
Johnson:
 “Last Thursday, Nov. 25th, my father set me down at Bolt Court,
while he went on upon business. I was anxious to again see poor Dr.
Johnson, who has had terrible health since his return from Lichfield.
He let me in, though very ill. He was alone, which I much rejoiced
at: for I had a longer and more satisfactory conversation with him
than I have had for many months. He was in rather better spirits,
too, than I have lately seen him; but he told me he was going to try
what sleeping out of town might do for him.
“‘I remember,’ said he, ‘that my wife, when she was near her end,
poor woman, was also advised to sleep out of town; and when she
was carried to the lodgings that had been prepared for her, she
complained that the staircase was in very bad condition—for the
plaster was beaten off the walls in many places. ‘Oh,’ said the man
of the house, ‘that’s nothing but by the knocks against it of the
coffins of the poor souls that have died in the lodgings!’
“He laughed, though not without apparent secret anguish, in
telling me this. I felt extremely shocked, but, willing to confine my
words at least to the literal story, I only exclaimed against the
unfeeling absurdity of such a confession.
“‘Such a confession,’ cried he, ‘to a person then coming to try his
lodging for her health, contains, indeed, more absurdity than we can
well lay our account for.’
“I had seen Miss T. the day before.
“‘So,’ said he, ‘did I.’
“I then said: ‘Do you ever, sir, hear from her mother?’
“‘No,’ cried he, ‘nor write to her. I drive her quite from my mind. If
I meet with one of her letters, I burn it instantly. I have burnt all I
can find. I never speak of her, and I desire never to hear of her
more. I drive her, as I said, wholly from my mind.’
“Yet, wholly to change this discourse, I gave him a history of the
Bristol milk-woman,[59] and told him the tales I had heard of her
writing so wonderfully, though she had read nothing but Young and
Milton; ‘though those,’ I continued, ‘could never possibly, I should
think, be the first authors with anybody. Would children understand
them? and grown people who have not read are children in
literature.’
 “‘Doubtless,’ said he; ‘but there is nothing so little comprehended
among mankind as what is genius. They give to it all, when it can be
but a part. Genius is nothing more than knowing the use of tools;
but there must be tools for it to use: a man who has spent all his life
in this room will give a very poor account of what is contained in the
next.’
“‘Certainly, sir; yet there is such a thing as invention; Shakespeare
could never have seen a Caliban.’
“‘No; but he had seen a man, and knew, therefore, how to vary
him to a monster. A man who would draw a monstrous cow, must
first know what a cow commonly is; or how can he tell that to give
her an ass’s head or an elephant’s tusk will make her monstrous?
Suppose you show me a man who is a very expert carpenter;
another will say he was born to be a carpenter—but what if he had
never seen any wood? Let two men, one with genius, the other with
none, look at an overturned waggon:—he who has no genius, will
think of the waggon only as he sees it, overturned, and walk on; he
who has genius, will paint it to himself before it was overturned,—
standing still, and moving on, and heavy loaded, and empty; but
both must see the waggon, to think of it at all.’
“How just and true all this, my dear Susy! He then grew animated,
and talked on, upon this milk-woman, upon a once as famous
shoemaker, and upon our immortal Shakespeare, with as much fire,
spirit, wit, and truth of criticism and judgment, as ever yet I have
heard him. How delightfully bright are his faculties, though the poor
and infirm machine that contains them seems alarmingly giving way.
“Yet, all brilliant as he was, I saw him growing worse, and offered
to go, which, for the first time I ever remember, he did not oppose;
but, most kindly pressing both my hands:
“‘Be not,’ he said, in a voice of even tenderness, ‘be not longer in
coming again for my letting you go now.’
“I assured him I would be the sooner, and was running off, but he
called me back, in a solemn voice, and, in a manner the most
energetic, said:
“‘Remember me in your prayers!’
 “I longed to ask him to remember me, but did not dare. I gave
him my promise, and, very heavily indeed, I left him. Great, good,
and excellent that he is, how short a time will he be our boast! Ah,
my dear Susy, I see he is going! This winter will never conduct him
to a more genial season here! Elsewhere, who shall hope a fairer? I
wish I had bid him pray for me; but it seemed to me presumptuous,
though this repetition of so kind a condescension might, I think,
have encouraged me.”

‘He wished to look on her once more; and on the day before his
death she long remained in tears on the stairs leading to his
bedroom, in the hope that she might be called in to receive his
blessing. He was then sinking fast, and though he sent her an
affectionate message, was unable to see her.’[60]

44. 1730-1805. A native of Elphin, in Ireland; was educated at St.

Omer’s; gave up the trade on which he had entered for literature;
published the Gray’s Inn Journal from 1752 to 1754; went on the
stage, wrote dramas, and engaged in politics; at last became a
barrister, and died a Commissioner of Bankrupts. He produced
twenty-three plays, of which the ‘Grecian Daughter’ was the most
popular. His translation of Tacitus had great repute in its day.

45. In January, 1779, Mrs. Thrale wrote to Fanny: “You are twenty
odd years old, and I am past thirty-six.”

46. John Delap, D.D. (1725-1812), poet and dramatist. After being
curate to Mason, the poet, he held livings in Sussex, and wrote
numerous poems and tragedies, all of which have long been
forgotten.

47. An Italian composer and singer. Born at Rome in 1747; came

to England in 1774; adopted the profession of singing-master in
1777; settled permanently at Bath in 1787, and died there in 1810.
He was the author of several Operas, and counted Braham among
his pupils.

48. This boy was afterwards the celebrated painter, Sir Thomas
Lawrence, President of the Royal Academy.

49. Mr. C. Prince Hoare. The intended patronage did not take
place. The Lawrences left Devizes almost immediately after the date
of the above notice, and thenceforth the whole family were
supported by the extraordinary talents of the boy artist.

50. M.P. for Ipswich in 1784. Described by Dr. Johnson as having

“much good in his character, and much usefulness in his knowledge.”
Johnson used to visit Mr. Cator at his seat at Beckenham.

51. M.P. for Horsham in 1784.

52. “Memoirs,” vol. ii., p. 218.

53. Diary, November 4, 1782. The story, which was repeated and
believed by Lord Byron, that Johnson superintended ‘Cecilia,’ was
corrected by Moore in his life of the poet, published in 1830. ‘Lord
Byron is here mistaken. Dr. Johnson never saw “Cecilia” till it was in
print. A day or two before publication the young authoress, as I
understand, sent three copies to the three persons who had most
claim to them—her father, Mrs. Thrale, and Dr. Johnson.’

54. The Honourable Mary Monckton, daughter of the first Viscount

Galway, and wife of the seventh Earl of Cork and Ossory, well known
to the readers of Boswell as ‘the lively Miss Monckton, who used
always to have the finest bit of blue at her parties.’ She was born in
April, 1746, and died on the 30th of May 1840.

55. There is also a letter of Crisp’s in which he mentions a promise

of Dr. Burney to make up his daughter’s gains to even money. A few
years later, when her reputation was enhanced by ‘Cecilia,’ Miss
Burney asked for her third novel, ‘Camilla,’ no more than eleven
hundred guineas. On the whole, we are inclined to believe that the
sum she received for ‘Cecilia’ was less than £1,000.

56. Daughter of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams.

57. Contributors to “The World.” Soame Jenyns was chiefly known

by his work “On the Evidences of the Christian Religion.” He died in
1877; Cambridge in 1802.

58. Crisp died April 24, 1783, aged seventy-six. A monument to his
memory was put up in the little church at Chesington, with an
inscription from the pen of Dr. Burney. His library was sold in the
following year.

59. Ann Yearsley.

60. Macaulay.
 CHAPTER V.

Mrs. Delany—Her Childhood—Her First Marriage—Swift—Dr. Delany—The Dowager

Duchess of Portland—Mrs. Delany a Favourite at Court—Her Flower-Work—Miss
Burney’s First Visit to Mrs. Delany—Meets the Duchess of Portland—Mrs. Sleepe
—Crisp—Growth of Friendship with Mrs. Delany—Society at her House—Mrs.
Delany’s Reminiscences—The Lockes of Norbury Park—Mr. Smelt—Dr. Burney
has an Audience of the King and Queen—The King’s Bounty to Mrs. Delany—
Miss Burney Visits Windsor—Meets the King and Queen—‘Evelina’—Invention
Exhausted—The King’s Opinion of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Shakespeare—The
Queen and Bookstalls—Expectation—Journey to Windsor—The Terrace—Dr.
Burney’s Disappointment—Proposal of the Queen to Miss Burney—Doubts and
Fears—An Interview—The Decision—Mistaken Criticism—Burke’s Opinion—A
Misconception—Horace Walpole’s Regret—Miss Burney’s Journals of her Life at
Court—Sketches of Character—The King and Queen—Mrs. Schwellenberg—The
Queen’s Lodge—Miss Burney’s Apartments—A Day’s Duties—Royal Snuff—
Fictitious Names in the Diary—The Princesses—A Royal Birthday—A Walk on the
Terrace—The Infant Princess Amelia.

We have mentioned Mrs. Delany in our list of the more remarkable

friends made by Miss Burney during the winter succeeding the
publication of ‘Cecilia.’ Burke followed a fashion then prevalent when
he pronounced this venerable lady the fairest model of female
excellence in the previous age. Mrs. Delany owed her distinction in a
great measure to the favour which she enjoyed with the royal family.
Born in 1700, she was early instructed in the ways of a Court, having
been brought up by an aunt who had been maid-of-honour to Queen
Mary, and had received for her charge the promise of a similar
employment in the household of Queen Anne. Having missed this
promotion, the girl next fell into the hands of her uncle, George
Granville, Lord Lansdowne, who, though celebrated by Pope as ‘the
friend of every Muse,’ was not gentleman enough to treat his
brother’s child with decent consideration. He forced Mary Granville,
at seventeen, into a marriage with Alexander Pendarves, a Cornish
squire near sixty, of drunken habits and morose manners, who
sought the match chiefly to disappoint his expectant heir. After a few
years, this worthy died of a fit, to the great relief of all belonging to
him, but, unfortunately for his wife, without having made the
provision for her which, to do him justice, he appears to have
intended. Some time later the widow paid a visit to Ireland, where
she became acquainted with Dean Swift, and his intimate associate,
Dr. Patrick Delany, who was famed as a scholar and preacher. After
her return, Swift exchanged occasional letters with her so long as he
retained his reason. In 1743, Dr. Delany, then himself a widower,
came over to England to offer himself to her in marriage. She
accepted him, in spite of her family, whose high stomach rose
against a mésalliance with an Irish parson. Their influence, however,
was subsequently used to procure for Delany the deanery of Down.
On his death, which occurred in 1768, Mrs. Delany settled in
London, and, at the time when Miss Burney was introduced to her,
had a house in St. James’s Place. Her most intimate friend was the
old Duchess of Portland, with whom she regularly spent the summer
at her Grace’s dower house of Bulstrode. There she was presented
to George III. and his Queen, both of whom conceived a strong
regard for her. The King called her his dearest Mrs. Delany, and in
1782 commissioned Opie to paint her portrait, which was placed at
Hampton Court.[61]
While Frances Burney was having her first interview with Mrs.
Delany, the Dowager Duchess of Portland condescended to appear
upon the scene. This exalted personage, we are given to
understand, had a natural aversion to female novel-writers, but, at
her friend’s request, consented to receive homage from the author
of ‘Cecilia.’ Her curiosity, in fact, got the better of her pride. Before
her arrival, the conversation turned on the flower-work for which
Mrs. Delany was famous among her acquaintances. This was a kind
of paper mosaic, invented by the old lady, and practised by her until
her eyesight failed. Some specimens of it were thought worthy of
being offered, as a tribute of humble duty, to Queen Charlotte. The
admiration freely bestowed on this trumpery, and the doubtful
reception accorded to literary merit in a woman, illustrate the tone
which prevailed in the highest society a hundred years ago. To cut
out bits of coloured paper, and paste them together on the leaf of an
album so as to resemble flowers, was considered a wonderful
achievement even for a paragon of her sex. To have written the best
work of imagination that had proceeded from a female pen was held
to confer only an equivocal title to eminence. The Duchess, however,
exerted herself to be civil. ‘She was a simple woman,’ says Walpole;
but she did her best. She joined Mrs. Delany in recalling the
characters that had pleased them most in ‘Cecilia;’ she dwelt on the
spirit of the writing, the fire in the composition, and, ‘with a solemn
sort of voice,’ declared herself gratified by the morality of the book,
‘so striking, so pure, so genuine, so instructive.’ Fanny, always
impressed by grandeur, eager after praise, thankful for notice, was
charmed with these compliments. She found her Grace’s manner not
merely free from arrogance, but ‘free also from its mortifying deputy,
affability.’ Yet the worship of rank, which belonged to that age, was,
in little Miss Burney, always subordinate to better feelings. In her
eyes the dignified visitor appeared by no means so interesting as her
hostess.[62] Nor was it any air of courtliness that attracted her in Mrs.
Delany, but a simple domestic association. Though not a person of
genius, or, it should seem, of any extraordinary cultivation, this
veteran of English and Irish society had preserved an unsullied,
gentle, kindly spirit which showed itself in her face and carriage.
Fanny could not remember to have seen so much sweetness of
countenance in anyone except her own grandmother, Mrs. Sleepe.
She at once began to trace, or to imagine, a resemblance between
‘that saint-like woman’ and her new friend, and gave herself up to
the tenderness which the current of her thoughts excited.
Besides this similarity, she bethought her of another recollection
which she could with propriety impart to the ladies before her. She
had often heard Mr. Crisp speak of his former intercourse with the
Duchess and Mrs. Delany. The latter, she learned on inquiry, had
been chiefly intimate with Crisp’s sisters; but the Duchess had
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