FRANCES BURNEY (MME. D’ARBLAY).

Frances Burney was born at Lynn Regis, Norfolk. She was the daughter of Dr. Charles Burney, a well-known professor of music, and the admiring friend of Samuel Johnson. Her early associations are sufficiently described in Macaulay’s lively essay, from which we have freely drawn. In 1778, at twenty-six, she published her first novel, Evelina, which took the town by storm. Four years later it was followed by Cecilia. In 1786 Frances was appointed Second Keeper of the Robes to Queen Charlotte. She resigned the position in 1791. In 1793 she married M. D’Arblay, a French refugee, an officer of noble family.

“The sisters of Shakespeare’s Ophelia, Otway’s Belvidera, Richardson’s Pamela,” says M. Taine, “constitute a race by themselves, soft and fair, with blue eyes, lily whiteness, blushing, of timid delicacy, serious sweetness, framed to yield, bend, cling.” This French generalization touching Englishwomen might have been drawn from Fanny Burney. She had all the “sweetness, devotion, patience, inextinguishable affection,” on which the brilliant Frenchman rings his changes. Her gift of humor, of a keen mind, seems to have been a thing apart, and not in the least to have affected her relations with those immediately around her; she saw them always through a veil of affection and reverence. Her father, whom Macaulay so censures for his carelessness, to her is ever “my dearest father,” “gay, facile and sweet”; she bows in spirit before plain, dull King George and his “sweet queen”; is tremblingly anxious to please the princesses; finds old Mrs. Delany a saint, an angel; cannot bring herself to refuse the overwhelming favor of a court position which she does not want. Yet this woman, who, as acute Mrs. Thrale phrased it, “loved the world reverentially,” was as ready as the most unconventional of beings to lose that world for love. She married D’Arblay in meek defiance of her father’s wish (though indeed Dr. Burney was unresentful); in defiance of public opinion—and it is difficult to realize the state of English opinion concerning Frenchmen at that date; and on a pecuniary basis which makes one smile—her pension of £100 per annum from the queen. M. D’Arblay could not present himself with her at Windsor. She was ecstatically joyful once because the king vouchsafed him recognition on the terrace. Little touches like this throughout the diary show us that she never ceased to value dross, but none the less, she was willing instantly to give it up for gold.

The record of the Arcadian life and happiness of these young people of forty-odd is delightful reading. How exquisite is D’Arblay’s romantic reply to the offer of a commission in the French army, that he could only accept it on condition that he should never be required to bear arms against the countrymen of his wife! Conceive the reception of this communication by Napoleon Bonaparte!

In 1802 the D’Arblays went, with their little son, to Paris. One would like the romance to end with “they lived happy ever after.” Alas, it is reality after all, not romance; and we must read Frances’s deeply touching account of the death of D’Arblay at Paris in 1812. She survived him twenty-eight years; survived, indeed, their son, her “dear Alex,” who died in 1832. The mother lived on lonely in London till 1840.

She published after her marriage the following works:

Brief Reflections Relative to the French Emigrant Clergy, 1793.

Edwin and Elgitha, a tragedy, 1795.

Camilla, a novel, published by subscription in 1796, from which she obtained 3,000 guineas.

The Wanderer, a tale, 1814.

Memoir of Dr. Burney, 1832.

The Diary and Letters, which would embalm her memory even if Evelina, Cecilia and Camilla were lost, was published after her death, in seven volumes. The somewhat unmerciful bulk of this work has lately been judiciously reduced by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey in an edition published by Messrs. Roberts Brothers.

Her childhood.

At Lynn, in June, 1752, Frances Burney was born. Nothing in her childhood indicated that she would, while still a young woman, have secured for herself an honorable and permanent place among English writers. She was shy and silent. Her brothers and sisters called her a dunce, and not altogether without some show of reason; for at eight years old she did not know her letters.

Education.

... The progress of the mind of Frances Burney, from her ninth to her twenty-fifth year, well deserves to be recorded. When her education had proceeded no further than the horn-book, she lost her mother, and thenceforward she educated herself. Her father appears to have been as bad a father as a very honest, affectionate and sweet-tempered man can well be. He loved his daughter dearly, but it never seems to have occurred to him that a parent has other duties to perform to children than that of fondling them. It would indeed have been impossible for him to superintend their education himself. His professional engagements occupied him all day.... Two of his daughters he sent to a seminary at Paris; but he imagined that Frances would run some risk of being perverted from the Protestant faith if she were educated in a Catholic country, and he therefore kept her at home. No governess, no teacher of any art or of any languages was provided for her. But one of her sisters showed her how to write, and before she was fourteen she began to find pleasure in reading.

No novel reader.

It was not, however, by reading that her intellect was formed. Indeed, when her best novels were produced, her knowledge of books was very small. It is particularly deserving of observation, that she appears to have been by no means a novel reader. Her father’s library was large, ... but in the whole collection there was only a single novel, Fielding’s ‘Amelia.’

Her peculiar opportunities.

Dr. Burney’s attainments, the suavity of his temper, and the gentle simplicity of his manners, had obtained for him ready admission to the first literary circles.... It would be tedious to recount the names of all the men of letters and artists whom Frances Burney had an opportunity of seeing and hearing. This was not all. The distinction which Dr. Burney had acquired as a musician, and as the historian of music, attracted to his house the most eminent musical performers of that age. It was thus in his power to give, with scarcely any expense, concerts equal to those of the aristocracy. On such occasions the quiet street in which he lived was blocked up by coroneted chariots, and his little drawing-room was crowded with peers, peeresses, ministers, and ambassadors.

With the literary and fashionable society which occasionally met under Dr. Burney’s roof, Frances can scarcely be said to have mingled. She was not a musician, and could therefore bear no part in the concerts. She was shy almost to awkwardness, and scarcely ever joined in the conversation. The slightest remark from a stranger disconcerted her; and even the old friends of her father who tried to draw her out could seldom extract more than a Yes or a No. Her figure was small, her face not distinguished by beauty. She was therefore suffered to withdraw quietly to the background, and, unobserved herself, to observe all that passed.... Thus, while still a girl, she had laid up such a store of materials for fiction as few of those who mix much in the world are able to accumulate during a long life. She had watched and listened to people of every class, from princes and great officers of state down to artists living in garrets, and poets familiar with subterranean cook-shops. Hundreds of remarkable persons had passed in review before her, English, French, German, Italian, lords and fiddlers, deans of cathedrals, and managers of theatres.

‘Evelina.’

The impulse which urged Frances to write became irresistible; and the result was the history of Evelina. Then came, naturally enough, a wish, mingled with many fears, to appear before the public.... She had not money to bear the expense of printing. It was therefore necessary that some book-seller should be induced to take the risk.

Dodsley refused even to look at the manuscript unless he were trusted with the name of the author. A publisher in Fleet Street, named Lowndes, was more complaisant. Some correspondence took place between this person and Miss Burney, who took the name of Grafton, and desired that the letters addressed to her might be left at the Orange Coffee-house. But, before the bargain was finally struck, Frances thought it her duty to obtain her father’s consent. She told him that she had written a book, that she wished to have his permission to publish it anonymously, but that she hoped that he would not insist upon seeing it.... He only stared, burst out a-laughing, kissed her, gave her leave to do as she liked, and never even asked the name of her work. The contract with Lowndes was speedily concluded. Twenty pounds were given for the copyright, and were accepted by Fanny with delight.

Lord Macaulay: ‘Essay on Mme. D’Arblay,’ Edinburgh Review, January, 1843. ‘Critical and Historical Essays.’ New York: Albert Mason, 1875.

Its publication.

This year [1778] was ushered in by a grand and most important event! At the latter end of January, the literary world was favored with the first publication of the ingenious, learned, and most profound Fanny Burney!... This admirable authoress has named her most elaborate performance, ‘Evelina; or, A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World.’

Perhaps this may seem a rather bold attempt and title for a female whose knowledge of the world is very confined, and whose inclinations, as well as situation, incline her to a private and domestic life. All I can urge is, that I have only presumed to trace the accidents and adventures to which a “young woman” is liable; I have not pretended to show the world what it actually is, but what it appears to a girl of seventeen: and so far as that, surely, any girl who is past seventeen may safely do?... My Aunt Anne and Miss Humphries being settled at this time at Brompton, I was going thither with Susan [her sister] to tea, when Charlotte [another sister] acquainted me that they were then employed in reading ‘Evelina’ to the invalid, my cousin Richard. This intelligence gave me the utmost uneasiness—I foresaw a thousand dangers of a discovery—I dreaded the indiscreet warmth of all my confidants. In truth, I was quite sick with apprehension, and was too uncomfortable to go to Brompton, and Susan carried my excuses. Upon her return, I was somewhat tranquillized, for she assured me that there was not the smallest suspicion of the author, and that they had concluded it to be the work of a man!

Mrs. Thrale’s approval.

Mrs. Thrale said she had only to complain it was too short. She recommended it to my mother to read!—how droll!—and she told her she would be much entertained with it, for there was a great deal of human life in it, and of the manners of the present times, and added that it was written “by somebody who knows the top and the bottom, the highest and the lowest of mankind.” She has even lent her set to my mother, who brought it home with her!

Frances Burney: ‘Diary and Letters,’ revised and edited by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1880.

Madame D’Arblay said she was wild with joy at this decisive evidence of her literary success [Mrs. Thrale’s approval], and that she could only give vent to her rapture by dancing and skipping round a mulberry tree in the garden.

Sir Walter Scott: Diary, November, 1826, in ‘Memoirs,’ by J. G. Lockhart. Edinburgh: Adam & Charles Black, 1871.

Frances experiments on the publisher.

We introduced ourselves by buying the book, for which I had a commission from Mrs. G——. Fortunately Mr. Lowndes himself was in the shop; as we found by his air of consequence and authority, as well as his age; for I never saw him before.

The moment he had given my mother the book, she asked if he could tell her who wrote it. “No,” he answered; “I don’t know myself.” “Pho, pho,” said she; “you mayn’t choose to tell, but you must know.” “I don’t, indeed, ma’am,” answered he; “I have no honor in keeping the secret, for I have never been trusted. All I know of the matter is, that it is a gentleman of the other end of the town.” My mother made a thousand other inquiries, to which his answers were to the following effect: that for a great while, he did not know if it was a man or a woman; but now, he knew that much, and that he was a master of his subject, and well versed in the manners of the times.... I grinned irresistibly, and was obliged to look out at the shop-door till we came away.

[While ill and absent at Chesington], I received from Charlotte a letter, the most interesting that could be written to me, for it acquainted me that my dear father was at length reading my book, which has now been published six months. How this has come to pass, I am yet in the dark; but, it seems, ... he desired Charlotte to bring him the Monthly Review; she contrived to look over his shoulder as he opened it, which he did at the account of ‘Evelina.’ He read it with great earnestness, then put it down; and presently after snatched it up, and read it again. Doubtless his paternal heart felt some agitation for his girl in reading a review of her publication! how he got at the name I cannot imagine.

Dr. Burney’s pleasure.

Soon after, he turned to Charlotte, ... put his finger on the word ‘Evelina,’ and saying, she knew what it was, bade her write down the name, and send the man to Lowndes’, as if for himself. When William returned, he took the book from him, and the moment he was gone, opened the first volume—and opened it upon the ode! [dedicating the book to himself]. How great must have been his astonishment at seeing himself so addressed! He looked all amazement, read a line or two with great eagerness, and then, stopping short, he seemed quite affected, and the tears started into his eyes: dear soul! I am sure they did into mine.

My father, when he took the books back to Streatham, actually acquainted Mrs. Thrale with my secret. He took an opportunity, when they were alone together, of saying that, upon her recommendation, he had himself, as well as my mother, been reading ‘Evelina.’

“Well!” cried she, “and is it not a very pretty book? and a very clever book? and a very comical book?” “Why,” answered he, “’tis well enough; but I have something to tell you about it.” “Well? what?” cried she; “has Mrs. Cholmondely found out the author?” “No,” returned he, “not that I know of; but I believe I have, though but very lately.” “Well, pray let’s hear!” cried she, eagerly; “I want to know him of all things.”

How my father must laugh at the him! He then, however, undeceived her in regard to that particular, by telling her it was “our Fanny!”

Dr. Johnson’s comment.

Mrs. Thrale ... at last ... mentioned ‘Evelina.’ [During F. B.’s first visit to Streatham]. “Yesterday at supper,” said she, “we talked it all over, and discussed all your characters; but Dr. Johnson’s favorite is Mr. Smith. He declares the fine gentleman manqué was never better drawn, and he acted him all the evening, saying ‘he was all for the ladies!’ He repeated whole scenes by heart. O, you can’t imagine how much he is pleased with the book; he ‘could not get rid of the rogue,’ he told me.”

Reynolds’ curiosity.

Sir Joshua, who began it one day when he was too much engaged to go on with it, was so much caught, that he could think of nothing else, and was quite absent all the day, not knowing a word that was said to him; and, when he took it up again, found himself so much interested in it, that he sat up all night to finish it! Sir Joshua, it seems, vows he would give fifty pounds to know the author!

Frances Burney: ‘Diary and Letters.’

Frances meets Sheridan.

And now I must tell you a little conversation which I did not hear myself till I came home; it was between Mr. Sheridan and my father. “Dr. Burney,” cries the former, “have you no older daughters? Can this possibly be the authoress of ‘Evelina’?” And then he said abundance of fine things, and begged my father to introduce him to me.

“Why, it will be a very formidable thing to her,” answered he, “to be introduced to you.”

“Well, then, by and by,” returned he.

Some time after this, my eyes happening to meet his, he waived the ceremony of introduction, and in a low voice said: “I have been telling Dr. Burney that I have long expected to see Miss Burney a lady of the gravest appearance, with the quickest parts.” I was never much more astonished than at this unexpected address, as among all my numerous puffers the name of Sheridan has never reached me, and I did really imagine he had never deigned to look at my trash. Of course I could make no verbal answer, and he proceeded then to speak of ‘Evelina’ in terms of the highest praise; but I was in such a ferment from surprise (not to say pleasure), that I have no recollection of his expressions. I only remember telling him that I was much amazed he had spared time to read it, and that he repeatedly called it a most surprising book.

Frances Burney: ‘Letter to Susan Burney,’ in ‘Diary and Letters.’

I often think when I am counting my laurels, what a pity it would have been had I popped off in my last illness, without knowing what a person of consequence I was!—and I sometimes think that, were I now to have a relapse, I never could go off with so much éclat!... I have already, I fear, reached the pinnacle of my abilities, and therefore to stand still will be my best policy.

‘Cecilia.’

My work is too long in all conscience for the hurry of my people to have it produced. I have a thousand million of fears for it. The mere copying, without revising and correcting, would take at least ten weeks, for I cannot do more than a volume in a fortnight unless I scrawl short hand and rough hand as badly as the original. Yet my dear father thinks it will be published in a month!... I have copied one volume and a quarter—no more! Oh, I am sick to think of it! Yet not a little reviving is my father’s very high approbation of the first volume, which is all he has seen. Would you ever believe, bigoted as he was to ‘Evelina,’ that he now says he thinks this a superior design and superior execution?... One thing frets me a good deal, which is, that my book affair has got wind, and seems almost everywhere known, notwithstanding my eagerness and caution to have it kept snug to the last.... The book, in short, to my great consternation, I find is talked of and expected all the town over.

Frances Burney: ‘Diary and Letters.’

Its success.

What Miss Burney received for the copyright is not mentioned in the ‘Diary’, but we have observed several expressions from which we infer that the sum was considerable. We have been told that the publishers gave her two thousand pounds, and we have no doubt that they might have given a still larger sum without being losers.

Lord Macaulay: ‘Essay on Mme. D’Arblay.’

Oh! it beats every other book, even your own other volumes, for ‘Evelina’ was a baby to it. Such a novel! Indeed, I am seriously and sensibly touched by it, and am proud of her friendship who so knows the human heart.

Mrs. Thrale: Letter to Fanny Burney, in the latter’s ‘Diary and Letters.’

Burke’s criticism.

He very emphatically congratulated me upon its most universal success; said, “he was now too late to speak of it, since he could only echo the voice of the whole nation.”... He then told me that, notwithstanding his admiration, he was the man who had dared to find some faults with so favorite and fashionable a work. I entreated him to tell me what they were, and assured him nothing would make me so happy as to correct them under his direction.... He wished the conclusion either more happy or more miserable; “for in a work of imagination,” said he, “there is no medium.” I was not easy enough to answer him, or I have much, though perhaps not good for much, to say in defense of following life and nature as much in the conclusion as in the progress of a tale; and when is life and nature completely happy or miserable?

Frances Burney: Letter to Susan Burney, in ‘Diary and Letters.’

Accounts of Frances at this period.

Next to the balloon [on exhibition in the Pantheon] Miss Burney is the object of public curiosity; I had the pleasure of meeting her yesterday. She is a very unaffected, modest, sweet, and pleasing young lady: but you, now I think of it, are a Goth, and have not read ‘Cecilia.’ Read, read it, for shame!

Anna L. Barbauld: Letter to her brother, Jan., 1784, in ‘Memoir,’ by Grace A. Ellis (Oliver). Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co., 1874.

I am sure you are acquainted with the novel entitled ‘Cecilia,’ much admired for its good sense, variety of character, delicacy of sentiment, etc., etc. There is nothing good, amiable, and agreeable mentioned in the book, that is not possessed by the author of it, Miss Burney.

I have now been acquainted with her three years: her extreme diffidence of herself, notwithstanding her great genius and the applause she has met with, adds lustre to all her excellences, and all improve on acquaintance.

Mrs. Delany: Letter to Mrs. F. Hamilton, 1786, in, the former’s ‘Autobiography and Correspondence,’ revised and edited by Sarah Chauncey Woolsey. Boston: Roberts Bros., 1879.

She meets King George III.

In December, 1785, Miss Burney was on a visit to Mrs. Delany at Windsor. The dinner was over. The old lady was taking a nap. Her grand-niece, a little girl of seven, was playing at some Christmas game with the visitors, when the door opened, and a stout gentleman entered unannounced, with a star on his breast, and “What? what? what?” in his mouth. A cry of “the king” was set up. A general scampering followed. Miss Burney owns that she could not have been more terrified if she had seen a ghost. But Mrs. Delany came forward to pay her duty to her royal friend, and the disturbance was quieted. Frances was then presented, and underwent a long examination and cross-examination about all that she had written and all that she meant to write. The queen soon made her appearance, and his majesty repeated, for the benefit of his consort, the information which he had extracted from Miss Burney. The good-nature of the royal pair could not but be delightful to a young lady who had been brought up a Tory. In a few days the visit was repeated. Miss Burney was more at ease than before. His majesty, instead of seeking for information, condescended to impart it, and passed sentence on many great writers, English and foreign. Voltaire he pronounced a monster. Rousseau he liked rather better. “But was there ever,” he cried, “such stuff as great part of Shakespeare? Only one must not say so. But what think you? What? Is there not sad stuff? What? What?”

She enters the queen’s service.

... Frances was fascinated by the condescending kindness of the two great personages to whom she had been presented. Her father was even more infatuated than herself. The result was a step of which we cannot think with patience.... A German lady of the name of Haggerdorn, one of the keepers of the queen’s robes, retired about this time, and her majesty offered the vacant post to Miss Burney.... What was demanded of her was, that she should consent to be almost as completely separated from her family and friends as if she had gone to Calcutta, and almost as close a prisoner as if she had been sent to jail for a libel; that with talents which had instructed and delighted the highest living minds, she should now be employed only in mixing snuff and sticking pins; that she should be summoned by a waiting-woman’s bell to a waiting-woman’s duties; that she should pass her whole life under the restraints of paltry etiquette, should sometimes fast till she was ready to swoon with hunger, should sometimes stand till her knees gave way with fatigue; that she should not dare to speak or move without considering how her mistress might like her words and gestures. Instead of those distinguished men and women, the flower of all political parties, with whom she had been in the habit of mixing on terms of equal friendship, she was to have for her perpetual companion the chief keeper of the robes, an old hag from Germany, of mean understanding, of insolent manners, and of temper which, naturally savage, had now been exasperated by disease. Now and then, indeed, poor Frances might console herself for the loss of Burke’s and Windham’s society, by joining in the “celestial colloquy sublime” of his majesty’s equerries.

And what was the consideration for which she was to sell herself into this slavery? A peerage in her own right? A pension of two thousand a year for life? A seventy-four for her brother in the navy? A deanery for her brother in the church? Not so. The price at which she was valued was her board, her lodging, the attendance of a man-servant, and two hundred pounds a year.

Lord Macaulay: ‘Essay on Mme. D’Arblay.’

Life as Second Keeper of the Robes.

I rise at six o’clock, dress in a morning gown and cap, and wait my first summons, which is at all times from seven to near eight, but commonly in the exact half hour between them. The queen never sends for me till her hair is dressed. This, in a morning, is always done by her wardrobe-woman, Mrs. Thielky. The queen’s dress is finished by Mrs. Thielky and myself. No maid ever enters the room while the queen is in it. Mrs. Thielky hands the things to me, and I put them on. ’Tis fortunate for me I have not the handing them! I should never know which to take first, embarrassed as I am, and should run a prodigious risk of giving the gown before the hoop, and the fan before the neckerchief. By eight o’clock, or a little after, for she is extremely expeditious, she is dressed.... I then return to my own room to breakfast. I make this meal the most pleasant part of the day; I have a book for my companion, and I allow myself an hour for it. At nine o’clock I send off my breakfast things, and relinquish my book, to make a serious and steady examination of every thing I have upon my hands in the way of business—in which preparations for dress are always included, not for the present day alone, but for the court-days, which require a particular dress; for the next arriving birthday of any of the royal family, every one of which requires new apparel; for Kew, where the dress is plainest; and for going on here, where the dress is very pleasant to me, requiring no show nor finery, but merely to be neat, not inelegant, and moderately fashionable.

That over, I have my time at my own disposal till a quarter before twelve, except on Wednesdays, when I have it only to a quarter before eleven. My rummages and business sometimes occupy me uninterruptedly to those hours. When they do not, I give till ten to necessary letters ... and from ten to the times I have mentioned, I devote to walking.

These times mentioned called me to the irksome and quick-returning labors of the toilette. The hour advanced on the Wednesdays and Saturdays is for curling and craping the hair, which it now requires twice a week.

A quarter before one is the usual time for the queen to begin dressing for the day. Mrs. Schwellenberg then constantly attends; so do I; Mrs. Thielky, of course, at all times. We help her off with her gown, and on with her powdering things, and then the hair-dresser is admitted. She generally reads the newspapers during that operation.... She never forgets to send me away while she is powdering, with a consideration not to spoil my clothes, which one would not expect belonged to her high station. I finish, if anything is undone, my dress, she then takes ‘Baretti’s Dialogues,’ or some such disjointed matter, for the few minutes that elapse ere I am again summoned. I find her then always removed to her state dressing-room. Then, in a very short time, her dress is finished. She then says she won’t detain me, and I hear and see no more of her till bedtime.

It is commonly about three o’clock when I am thus set at large. And I have then two hours quite at my own disposal; but, in the natural course of things, not a moment after! At five, we have dinner. Mrs. Schwellenberg and I are commonly tête-à-tête: when there is anybody added, it is from her invitation only. When we have dined, we go up stairs to her apartment, which is directly over mine. Here we have coffee till the terracing is over: this is at about eight o’clock. Our tête-à-tête then finishes, and we come down again to the eating-room. There the equerry, whoever he is, comes to tea constantly, and with him any gentleman that the king or queen may have invited for the evening; and when tea is over, he conducts them, and goes himself, to the concert-room. This is commonly about nine o’clock.

From that time, if Mrs. Schwellenberg is alone, I never quit her for a minute, till I come to my little supper at near eleven. Between eleven and twelve my last summons usually takes place, earlier and later occasionally. Twenty minutes is the customary time then spent with the queen: half an hour, I believe, is seldom exceeded. I then come back, and after doing whatever I can to forward my dress for the next morning, I go to bed and to sleep, too, believe me, the moment I have put out my candle and laid down my head.

Frances Burney: ‘Diary and Letters.’

An explanatory analysis.

The ‘Diary’ reveals an exceptionally warm heart and a disposition very strangely compounded of good sense and sensitiveness, quick impulse and persistent loyalty, strong powers of judgment coupled with an almost morbid self-distrust, and tastes so simple and domestic that, in spite of all her friends felt at the time, and critics have written since, about the years she wasted at court, it is difficult to escape the conviction that wherever Frances Burney’s lot had fallen, her quick womanly sympathies and active interest in the affairs of life would have hindered her from giving her best time and energy to literary work. She might have found a happier slavery, perhaps, in her father’s house or in a home of her own than in the royal household, but a slave to other people’s whims and fancies, as well as to their tempers and serious necessities, she would probably have been wherever she had lived, for the simple reason that she was above all things affectionate, and cared more for the goodwill of those about her than for any other worldly consideration. She wrote ‘Evelina’ because the world amused her, and she was too shy to say in any other way how much it amused her. She wrote ‘Cecilia’ because the world told her it was amused by her, and that she could make her fortune by going on amusing it. But even in this second book there were indications that the natural spring was pretty nearly exhausted, while a deterioration of style betrayed the fact that her mastery of the means of literary expression was not sufficient to keep her works up to the mark when the vivacity of the first spontaneous impulse should be spent. She might have overcome this disadvantage by laborious training of her talent; but for this she had no inclination, or at any rate not inclination enough to conquer her fears of the contemporary prejudice against learned women. Even in the house of Mrs. Thrale, she describes herself as hiding a book under a chair-cushion, so as not to be caught in the unfeminine act of reading; and when Johnson began to teach her Latin, she was weak enough to back out of the lessons, fearing that they would win her the reputation of a blue-stocking. Johnson liked her none the less for her timidity, and neither need we. But it is as well to remember these things when apportioning the blame for her falling away from literature. She used her literary talent first as an outlet for her surplus wit and wisdom, and next as a means of making money; but she had not sufficient love of literature to induce her to sacrifice to it a jot of even conventional esteem.

Mary Elizabeth Christie: ‘Miss Burney’s Novels,’ in Contemporary Review, December, 1882.

Frances’ ill health.

The health of poor Frances began to give way; and all who saw her pale face, her emaciated figure, and her feeble walk, predicted that her sufferings would soon be over. Frances uniformly speaks of her royal mistress and of the princesses with respect and affection. The princesses ... were, we doubt not, most amiable women. But “the sweet queen,” as she is constantly called in these volumes, is not by any means an object of admiration to us.... She seems to have been utterly regardless of the comfort, the health, the life of her attendants, when her own convenience was concerned. Weak, feverish, hardly able to stand, Frances had still to rise before seven, in order to dress the sweet queen, and sit up till midnight, in order to undress the sweet queen.... The whisper that she was in a decline spread through the court. The pains in her side became so severe that she was forced to crawl from the card-table of the old fury to whom she was tethered, three or four times in an evening, for the purpose of taking harts-horn. Had she been a negro slave, a humane planter would have excused her from work. But her majesty showed no mercy. Thrice a day the accursed bell still rang.... Horace Walpole wrote to Frances to express his sympathy. Boswell, boiling over with good-natured rage, almost forced an entrance into the palace to see her. Burke and Reynolds, though less noisy, were zealous in the same cause. Windham spoke to Dr. Burney.... At last paternal affection, medical authority, and the voice of all London crying shame, triumphed over Dr. Burney’s love of courts. He determined that Frances should write a letter of resignation.... In return for all the misery which she had undergone, and for the health which she had sacrificed, an annuity of one hundred pounds was granted to her, dependent on the queen’s pleasure. Then the prison was opened, and Frances was free once more.... Happy days and tranquil nights soon restored the health which the queen’s toilette and Madame Schwellenberg’s card-table had impaired.

Lord Macaulay: ‘Essay on Mme. D’Arblay.’

M. D’Arblay described.

He is tall, and a good figure, with an open and manly countenance; about forty, I imagine.... He seems to me a true militaire, franc et loyal—open as the day—warmly affectionate to his friends—intelligent, ready, and amusing in conversation, with a great share of gaieté de cœur, and at the same time of naïveté and bonne foi.

Susan Burney (Mrs. Phillips): Letters to Frances Burney, in the latter’s ‘Diary and Letters.’

M. D’Arblay is one of the most singularly interesting characters that can ever have been formed. He has a sincerity, a frankness, an ingenuous openness of nature, that I had been unjust enough to think could not belong to a Frenchman. With all this, which is his military portion, he is passionately fond of literature, a most delicate critic in his own language, well versed in both Italian and German, and a very elegant poet. He has just undertaken to become my French master for pronunciation, and he gives me long daily lessons in reading. Pray expect wonderful improvements! In return, I hear him in English.

Frances Burney: Letter to Dr. Burney, February, 1793, in ‘Diary and Letters.’

At work on ‘Camilla,’ after her marriage.

I have a long work, which a long time has been in hand, that I mean to publish soon—in about a year. Should it succeed ... it may be a little portion to our Bambino. We wish, therefore, to print it for ourselves in this hope; but the expenses of the press are so enormous, so raised by these late Acts, that it is out of all question for us to afford it. We have, therefore, been led by degrees to listen to counsel of some friends, and to print it by subscription. This is in many—many ways unpleasant and unpalatable to us both; but the real chance of real use and benefit to our little darling overcomes all scruples, and, therefore, to work we go!

Frances D’Arblay: Letter to a friend, 1795, in ‘Diary and Letters.’

Its success.

I am quite happy in what I have escaped of greater severity [from the reviews], though my mate cannot bear that the palm should be contested by ‘Evelina’ and ‘Cecilia’; his partiality rates the last as so much the highest.... The essential success of ‘Camilla’ exceeds that of the elders. The sale is truly astonishing. Five hundred only remain of four thousand, and it has appeared scarcely three months.

Frances D’Arblay: Letter to Dr. Burney, 1796, in ‘Diary and Letters.’

Walpole’s criticism.

I will only reply by a word or two to a question you seem to ask; how I like ‘Camilla’? I do not care to say how little. Alas! she has reversed experience, which I have long thought reverses its own utility by coming at the wrong end of our life when we do not want it. This author knew the world and penetrated characters before she had stepped over the threshold; and, now she has seen so much of it, she has little or no insight at all.

Horace Walpole: Letter to Hannah More, 1796.

Dr. Burney asked me about deplorable ‘Camilla.’ Alas! I had not recovered of it enough to be loud in its praise.

Horace Walpole: Letter to Miss Berry, 1796. ‘The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Oxford.’ London: Henry G. Bohn, 1867.

‘The Hermitage,’ West Hamble.

We are going immediately to build a little cottage for ourselves. We shall make it as small and as cheap as will accord with its being warm and comfortable. We mean to make this a property salable or lettable for our Alex.

Frances D’Arblay: Letter to Dr. Burney, 1796, in ‘Diary and Letters.’

I need not say how I shall rejoice to see you again, nor how charmed we shall both be to make a nearer acquaintance with Mr. Broome; but, for Heaven’s sake, my dear girl, how are we to give him a dinner?—unless he will bring with him his poultry, for ours are not yet arrived; and his fish, for ours are still at the bottom of some pond we know not where; and his spit, for our jack is yet without one; not to mention his table-linen;—and not to speak of his knives and forks, some ten of our poor original twelve having been massacred in M. D’Arblay’s first essays in the art of carpentering;—and to say nothing of his large spoons, the silver of our plated ones having feloniously made off under cover of the whitening brush;—and not to talk of his cook, ours being not yet hired;—and not to start the subject of wine, ours, by some odd accident, still remaining at the wine-merchants!

With all these impediments, however, to convivial hilarity, if he will eat a quarter of a joint of meat (his share, I mean), tied up by a packthread, and roasted by a log of wood on the bricks, and declare no potatoes so good as those dug by M. D’Arblay out of our garden—and protest our small beer gives the spirits of champagne—and pronounce that bare walls are superior to tapestry—and promise us the first sight of his epistle upon visiting a new-built cottage—we shall be sincerely happy to receive him in our Hermitage.

Frances D’Arblay: Letter to Mrs. Francis, 1797, in ‘Diary and Letters.’

Poverty.

Generosity.

For a considerable time the income on which she, her husband, and her child subsisted, did not exceed £125 a year. They were too independent in spirit to accept assistance from friends; too upright to rely on contingencies; and Madame D’Arblay pursued, in all the minutiæ of domestic life, a course of self-denial such as, she wrote to her Susanna, “would make you laugh to see, though perhaps cry to hear.” With all this, her mind and thoughts were never shut up in her economy. It was at this period that she originated the invitation sent by her and M. D’Arblay to his friend the Comte de Narbonne, to make their cottage his home; and it was also during these straitened circumstances that she withdrew her comedy of ‘Love and Fashion’ from rehearsal, in dutiful compliance with the wishes of her father; although the management of Covent Garden had promised her £400 for the manuscript.

Fidelity.

Queen Charlotte’s expression, that she was “true as gold,” was abundantly verified in her friendship.

Sarah Chauncey Woolsey, Edr.: ‘Diary and Letters of Frances Burney, Mme. D’Arblay.’

The novels give an impression of a singularly keen, clever, observant woman, with a sense of the ridiculous too much developed to be a very sympathetic, or even safe, friend....

She is seen to best advantage in the book where she appears as daughter, sister, friend, servant (there is really no other word for the position she held at court), and finally wife and mother. In the ‘Diary and Letters’ we not only learn how largely voluntary were the restrictions she imposed upon her literary work, but how much her private life gained in charm and usefulness by the subordination of the author’s part; and, learning this, we forgive her the more easily for having partially hidden the talent which, well husbanded, might have given us more ‘Evelinas’ and ‘Cecilias.’... Delightful as ‘Evelina’ and ‘Cecilia’ are to those whose taste they suit, it is doubtful whether we should get more enjoyment out of a dozen novels of the same quality than we do out of these two. And ... at the present moment these two are more than enough for most people.

Mary Elizabeth Christie: ‘Miss Burney’s Novels.’

Her old age.

I attended her during the last twenty years of her long life. She lived in almost total seclusion from all but a few members of her own family; changed her lodgings more frequently than her dresses and occupied herself laboriously in composing those later works which retain so little of the charm of her earlier writings. Mr. Rogers was the only literary man who seemed to know of her existence.

Sir Henry Holland: ‘Recollections of Past Life.’ New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1872.

Was introduced by Rogers to Mme. D’Arblay, the celebrated authoress of ‘Evelina’ and ‘Cecilia’—an elderly lady, with no remains of personal beauty, but with a simple and gentle manner, a pleasing expression of countenance, and apparently quick feelings.

Sir Walter Scott: Diary, November, 1826, in ‘Memoirs,’ by J. G. Lockhart.

Miss Mitford’s criticism.

I do not think very highly of Mme. D’Arblay’s books. The style is so strutting. She does so stalk about on Dr. Johnson’s old stilts. What she says wants so much translating into common English, and when translated would seem so commonplace, that I have always felt strongly tempted to read all the serious parts with my fingers’ ends.... A novel should be as like life as a painting, but not as like life as a piece of wax-work. Mme. D’Arblay has much talent, but no taste. Another fault is the sameness of her characters; they all say one thing twenty times over.... They have but one note.

Mary Russell Mitford: Letters to Sir W. Elford, in ‘Life,’ edited by Rev. A. G. L’Estrange. London: Richard Bentley, 1870.

‘A very woman.’

Madame D’Arblay is quite of the old school, a mere common observer of manners, and also a very woman. It is this last circumstance which forms the peculiarity of her writings. She is a quick, lively, and accurate observer of persons and things; but she always looks at them with a consciousness of her sex, and in that point of view in which it is the particular business and interest of women to observe them. There is little in her works of passion or character, or even manners, in the most extended sense of the word, as implying the sum total of our habits and pursuits; her forte is in describing the absurdities and affectations of external behavior, or the manners of people in company. Her characters, which are ingenious caricatures, are, no doubt, distinctly marked, and well kept up; but they are slightly shaded, and exceedingly uniform. Her heroes and heroines, almost all of them, depend upon the stock of a single phrase or sentiment, and have certain mottoes or devices by which they may always be known. They form such characters as people might be supposed to assume for a night at a masquerade.... The Braughtons are the best. Mr. Smith is an exquisite city portrait. ‘Evelina’ is also her best novel, because it is the shortest; that is, it has all the liveliness in the sketches of character, and smartness of comic dialogue and repartee, without the tediousness of the story, and endless affectation of sentiment which disfigures the others.

William Hazlitt: Lecture on the English Novelists, in ‘Lecture on the English Poets, and the English Comic Writers,’ edited by Wm. Carew Hazlitt. London: Bell & Daldy, 1869.

Accused of superficiality.

She is sometimes accused of being superficial, because she dares so little in the direction of the stronger and deeper passions and interests of human nature. But this criticism is itself superficial: the truer word for her is reserved. She shut the door upon the whole range of bold speculation and unconventional feeling, because she considered these things unfit for the novelist, and especially for the female novelist, to treat of. But her own feelings were deep, and her own interests and sympathies were wide; and in drawing her characters, though she seldom attempts to paint much—save in conventional outline—that goes below the surface, she yet shows at all times, by the firmness and consistency of her creations, that she possessed the root of the matter in understanding, if not in creative power and courage of execution.

Mary Elizabeth Christie: ‘Miss Burney’s Novels.’

Her art not the highest.

We are forced to refuse Madame D’Arblay a place in the highest rank of art; but we cannot deny that, in the rank to which she belonged, she had few equals, and scarcely any superior. The variety of humors which is to be found in her novels is immense; and though the talk of each person separately is monotonous, the general effect is not monotony, but a very lively and agreeable diversity. Her plots are rudely constructed and improbable, if we consider them in themselves. But they are admirably framed for the purpose of exhibiting striking groups of eccentric characters, each governed by his own peculiar whim, each talking his own peculiar jargon, and each bringing out by opposition the peculiar oddities of all the rest.

Madame D’Arblay was most successful in comedy, and indeed in comedy which bordered on farce. But we are inclined to infer from some passages, both in ‘Cecilia’ and ‘Camilla,’ that she might have attained equal distinction in the pathetic. We have formed this judgment less from those ambitious scenes of distress which lie near the catastrophe of each of these novels than from some exquisite strokes of natural tenderness which take us here and there by surprise.

Unique position of ‘Evelina.’

It is not only on account of the intrinsic merit of Madame D’Arblay’s early works that she is entitled to honorable mention. Her appearance is an important epoch in our literary history. ‘Evelina’ was the first tale written by a woman, and purporting to be a picture of life and manners, that lived or deserved to live. Indeed, most of the popular novels which preceded ‘Evelina’ were such as no lady would have written; and many of them were such as no lady could without confusion own that she had read. Miss Burney did for the English novel what Jeremy Collier did for the English drama; and she did it in a better way. She first showed that a tale might be written in which both the fashionable and the vulgar life of London might be exhibited with great force, and with broad comic humor, and which yet should not contain a single line inconsistent with rigid morality. She took away the reproach which lay on a most useful and delightful species of composition. She vindicated the right of her sex to an equal share in a fair and noble province of letters. The fact that she has been surpassed gives her an additional claim to our respect and gratitude; for, in truth, we owe to her, not only ‘Evelina,’ ‘Cecilia,’ and ‘Camilla,’ but also ‘Mansfield Park’ and the ‘Absentee.’

Lord Macaulay: ‘Essay on Mme. D’Arblay.’

Plan of work.

Her heroes and heroines.

The very gift that first made Miss Burney’s reputation now stands in the way of her popularity. She was so completely mistress of the art of letting her personages reveal their own characters, that she could afford to dispense to an unusual extent with the showman’s part. She constructed her personages not from within (as is the modern fashion) but by means of a thousand minute touches showing their conversation and behavior in an infinite variety of such small circumstances as make up the daily round of existence. She positively reveled in descriptive minutiæ of this sort. Nothing was too trivial for her, nothing too intricate in the web of petty embarrassments and mortifications and misunderstandings, that make the sum of a vast majority of human lives, and a tremendous factor of the remainder. Thanks to unusually buoyant spirits and a never-flagging sense of the ridiculous, she was constantly amused where others are only bored; and according to the infallible rule that, given the necessary powers of expression, authors never bore till they are bored themselves, she was able to make amusing to others the commonplace things that afforded entertainment to herself. Moreover, her success in her own day was quite as much due to the fact that her material was commonplace as to the keen perception of character, and the racy humor she displayed in working it up. Only the chosen few might appreciate her literary skill, but it needed no special gifts of culture to enter into the agitations of Evelina’s first ball. However, it is necessary to understand a situation or a character before we can be amused by it. And as nothing in life changes so fast as its surface, the author who gives most pains to the finish of this, is also the first to become obsolete. Fashions in manner and dress and speech are proverbially ephemeral, and except for those in whom the antiquarian taste has been somehow developed, they lose charm and even meaning in passing out of date. Heroes and heroines, whose coats and gowns, and courtesies and bows, are all behind the time, of whom the colloquial talk is a forgotten jargon, and the ceremony as strange as the ritual of a foreign religion, stand no chance in competition with the crowd of ladies and gentlemen who are daily turned out by contemporary novelists, wearing costumes and talking a language of which every fold and every phrase makes a claim upon the reader’s sympathy, and an item in the general index to the author’s meaning. Miss Burney’s personages, once so fashionable and so familiar, have grown strange now that a century has passed over their heads; and though underneath the disguise of their Old World costumes they are still fresh and human, this is a secret only to be discovered at the cost of more careful reading than the modern world is apt to give to novels.

Mary Elizabeth Christie: ‘Miss Burney’s Novels.’