A. A. OVERMAN
AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CHARACTER
OF
FANNY BURNEY
H. J. PARIS AMSTERDAM















AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CHARAGTER OF FANNY BURNEY











FANNY BURNEY From a painting by her cousin Edward F. Burney (By kind permission of Sir R. L. Harmsworth)



AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE CHARACTER OF FANNY BURNEY
ACADEMISCH PROEFSCHRIFT. TER VERKRIJGING VAN DEN GRAAD VAN DOCTOR IN DE LETTEREN EN WIJSBEGEERTE AAN DE UNIVERSITEIT VAN AMSTERDAM, OP GEZAG VAN DEN RECTOR-MAGNIFICUS Mr. I. H. HIJMANS. HOOGLEERAAR IN DE FACULTEIT DER RECHTSGELEERDHEID. IN HET OPENBAAR TE VERDEDIGEN OP VRIJDAG i7 FEBRUARI DES NAMIDDAGS TE 4 UUR IN DE AULA DER UNIVERSITEIT
DOOR
ANTOINETTE ARNOLDA OVERMAN GEBOREN TE THOLEN
H. J. PARIS AMSTERDAM — MCMXXXIII







AAN MIJN MOEDER AAN DE NAGEDACHTENIS VAN MIJN VADER







Bij het voltooien van mijn proefschrift maak ik gaarnè van de gelegenheid gebruik om mijn hartelijken dank te betuigen aan mijn Hooggeachten Promotor Prof. Dr. a. E. H. SwAjEN voor zijn vriendelijke en gewaardeerde hulp, zoowel gedurende mijn studietijd als bij het bewerken van deze dissertatie. Hartelijk dank ik ook Dr. H. C. rümke voor zijn vele raadgevingen bij het doorlezen van het psychologische gedeelte van mijn proefschrift en voor zyn voortdurende belangstelling in mijn werk.
Met veel erkentelijkheid denk ik terug aan de colleges van Prof. Dr. W. van der Gaaf en aan mijn opleiding voor het moderne Engelsch door den Heer J. C. G. GRASÉ. Ik beschouw het als een voorrecht dat ik de colleges van wijlen Prof. Dr. R. C. boer heb kunnen volgen en hartelijk dank ik Mevrouw Dr. P. M. boer-den hoed voor de bereidwilligheid mij steeds betoond.
De ambtenaren van de Universiteitsbibliotheek hebben mijn werk vergemakkelijkt door hun groote voorkomendheid.
I am indebted to Sir R. L. Harmsworth for his kind pernnssion to reproduce the portrait of Fanny Burney which is in his possession. My best thanks are due to the Free Library, Birmingham, University College, Southampton, the Central Lending Library, Finchly Rd, London, the Fulham Public Libraries and the Cardiff Public Libraries for sending their books and particularly to the National Central Library, London, for kind information. I wish to make gratefui acknowledgment to the University Library, Edinburgh, for the loan of several valuable first editions.
Amsterdam, Januari 1033.



CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. YOUTH 1
II. THE SUCCESSFULL AUTHOR
The Fim Two Novels 
co
Opinions of Contemporaries Ja
71
Diary and Letters 
III. LIFE AT COURT 85
IV. MADAME D'ARBLAY 111
V. THE CHARACTER OF FANNY BURNEY IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY
Investigation according to the System of Klages . . . .169
A genetic view of Fanny Burney's Character 205
Personality and Works 
CONCLUSION 215
BIBLIOGRAPHY 2,8



Chapter I
YOUTH
"I love Burney! my hcart goes out to meet bim.. . It is but natural to love him! ... I question if there be in the world such another man, altogether, for mind>? intelligence and manners, as Dr. Burney." 1
These words of Dr. Johnson about the father of Frances Burney expressed the opinion of almost all Dr. Burney'a acquaintance. He was indeed, as Mr. Murphy said, "a most extraordinary man, ... at home upon all «abjects, and upon all so agreeable! — a wonderful man!" *
Since mneh in Fanny Burney can be understood only in the light of her family life, it will be necessary to say something about Dr. Burney and his family. If his children had reason to be proud of their father, our knowledge of him is now mainly due to the celebrity of his children, especialiy of his daughter Frances. There does not seem to exist a list of his musical compositions, and his artidw in the Monthly Reuiew have been forgotten. His Tours of Inqutry into the State of Music in the France, Italy and Germany of 1770 and 1772, and the Hiëtory of Music are «owadays hardly read, but for those who are acquainted with the literature and society of the latter half of the eighteenth century, his amiable personality is still alive. The charm of his character and of his mannen has been described not only by his daughter Frances in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney and various other writings, but it is also mentioned by many of his friends.
1 Memoirs of Dr. Burney, Vol. IIp. 175-176. * Op. cit. Vol. II p. 175.



Mr. Brimley Johnson says1 that most of the Burneys had energy and artistic gifts and that they were all given to sclf-exprcssion. A genuine Bohemianism seemed to pervade the breed. This is certainly truc in the case of Dr. Burney. Besidcs his musical talents he had also a taste for literature, wbile the activity he displayed was truly phenomenal. His father James Macburney had run away with an actress and had by that so much offended his father that he was disinherited. James struck off the Mac from his name and settled as a portrait painter at Chester, where his son Charles was born.
As a young child Charles was neglected, but at school he was an excellent pupil and early showed a taste for music. He became a pupil of the faxnous Dr. Arne and applied himself to his studies with great zeal. In London he was introduced to Mrs. Cibber, made friends with Garrick and met Fulke Greville, who was for some time his patron. His amiable disposition made him friends wherever he went and his prospects were very promising. But he married young and while he was working with his remarkable energy to earn money for his family, his health failed and he had to leave London. He now accepted a place as organist at Lynn Regis in Norfolk. Here the Burneys lived for a considerable time and here Frances was born on June 13* 1752. Mr. Burney gave music lessons to the daughters of the Norfolk families and soon made a great many friends. He worked hard, even studying Italian while going from one family to another. This country-life restored his health. Having too much ambition to stay for the rest of his Hfe at Lyan, he decided in 1760 to go back to London where he was very kindly received by his old friends and soort became a popular music master. Then a deep sorrow came into his life. His wife died and left him with six children. The blow was terrible and he struggled with his grief for
1 R. Brimley Johnson: Fanny Burney and the Burneys.



ycars. He found reliëf, however, in his work in town and in his studies which required all his attention. His friends tried as much as was in their power to restore him to his natural cheerfulness and were extremely kind to his children. Garrick and his wife in particular proved true friends. He went to Paris to place two of his daughters in a boardingschool and the foreign surroundings gave new life to his depressed spirits. After some years he married Mrs. Stephen Allen, the intimate friend of the first Mrs. Burney, who proved an amiable companion to himself and an excellent mother to his children. He received the Oxford degree of Doctor of Music and went on a long tour on the Continent to collect material for his studies. By this time he had recovered his original cheerfulness. After his return to a house in Queen Square, soon changed for the famous one in St. Martin's Street, he received the celebrated foreign musicians and his numerous English friends. Yet, in spite of his many occupations, he was the life and soul of his happy and singularly harmonious family.
His affection for his children is shown in a letter to Fanny, written at Dover on his way to France in 1770:
"I cannot set sail, ere I have given you a word and a wish of kindness and affection. Continue to love me, and to believe that I love you, and that my family is never nearer my heart than when I am obliged to be far from them. It has ever been necessity, not choice, that has separated us. Had I an ark like that of Noah, I would have taken you all in it." 1
Dr. Burney loved his children dearly, but he was by no means always a wise parent. He meant well, but there is some truth in Lord Macaulay's statement in his essay on Madame d'Arblay:
"Her father appears to have been as bad a father as a very honest, affectionate and sweet-tempered man can well
1 Preface to: The House in St. Martin's Street, by Constance HUI. o. VI.



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." 1
Later on it was mainly the wish of her father which made Fanny decide to accept the offer of Queen Charlotte in spite of her own reluctance. Her life at court which proved in all respects so unfortunate to Fanny, was a glory to Dr Burney, and not until his friends urged him to take her away in order to save her from a total breakdown, was he persuaded to make her resign. Though nobody could love her better, he was the only person who did not notice her wretóhed state. But after it had been pointed out to him both by his friends and by medical men, he was anxious that the resignation should not be delayed any longer and he was only too glad to receive her home safely. His objection to Fanny's marriage with General d'Arblay seems only natural, as this match, from a practical pomt of view, was anything but promising. That Fanny was right in taking this step was only proved afterwards by the nap piness of her married life. Besides when Dr. Burney found that his daughter Was determined, he no longer objected.
Dr. Burney was loved and almost idolized by his children. After the George Gordon riots Susan wrote to her sister Fanny, who travelled with the Thrales:
"Oh, my Fanny! If you had not respected and loved our blessed' father before, how would you have revered and idolized him could you have seen him this last week — comforting the distressed — animating the powerful — and attentive to every one's interest more than his own." 1
This truly amiable man, with his happy temperament, displayed an extraordinary activity. In spite of the numerous engagements which filled up his days, he managed to collect
» Edinburgh Review. Jan. 1843.
» Printed in: The House in St. Martin's Street, by Constance MiU. p. 274.



material for the History of Music and a great many other works. He took a lively interest in various subjects and had a great knowledge of them. His favourite study in addition to music and literature was that of astronomy. Yet, with all these occupations, he found time to mix in society, where he was loved and appreciated, not only for his natural charm and amiability, but also for his spirit. This general feeling was clearly expressed by Mrs. Montagu, the Queen of the Blues, who, when meeting Fanny for the first time at Streatham, said:
"I can see that Miss Burney is very like her father, and that is a good thing, for everybody would wish to be like Dr. Burney!" 1
Dr. Burney gave music lessons to Mrs. Thrale's eldest daughter and as Mrs. Masefield says: "This proved to be one of the many instances of Dr. Burney entering a house as a professional teacher and leaving it as an intimate friend." *
At Streatham Dr. Burney became acquainted with Dr. Johnson with whom he had only corresponded before, and of this friendship he was very proud. He delighted in conversations with the learned Doctor and sometimes seems to have surprised the company by his courage in differing in opinion from Johnson, whereas most people retreated as soon as they found themselves opposed by the Doctor's domineering personality. Mrs. Thrale says in her Autobiography:
"I never in my life heard Dr. Johnson pronounce the words. 'I beg your pardon, Sir,' to any human creature but the apparently soft and gentle Dr. Burney . . . 'Did you, Madam, subscribe i oo /. to build our new bridge at Shrewsbury?' said Burney to me. 'No, surely, Sir,' was my reply. 'What connexion have I with Shropshire? and where
1 Op. cit. p. 133.
* M. Masefield: The Story of Fanny Burney, p. 17.



should I have money so to fling away? It is very comical, is it not, Sir?' said I turning to Dr. Johnson, 'that people should teil such unfoundcd stories?' 'It is,' answerd he, 'neither comical nor serious, my dear; it is only a wandeling He.' This was spoken in his natural voice, without a thought of offence, I am confident; but up bounced Burney in a towering passion, and to my much amaze, put on the hero, surprising Dr. Johnson into a sudden request for pardon, and protestation of not having ever intended to accuse his friend of a falsehood." 1
Dr. Burney also had his share of the diffidence which is a typical feature of the Burney family, but he concealed it successfully by his polished manners.
Esther Sleepe, Dr. Burney's first wife, was a charming and very accomplished woman. She was very well-read and, thanks to her French parentage, spoke French and Enghsh equalry well. She was entirely self-taught, but in intellectual powers and judgment seems to have been at least the equal of her husband. Her daughter Frances says of her in the Memoirs of her father:
"With no advantage, therefore, of education, save the simple one of early learning, or, rather, imbibing the French language, from her maternal grandfather, who was a native of France, but had been forced from his country by the edict of Nantz*; this gifted young creature was one of the most pleasing, well-mannered, well-read, elegant, and even cultivated, of her sex: and wherever she appeared in a social circle. and was drawn forth — which the attraction of her beauty made commonly one and the same thing — she was generally distinguished as the first female of the party for sense, literature, and, rarer still, for judgment; a preeminence, however, not more justly, than by herself, unsus-
i Autobiography. Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Tfarale), ed. Hayward. Vol. I p. 312- ] , . g , xT .
» Madame d'ArMay meant of course: the repeat of the edict of Nantt».



pectedly her duc; for, more than unassuming, she was ignorant of her singular superiority." 1
It was probably to her French descent that Esther, as well as her children, owed their uncommon vivacity. Esther had been brought up a Protestant, but her mother was a Roman Catholic. This grandmother was loved and respected by the Burney children, especially by Fanny, and though the latter was strict in her own Protestant principles, the memory of her grandmother made her respect the opinions of those who thought differently and even enabled her to marry a Roman Catholic without difficulty.
When Dr. Burney feil ül so shortly after his marriage, his wife is said to have acted with great spirit and sense of duty.
"The sufferings of the young wife, who was now also a young mother, can only be conceived by contrasting them with her so recent happiness. Yet never did she permit grief to absorb her faculties, nor to vanquish her fortitude. She acted with the same spirited force of mind, as if she had been a stranger to the timid terrors of the heart. She superintended all that was ordered; she executed, where it was possible, all that was performed; she was sedulously careful that no business should be neglected; and her firmness in all that belonged to the interests of her husband, seemed as invulnerable, as if that had been her sole occupation; though never, for a moment, was grief away from her side." '
At Lynn Esther did not care for the conversation of the ladies in that small place, who discussed nothing but the latest London fashions and their own dinner parties. Two ladies, however, are said to have been superior and Esther soon was on very intimate terms with them. One was Miss Young, whom she recommended to her husband when she was dying as a future mother to their children. The other was Mrs. Stephen Allen, who soon afterwards became a
1 Memoirs of Dr. Burney, Vol. I p. 63. * Op. cit. Vol. I p. 84.



widow and married Dr. Burney. Esther knew perfectly well that her death was approaching and though she left a devoted husband and six young children, she was submissive and entreated her husband to be so. Soon after the death of his wife Dr. Burney wrote a touching letter to Miss Young, in which he said:
"Amongst the numberless losses I sustain, there are none that unman nie so much as the total deprivarion of domestk comfort and converse — that converse from which I tore myself with such difficulty in a morning, and to which I flew back with such celerity at night! She was the source of all I could ever project or perform that was praise-worthy — all that I could do that was laudable had an eye to her approbation. There was a rectitude in her mind and judgment, that rendered her approbation so animating, so rational, so satisfactory! I have lost the spur, the stimulus to all exertions, all warrfntable pursuits, — except those of another world. From an ambitious, acttve, enterprizing Being, I am became a torpid drone, a listless, desponding wretch! — I know you will bear with my weakness, nay, in part, participate m it; but this is a kind of dotage unfit for common eyes, or even for common friends, to be entrusted with."1
And some time afterwards he wrote to Mrs. Stephen Allen l "Fortitude and abilities she possessed, indeed, to a degree that, without hyperbole, no human being can conceive but myself, who have seen her under such severe trials as alone can manifest, unquestionably, true parts and greatness of mind. I am thoroughly conviftced she was fitted for any «tuation, either exalted or humble, which this life can furnish. And with all her nice discernment, quickness of perception, and delicacy, she could submit, if occasion seemed to require it, to such drudgery and toil as are suited to the meanest domestk; and that, with a liveliness and alacrity
1 Op. cit. Vol. I p. 141.



that, in general, are to be found in those only who have never known a better state. Yet with a strength of reason the most solid, and a capacity for literature the most intelligent, she never for a moment relinquished the female and amiaMë softness of her sex with which, above every other attribute, men are most charmed and captivated."1
Better than all the praise of her daughter, these words of her husband show the character of Mrs. Burney, of which so many features can be recognized in the characters of her children.
■ Esther, generally called Hetty, the eldest of the children seems to have been more vivacious than Fanny and Susan. She was less handicapped by shyness and used to join in the general conversation. She had inherited Dr. Burney's talent ter music, and, while still very young, sang and played not only for the family, but also for her father's visitors. In a letter to her sister Madame d'Arblay writes in 1821:
'Your mind, my dearest Esther, was always equal to literary pursuits, though your time seems only now to let you enjoy them. I have often thought that had our excellent and extraordinary own mother been allowed longer life, she would have contrived to make you sensible of this soóner. I do not mean in a common way, for that has never failed, bttt in one striking and distinguished; for she very early indeed began to form your taste for reading But after
you lost, so young, that incomparable guide, you had none left. Our dear father was always abroad^ÉWiirify or ornamentally; and, after giving you a yeafÉ& Paris with the best master» that could be procured, you came home at fiffeen or sixteen to be exclusively occupied by musical studies, save for the interludes that were
'Sacred to dress and beauty's pleasing cares:'
for so well you played, and so lovely you looked, that admi-
1 Op. cit. Vol. I p. 146.



ration followed alike your fingers and your smUia; and the pianoforte and the world divided your first youth, which. had that exemplary guide been spared us, I am fully persuaded would have left some further testimony of its passage than barely my old journals, written to myself, which celebrate your wit and talents as highly as your beauty. And I judge I was not mistaken, by all in which you have had opportunity to show your mental faculties, i.e. your letters, which have always been strikingly good and agreeable, and evidently unstudied."1 .
James, the eldest son, was, as a boy, unusually bnght and manly. He entered the Navy at the age of ten and seems to have been a fine specimen of the old-time sailor. He was cheerful and full of high spirits. In a letter 8 to Mrs. Thrale Fanny mentions his dancing about the room at Chessington for joy that he had received orders for a new expedition. He was unpolished in his manners, but very kind at heart. Charles Lamb was fond of him and described his old friend at an advanced age after his daughter had been married. The admiral missed her sadly. "He bears bravely up, but he does not come out with his flashes of wild wit so thick as formerly. His sea-songs seldomer escape him." I Mrs. Thrale wrote to Fanny:
"I have picked up something to please you; Dr. Johnson pronounced an actual eulogium upon Captain Burney, to his yesterday's listeners — how amiable he was, and how gentle in his manner, etc, tho' he had lived so many years with sailors and savages." *
Susan, who was a few years younger than Fanny, was her most intimate friend. She seems, indeed, to have had extraordinary charm, and her friends used to go to her for
1 Diary and Letters, Oct. 21, 1821.
3 Op. cit. Nov. 4, 1780.
» Charles Lamb: Essays of Elia. The Wedding.
• Diary and Letters, Dec. 22, 1780.



sympathy in their troubles. The French exiles who lived at Juniper Hall were very fond of her, and M. de Narbonne called her "all that is douce and all that is spiritueüe." 1 Unwilling to complain to her friends and strongly sensible of her duty towards her husband, she courageously bore the last unhappy years before her death.
Charles, the youngest of the brothers was known for his amiable temper as a school-boy. He inherited his father's extraordinary industry and became a famous classic scholar.
Charlotte, only a baby when her mother died, was a lively child. Garrick called her his little Dumpling Queen. Her diary is very spirited, but shows a different character from that of the careful, prudish Fanny. Unlike her sisters she seems to have been a bit of a flirt.
The diffidence which Dr. Burney had known, was a trouble against which almost all the Burney children had to fight. It seems to have run in the whole family for we find it in the Worcester branch of the Burneys too. Cousin Edward, the painter was known for it and it is quite possible that the careless vivacity of Charlotte and the clownish affectation of cousin Richard were partly put on to hide timidity. In none of them, however, was it so strong as in Fanny.
As a child Fanny was particularly shy and silent. Before strangers she seemed almost sheepish and not only in childhood but long afterwards, indeed until the publication of Evetina, she was the least noticed of all the Burney children. When she was quite young her appearance was not striking, as she was small and very short-sighted. She was, beside* decidedly backward in learning and was generally considered a little dunce. Fanny has mentioned this herself in the Memoirs of her father:
"Frances, the second daughter of Dr. Burney was during
1 Op. cit. Febr. 1800.



her childhood the most backward of all his family in the faculty of receiving instruction. At eight years of age she was ignorant of the letters of the alphabet; though at ten, she began scribbling, almost incessantly, little works of inventkm; but always in private; and in scrawling characters, illegible, save to herself.
"One of her most remote remembrances, previously to this writing mania, is that of hearing a neighbouring lady recommend to Mrs. Burney, her mother, to quicken the indolence, or stupidity, whichever it might be, of the little dunce, by the chastening ordinances of Solomon. The alarm, however, of that little dunce, at a suggestion so wide from the maternal measures that had been practised in her childhood, was instantly superseded by a joy of gratitude and surprise that still rests upon her recollection, when she heard gently murmured in reply, 'No, no, — I am not uneasy about her!'
"But, alas! the soft music of those encouraging accents had already ceased to vibrate on human ears, before these scrambling pot-hooks had begun their operation of converting into Elegies, Odes, Plays, Songs, Stories, Farces, — nay, Tragedies and Epic Poems, every scrap of white paper that could be seized upon without question or notfce; for she grew up, probably through the vanity-annihiladng circumstinces of this conscious intellectual disgrace, with so arrVighted a persuasion that what she scribbled, if seen, would but exposé her to ridicule, that her pen, though her greatest, was only her clandestine delight.
"To one confidant, indeed, all was open; %ut the fönd partiality of the juvenile Susanna made her opinion of little weight; though the affection of her praise rendered the stolen moments of their secret readings the happiest of their adolescent lives." 1
Mrs. Burney seems to have been the only person who did
1 Memoirs of Dr.Burney, Vol. II p. 123-125.



not consider Fanny quite such a dunce as the rest of the family did. Much more than Dr. Burney the mother had an opportunity of watching Fanny while she was playing and noticing that she possessed a great deal of invention and humour. Dr. Burney has given an interesting deacription of the young Fanny in a memorandum-book, written in 1808.
"She was wholly unnoticed in the nursery for any talents, or quickness of study: indeed, at eight years old she did not know her letters; and her brother, the tar, who in his boyhood had a natural genius for hoaxing, used to pretend to teach her to read; and gave her a book topsy-turvy, which he said she never found out! She had, however, a great deal of invention and humour in her childish sports; and used, after having seen a play in Mrs. Garrick's box, to take the actors off, and compose speeches for their characters; for she could not read them. But in company, or before strangers, she was silent, backward, and timid, even to sheepishness: and, from her shyness, had such profound gravity and composure of features, that those of my friends who came often to my house, and entered into the different humours of the children, never called Fanny by any other name, from the time she had reached her eleventh year than the Old Lady...
"She had always had a great affection for me; had an excellent heart, and a natural simplicity and probity about her that wanted no teaching. In her plays with her sisters, and some neighbour's children, this straightforward morality operated to an uncommon degree in one so young. There lived next door to me, at that time, in Poland Street, and in a private house, a capital hair merchant, who furnished peruques to the judges, and gentlemen of the law. The merchant's female children and mine, used to play together in the little garden behind the house; and unfortunately, one day, the door of the wig magazine being left open, they each of them put on one of those dignified ornaments of



the head, and danced and jumpcd about in a thousand antics, laughing till they screamed at their own ridiculous figures. Unfortunately, in their vagaries, one of the flaxen wigs, said by the proprietor to be worth upwards of ten guineas — in those days a price enormous — feil into a tub of water, placed for the shrubs in the little garden, and lost all its gorgon buckle, and was declared by the owner to be totally spoilt. He was extremely angry, and chid very severely his own children; when my little daughter, the old lady, then ten years of age, advancing to him, as I was informed, with great gravity and composure, sedately says: *What signifies talking so much about an accident? The wig is wet, to be sure; and the wig was a good wig, to be sure; but its of no use to speak of it any more; because what's done can't be undone'." 1
An outstanding feature in Fanny's character was her great sensibility. It is conspicuous in her correspondence and diary throughout her long life. Meeting her when she was seventy-four, Sir Walter Scott noticed her "quick feehngs". During the first years of her life this was less noticeable, for Fanny led a regular life in the happy family. When she was nine years old, however, her mother died. Fanny was sent to Mrs. Sheeles during the illness of her mother and she was totally overcome with grief at her death. Mrs. Sheeles declared that she had never seen such intense feehngs in a child of her age. Her step-mother afterwards said
of her: , i_
"Here 's a girl will never be happy! Never while she lives! _ for she possesses perhaps as feeling a heart as ever
girl had!"s „ , ,
Her father once said: "Poor Fanny's face tells us what she
thinks, whether she will or no." *
i Op. cit. Vol. II p. 168-171. 1 Early Diary, May 30, 1768. » Preface to Early Diary, p. lxxxii.



Though she had no real beauty, it is probably her vivacity and variety of expression which made her attractive as a girl.
This great sensitiveness and nervousness together with extreme timidity probably go far to explain her apparent stupidity. That she was not really stupid is sufficiently clear from the invention and humour displayed when she was left to herself. She had, moreover, an uncommon power of observation. Her emotionality and shyness seem to have put a check on her natural vivacity, and the consciousness of being considered a dunce probably increased her difficulty in learning.
When Hetty and Susan were sent to school in Paris, Fanny was passed over. Susan was delicate and needed a change of air. She was, besides, considered more intelligent than Fanny. Hoewever, there was yet another reason for not sending Fanny so early to the Continent She was extremely fond of her grandmother, Mrs. Sleepe, and Dr. Burney was afraid that her emotional character might induce her to become a Roman Catholic. Fanny writes afterwards:
"The design of Dr. Burney was to place two of his daughter* in some convent, or boarding-house, where their education might be forwarded by his own directions.
"Sundry reasons decided him to make his third daughter, Susanna, take place, in this expedition, of his second, Frances; but, amongst them, the principal and most serious motive, was a fearful tendency to a consumptive habit in that most delicate of his young plants, that seemed to require the balsamic qualities of a warmer and clearer atmosphere.
"Another reason, which he acknowledged, in after times to have had great weight with him for this arrangement, was the tender veneration with which Frances was impressed for her maternal grandmother; whose angelic piety, and captivating softness, had won her young heart with such reverential affection, that he apprehended there might be danger



of her being led to follow. even enthusiastically, the religion of so pure a votary, if she should fall, so early, within the influence of any zealot in the work of conversion. He determined, therefore, as he could part with two of them only at a time, that Fanny and Charlotte should follow their sisters in succession, at a later period." 1
This plan, however, was never carried out. Charlotte was sent to school in Norfolk and Fanny remained at home. She never went to school at all and practically educated herself. The reason that Fanny and Charlotte did not go abroad was Dr. Burney's second marriage, with Mrs. Stephen Allen. It was certainly fortunate that there was once more a mother in this large family and the children seem to have been pleased with the new state of things. The second Mes. Burney was a very sensible woman, who shared her hu«band's literary taste and was a very good step-mother for the children. On the whole the family were happy, but there is no indication whatever that Fanny was fond of Mrs. Burney. It is extraordinary that, while her father's name is mentioned continually with the greatest love and révérence, the name of her step-mother hardly occurs at all in Fanny's diary.
It is difficult to know whether she ever wrote anything that was not particularly kind about her, for if that is the case, either she herself or Mrs. Barrett would have destroyed it before publication. It does not seem very probable, for Fanny always had such a profound respect for her parents that even if she had thought something unkind, she would not have put it down on paper. There are, however, some slight indications in the diary that she did not always agree with Mrs. Burney. One of them occurs in the descnption of a party where she met Mr. Bruce:
"As to my little self, I sat next to Miss Strange, and was comfortable enough in conversing with her, till my mother
1 Memoirs of Dr. Burney, Vol. Ip. 154-



finding herself little noticed by the Great Man, quitted her seat, and went and placed herself next to Mrs. Turner, saying, 'I shall come and sit by you, and leave Mr. Bruce to the young laesies'. I do heartily hate these sort of speeches, which oblige one to be remarked; nothing can be more provoking. Mr. Bruce, accordingly torning towards me, said, Well, Miss Burney, I think you can do no less than take the seat your mama has left.' I did not half like it; but thought he would suppose me af raid of him, if I refused; so, I changed chairs but made signs to Miss Strange to move next to me, and immediately renewed our conversation, lest he should think himself obliged to take further notice of me." 1
There is another instance of Fanny's annoyance at a joke of her mother's: "While we were engaged in that light chitchat, my mother came up to me and said — 'So, Fanny, I see you have got Mr. Chamier into a corner!' for he happened to be in a snug recess behind a book-case. TSfo, Madam', cried Mr. Chamier, 'it is I who have sought out a corner near where Miss Burney inhabited.' However, I don't at all admire these sort of jokes, and therefore I moved off."*
The girls of ten spoke of Mrs. Burney as 'the Lady'. There is a passage in the journal of Charlotte, which is interesting in this connection:
"The Lady in her usual spightful style pretends to forget the names of all my friends, as being unworthy a place in her memory, and calls Miss Mathias nothing but Miss Ttnngum, and him the little black man. He said he should call again, but I dare say he won't." I Charlotte cared less what she wrote down, but even the gentle Susan wrote to Fanny in July 1796:
"we arrived a foll hoor before the dinner time at Chelsea,
1 Early Diary, March 4, 1775. * Op. cit. Nov. 21, 1775.
1 Journal of Charlotte Arm Burney, probably 1783, printed in the Early Diary.
2



warmly grcctcd, and even too warmly by the Patiënt, who tells me her agitation was too much for her — I little foresaw such an honour would ever have been mine when we so vainly struggled not to dïssatisfy in days of yore hopeless of doing more." 1
These passages show suf ficiently that Mrs. Burney in this family, which clung so much together, had not altogether won the gif la' hearts. Yet Fanny was very obedient to her wishes and when Mrs. Burney objected to her scribbling so much she made a bonfire of all her manuscripts.
When Hetty and Susan came home from Paris, it was decided that Susan should teach Fanny French. Susan had kept a diary for some time and when she came home she wrote an interesting comparison of her two elder sisten Hetty and Fanny:
"The characteristics of Hetty seem to be wit, generosity and openness of heart: — Fanny's, — sense, sensibility and bashfulness, and even a degree of prudery. Her understanding is superior, but her diffidence gives her a bashfulness before company with whom she is not intimate, which is a disadvantage to her. My eldest sister shines in conversation, because, though very modest, she is totally free from any mauuaise honte: were Fanny equally so, I am persuaded she would shine no less. I am afraid that my eldest sister is too communicative, and that my sister Fanny is too reserved. They are both charming girls — des filles comme il y en a
Peu "' , There is a short account of Fanny's education, wntten by
herself: "Frances was the only one of Mr. Burney's family
who never was placed in any seminary, and never was put
under any governess or instructor whatsoever. Merely and
literally self-educated, her sole emulation for improvement,
and sole spur for exertion, were her unbounded veneration
1 Printed by R. Brimley Johnson in: Fanny Burney and the Burneys. * Printed in: Fanny Burney, by Austin Dobson, p. 16.



for the character, and affection for the person of her father; who, nevertheless, had not, at the time, a moment to sparé for giving her any personal lessons; or even for directing her pursuits." 1
To this passage is added in a note: "No truth can be more simply exact than that which is conveyed in four lines of the «tanzas which she addressed to him in the secret dedication of her first work, Evelina, viz.
If in my heart the love of virtue glows
'T was kindled there by an unerring rule;
From thy example the pure flame arose,
Thy life my precept, thy good works my school."
Fanny's education was indeed very different from that of other children. She was left entirely to herself and read whatever books she liked from her father's library. This library possessed only one novel, Fielding's Amelia, which led Macaulay to suppose that she was "by no means a novelreader". * Mrs. Raine Ellis, however, declared that novels were brought into the house if they did not abide in it.
Fanny never had the usual training of compositionwnting, but very soon she became so intimate with her father's friend, Samuel Crisp, that she wrote long letters to him. This correspondence was of great importance to Fanny, as it not only led to a warm friendship, but also gave her part of her education. Mr. Crisp took a keen interest in the Burney children and especially in Fanny, his favourite. Macaulay has described the life of Samuel Crisp and its tragedy, the failure of Virginia. in the Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1843. It is very unlikely, that Crisp was the morose and savage recluse, portrayed by Macaulay. In the
* 'Memoirs of Dr. Burney, Vol. I p. 197.
* Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1843.



diary and letters of Fanny there are several passages which give quite a different picture. Chessington Hall became a second home to the Burneys, and often it was a very lively home too. Mrs. Raine Ellis quotes a passage from Susan's diary:
"Monday night after supper we were all made very merry by Mr. Crisp's suffering his wig to be turn'd the hind part before, and my cap put over it — Hetty's cloak — and Mrs. Gast's apron and ruffles — in this ridiculous trim he danced a minuet with Hetty, personifying Madame Duval, while she acted Mr. Smith at the Long Room, Hampstead!" 1
If James came to Chessington he amused everybody by his cheerfulness and it is obvious from the many descriptions in the Diary that not only the young Burneys enjoyed themselves thoroughly, but Mr. Crisp as well. Fanny once wrote of a gentleman, who reminded her of Mr. Crisp : "He has not so good a face, but it is that sort of face, and his laugh is the very same: for it first puts every feature in comical motion, and then fairly shakes his whole frame, so that there are tokens of thorough enjoyment from head to foot." 1 This portrait is certainly very different from that of Macaulay's gloomy recluse. Many years later Fanny writes about the Chessington hospitality:
"And here, in this long-loved rural abode, during the very few intervals that Mr. Burney could snatch from the toils of his profession, and the cares of his family, he had resorted in his widowhood, with his delighted children, to enjoy the society of this most valued and dearly-loved friend; whose open arms, open countenance, faithful affection, and enchanting converse, greeted the group with such expansive glee, that here, in this long-loved rural abode, the Burneys and happiness seemed to make a stand." '
1 Preface to Early Diary, p. lviii. » Op. cit. p. lix.
* Memoirs of Dr. Burney, Vol. Ip. 210.



Mr. Crisp was delighted with Fanny's letters and in his answers gave her very good advice. In 1773 Fanny writes in her diary:
"I have now entered into a very particular correspondence with Mr. Crisp. I write really a journal to him, and in answer he sends me most delightful long, and incomparably clever, lettert, animadverting upon all the facts etc, which I acquaint him with, and dealing with the utmost sincerity in stating his opinion and giving his advice. I am infinitely charmed with this correspondence — ant I mean — which is not more agreeable than it may prove instructive." 1
There is indeed a very instructive letter, written at this time by Mr. Crisp:
"If once you set about framing studied letters, that are to be correct, nicely grammatical, and run in smooth periods, I shall mind them no otherwise than as newspapers of intelligence. I make this preface, because you have needlessly enjoined me to deal sincerely, and to teil you of your faults; and so let this declaration serve [to teil you] once for all, that there is no fault in an epistolary correspondence like stiffness and study. Dash away whatever comes uppermost; the sudden sallies of imagination, clap'd down on paper, just as they arise, are worth folios, and have all the warmth and merit of that sort of nonsense that is eloquent in love. Never think of being correct when you write to me." *
In another letter Mr. Crisp gives, to some extent, his opinion of Fanny. He warns her against too great sincerity, meaning too great openness.
"You are an exceedingly good child, and I shall cherish you accordingly. You have good and grateful sentiments about you; in short, you have good things in you, and I wish it was in my power to bring about, — but stop,
1 Early Diary, 1773.
1 Op. cit. 1773, no date.



my pen! you are going beyond your line; but there are many valuable people in this wide world of ours, that for want of rightly understanding one another, do not do what Nature seems to have intended they should do; I mean draw close together by mutual attraction. 'T is pity; for the really valuable do not over-abound. The esteem you express for sincerity, shows the world has not infected you with its contagion; but beware of too liberal a use of it, my dear Fanny; 't is a dangerous weapon to carry about one; it is a sword that is very apt to eat into the scabbard and wound its owner. At my time of life it is not worth while to change one's old habits; but, if I were to begin the world again, I should certainly carry it very much muffled up. You have drawn a very good picture of two brothers, and strikingly like I believe; I am sure one is so; and as sure all I have seen of the other is so.
"As for sincerity, Fanny, such a young, untainted, unhackneyed mind as your own may naturally enough be struck with the bright side of it; but take the word of an old sufferer; it ten times hurts the owner for once it does any good to the hearer; whom you are to thank and be highly obliged to, if he does not from that moment become your enemy. Whenever, therefore, you have heated your imagination with these glowing, generous, great sentiments let me recommend to you by way of a cooler, to reflect on the following lines1 in the mouth of a more wary character —
What! Shall I wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at?'"*
i . "T is not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve For daws to peck at".
Othcllo I sc. i.
» Early Diary, 1773. no date.



Mr. Crisp had indeed a high opinion of Fanny's character. In his gratitude for her constant attention when he was ill, he remarked:
"This, surrounded as you are with everything that is splendid, gay, bright, and happy, shows a heart not of the common sort — not to be changed by a change of situation and circumstances, or the favour and smiles of the world." 1
Those who knew Fanny well, trusted her entirely. The uncouth Kitty Cooke, who used to amuse the guests at Chessington by her absurd speeches, was fond of her. Mr. Crisp writes in 1778: "Honest Kate, my only Housemate at present, says, 'I love Fanny, because she is sincere'." *
But it was not only this correspondence with Mr. Crisp which formed her education. Mr. Brimley Johnson has very justly pointed out that she was not a neglected child, uneducated and more or less gutter-bred. The home atmosphere was not academie and she never had the regular education of other children who go to school, but "she had the best of all education: a knowledge of men indifferent to the convention, in mental 'undress' revealing their true selves, enjoying life, and eager about the realities of heart and mind." *
Among the famous friends of Dr. Burney, Garrick was the most intimate. He was fond of the children and his morning vitits were a delight to them. The description which Fanny has given in her diary of one of these visits gives a lively picture of the Burney household in the early morning, before breakfaat:
"Two days after the above rencontre, early in the morning, the most entertaining of mortals, Mr. Garrick, came. He marched up stairs immediately into the study, where my
* Printed in the Preface to: Fanny Burney at the Court of Queen Charlotte, by Constance HUL
* Preface to the Early Diary, p. lxxxii note.
* R. Brimley Johnson: Fanny Burney and the Burneys.



father was having his hair dresscd, surrounded by books and papers innumerable. Charlotte was reading the newspaper, and I was making breakfast. The rest of the family had not quitted their downy pillows.
"My father was beginning a laughing sort of apology for his litters, and so forth, but Mr. Garrick interrupted him with — 'Ave, now; do be in a little confusion; it will make things comforttble!' He then began to look very gravely at the hair-dresser. He was himself in a most odious scratch wig, which nobody but himself could dare be seen in. He put on a look in the Abel Drugger style of envy and sadness, as he examined the hair-dresser's progress; and, when he had done, he turned to him with a dejected face, and said, 1?ray, Sir, could you touch up this a little?' taking hold of his own frightful scratch.
"The man only grinned and left the room. "He shook hands with me and told my father he had almost run away with me a day or two before. He then enquired after some books which he had lent my father, and how many he had? . . .
"He then ran on with great humour upon twenty subjects; but so much of his drollery belongs to his voice^ looks and manners, that writing loses it almost all.
"My father asked him to breakfast; but he said he was engaged at home with Mr. Boswell and Mr. Twiss. He thea took the latuw off. as he did also Dr. Arne very comically; and afterwards, Dr. Johnson, in a little convettation concerning the borrowing a book of him. 'David, will you lend me Petraca?' (sk). 'Yes, Sir\ 'David, you sigh'. 'Sir, you shall have it'. Accordingly, the book, fiaely bound, was tent; but scarce had he received it, when uttering a Latin ejaculation (which Mr. Garrick repeated) in a fit of enthusiasm, — over his head goes poor Petraca, — Rustia leather and all!
"He soon afterwards started up, and said, he must run. *Not yct', cried I. He turaed to me, and in mock heroics



cried, 'Ah! I will make your heart ache! You shall sigh'.
"He then went out of the study, followed by my father, and he took a survey of the books in the library. Charlotte and I soon joined them. He called Charlotte his little Dumpling Queen. 'See how she follows me with her blushes! and here comes another with her smiles — (to me) ay, I see how it is! all the house in love with me! Here is one (to Charlotte) whose love is in the bud, and here (to me) here it is in blow; and now (to my father) I go to one, whose is full-blown; full-bioum, egad!'
"He would not be prevailed with to lengthen his visit We all followed him intuitively down stairs; though he assured us he would not pilfer anything! 'There is a certain maid here', said he, 'whom I love to speak to, because she is cross: Egad! Sir, she does not know the Great Roscius; but I frightened her this morning a little. Child, said I, you don't know who you have the happiness to speak to! Do you know I am one of the first Genuises of the Age? Why, child, you would faint away, if you knew who I am!'
"In this sportive manner he continued, till the door was shut He is sensible that we all doat on him; but I believe it is the same thing wherever he goes, except where he has had a personal quarrel, which, I am sorry to hear, is frequenüy the case with those who have been his best friends. He promised he would often call in the same sort of way, to plague us; we assured him we would freely forgive him if he did. In truth, I desire no better entertainment than his company af fords.'1
It was at home in St. Martin's Street that Fanny met Mrs. Thrale and Dr. Johnson for the first time. She was hardly noticed herself, but this gave her an opportunity quietly to observe the celebrated visitors. Her first impression of Dr. Johnson is:
1 Early Diary, March 26, 1775. The same visit is described more at length in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, Vol. Ip. 345.



"He is, indeed, very ill-favoured; is tall and stout; but stoops terribly, he is almost bent doublé. His mouth is almost [constantly opening and shutting], as if he was chewing. He has a strange method of frequently twirling his fingers and twisting his hands. His body is in continual agitation, see-saiving up and down; his feet are never a moment quiet; and, in short, his whole person is in perpetual motion. His dress too, considering the times, and that he had meant to put on his best becomes, being engaged to dine in a large company, was as much out of the common road as his figure; he had a large wig, snuff-colour coat, and gold buttons, but no rttffles to his [shirt], doughty fists, and black worsted stockings. He is shockingly nearsighted, and did not, till she held out her hand to him, even know Mrs. Thrale." 1
According to Mrs. Raine Ellis, some words in this passage have afterwards been changed. She has a strong suspickm that 'doughty fists' was originally 'dirty fists'. This fitst description of Dr. Johnson is interesting, for though Fanny had a great veneration for Dr. Johnson before she was personally acquainted with him, she was atill an impartial observer. Afterwards, her friendship with him prevented her describing him so freely. In 1778 she writes about his infirmities, but the passage is omitted from the Diary and Letters.
"The sight of them can never excite ridicule, or, indeed, any other than melancholy ref lections upon the imperfections of Human Nature; for this man, who is the acknowledged Head of Lfterature in this Kingdom, and who has the most extensive knowledge, the clearest understanding, and the greatest abilities of any living author, has a face the most ugly, a person the most awkward, and manners the most singular that ever were, or even can be seen. But all that is unfortunate in his exterior, is so greatly compensated for
* Early Diary, Marcb 28, 1777-



in his interior, that I can only, like Desdemona to Othello, 'See his visage in his mind'. His conversation is so replete with instruction and entertainment, his wit is so ready, and his language at once so original and comprehensive, that I hardly know any satisfaction I can receive equal to listening to him." 1
Sir Joshua Reynolds was also a great friend of the Burneys, and a great many foreign musicians called on Dr. Burney. Among these were Lucrezia Agujari, Caterina Gabrielli and Pacchieroti. Dr. Burney arranged private concerts and on these occasions not only celebrated artists, but also men of letters and persons of high rank assembled in St. Martin's Street. Among the 'lions' who were in London at the time and who called on Dr. Burney were Omai, brought to England by a South Sea expedition, James Bruce, the Abyssinian traveller and Alex Orloff, the Russian who had helped to strangle Peter III. Unlike her sisters Fanny never performed at these concerts which made her enjoy them all the more. Here she had ample opportunity to observe all sorts and conditions of men and probably had the best school that might be found for a young novelist
At the wish of her step-mother Fanny had given up writing romances and tragedies and she even had made a bonfire of all her treasures, but the inclination to write had become so strong that she started a diary. Her Earty Diary, edited by Annie Raine Ellis, was written from 1768 to 1778. It was started shortly after Dr. Burney's second marriage and went on till the publication of Evelina.
Reading this juvenile journal we very soon find that the first Mrs. Burney was right and that we do not nearly know Fanny, while we judge from appearances or trust to the statements of her friends and even of her nearest relations. We are surprised to find that this extremely timid and diffident girl, who in early youth was considered decidedly
1 Printed from the Burney MSS. in the Early Diary. p. 154 note.



dull and backward and of whom Lord Macaulay said that she did not really mingle with the brilliant people who visited her father's house, had a keen sense of humour, a sprightly vivacity and an unusual power of observation. As she never joined in the conversation of her own accord and, though a great lover of music, was not a performer, as were her sisters Hetty and Susan, she was allowed to sit in a quiet corner by herself or with some of the younger members of the company. Yet, although not actually taking part in the conversation, she noticed everything that was going on and keenly observed the different types of people who came her way. When the company had left, Fanny used to write down her impressions in her journal and we find that then she lived the whole scène over again, but with what a sense of the ridiculous, what sprightliness, what penetrating observation of character! The fanciful introduction to the diary, directed to Nobody, is certainly not what we should expect from 'the little dunce', and, from her first description of a tea-party, we find that, though timid in company, Fanny could be full of spirits when alone with her diary. After a very high-flown description of the party she says:
"It would be miraculeus had I power to maintain the same glowing enthusiasm — the same — on my word I can not go on, my imagination is raised too high, it soars above this little dirty sphere, it transports me beyond mortality — it conveys me to the Elysian fields — but my ideas grow confused — I fear you cannot comprehend my meaning — all I shall add, is to beg you would please to attribute your not understanding the sublimity of my sentiments to your own stupidity and dulness of apprehension, and not to my want of meaning which is only too fine to be clear.
"After this beautiful flow of expression, refinement of sentiment and exaltation of ideas, can I meanly descend to common life? can I basely stoop to relate the particulars



of common life? can I condescendingly deign to recapitulate vulgar conversation? I can!
"O what a falling off is here! — what a chatter there was! — However I was not engaged in it. . . and therefore, on a little consideration, a due sense of my own superlative merit convinces me that to mention anything more of the matter would be nonsense. Adieu, then, most amiable — who? Nobody?"1
Though generally not in quite such an exalted style, these early pages show how full of spirits she could be, if only no strangers were near. In July of the same year, writing at Lynn, she gives her impressions and her criticism of the Lynn society:
"Such a set of tittle tattle, prittle prattle visitants! Oh dear! I am so sick of the ceremony and fuss of these fall lall people! So much dressing — chit chat — complimentary
nonsense. — In short, a Country Town is my detestation 
all the conversation is scandal, all the attention, dress, and almost all the heart, folly, envy and censoriousness. A City or a village are the only places which I think, can be comfortable, for a Country Town, I think bas all the bad qualities, without one of the good ones, of both."
To Fanny, who was used to the society of men like her father, Reynolds and Garrick, this country town society was entirely new. Her sense of humour, her aversion to affectation and her truthfulness made her despise this narrow-minded circle. We also see her contempt of dress here. Dress is a word which we hardly find in Fanny's diary. She only seems to have paid attention to it in order to look tidy. She did not like carelessness in dress, for afterwards we hear her criticize the Duchess of Devonshire who walked in Hyde Park with her curls undone. But she had so little real interest in dress that it is hardly ever mentioned in her diary or letters. In fact, while talking about a comedy
1 Early Diary, May 30, 1768.



in which she had performed with her cousins in Worcester, having spoken at length about the scènes and performers, she says:
"By the way I have forgot to mention dresses"1, and then she gives one of her very few descriptions of dress.
Though shy of expressing her deeper feelings, Fanny seems to have taken her sister Susan entirely into her confidence, as she herself was in Susan's. "The only one I could wholly, totally confide in, lives in the same house with me, and not only never has, but never will, leave me one secret to teil her." * Susan was the darling of the family and, next to her father, Fanny loved her better than anybody else. The description of Susan's severe illness shows how Fanny suffered from the fear of losing this much beloved sister.
Mr. Heckford, the apothecary had been sent for.
"he beg'd that a physician might be directly applied to, as she was in a very dangerous way! — O my good God! what did poor Hetty and myself suffer! — Dr. Armstrong was sent for — and my good Aunt Nanny who is the best nurse in England, tender, careful, and affectionate, and but too well experienced in illness. We were much inclined to send an express after my dear papa to Lynn, but resolved to wait while we possibly could. Unfortunately Mr., Mrs. and Miss Molly Young all came very early to spend the day here — I never went to them, or from Susy, till dinner, and then I could eat none, nor speak a word. Never, I believe, shall I forget the shock I received that night. The fever increased — she could not swallow her medicines, and was quite delirious — Mr. Heckford said indeed she had a very poor chance of recovery! He endeavour'd himself to give jher her physick, which he said was absolutely necesaary, but in vain — she rambled — breathed short, and
» Op. cit. April 7, 1777-
» Introduction to her Diary, March 27, 1768.



was terribly suffering — her disorder he pronounced an inflammation of the breast — 'I am sorry to say it', said he.'but indeed at best she stands a very poor chance!' I feit my blood freeze — I ran out of the room in an anguish
beyond thought — and all I could do was to almost rave 
and prat/, in such an agony!" 1
But Susan recovered and shortly afterwards Fanny writes: "My sweet Susette is almost well. I think of nothing else but to thank God Almighty enough, which I am obliged to run out of the room to do twenty times a day for else I cannot breathe — I feel as if I had an asthma except when I am doing that."
Fanny's piety, which we shall find throughout her Kfe, was already strong in her youth. When quite young she read books on religious subjects. In her Diary, written at Lynn between May 30 and July 17, 1768 she says:
"I am reading the Letters of Henry and Frances1 and like them prodigiously". And a little further on:
"the greatest part of the last volume of Henry and Frances is wrote by Henry — and on the gravest of grave
subjects, and that which is most dreadful to our thoughts 
Eternal Misery. Religion in general is the subject to all the latter part of these Leffers, and this is particularly treated on. I don't know that I ever read finer sentiments on piety and Christianity, than the second vol. abounds with indeed, most of the Letters might be call'd with very little alteration — Essays on Religion. I own I differ from him in many of his thoughts, but in fat many more I am delighted with him."
Though mainly agreeing with the authors, Fanny obviously thought for herself and did not follow blindly. This is far more clear in a passage, written at the same time, on
1 Early Diary, Jan. 7, 1769.
» Letters of Henry and Frances. by Richard and Elizabeth Griffith.



a book by Elizabeth Rowe, from whom she differs greatly in opinion:
"I have just finished Mrs. Rowe's Letters from the Dead to the Living — and moral and entertaining — I had heard a great deal of them before I saw them, and I am sorry to teil you I was much disappointed with them: they are so very enthusiastick, that the religion she preaches rather disgusts and cloys than charms and elevates — and so romantiek, that every word betrays improbability, instead of disguising fiction, and displays the Author, instead of human nature. For my own part, I cannot be much pleased without an appearance of truth; at least of possibility — I wish the story to be natural tho' the sentiments are refined; and the characters to be probable tho' their behaviour is excelling."
As has already been said Fanny's love for her father was particularly strong. Between Febr. 16 and May 15, 1769 she writes how very happy and satisfied she is at home and continues: "How strongly, how forcibly do I feel to whom I owe all the earthly happiness I enjoy! — It is to my fatherI to this dearest, most amiable, this best beloved — most worthy of men! — it is his goodness to me which makes all appear so gay, it is his affection which makes my sun shine." Then her religion comes in and she goes on: "But if to this parent I owe all my comfort — it is to my God I owe him\ and that God who hath given to me this treasure which no earthly one can equal, alone knows the value I set on it." In the same passage Fanny says:
"I am in a moralizing humour. — How truly does this Journal contain my real and undisguised thoughts! I always write in it accogding to the humour I am in, and if any stranger was accidentally reading it, how capricious, inconsistent and whimsical I must appear! One moment flighty and half mad, — the next sad and melancholy. No matter! it's truth and simplicity are it's sole recommendation."



Wc sec from this that Fanny was absolutely sincere in her diary at the time. This fact is important, as Fanny's truthfulness has been doubted. Another thing we learn from the passage is Fanny's variability of mood. This agrees with the statement of her parente that she was uncommonly sensitive. Though she had very little control over her features and generally betrayed her feelings, she tried hard to conceal them. She was in sad distress when her father had found a page from her diary in July, 1768 and hardly dared ask for it She was so annoyed that her father had read her 'private scribblings' that she tore it up as soon as she got is back. Anything public seemed terrible to her. About the same time she writes:
"We have just had a wedding — a publick wedding — and very fine it was I assure you... The walk that leads UP to the church was crowded almost incredibly a prodigious mob indeed!1 — I'm sure I trembkd for the bride.
O what a gauntlet for any woman of delicacy to run! 
Mr. Bagg handed the bride and her company out of their coach, and then Mr. Case took her hand and led her to the church door, and the bridegroom followed handing Mr* Case. O how short a time does it take to put an eternal end to a woman's liberty! I don't think they were a quarter of an hour in the church altogether. — Bless me! it would not be time enough, I should think, for a poor creature to see where she was — I verily believe I should insist on sitting an hour or two to recover my spirits — I declare my heart ach'd to think how terrible the poor Bride's feelings must be to walk by such crowds of people, the occasion in itself so awful! How little does it need the addition of that frightful mob! In my conscience I fear that if it had been me, I should never have had courage to get out of the coach. — Indeed, I feel I should behave very foolishly... Well of all things in the world, I don't
1 The punctuation it Fanny's. 8



suppose anything can be so dreadful as a publick wedding — my stars! I should never be able to support it!" 1
Though this passage is described with the quiet humour which we find so of ten in her diary, we feel that her aversion to pubhxity is very real. It was a good thing for 'poor Fan' that she could not foresee how much she herself would be stared at in later days by the brilliant company assembled at Bath and Brighton.
In those days she also writes about love. Though she says herself that she is running on and has to check herself, the main point is very clear: she has a strong desire to give love.
"I am going to teil you something concerning myself, which (if I have not chanced to mention it before) will, I believe, a little surprise you — it is, that I scarce wish for anything so truly, really, and greatly, as to be in love — upon my word I am serious — and very gravely and sedately, assure you it is a real and fnxe wish. I cannot help thinking it is a great happiness to have a strong and particplar attachment to some one person, independent of duty, interest, reUtionship or pleasure; but I carry not my wish so far as for a mutuat tendresse. No, I should be contented to love Sola — and let Dueto be reserved for those who have a proper sense of their superiority. For my own part, I vow and declare that the mere pleasure of having a great affection for some one person to which I was neither guided by fear, hope of profit, gratitude, respect, or any motive but mere fancy, would suffkiendy satisfy me, and I should not at all wish a return. Bless me — how I run on! foolish and ill-judged! how despicable a picture have I drawn of an object of Love! mere giddiness, not inclination, I am sure, penn'd it — Love without respect or gratitude! — that could only be feit for a person wholly undeserving—but indeed I write so much at random, that it is much more a
1 Op. cit. July 1768.



chance if I know what I am saying than if I do not."
The feeling is still immature, but the inclination to give love is already awake in Fanny when just sixteen, an inchnation which we shall meet with throughout the life of this woman who loved deeply and was loved in return and who had a real gift for making friends.
While staying at Chessington where she knew the people so well, Fanny seems to have got over her diffidence and was sometimes in very high spirits. In her diary, written at Chessington in September 1774, we find an amusing descnption of her intention to write a ( Treatise upon Politeness'. She kept up the joke well and for once did not seem to mind attracting the general attention.
When she was twenty-two, Fanny received her first offer of marriage. Her father and Mrs. Burney strongly approved of the match, and Mr. Barlow, the young man, found a warm advocate in Fanny's eldest sister Hetty. Mr. Crisp who had his information from Hetty spoke in favour of Mr. Barlow and warned Fanny: "Oh, Fan, this is not a marrying age, without a handsome Fortune!" But Fanny did not care for Mr. Barlow. When she had met him for the first time she described him in her journal:
"Mr. Barlow is rather short, but handsome. He is a very well-bred, . . . good-tempered and sensible young man . And he is highly spoken of both for disposition and morals. He has read more than he has conversed, and seems to know but httle of the world; his language therefore is stiff and uncommon, and seems laboured, if not affected — he has a great desire to please, but no elegance of manners; neither, though he may be very worthy, is he at all agreeable." 1
This description shows how very little interest Fanny took in Mr. Barlow and she did not change her mind upon closer acquaintance. After his proposal she writee:
"I took not a moment to deliberate. — I feit that my
1 Op. cit. May 8, 1775.



heart was totally insensible — and I feit that I could never consent to unite myself to a man who I did not very highly value."
She declared that she had rather a thousand tunes die an old maid than be married, except from affection. Her friends tried to persuade her not to refuse to see Mr. Barlow again, but Fanny says: "How [can] I see more o£Mr. Barlow Without encouraging him to believe I am willing to think of him? I detest all trifling. If ever I marry, my consent shall be prompt and unaffected."
From her conversation with her father too, when she said that she asked for nothing but to live with him, we find that Fanny was in no hurry to change her situation and was perfectly happy at home. She dung to her people as throughout her life she clung to old friends and relations.
Her sense of humour is obvious in the Early Diary and her descriptions of parties continually improve. In the Worcester Journal are several very fine descriptions containing some excellent character sketches, as for example those of her cousin Richard, Mrs. Wall and Dr. Wall. Fanny was fond of home-life. Though glad occasionally to go to concerts or to the theatre, she thought that real happiness should be sought at home. Her scornfull remark1 about Mrs. Wall in this connectkm speaks for itself. Her description of the two plays, acted at her uncle's house m Worcester, is excellent and was obviously written not long before the publication of Evelina.
This act of publication shows great courage in Fanny. It was not considered proper for young ladies in the eighteenth century to read novels, and certainly not to write them. It is true that Fanny took all possible precautions to conceal her authorship, but she must have known herself that in case of success it could not remain secret. She hoped for success, though she hardly dared confess it to
* Early Diary. on her visit to Gloucester, between April and July 1777-



herself and nobody could have expected Evelina to succeed so well as it actually did. She started the novel for her own pleasure and meant it to be read only by Susan and possibly a few other ïntimate friends, but she was probably encouraged by Mr. Crisp's high opinion of her letters and gradually the thought of publication occurred to her. Her extreme terror of discovery might at first appear exaggerated, but seems only natural if we consider her great dif fidence and her aversion to all pubücity. Fanny's timidity has sometimes been called affectation \ but at this period of her life at any rate, it was only too real. She hoped no doubt for success and waited with amused curiosity to see where this adventure might lead, but her fear of having to face the world one day as the author of Evelina, was prevalent over all the various sensations she feit at that exciting period of her life, and it required great courage on her part to decide on publication at all in face of these difficulties.
1 Cf. the Quarterly Re view, April 1833.



Chapter II
THE SUCCESSFUL AUTHOR
The First Two Novels
Evelina; or, A young Lady's Entrance into the World offers ample opportunity for us to become acquainted with Fanny Burney's views on life at the age of twenty-five. In March 1778 she wrote in her diary:
"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 dof
This passage in her private diary is important. It shows that we have to expect a picture of life as seen through the eyes of a woman, though in this case a very young and inexperienced woman. This is totally different from the earlier novels where we only get to know the situation as seen by men. All the great novelists were men and even the lady-novelists did not treat their subjects from a specially feminine point of view. Mrs. Manley for example Charlotte Lennox and Hannah More wrote political and social satires. But Fanny Burney had no interest in politics and knew very little about them. She considered this too masculine a subject for a woman. Macaulay justly said:
"Evelina was the first tale written by a woman and purporting to be a picture of life and manners, that hved or deserved to live." 1
* Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1843.



In the charactcr of the heroine Evelina we recognize much of Fanny's character. Like Fanny, Evelina is extremely shy. Her tunidity is part of her nature and not merely due to the fact that she has been brought up in the country with hardly any other company than Mr. Villars, and then placed all at once in the midst of London society. Her awkwardness might be less, but her shyness was not gone when she returned to Berry HUI. She is very emotional. but at the same time extremely simple, without the slightest tracé of affectation. To the modern reader this emotionality of ten seems affectation, but we should not forget that Fanny Burney hyed in the eighteenth century, when sensibility was considered a most becoming attribute of a young lady After comparing Evelina's behaviour with the affectation or the people she meets in society we become convinced of her simpliaty, laugh as she does at all affectation. There is a good example of this in the description of her first appearance in London society:
"Not long after, a young man, who had for some time Iooked at us with a kind of negligent impertinence advanced on tiptoe towards me; he had a set smüe on his face, and his dress was so foppish, that I really believe he even wished to be stared at; and yet he was very ugly.
"Bowing almost to the ground with a sort of swing, and wavmg his hand with the greatest conceit, after a short and «lly pause, he said. 'Madam — may I presume?' — and stopt, offering to take my band. I drew it back, but could scarce forbear laughing. 'Allow me, Madam', continued he, affectedly breakmg off every half moment, 'the honour and happiness — if I am not so unhappy as to address you too late — to have the happiness and honour —.'
Again he would have taken my hand; but bowing my head, I begged to be excused, and turned to Miss Mirvan to conceal my laughter. He then desired to know if I had already engaged myself to some more fortunate man? I said no, and that I believed I should not dance at all. He would



keep himself. he told me, disengaged, in hopes I should relent; and then, uttering some ridiculous speeches of sorrow and disappomtment. though hia face still wore the same üwariable smile, he retreated."1 j _.
There are already similar descriptions in the Early Diary, such as those of her cousin Richard, and there are a good many others in her later diary and novels. Fanny possessed to a high degree the gift of detecting affectation and of showing it in a most ridiculous light, though her descriptions are always good-humoured.
Evelina is tender-hearted, as is evident from her behaviour towards Madame Duval. She disliked staying with her grandmother and she had very good reason to do so, but she strongly disapproved of the manner in which this elderly woman was treated by Captain Miryan and it made her feel more kindly towards her than she had done before.
In this respect, as in many others. the heroine of the novel resembles the authoress. Both from her diary and from other people's descriptions we get the impression that hanny was kind-hearted. At first sight this seems inconsistent with the obvious pleasure she takes in describing such coarse scènes as the tricks of Captain Mirvan played on Madame Duval or on Mr. Lovel, and the wager laid on a race for old women. To usthose scènes are cruel and the fun seems puerile, but in this respect Fanny is the child of her age and as Edith. J. Morley says*, some manners have softened since. bimilar acenes were frequently depicted at the time and people enioyed reading them or seeing them on the stage. Edith Morley gives as an example the trick played on his mother by Tony Lumpkin in Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer. It is very likely that there is influence of Smollett here. Though some people objected, yet most readers of Fanny s novel enjoyed those scènes tremendously. The Streatham
1 Evelina, Letter XI. ... ,
* Fanny Burney. by Edith J. Morley. English Associatie, pamphlet 60.



circle, for example, made no objcctions at all, while Mr. Crisp and Dr. Burney did not care for them. Some objections to the character of Captain Mirvan came from naval officers, such as Admiral Byron and Lord Mulgrave. The Monthty Review after strongly recommending the novel, said:
'Trom this commendation we must, however, except the character of a son of Neptune, whose manners are rather those of a rough, uneducated country squire than those of a genuine sea-captain."1
But Fanny protested that all naval officers were of that type, and we must allow her some authority as she herself had a sailor-brother who certainly was not worse than the rest of his dass, for he was greatly liked by his many friends. She writes in her diary: "However, 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 beaus, 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 sof ten his character." * If we consider Fanny Burney in the light of her time, a few coarse scènes in Evelina do not seem sufficiënt reason to deny her a tenderness of heart, whkh is obvious not only in her other writings, but also in the more tender parts of Evelina itself.
Besides her kindness of heart it was also her respect for age which made Evelina polite and obedient to Madame Duval. This feeling she showed to all people considerably older than herself, but in the case of Madame Duval it was also her duty as a granddaughter, which she feit strongly. In the same way, though here mixed with tender love, she had a feeling of révérence and duty for her adopted father Mr. Villars. And even her own profligate father, who had behaved so infamously towards her mother and herself.
1 Monthly Review, April 1778.
* Diary and Letters, spring 1780, written at Bath.



had his share of her filiai tenderness. Yet she had a profound respect not only for age, but also for rank. When she feit entremely awkward at her first ball owing to her ignorance of the manners of polite society, her timidity was greatly increased by hearing that her partner was a lord.
"In a short time we were joined by Miss Mirvan, who stood next couple to us. But how was I startled when she whispered me that my partner was a nobleman! This gave me a new alarm: how will he be provoked, thought I, when he finds what a simple rustic he has honoured with his choke! one whose ignorance of the world makes her perpetually fear doing something wrong!
"That he should be so much my superior every way, quite disconcerted me." 1
Her respect for rank k obvious in thk passage. However, it is not a blind admiration, for soon afterwards she says: "It was then I saw that the rank of Lord Orville was hk least recommendation, his understanding and his manners being far more distinguished", while afterwards persons of rank such as Sir Clement Willoughby and Lord Merton are severely critkized. It is interesting to see Fanny's opinion on the subject at this period, compared with her views in later life when she sometimes went beyond the bounds of reason in her blind admiration for royalty.
In spite of Evelina's usual timidity, she could act with spirit and firmness if necessary, as for example in the scène when Mr. Macaröiey wants to commit suicide.2 Mr. Villars gives hk (we might as well say Fanny Burney's) opinion on the subject;.:.
"The pistol scène made me shudder; the courage with which you pursued this desperate man, at once delighted and terrified me. Be ever thus, my dearest Evelina, dauntless in the cause of distress! let no weak fears, no timid doubts.
1 Evelina, Letter XI. » Op. cit. Letter XLIII.



deter you from the exertion of your duty according to the fullest sense of it that Nature has implanted in your mind. Though gentleness and modesty are the peculiar attributes of your sex, yet fortitude and firmness, when occasion demands them, are virtues as noble and as becoming in women as in men: the right line of conduct is the same for both sexes, though the manner in which it is pursued may somewhat vary, and be accomodated to the strength or weakness Of the different travellers." 1
The demure Evelina had a great deal to criticize in the people she met in society, though she did not show it. Coxcombs like Mr. Lovel made good sport for her and she took a delight in describing their affectations. Even persons of rank like Lady Louisa Larpent were not safe from her, and, especially when they behaved in a manner which did not agree with Evelina's opinion on propriety, they were severely criticized. Her behaviour towards Sir Clement Willoughby was very dignified and when he became offensive she even conquered her timidity so far as to act with spirit. Evelina was a warm friend. She feit a sincere friendship for Mrs. Mirvan and especially for her daughter Maria. When, after a long absence, she suddenly heard of Maria's being near, she ran to meet her and arranged to continue the journey with Maria, leaving her beloved Lord Orville to Captain Mirvan.2 In this Evelina again greatly resembles Fanny Burney, that is to say the spontaneous Fanny, as she really was, not influenced by the advice of others or by prudish considerations of her own.* Spontaneity accounts to a large extent for the charm of Fanny's first novel.
Though Evelina did not actually speak about religion in her letters, we gather from her whole attitude towards life
1 Op. cit. Letter L.
* Op. cit. Letter LXXXIII.
* Cf. her behaviour towards Madame de Staël and Madame de Genlis. Diary and Letters 1793 and August 1786.



that she was religious. Fanny Burney did not make Evelina moralize much, as she made Cecilia do afterwards. Evelina was too much taken up by her practical troubles and she was younger, too, than Cecilia. But her morals are perfectly clear from her own actions and from her criticism of other people.
Edith J. Morley1, speaking about Fanny as the pioneer of the novel of manners or the tea-table novel, mentions the shopping-expedition ( as being typical. And so it certainly is, for such commonplaces are not found in literature before. Fanny intended to write a plain story and that is what makes her novels stand far nearer to the modern novel than any that had appeared before Evelina. Yet most women would have described that shopping-expedition differently. It is characteriatic of Fanny Burney that she treats it only as an excursion, describes the large shops and makes fun of the affected shop-assistents who served Evelina, but never mentions what silks and other materials she liked best and actually chose. Very few girls would have talked at length about their first ball without mentioning their own dresses and what the other people wore. We are just told that Evelina feit strange when she had her hair 'dressed' for the first time. The subject seemed of no importance whatever to Fanny Burney. We have to guess what the persons in her books really looked like from late eighteenth century pictures' and from the descriptions of contemporaries, süch as those in the letters of Mrs. Delany. *
Evelina is, as we have seen, to a great extent a portrait
» Fanny Burney, by Edith J. Morley, Engl. Ass. pamphkt 60. Miss Morley is wrong here. Fanny Burney is the pioneer of the tea-table novel, but the novel of manners is much older. as Miss Ch. E. Morgan has proved in: The Rise of the Novel of Mannen.
* Evelina, Letter X.
« Very useful is the beautiful edition of Evelina by Sir Frank D. Mackinnon, 1930.
* Autobiography and Correspondence of Mts. Delany, by Lady Llanover.



of Fanny Burney herself. The heroïne of the novel is younger and less experienced than the authoress, but their characters are the same. Evelina is the picture of a typical eighteenth century girl. Though endowed with personal beauty and great purity of mind, she is, as Fanny says in the pref ace:
" *No faultless monster that the world ne'er saw',1 but the offspring of Nature in her simplest attire."
What Fanny avoided so successfully in the character of the heroine, she did not avoid in Lord Orville, the ideal yo\ ng man. A girl of seventeen may dream of such a lover, but she could not have met him in real life, and it seems surprising that Fanny, with her knowledge of human character, should still believe in his existence. However, when we consider under what influence she wrote, there is no longer much reason for surprise. As has been pointed out by W. Dibelius, there can be little doubt that this character is strongly influenced by Sir Charles Grandison:
"Der Held Lord Orville ist von höchster Richardsonscher Tugend". *
In the Preface Fanny declares herself "softened by the pathetic powers of Richardson", but in the same passage she says that she is "exhilarated by the wit of Fielding". We may have wished that her acquaintance with Fielding's novels should have given some life and spirit to her hero, but we cannot really expect a hero like Tom Jones to appeal to the prudish Fanny Burney. It is far more likely that Richardson, who was so much admired both by men and women, not only in England, but in a great part of Europe, should influence the timid Miss Burney in spite of her sense of humour. Besides, as Mrs. Kooiman says», Richardson
1 Essay on Poetry, by John Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham.
* W. Dibelius: Englische Romankunst. Band II. Der Frauenroman, p. 8.
•Mrs. G. M. Kooiman-van Middendorp: The Hero in the Feminine
Novel.



knew the fcminine mind so well, that he was able to create a hero, who answered the feminine ideal to perfection. Consequently the character of Lord Orville need not be explained as a mere slavish imitation of Sir Charles Grandison, but seems the natural result of eighteenth century feminine ideals. Dr. Burney's opinion is characteristic:
"Lord Orville's character is just what it should be; perfectly benevolent and upright: and there is a boldness in it that struck me mightily, for he is a man not ashamed of being better than the rest of mankind." 1
Whatever may have been the influence of Richardson on the hero and heroine, there is certainly no Richardsonian influence in the excellent descriptions of the vulgar characters As we have seen, the Burney children used to mix with all sorts and conditions of men. They were used to the great men of the age coming to their home and having supper with them, but they also played with the children of poor neighbours. It seems unlikely that Fanny should have mixed with lower class people after her childhood. but these early experiences seem to have made a deep ïmpression. Besides, without actually mixing with them, a girl with such an extraordinary power of observation as Fanny's, must have had some opportunity to observe the manners of such people as the Branghtons in the London shops and in public places such as Ranelagh and Vauxhall. As in polite society, Fanny is most successful here when she describes affectation. Mr. Smith, the Holborn beau, is one of the best drawn characters in her novels. Dr. Johnson was enthusiastic in his praise:
"'Oh, you are a sly little rogue! what a Holborn beau have you drawn!'
"'Ay Miss Burney', said Mrs. Thrale, 'the Holborn beau is Dr. Johnson's favourite; and we have all your characters by heart, from Mr. Smith up to Lady Louisa'. 
* Diary and Letters. June 18, 1778.



'"Oh, Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith is the man!* criedhe, laughing
violently. 'Harry Fielding never drew so good a character! 
such a fine varnish of low polkeness! — such a struggle to appear a gentleman! Madam, there is no character better drawn any where — in any book or by any author.'"1
Another character, important with regard to Fanny Burney's views on people is Mrs. Selwyn. This lady, who really had a kind heart, delighted in giving herself masculine airs and was extremely sarcastic towards the affected young men of society. In return she was detested by them, though feared too. Not only the men, but Evelina herself found fault with her satirical friend. She wrote to Maria Mirvan: "Mrs. Selwyn is very kind and attentive to me. She is extremely clever: her understanding, indeed, may be called masculine: but, unfortunately, her manners deserve the same epithet; for, in studying to acquire the knowledge of the other sex, she has lost all softness of her own. In regard to myself, however, as I have neither courage nor inclination to argue with her, I have never been personally hurt at her want of gentleness; a virtue which, nevertheless, seems só essential a part of the female character, that I find myself more awkward, and less at ease, with a woman who wants it, than I do with a man."*
We should not from this passage draw the conclusion that Fanny meant to express an unfavourable opinion on blue-stockings. We shall see that she could be friends with the blues and that she greatly admired them. though she never really was one herself. But the reigning blues had not lost their "female softness" and it is only to the masculine type of woman that Fanny objects. Her opinion of Mrs. Selwyn is sufficiënt to convince us of the fact, even if we had not already found from her dkry how truly feminine Fanny was in character and in taste.
1 Diary and Letters, Aug. 23, 1778. * Evelina, Letter LXII.



Dr. Johnson, speaking about her work. said: Evelina seems a work that should result from long expenence and deep and intimate knowledge of the world; vet il.hasi been written without either. Miss Burney is a real wonder. What she is, she is intuitively."1
Cecilia was published in July 1782, four years after the publication of Evelina. When her first novel appeared Fanny was living in the happy Burney family and met her father's numerous friends. She was, however, still the shy young girl, loved and appreciated by her friends. though even they did not suspect her of being a great noyelist. and she was utterly unknown outside her own circle. The publication of Evelina made a tremendous change in her life. The timid girl all at once found herself famous. and her company was courted by the celebrated Mrs. Thrale and Mrs Montagu. while even Dr. Johnson spoke very highly of her novel. She often stayed a considerable time at Streatham and mixed with all the famous members of late eighteenth century society. She visited the ton parties. and the shy, demure Miss Burney. who was totally overcome at the mere mention of her novel had ample opportunity to use her keen power of observation. That she made a good use of it is proved by the descriptions of society in
^Mataulay' said that Miss Burney has only given us humours. According to him every one of her personages has one ruling passion or peculianty and only acts in acSrdan« w th^But thi, can only be said of the numerous secondary characters in her novels. The more imporUnt characters and certainly the heroines are^™* ™«"m'f plex. In the personality of Cecilia, as Evelina, Fanny Burney has given us much of herself. When
» Mrs. Elwood: Memoirs of the Literary Ladies of England. Vol. II p. 46.
» Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1843.



Cecilia gives her opinion of the people she meets, it is Fanny herself who is reasoning. And Cecilia certainly reasons a good deal. We get to know her opinions on domeatic life, friendship, society, rank and human happiness. Cecilia is sensitive as Evelina was, but more than Evelina she shows a great deal of common sense. She is fairly resolute and in this respect she probably represents more what Fanny wished to be herself than what she actually was. She certainly would not have acted with the same resolution when she was twenty, as Cecilia was, and probably not even when she was thirty, her actual age at the publication of her second novel.
The domestic life of several families is described in Cecilia and in most cases it is unhappy, owing to foll>, dissipation, misunderstanding and prejudice. In the Harml family Fanny has given a very clever picture of domestic happiness being entirely destroyed by dissipation, an idle aeatch after amusements, thoughtleasness and gambling, Cecilia, entering the house with all the expectations of a warm affection for her former friend, is disappointed from the very beginningy this disappointment graduallf changing to complete disillusionment and tocontempt mingled with pity Shocked by the behaviour of Mr. Harrel and tired of the never ceasing parties, Cecilia tries to find happiness in solitude, and satisfaction in charity:
"And thus in acts of goodness and charity, passed undisturbed another week of the life of Cecilia: but when the fervour of selfrapprobation lost its novdty, the pleasure with which her «ew plan was begun first subsided int© tranquiUity, and then sunkinto languor. To a heart formed for friendship and affection the charms of solitude are very short-hved; and though she had sickened of the turbulence of perpetual company, she now wearied of passing all her time by herself, and sighed for the comfort of society, and the reliëf of communication. But she saw with astonishment the difficulty with which this was to be obtained; the i



endless succession of diversions, the continual rotation of assemblies, the numerousness of splendid engagements, of which while every one complained, every one was proud to boast, so effectually impeded private meetings and friendly intercourse, that, whichever way she turned herself. all commerce seemed impracticable, but such as either led to dissipation, or accidentally flowed from it.
"Yet finding the error into which her ardour of reformation had hurried her, and that a rigid seclwion from company was productive of a lassitude as little favourable to active virtue as dissipation itself, she resolved to soften her plan, and by mingling amusement with benevolence, to try, at least, to approach that golden mean, which, like the philosopher's stone, always eludes our grasp, yet, always invites our wishes."1
But there is no happiness for her in these surroundings and she wants to get away from this family whose domestic life is so different from what she thinks proper. It is only her kindness that forces her to stay and witness the catastrophe that would naturally follow a behaviow: so careless and injudicious. In her desire to get away from the Harrels Cecüia turnr to anothe* guardian, Mr. Briggs, but here she is repulsed by such meaniiess and vulgarity that she considers it ahsolutely impossible to stay in his house. Her last resource is her third guardian, Mr. Delvile, the proud aristocrat. After the breaking up of the Harrel household she goes to stay with the Delviles and here she witnesses a tragedy in which she herself is involved, the cause of which i. the inflexible family pride. Young Delvile wishes to give up the family name in order to be able to marry Ceolia, who will inherit her uncle's estate on the condfcwn that her husband shall adopt her name. His parents object and after much trouble Cecilia and her lover give in to the parents.
i Cecilia, Vol. Ip. 126.



Cecilia decides to give up the estate, even though she has lost the rest of her property.
Opinions of the readers differed greatly on the subject In a letter to Mr. Crisp Fanny says 1 that the conflict-scene between mother and son was the point in her book to which all previoue lines tended, the chapter for which all the rest were written. If it must be expunged she would rather there were no book at all. Though Fanny does not altogether condemn the attitude of Mrs. Delvile, she shows the folly of Mr. Delvile's behaviour. Her intention was to give a picture of real life and she was convinced that many families would have acted in the same manner, in which conviction she was afterwards encouraged by Mrs. Thrale, who said that her mother would have acted in precisely the same way as Mrs. Delvile. Though pride and prejudice are condemned and pointed out as the cause of all the sufferings of the hero and heroine, we get the impression that Fanny could well understand and even sympathize with the motive of the Delviles. This cannot surprise us if we consider how respect for rank was an important factor in Fanny's character. It will be shown more clearly during her life at court, but in her youth she already had this respect, which was feit not only by herself, but also by Dr. Burney, who was prouder of his daughter during her life at court than he was of the clever young author, admired and loved by the greatest men and women of her time.
Another family with whom Cecilia was acquainted from duldhood is Mr. Monckton's. In this case there had never been domestic happiness, as Monckton, when quite young, had married a rich elderly widow, merely for the sake of her money. Cecilia does not understand his real cunning nature and, considering him her friend, she pities his folly in tying himself to such a disagreeable old lady for practical reasons only.
1 Cf. Cecilia, Vol. II p. 223, note.



One more family is described in Cecüia, that of the BeU fields The cause of this family's suffenngs is the vulgar Mrs Belfield's short-sightedness. Her extreme anxiety to educate her son as a gentleman makes her forget the needs of he rest of the family. Her forwardness makes the son and daughter ashamed of their home and when the career ofyounl Belfield proves a failure, when all the samfiees seemT have been d>rown away, the misery of the unfortunate family is complete.
Cecilia has taken notice of the mistakes made by these various famffies and when she comes of age and onsequently is her own mistress she resolves to go and live in a house by herself and arrange her life as well as she can LcordTng to her own ideas of propriety and happiness and with the help of the Warnings she has received from ü* r^ormnes of these families. Disgusted by the haarde» Shaviour towards the poor which she has witnessed in the Htrlls and encouraged %^J^'£^Z extremely generous. Mrs. Harrel who is unhappy in *• S« house of her brother is invited to live wil*«her for £er fr endship's sake only, as Cecilia s friendship^and reSrd for Mrs. Harrel have long since given place to mdlference Yet, neither the chattering of Mrs Harfel nor éven her own poputórity among the poor nexghbours, can nd^Sgate Cecilia's feeling of loneliness after her unfortunate «oerience with the Delviles. She is longing for friendship TsXthe company of Henriette Bdfirid^who^ves her dearly. Cecilia is a plucky girl and tries to^ fight aga nst h r own misery. but nothing can make her forget her unhappTtove for young Delvile. In spite of her decision to Aspect the wish of t*e parents and her efforts to regain her lost Peace of mind, we see that happiness orher can only be obtained by her marriage with Delvile. Th was written at the age of thirty by M ss Burney, who af er the refusal of Mr. Barlow's offer, had written in her diary. «SinglenVss, therefore. be mine - with peace of m«id



and liberty. My father and Mr. Crisp spoil me for every other male creatnre."1
If we now consider the character of young Delvile, we find at first sight a striking resemblance to Sir Charles Grandison and Lord Orville. Like these two perfect gentlemen Delvile is a model of good breeding, chivalry and politeness, but if we look a little closer we find that there is a difference. He is not quite such an ideal young man as his two predecessors. The first description of him runs:
"Mortimer Delvile was tall and finely formed; his features, though not handsome, were full of expression, and a noble openness of manners and address spoke the elegance of his education,, and the liberality of his mind." 1
He is not "extremely handsome" as Orville was and if we consider his character he is not altogether so faultless. His passionate nature gives a good deal of sorrow to himself in particular, and also to Cecilia, who shortly after her marriage not only finds Monckton almost killed, but herself suspected of intimacy with Belfield. Delvile is far less vague than Lord Orville, that "condescending suit of clothes", as Hazlitt called him. * It is just his being not altogether faultless which makes him more human. Mrs. Kooiman says that the history of the heroes conceived and portrayed by feminine writers of fiction is at the same time the history of the natural development of the feminine mind. * In the same way we might say that a comparison of the different heroes portrayed by the same authoress at different periods of her life shows the development of her mind. There are only four years between the publication of Evelina with the perfect Lord Orville and Cecilia with
1 Early Diary, June n, 1775.
2 Cecilia, Vol. I p. 147.
3 Hazlit: Sketches and Essays, 1839. p. 269.
* Mrs. Kooiman-van Middendorp: The Hero in the Feminine Novel, p. 167.



the more human Delvile, but in these four years Fanny had seen a great deal of society and had evidently improved her knowledge of men.
The relation between hero and heroine has changed too. Where first we found a very young, inexperienced girl. looking up to the condescending, perfect lover of higher social standing, we now find an independent girl, who has to think for herself and does not consider her lover in all respects her superior. Sir Frank D. Mackinnon remarks:
"I cannot suppöse that Evelina ever in her life called her husband by his Christian name."1
What his name actually was, we do not know, as it is not even mentioned in the novel. There is no reason to expect the same behaviour in the case of Cecilia.
Fanny Burney's pictures of society in Evelina are very good, considèring that she had seen comparatively little of it herself. But there is a great improvement in Cectlta and only a person who had moved in those circles herself. could give such descriptions of the "ton-parties". That these pictures were true to life is proved by the fact that Mrs. Thrale took so much delight in them.
There is a great deal of crfckism on the various types of people she met in society, and the descriptions of the "supercilious" and "voluble" young ladies. as well as of the fashionable young men such as Mr. Meadows and Captain Aresby. are really amusing. The masterly ridicule of these fashionable people shows clearly how utterly absurd their affectation seemed to Fanny. It is, however, a goodhumoured ridicule. In the Early Diary we have already found amusing descriptions of her cousin Richard, whom she liked very much. The fact that her descriptions in Cecilia were appreciated by the eighteenth century society is due to this good-humoured manner of writing without the slightest tracé of bitter sarcasm. Sarcasm was not in
* Evelina. ed. by Sir Frank D. Mackinnon. 1930. P- 580.



her nature. Throughout her works we never find a really bitter word, but she was extremely quick in detecting the ridiculous element in persons and situations, and had a real gift of describing it or, in the slang of the "macaronies": of "smoking" people and then "roasting" them.
That the opinions expressed by Cecilia, which at first sight we only suspect to be those of Fanny herself, really reflect her state of mind at the time that she wrote Cecilia, is obvious when we compare the novel with the diary. Fanny began to grow weary of continually meeting new people and being stared at. It is certainly Fanny's own complaint when Cecilia objects to go to the eternal parties arranged by the Harrels. One of the characters used to express the author's criticism of society is old Mr. Albany. Though he is said to be crazy — and, indeed, his expressions really sound exaggerated — yet the truth they contain does not fail to make a deep impression.
The person who reasons most in this novel is Mr. Beifield, "the tradesman manqué" as Dr. Burney called him.
"The injudicious, the volatile, yet noble-minded Belfield, to whose mutable and entertaining disposition life seemed always rather beginning than progressive" \ after failing in his career, sought happiness in "labour with independence" as he called it, shutting himself up in a cottage right away from the world. However, soon tired of this life, he became a hackney-writer. That did not satisfy him either and he changed from one employment to another till he entered the army again and went abroad. In her conversations with Belfield Cecilia, as usual, expresses Fanny's opinion. When he has tried to convince her that he is perfectly happy with strenuous labour and a total seclusion from society, she says:
"I must not express my concern for misfortunes which you seem to regard as conducive to your contentment, nor
1 Cecilia, Vol. II p. 472.



remonstrate at the step you have taken, since you have been led to it by choice, not necessity: but yet you must pardon me if I cannot help hoping I shall some time see you happier, according to the common, however vulgar ideas of the rest of the world."1
It is Fanny's common sense that speaks here, but it is also her fear of the public opinion which, in addition to her conscience, so greatly influenced her actions.
When Cecilia has met Belfield again, now "enlisted in the Grub-street regiment", she says to Mr. Monckton:
"I knew not the full worth of steadiness and prudence till I knew this young man; for he has everything else; talents the most striking, a love of virtue the most elevated, and manners the most pleasing; yet, wanting steadiness and prudence, he can neither act with consistency nor prosper with continuance." *
According to Macaulay1 Fanny Burney had no eye for the fine shades of character. This may be true for Evelina, it does not hold good, however, for Cecilia. Fanny aimed obviously higher in her second novel, both in style and in description of character. In style there was no improvement. Her dignified language, which reminds us so much of the Jobnsonian style, has lost the freshness which made Evelina so attractive. But in character-drawing there was certainly an improvement. The principal characters are more complex and in the character of Monckton at any rate, there is an attempt to show the finer shades. The fact that there is less freshness in the second novel is only due to the style. There is no falling-off in humour. Cecilia is more mature than Evelina.
T. B. Shaw has a very bad opinion of Miss Burney: "The chief defect of her novels is vulgarity of feeling;
1 Op. cit. Vol. II p. 203.
» Op. cit. Vol. II p. 278.
* Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1843.



not that falsely-called vulgarity which describes with congenial animation low scènes and humble personages, but the affectation of delicacy and refinement. The heroines are perfectly trembling at the thought of impropriety, and exhïbit a nervous, restless dread of appearing indelicate, that absolutely renders them the very essence of vulgarity. All the difficulties and misfortunes in these plots arise from the want, on the part of the principal personages, of a little candour and straightforwardness, and would be set right by a few words of simple explanation: in this respect the authoress drew from herself; for her diary exhibits her as existing in a perpetual fever of vanity and petty expedients; and in her gross affectation of more than feminine modesty and bashfulness — literary as well as personal — we see the painful, incessant flutter of her 'darling sin' — 'the pride that apes humility'."1
This severe criticism is, as Mr. Forsyth says, not quite fair. "Evelina and Cecilia are not vulgar, and the reason why they tremble at the thought of impropriety is that the manners of the age constantly exposed young women to contact with it in conversation and conduct."2
That in the Diary Fanny appears in a perpetual flutter of vanity is wholly incorrect. It would have been natural to expect a certain amount of vanity after her enormous success and the flattering praise of the greatest men of the century, but it is from this very diary that we learn the contrary, as for example from the visit to Mrs. Ord and the conversation with Mr. Soame Jenyns. * This visit was not merely diagreeable, but even painful to her. From the Diary again it becomes clear that her "feniinine modesty" was no "gross affectation". As a contrast to Shaw's ciMcism,
1 T. B. Shaw: A History of Engl. Literature, 1864, p. 466.
* W. Forsyth: The Novels and Novelists of the eighteenth Century, 1871, p. 326.
* Diary and Letters, Jan. 17, 1783.



it is interesting to see the opinion of Macaulay who, though far nearer the truth, goes to the other extreme:
"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 humour. and which yet should not contain a single lme inconsistent with rigid morality or even with virgm deUcacy. She took away the reproach which lay on a most userul and delightful species of composition." 1
Elton says: "her sense of type, her gaiety and economy ot stroke, and her intuition of manners^ especially of bad manners, had no precedent in English fiction."1
In compairing the Diary with the novels we find that the pictures of persons and situations as Fanny has given them in the novels are true to life. As Mr. Brimley Johnson says, referring to the Bohemianism. that pervaded the Burney family: "the daring social confusions of her dramatis personae, the 'character' parts on which her humour so much depends. the vivacity of her dialogue. her 'hewcs' and the melodrama of her passion-scenes, were obvioualy theatrical gay reflections of life as she knew it among her family and friends."*
Opinions of Contemporaries
Very soon after her first visit to Streatham, Fanny Burney became an intimate friend of the Thrales and as soon as the many well-known people who frequented Streatham heard that Miss Burney was the author of Evelina, they were all anxious to make her acquaintance. Everybody showed a pro-
* Edinburgh Review. Jan. 1843.
* O. Elton: A Survey of English Uterature. (1780-1830). Vol. 1 aV.7Brimley Johnson: Fanny Burney and the Burneys, p. 14-



found respect for the young authoress, which greatly pleased her but frequently threw her into confusion, as she tells us in her diary. She describes how Sir Joshua Reynolds and the Miss Palmers at last discovered the real author, after first suspecting Mrs. Thrale.
"When they rose to take leave, Miss Palmer, with the air of asking the greatest of favours, hoped to see me when I returned to town; and Sir Joshua, approaching me with the most profound respect, inquired how long I should remain at Streatham? A week I believed: and then he hoped, when I left it, they should have the honour of seeing me in Leicester Square. In short, the joke is, the people speak as if they were afraid of me, instead of my being afraid of them."1
The amusing descriptions in the Diary of her conversations with Dr. Johnson are interesting for two reasons. They f orm an addltion to BoswelPs Life, as they show that particular side of Dr. Johnson's character that Bos well knew so little and which he called "gay Sam, agreeable Sam, pleasant Sam". But what is more important for the present subject, they show Johnson's opinion of Fanny Burney. Johnson was very complimentary to her when she made her first visit to Streatham with her father. When, soon after, she went to stay there, he was at once very kind and even tried to tease her. "At night, Mrs. Thrale asked if I would have anything? I answered *No'; but Dr. Johnson said,
"*Yés: she is used, madam, to suppers; she would like an egg or two, and a few slices of ham, or a rasher — a rasher, I believe would please her better'....
"Now, for this morning's breakfast. Dr. Johnson, as usual, came last into the library; he was in high spirits, and full of mirth and sport. I had the honour of sitting next to him: and now, all at once, he flung aside his reserve, thinking, perhaps, that it was time I should fling aside mine.
1 Diary and Letten, Sept. 1778.



"Mrs. Thrale told him that she intended taking me to
Mr. Fs. s .
" 'So you ought, madam', cried he; 't is your business to be Cicerone to her.'
"Then suddenly he snatched my hand and kissing it,
" 'Ah!' he added, 'they will little think what a tartar you carry to them!'
" «No, that they won't!' cried Mrs. Thrale: Miss Burney looks so meek and so quiet, nobody would suspect what a comical girl she is; but I believe she has a great deal of malice at heart.' (
"'Oh, she's a toad!' cried the doctor, laughing — a sly young rogue! With her Smiths and her Branghtons!'
" <Why, Dr. Johnson,' said Mrs. Thrale, 'I hope you are very well this morning! if one may judge by your spirits and good humour, the fever you threatened us with is gone off.'
"He had complained that he was going to be ïll last night.
'"Why no, madam, no', answered he, 'I am not yet well; I could not sleep at all; there I lay, restless and uneasy, and thinking all the time of Miss Burney. Perhaps I have offended her, thought I; perhaps she is angry; I have seen her but once1, and I talked to her of a rasher! — Were you angry?'....
"He then seated himself upon a sofa, and calling to me, said: 'Come, — Evelina, — come and sit by me'.
"I obeyed; and he took me almost in his arms, — that is one of his arms, for one would go three times, at least, round me, — and, half laughing, half serious, he charged me to 'be a good girl!'"2
The next month Fanny wrote:
» Dr. Johnson had seen Fanny when he visited the Burneys. She was not yet the author of Evelina at that time and it is very likely that he had hardly noticed her then. * Op. cit. Aug. 23, 1778.



"I have had a thousand delightful conversations with Dr. Johnson, who, whether he loves me or not, I am sure seems to have some opinion of my discretion, for he speaks of all this house to me with unbounded confidence, neither diminishing faults, nor exaggerating praise. Whenever he is below stairs he keeps me a prisoner, for he does not like I should quit the room a moment; if I rise he constantly calls out, 'Don't you go, little Burney!'"1
There is another passage in the Diary, showing how much Johnson liked Fanny.
"Yesterday, at night, I asked Dr. Johnson if he would permit me to take a great liberty with him? He assented With the most encouraging smile. And then I said:
"'I believe, Sir, you heard part of what passed between Mr. Murphy and me the other evening, concerning — a — a comedy. Now, if I should make such an attempt, would you be so good as to allow me, any time before Michaelma* to put it in the coach, for you to look over as you go to town ?'
'"To be sure, my dear!—I What, have you begun a comedy then?'
"I told him how the af fair stood. He then gave me advice which just accorded with my wishes, viz., not to make known that I had any such in tention; to keep my own counsel; not to whisper even the name of it; to raise no expectations, which were always prejudicial, and finally, to have it performed while the town knew nothing of whose it was.
"I readily assured him of my hearty concurrence; but he somewhat distressed me when I told him that Mr. Murphy mttst be in my confidence, as he had offered his services, by desiring he might be the last to see it.
"What I shall do, I know not, for he has, himself, begged to be the first. Mrs. Thrale, however, shall guide me between
1 Op. cit. Sept. 21, 1778.



them. He spoke highly of Mr. Murphy, too, for he really loves him. He said he would not have it in the coach, but that I should read it to him; however, I could sooner drown or hang!
"When I would have offered some apology for the attempt, he stopt me, and desired I would never make any.
" Tor,' said he, 'if it succeeds, it makes its own apology, if not —'
" 'If not', quoth I, 'I cannot do worse than Dr. Goldsmith, when his play failed, — go home and cry!'
"He laughed, but told me, repeatedly (I mean twice, which, for him, is very remarkable), that I might depend upon all the service in his power; and, he added, it would be well to make Murphy the last judge, 'for he knows the stage', he said, 'and I am quite ignorant of it'.
"Afterwards, grasping my hand with the most affectionate warmth, he said,
'"I wish you success! I wish you well! my dear httle
Burney!' I ,
"When, at length, I told him I could stay no longer, and
bid him good night, he said, 'There is none like you, my
dear little Burney! there is none like you! — good night,
my darling!'"1
Shortly before Johnson's death Fanny called on rum.
She found him alone and enjoyed his conversation, which
was still brilliant in spite of his illness.
"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
1 Op. cit. Febr. 1779-



off, but he called me back, in a solemn voice, and, in a manner the most energetic, said, —
" *Remember me in your prayers!' " 1
Dr. Johnson once said of Fanny: "Modesty with ber is neither pretence nor decorum, 't is an ingrediënt in her nature." *
Mrs. Masefield very justly says:
"Dr. Johnson's affection for Fanny is a guarantee of her genuine, unspoiled character, for he never could suffer affectation, conceit or insincerity quietly." *
Interesting too is Mrs. Thrale's opinion of Fanny. Mrs. Thrale knew her well and loved her dearly. It is amusing to see how indignant she was that Fanny preferred, not Streatham, but St. Martin's Street to any other place in the world. There are some passages on Fanny in Thratiana:
"August 1779. — Fanny Burney has been a long time from me; I was glad to see her again; yet she makes me miserable too in many respects, so restlessly and apparendy anxious, lest I should give myself airs of patronage or load her with the shackles of dependence. I live with her always in a degree of pain that precludes friendship — dare not ask her to buy me a ribbon — dare not desire her to touch the bell, lest she should think herself injured — lest she should forsooth appear in the character of Miss Neville and I in that of the widow Bromley. See Murphy's Know your own Mind.
"Fanny Burney has kept her room here in my house seven days, with a fever or something that she called a fever; I gave her every medecine and every slop with my own hand; took away her dirty cups, spoons, etc; moved her tables: in short, was doctor and nurse and maid —
1 Op. cit. Nov. 28, 1784.
1 Mrs. Elwood: Memoirs of the Literary Ladies of England, Vol. II p. 46.
3 M. Masefield: The Story of Fanny Burney, p. 38.



for I did not like the servants should have additional trouble lest they should hate her for it. And now, — with the true gratitude of a wit, she tells me, that the world thinks the better of me for my civilities to her. It does? does it?
"Miss Burney was much admired at Bath; the puppymen said, 'she had such a drooping air and such a timid intelligence' or, 'a timid air', I think it was, 'and a drooping intelligence'; never sure was such a collection of pedantry and affection as iilled Bath when we were on that spot.
"ist July, 1780. — Mrs. Byron, who really loves me, was disgusted at Miss Burney's carriage to me, who have been such a friend and benefactress to her: not an artkk of dress, not a ticket for public places, not a thing in the world that she could not command from me: yet always insolent, always pining for home, always preferring the mode of life in St. Martin's Street to all I could do for her. She is a saucy-spirited little puss to be sure, but I love her dearly for all that; and I fancy she has a real regard for me, if she did not think it beneath the dignity of a wit, or of what she values more — the dignity of Dr. Burney's daughter — to indulge it. Such dignity! the Lady Louisa of Leicester Square! In good time!
"I78i. What a blockhead Dr. Burney is to be always
sending for his daughter home so! what a monkey! is not she better and happier with me than she can be anywheee else? Johnson is enraged at the silliness of their family conduct, and Mrs. Byron disgusted; I confess myself provoked excessively, but I love the girl so dearly — and the Doctor, too, for that matter, only that he has such odd notions of superiority in his own house, and will have his children under his feet forsooth, rather than let them live in peace, plenty, and comfort anywhere from home. If I did not provide Fanny with every weareable — every wishable, indeed, it would not vex me to be served so; but to see
the impossibility of compensating for the pleasures of St. Martin's Street makes one at once merry and mortified.



Thr. Burney did not like his daughter should learn Latin even of Johnson, who offered to teach her for friendship, because then she would have been as wise as himself forsooth, and Latin was too masculine for Misses. A narrowsouled goose-cap the man must be at last, agreeable and amiable all the while too. beyond almost any other human creature."1
Though Mrs. Thrale loved the girl. as she said, she did not spare her in her private writings. How different in this respect are Fanny's remarks on Mrs. Thrale in the Diary ï Though Fanny was quite capable of seeing Mrs. Thrale's faults, she always writes about her with the greatest affection. Even in later years, after Mrs. Thrale had broken off their friendship, Fanny regretted the breach and never mentioned her but in the most friendly terms.
That Fanny sometimes could be communicative we see from a letter from Mrs. Thrale to her: "Dear Creature' what a pretty little snug family talk we had that night before parting: had not we? You was so kind and so communicative — and I do love you!"2
In the Burney MSS. there is also a letter from Mrs. Thrale to Dr. Burney:
"... Let me, however, thank you for your Fanny and muie. She is an unspeakable comfort and delight to me, so affectionate, so friendly, so good to my master. I knew I was nght to make you lend her to me: she is worth all my entreaties." And in another letter Mrs. Thrale writes:
^nly three words to say that Evelina with all her powers never gave me so good an opinion of the writer as did the sweet letter I received yesterday; the book only
Extract* from Thrahana, printed in the Autobiography. Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) by A. Hayward.
From the Burney MSS. printed in: The House in St. Martin's Street, by Constance Hifl.
5



bespoke a clever girl, but tbc letter a good one." 1
Shortly after the publication of Cecilia Boswell wrote from Edinburgh to Mrs. Thrale:
"Everybody here is running after Cectha; and I am vam of telling that I have had the pleasure of being frequently in Miss Burney's company at Mrs. Thrale's." a
Mrs. Montagu, the "queen of the blues", was extremely polite to Miss Burney, when she was introduced to her at Streatham. When the possibility of Fanny's wnting a comedy was mentioned, Mrs. Montagu said:
"if Miss Burney does write a play, I beg I may know of it; or, if she thinks proper, see it; and all my influence is at her service. We shall all be glad to assist in spreading the fame of Miss Burney." * And when she had read Ceciftc,
she said: L
"Miss Burney has made me guilty of a neghgence 1 never practised before; I left all my bills and papers unexamined and never attended to any business while the book was un-
finished." * . . , _ r
Very different, however, was her opnuon of tveitna, as we find it mentioned by Mrs. Thrale in a letter to Dr. Johnson: "Mrs. Montagu cannot bear Evelina — let not that be published — her Silver-Smiths are Pewterers, she says, and her Captains Boatswains."5
Miss Burney was introduced to Burke at Sir Joshua Reynolds'. Burke had a great admiration for Fanny and clearly expressed it in a letter to her after the publication of Cecilia. y" _ * 
* Printed by Walter Frith in: Antour d'Evelina, Cornhill Magazine,
SeTor James Boswell, 20 Dec. 1782. collected by Chauncey Brewster Tinker, (2 vols, Oxford 1924)-
* Diary and Letters, Sept. I778- . l „ . ,
* From the Bnrney MSS., printed in: The House m St. Martin s Street,
.byWCWrï "Irts: Charles and Fanny Burney in the light of the new Thrale correspondence in the John Rylands Library, p. 12.



"Madam,
"I should fecl exceedingly to blamc if I could refuse to myself the natural satisfaction, and to you the just but poor return, of my best thanks for the very great instruction and entertainment I have received from the new present you
have bestowed on the public. There are few I believe
I may say fairly there are none at all — that will not find themselves better informed concerning human nature, and their stock of observation enriched, by reading your Cecilia. They certainly will, let their experience in life and manners be what it may. The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth. You have crowded 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 m 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 teil 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.
"In an age distinguished by producing extraordinary women. I hardly dare to teil you where my opinion would place you amongst them. I respect your modesty, that will not endure the commendations which your merit forces rrom everybody.
"I have the honour to be, with great gratitude, respect, and esteem, madam, your most obedient and most humble servant,
Edm. Burke.



"My best compliments and congratulations to Dr. Burney on the great honour acquired to his family."1
A few months later Fanny met Burke at Miss Monckton's. "Mr. Burke very quietly came from Mrs. Hampden, and sat down in the vacant place at my side. I could then wait no longer, for I found he was more near-sighted than myself; I, therefore, turned towards him and bowed: he seemed quite amazed, and really made me ashamed, however delighted, by the expressive civility and distinction with which he instantly rose to return my bow, and stood the whole time he was making his compliments upon seeing me, and calling himself the blindest of men for not finding me out sooner. And Mrs. Burke, who was seated near me, said, loud enough for me to hear her —
"'See, see! what a flirtation Mr. Burke is beginning with Miss Burney! and before my face too!'
"These ceremonies over, he sat down by me, and began a conversation which you, my dearest Susy, would be glad to hear, for my sake, word for word; but which I really could not listen to with sufficiënt ease, from shame at his warm eulogiums, to remember with any accuracy." 2
Then followed a great many compliments and the intimation that even "the old wits", the Duchess of Portland and Mrs. Delany were delighted with Cectlta. Burke was a real friend and admirer of Fanny and certainly did not deserve to be treated with such coldness, as he met with, when seeing her at the Hastings trial. _
Another great friend was Sir Joshua Reynolds. They were on intimate terms and Fanny greatly appreciated his delicacy. Though he spoke very highly of her to others and took great trouble to give her an opportunity of meeting well-known people at his house, he respected her modesty
1 Printed in the Diary and Letters, July 29. 1782. * Op. cit. Dec. 8, 1782.



and tried to protect her against the attacks of the admiring Mrs. Cholmondeley. He even tried to persuade her to write a comedy, in which attempt he was seconded by no less a person than Sheridan.
When Sheridan was introduced to Fanny, he said:
"'I have been telling Dr. Burney that I have long expected to see in 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 speake 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; and some time after he added, 'But I hope, Miss Burney, you don't intend to throw away your pen?'
M<You should take care, sir', said I, 'what you say: for you know not what weight it may have'.
"He wished it might have any, he said, and soon after turned again to my father.
"I protest, since the approbation of the Streathamites, I have met with none so flattering to me as this of Mr. Sheridan, and so very unexpected."1
At the request of Sir Joshua, Sheridan declared that he would take anything from Miss Burney, unseen, to be performed at Drury Lane, and would make her a bow and his best thanks into the bargain.
Another dramatist who encouraged Fanny to write a comedy, was Mr. Murphy whom she met at Streatham. He
1 Op. cit. Jan. 1779.



was so pressing that Fanny showed him part of The Witlings and he highly praised the dialogue.
Among the famous men who were friends of Miss Burney, was also Horace Walpole. He congratulated Dr. Burney when Fanny was appointed as a Keeper of the Robes, but he was afraid that she would be lost as an author. In June 1787 he wrote to Hannah More:
"The last time I saw her before I left London, Miss Burney passed the evening [in Clarges Street] looking quite recovered and well, and so cheerful and agreeable that the Court seems only to have improved the ease of her manner, instead of stamping more reserve on it, as I feared. But what slight graces it can give will not compensate to us and the world for the loss of her company and her writings."1
In October 1790 Walpole joined those who urged Fanny to resign. He wrote to her:
"Were your talents given you to be buried in obscurity? You have retired from the world to a closet at Court — where, indeed, you will still discover mankind, though not disclose it; for if you could penetrate its characters in the earliest glimpse of its superficies, will it escape your piercing eye when it shrinks from your inspection, knowing that you have the mirror of truth in your pocket? I will not embarrass you by saying more, nor would have you take notice in reply to what I have said: judge only that feeling hearts reflect, not forget." *
Hannah More too was a friend of Fanny's. When Fanny had accepted the situation at court, Hannah More wrote: "I was in the very joy of my heart on seeing the other day in the papers that our charming Miss Burney has got
1 The Letters of Horace Walpole, edited by Cunningham, Vol. IX
letter 2418. .
f Printed in: Fanny Burney at the Court of Queen Charlotte, by
Constance HUI, p. 334-



an establishment so near the Queen. How I love the Queen for ha ving so wisely chosen!" 1
It is evident from all these quotations that Fanny Burney was highly esteemed by the great men and women of her time, not only for her literary work but also for her amiable, modest, yet sincere character.
Diary and Letters
Apart from the two novels Evelina and Cecilia, there is much useful material for our knowledge of Fanny's character and views in the Diary and Letters from the publication of Evelina until her retreat from society to the seclusion of Windsor. Shorty after the publication of Evelina we find this humorous passage in the Diary:
"This year was ushered in by a grand and most important event! At the latter end of January, the literary world was favoured with the first publication of the ingenioua, learned and most profound Fanny Burney! I doubt not but this memorable affair will, in future times, mark the period whence chronologers will date the zenith of the polite arte in this island! This admirable authoress has named her most elaborate performance, Evelina; or, a young Lady's Entrance into the World." '
And then she continues to teil particulars in a less grand style. Fanny had been ill and stayed at Chessington to recover. Here she enjoyed receiving letters from Susan who informed her how their father liked the book and how he read it to Mrs. Burney, who was still in ignorance as to its author. By Susan she was informed too of the favourable opinion of Mrs. Thrale who said that it was written by somebody who knew the top and the bottom, the highest
1 Op. cit. p. 15.
1 Diary and Letters, March 1778.



and the lowcst of mankind. When she heard of the approval of Dr. Johnson she danced a jig round the mulberry tree in Chessington garden, as afterwards, at the age of seventyfour, she told Sir Waker Scott.1 She had so much time to spare that she could not resist treating herself "with a little private sport with Evelina, a young lady whom I think I have some right to make free with." She started reading it aloud to Mr. Crisp who was not yet in the secret.
"I dared not trust my voice with the little introductory ode, for as that is no romance, but the sincere effusion of my heart, I could as soon read aloud my own letters, written in my own name and character: I therefore skipped it, and have so kept the book out of his sight, that to this day, he knows not it is there. Indeed, I have, since, heartily repented that I read any of the book to him, for I found it a much more awkward thing than I had expected: my voice quite faltered when I began it, which, however, I passed off for the effect of remaining weakness of lungs; and, in short, from an invincible embarrassment, which I could not for a page together repress, the book, by my reading, lost all manner of spirit." 3
But Mr. Crisp did not suspect her and was extremely surprised when he heard the truth. Fanny was happy to read the favourable criticism in the London Review of February and the Monthly of April, but how great was her joy when she heard from Lowndes that "the great world" sent to him to buy Evelina and that he thought the impression would be sold by Christmas. In July she writes: "Your letter, my dearest Susan, and the enclosed one from Lowndes, have flung me into such a vehement perturbation, that I hardly can teil whether I wake or dream, and it is even with difficulty that I can fetch my breath. I have been strolling round the garden three or four times, in hopes
1 Journal of Sir W. Scott for Nov. 18, 1826. » Diary and Letters, June ï8, 1778.



of regaining a little quietness. However, I am not very angry at my inward disturbance, though it even exceeds what I experienced from the Monthly Review.
"My dear Susy, what a wonderful affair has this been, and how extraordinary is this torrent of success, which sweeps down all before it! I often think it too much, nay, almost wish it would happen to some other person, who had more ambition, whose hopes were more sanguine, and who could less have borne to be buried in the oblivion which I even sought. But though it might have been better bestowed, it could by no one be more gratefully received.
"Indeed I can't help being grave upon the subject; for a success so really unexpected almost overpowers me. I wonder at myself that my spirits are not more elated. I beheve half the flattery I have had would have made me madly merry; but all serves only to almost depress me by the fu 11 ness of heart it occasions." 1
The result of her fame as an author was the visit to Mrs. Thrale at Streatham, which she records in August 1778 as "the most consequential day I have spent since my birth." Mrs. Thrale noticed the diffidence of the young author and tactfully avoided mentioning her novel during the first conversation. This delicate reception was greatly appreciated by Fanny.
In connection with the Early Diary it has already been observed that Fanny hardly ever mentions dress. The same is the case with food. Once she mentions supper at home as an excuse for talking over baked apples and we hear that there were mutton pies for dinner at Streatham. However, the reason why it is mentioned at all is obvious: it is only to teil a pretty compliment that Dr. Johnson paid her.
"Dr. Johnson, in the middle of dinner, asked Mrs. Thrale what there was in some little pies that were near him.
1 Op. cit. July 6, 1778.



"'Multon', answered she, 'so I don't ask you to eat any, because I know you despise it'.
'"No, madam, no', cried he; 'I despise nothing that is good of its sort; but I am too proud now to eat of it. Sitting by Miss Burney makes we very proud to-day!'
At this time she paid her well-known visit to Mr. Lowndes, who with a most important face assured her that he had been informed that Evelina was a piece of real secret
history. .
"This was too much for me; I grinned ïrresisttbly, and was obliged to look out at the shop-door till we came away.
"How many ridiculous things have I heard upon this subject! I hope that next, some particular family will be fixed upon, to whom this secret history must belongl However I am delighted to find myself so safe." * This passage in her private diary is yet another proof that Fanny was very honest in her desire to keep her authorship secret,
Fanny's first visit to Streatham made her a warm friend of the Thrales and Dr. Johnson, as we have seen. This friendship was of the greatest importance to her as it introduced her into the best litetary circle of the age. Her great révérence for Dr. Johnson is expressed over and over again in the Diary, but apart from the learned Doctor, respected and feared by everybody, we find in Fanny's diary the good-humoured Johnson with a great love of ftin. We meet repeatedly with expressions like: "Dr. Johnson was in the utmost good humour" or "Dr. Johnson was gaily sociable". When Mrs. Thrale said that Mrs. Montagu would dine with them the next day, "Dr. Johnson began to see-saw with a countenance strongly expressive of ïnward fun, and after enjoying it some time in silence, he suddenly and with great animation, turned to me and cried, '"Down with her, Burney! — down with her! — spare
1 Op. cit. Aug. 1778, Op. cit. Aug. 1778-



her not! — attack her, fight her, and down with her at once!'"1
Fanny's descriptions of some people she met show a great knowledge of human nature. This is the case with her description of Miss Brown \ which besides reflects great credit on Fanny's character as she evidently enjoyed hearing this girl make merry with the rest of the company without the slightest tracé of jealousy that the young lady attracted all attention to herself.
"Miss Brown, as I foresaw, proved the queen of the day. Miss Streatfield requires longer time to make conquests. She is, indeed, much more really beautiful than Fanny Brown, but Fanny Brown is much more showy, and her open, goodhumoured, gay, laughing face inspires an almost immediate wish of conversing and merry-making with her. Indeed, the two days she spent here have raised her greatly in my regard. She is a charming girl and so natural, and easy, and sweet-tempered, that there is no being half an hour in her company without ardently wishing her well...
"Miss Brown, however, was queen of the breakfast: for though her giddiness made everybody take liberties with her, her good-humour made everybody love her, and her gaiety made everybody desirous to associate with her. Sir Philip played with her as with a young and sportive kitten; Mr. Fuller laughed and chatted with her; and Mr. Seward, when here, teases and torments her. The truth is, he cannot bear her, and she, in return, equally fears and dislikes him, but still she cannot help attracting his notice."
Amusing too is her description of Miss Streatfield who wept to order, and enjoyed being seen with the tears trickling down her cheeks. Mrs. Thrale was undoubtedly right when she said: "Miss Burney would have run away,
1 Op. cit. Sept. 1778. ! Op. cit. June 1779.



but she came forward on purpose to show herself."1
By this time The Witlings, Fanny's comedy, was finished and shown to Dr. Burney and Daddy Crisp. But they did not approve of it and recommended its suppression. It was a disappointment, for, as she wrote to her father in all sincerity, she had expected many objections, but had never thought of suppression. Her honesty and appreciation of the friends who did not flatter her but told the truth for her good is obvious from her letter to Mr. Crisp:
"Well! 'there are plays 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 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 teil you I have been absolutely ravie with delight at the fall of the curtain; but I intend to take the af fair 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.
"The only baófthing 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)
1 Op. cit. June 13, 1779.



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 feit as sorry for poor little Miss Bayes1 as she could possihly do for herself." *
This letter pleads both for Fanny's good sense and for her frankness. Edith J. Morley says 3 that she was easily abashed by disapproval and utterly cast down with little or no reason, but this disappointment, at any rate, she seems to have borne with a certain elasticity. The Wittings was never published, but the scène from the fourth act, printed by Constance Hill in The House in St. Martin's Street is amusing and shows a remarkably bright dialogue.
At Tunbridge Wells, together with the Thrales, Fanny visited Miss Streatfield, "the weeping S.S." Talking about Mrs. Streatfield Fanny says: "She is very lively and an excellent mimic, and is, I think, as much superior to her daughter in natural gifts as her daughter is to her in acquired ones: and how infinitely preferable are parts without education to education without parts!" *
Brighton and Bath were visited and everywhere the author of Evelina was received with the greatest curiosity and respect,
How very religious Fanny was and how extremely shocked at the mere thought of atheism is clear from her conversation with a "young infidel" at Bath, recorded in the Diary. This young lady was sadly in want of a friend who would understand her.
"*But then', she continued, 'after making, should I lose such a friend, I would not survive'.
1 A character in The Rehearsal.
* Diary and Letters, summer of 1779.
1 Fanny Burney, by E. J. Morley, Engl. Ass. pamphlet 60.
• Diary and Letters, Oct. 12, 1779.



'"Not survive?' repeated I, 'what can you mean?'
"She looked down, but said nothing.
"'Surely you cannot mean', said I very gravely indeed, 'to put a violent end to your life'.
"'I should not', said she, again looking up, 'hesitate a moment'.
"I was quite thunderstruck, and for some time could not say a word; but when I did speak, it was in a style of exhortation so serious and earnest, I am ashamed to write it to you, lest you should think it too much. She gave me an attention that was even respectful, but when I urged her to teil me by what right she thought herself entitled to rush unlkensed on eternity, she said, 'By the right of believing I shall be extinct'. I really feit horror-struck".1
At Streatham Fanny had a f lirtation with a Mr. Crutchly. According to her diary her behaviour was spirited and she spoke her mind very openly about the conceit of the young men. She was introduced to Burke and Gibbon at Sir Joshua Reynolds' house and in Jury 1782 her fame was increased by the publication of Cecilia. During her stay at Brighton the staring in "the rooms" was so violent and there was so much whispering "that is she! that is the famous Miss Burney" that Fanny heartily disliked going there again. But a sad time was coming. Daddy Crisp was very ill and died soon after. Touching is Fanny's letter to him shortly before his death. After saying how much she regrets his being so ill, she goes on:
"I think I never yet so much wished to be at Chesington, as at this time, that I might see how you go on, and not be kept in such painful suspense from post to post. Why did you teil me of the Delanys, Portlands, Cambridges, etc., as if any of them came into competition with yourself? When you are better, I shall send you a most fierce and sharp remonstrance upon this subject. At present I must
1 Op. cit. June 1780.



be content with saying, I will undoubtedly accept your most kind invitation as soon as I possibly can. Meantime, if my letters will give you any amusement, I will write oftener than ever, and supply you with all the prog I get myself. .. Your love to your Fannikin, I well know, makes all trash interesting to you that seems to concern her; and I have no greater pleasure, when absent, than in letting you and my dear Susan be acquainted with my proceedings. I don't mean by this to exclude the rest of the dear Chesington set — far from it — but a sister and a daddy must come first. God bless 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.
F. B."1
She lost this dear friend and her grief was very great. She did not continue her diary for some time. The first thing she mentions on recommencing it is the illness of Dr. Johnson, which, after a short recovery, was soon followed by his death. This was another terrible shock to Fanny. Her last conversation with him, when he asked her to remember him in her prayers, is truly pathetic. She tried to see him again, but he was too ill, and she waited on the stairs to get some news from him. On December 20, 1784 we find this passage:
"This day was the ever-honoured, ever-lamented Dr. Johnson committed to the earth. Oh, how sad a day to me! My father attended, and so did Charles. I could not keep my eyes dry all day; nor can I now, in the recollection of it; but let me pass over what to mourn is now so vain!"
Besides the death of these two friends, Fanny had another loss to regret. Mrs. Thrale, who shortly after the death of
1 Op. cit. April 12, 1783.



Mr. Thrale had married Mr. Piozzi, wholly against the advice of her many friends, had followed her husband to Italy and broken off all communication with her former friends. The attitude of these friends seems to have been harsh and Fanny has been accused of prejudice and severity in this matter. She certainly disapproved of the match and with her usual frankness had shown it by not sending cordial congratulations upon the occasion of the wedding. Mrs. Piozzi was offended and Fanny's answer on Aug. 10, 1784 speaks for itself:
"When my wondering eyes first looked over the letter I received last night, my mind instantly dictated a highspirited vindication of the consistency, integrity, and faithfulness of the friendship thus abruptly reproached and cast away. But a sleepless night gave me leisure to recollect that you were ever as generous as precipitate, and that your own heart would do justice to mine, in the cooler judgement of future reflection. Committing myself, therefore, to that period, I determined simply to assure you, that if my last letter either hurt you or Mr. Piozzi, I am no less sorry than surprised, and that if it offended you, I sincerely beg your pardon. Not to that time, however, can I wait to acknowledge the pain an accusation so unexpected has caused me, nor the heartfelt satisfaction with which I shall receive, when you are able to write it, a softer renewal of regard. May heaven direct and bless you!"
This dignified but tender letter clearly shows that Fanny never intended to withdraw her friendship, and Mrs. Piozzi acknowledged it in her next note:
"Give yourself no serious concern, sweetest Burney. All is well, and I am too happy myself to make a friend otherwise; quiet your kind heart immediately, and love my husband if you love his and your
H. L. Piozzi."



To her next affectionate letter Fanny never received a reply. Evidently Mrs. Piozzi broke off the friendship and it is unlikely that Fanny was to blame in this matter. In her occasional references to Mrs. Piozzi in her diary she always speaks of her with great affection. After reading the Letters to and from Dr. Johnson by Mrs. Piozzi, she writes:
"O, little does she know how tenderly at this moment I could run again into her arms, so of ten opened to receive me with a cordiality I believed inalienable."1
All these sorrows afflicted Fanny greatly, as we see from a passage in her diary on a party at Mrs. Chapone's: "But I was very sad within*. the loss of dear Dr. Johnson — the flight of Mrs. Thrale — the death of poor Miss Kitty Cambridge and of poor, good Miss Strange, — all these home and bosom strokes, which had all struck me since my last meeting this society, were revolving in my mind the whole time I stayed."2
However, if Fanny lost several dear friends, she also made new ones and some of the friendships she made at this time were very important to her in later life. F. F. Moore said: "She made many new friends, far she possessed in these years a faculty for forming friendships, which was all the more remarkable when one considers that in her girlhood, and even long after, she was extremely retiring."*
The Cambridges became good friends to her. Writing about Mr. Cambridge in her diary she says: "I wished I could have been easy and chatty with him, as I hear he is so much my friend, and as I like him very much; but, in truth, he listens to eveTy syllable I utter with so grave a deference, that it intimidates and silences me." *
That Fanny's timidity was very great when she was a
1 Op. cit. Jan. 10, 1788.
* Op. cit. Dec. 30, 1784.
* F. F. Moore: A Keeper of the Robes, p. 119.
* Diary and Letters, Dec. 26, 1782. 6



girl we have seen dearly, but even later on, though she loved talking with Dr. Johnson, she avoided sitting by his side in public because she hated general attention. When Fanny wrote this passage on Mr. Cambridge she was thirty. Even at that age her timidity was only too real and she had no reason for affectation. Young Mr. Cambridge is compared with the young men of her time:
"The son rises extremely in my opinion and liking. He is sensible, rational, and highly cultivated; very modest in all he asserts, and attentive and pleasing in his behaviour; and he is wholly free from the coxcombical airs, either of impertinence, or negligence and nonchalance, that almost all the young men I meet, except also young Burke, are tainted with." This shows that Fanny had some ma ter ia 1 to build upon when she created Lovel, Meadows and other macaronies.
Another family with whom Fanny became acquainted were the Lockes. She speaks of "sweet and most bewitching Mrs. Locke". She formed with her one of the warmest friendships of her life. But the new friendship which led to an important change in Fanny's life was that with Mrs. Delany. "The old wits", Mrs. Delany and the Duchess of Portland, were delighted with Cecilia and wanted to make the author's acquaintance. Fanny loved Mrs. Delany, who was so like her grandmother, from the first moment she saw her. They became strongly attached to each other, especially after the death of the Duchess of Portland, and Mrs. Delany who had a house offered her by the royal family, was often visited by Fanny at Windsor. The king and queen were both desirous to see Miss Burney, and Fanny, though highly sensible of the honour, tried in vain to avoid the ceremony of introduction, so terrible to her. What she feit at that awful moment we find in her diary. They had been playing Christmas games and a gentleman in deep mourning had come into the room unnoticed.
"A ghost could not more have scared me, when I dis-



covered by its glitter on the black, a star! The general disorder had prevented his being seen, except by myself, who was always on the watch, till Miss Port, tarning round, exclaimed, The king! — aunt, the king!' O mercy! thought I, that I were but out of the room! which way shall I escape? and how pass him unnoticed? There is but the single door at which he entered, in the room! Every one scampered out of the way: Miss Port, to stand next the door; Mr. Bernard Dewes to a corner opposite it; his little girl clung to me; and Mrs. Delany advanced to meet his majesty, who, after quietly looking on till she saw him, approacbed, and inquired how she did."1
The king then spoke a few words with Miss Burney, but her answers were so indistinct that he could not understand her and soon left her alone and spoke with Mrs. Delany.
"During this discourse, I stood quietly in the place where he had first spoken to me. His quitting me so soon, and conversing freely and easily with Mrs. Delany, proved so delightful a reliëf to me, that I no longer wished myself away; and the moment my first panic from the surprise was over, I diverted myself with a thousand ridiculous notions, of my own situation. The Christmas games we had been showing Miss Dewes, it seemed as if we were still performing, as none of us thought it proper to move, though our manner of standing reminded one of Puss in the corner'. Close to the door was posted Miss Port; opposite her, close to the wainscot, stood Mr. Dewes; at just an equal distance from him, close to the window, stood myself; Mrs. Delany, though seated, was at the opposite side to Miss Port; and his majesty kept pretty much in the middle of the room. The little girl, who kept close to me, did not break the order, and I could hardly help expecting to be beckoned, with a puss! puss! puss! to change places with one of my neighbours."
1 Op. cit. Dec. 16, 1785.



She now feit more fit to enter into conversation. Then followed an introduction to the queen who liked Fanny so much that she soon afterwards made her the offer of a position at court.



Chapter III
LIFE AT COURT
When Miss Burney entered upon her court duties in July 1786, she stood at the beginning of a new period in her life, which was to prove unfortunate to her both mentally and physically. As we see from a letter1 to Miss Cambridge after the queen's proposal, Fanny did not like the prospect at all, but received the offer with consternation. "I frankly owned to Mr. Smelt that no situation of that sort was suited to my own taste, or promising to my own happiness."
Nevertheless, persuaded by the delight of her friends, and especially of her father, she decided to accept the post. Her most important objection was the separation from her friends. In her letter to Miss Cambridge, referring to the continual confinement at the court, she exclaims:
"What a life for me, who have friends so dear to me, and to whom friendship is the balm, the comfort, the very support of existence!" and in the same letter:
"I have always and uniformly had a horror of a life of attendance and dependence."
In spite of her gratitude for what she considered a very great honour, Fanny would not have accepted the offer of her own accord. That she finally gave in to her father's wish was a sacrifice to him and to the whole family, whom she hoped to serve by her influence at court. In her diary'
'* Diary and Letters, Jnne 1786. 1 Op. cit. July 17, 1786.



she mentions the sorrow caused by taking leave of her friends:
"With a struggling heart, I kept myself tolerably tranquil during the little journey. My dear father was quite happy, and Mrs. Ord feit the joy of a mother in relinquishing me to the protection of a queen so universally reverenced. Had I been in better spirits, their ecstasy would have been unbounded; but alas! — what I was approaching was not in my mind; what I was leaving had taken possession of it solely."
However, Fanny tried to be plucky and to make the best of it. Characteristk of her kindness of heart and her love for her father is the care she took to conceal her reluctance from him. The one bright spot in this darkness was the presence of Mrs. Delany at Windsor. The intimacy with her was a great help in her various troubles at court and it was a great loss when this beloved friend died. It was mainly owing to Fanny's friendship with Mrs. Delany that the post at court had been offered to her. Mrs. Delany was very fond of her and once said:
"Miss Burney's novels, excellent as they are, are her meanest praise. Her admirable understanding, tender affections, and sweetness of manners make her invaluable to those who have the happiness to know her."1
After Mrs. Delany's death Fanny writes: "I have scarce a memorandum of this fatal month, in which I was bereft of the most revered of friends, and, perhaps, the most perfect of women. I am yet scarce able to settle whether to glide silently and resignedly — as far as I can — past all this melancholy deprivation, or whether to go back once more to the ever-remembered, ever-sacred scène that closed the earthly pilgrimage of my venerable, my sainted friend."4
Fanny was fond of Mary Port, Mrs. Delany's grand-
1 Sidelights on the Georgian Period, by George Paston, p. 3. * Diary and Letters. April 1788.



niece. Whenever she mentions her in the Diary it is with kindness. At this sad time she writes:
"Poor, sweet, unfortunate girl! what deluges of tears did she shed over me! I promised her in that solemn moment my eternal regard, and she accepted this, my first protestation of any kind made to her, as some solace to her sufferings. Sacred shall I hold it! — sacred to my last hour...
"I saw my poor lovely Miss Port twice in every day, when in town, till after the last holy rites had been performed. I had no peace away from her; I thought myself fulfilling a wish of that sweet departed saint, in consigning all the time I had at my own disposal to solacing and advising with her beloved niece, who received this little offering with a sweetness that once again twined her round my heart."1
Fanny kept up the correspondence with Miss Port. Some months after Mrs. Delany's death she advises her not to renew a correspondence with Colonel Goldsworthy, who had made love to her while she was at Windsor.
"As you ask my advice about your correspondents — I must give it you honestly — I cannot wish you to renew any yourself. I think those only who seek it can be worthy of it from you. I have always been a little proud for my dear Marianne and I feel no inclination to be less so." 1
According to Mr. Paston Miss Goldsworthy objected to the match and there is a suspicion that Fanny helped her to prevent it. The following year Miss Port was married to Mr. Waddington. She consented reluctantly, but the marriage was not unhappy. Fanny was entirely in her confidence, as is evident from the letters printed in Sidelights on the Georgian Period. In one of them, written in June 1795 there is a remark of Fanny about herself which is indeed very true:
1 Op. cit. April 1788.
* Sidelights on the Georgian Period, by George Paston, p. 14.



"though the least punctual of correspondents, I am perhaps the most faithful of all friends; for my regard, once excited, keeps equal energy in absence as in presence, and an equally fond and minute interest in those for whom I cherish it, whether I see them but at the distance of years, or with every day's sun."1
Then the correspondence is neglected for a while and they reproach each other for writing short letters. From a tetter, written in June 1797 it appears how very outspoken Fanny could be if she was annoyed.
"It appears to me, perhaps wrongly, you have wrought yourself into a fit of fancied resentment against a succession of short letters, which could only have been merited by letters that were unfriendly. You forget, meanwhile, the numerous letters I have received from yourself, not merely of half pages, but of literally three lines, and you forget them because they were never received with reproach nor answered with coldness . ..
"From all this, which reluctantly, though openly, I have written, you will deduce that, while you think me unkind (as I apprehend), I think you unjust."2
While Fanny was abroad Dr. Burney kept this friend informed of news from his daughter. After the publication of The Wanderec Mrs. Waddington wrote to Jeffrey to plead for a kindly notice of the novel. Jeffrey replied in May 1814 that the work was bad, though it had the same brilliant colouring and decided character of Madame d'Arblay's previous works. He added however:
"Gently and favourably I certainly shall speak, because I have the highest veneration for the personal character of the author; but I must speak what I think. I do not think it is quite pretty in her not to say a word in that long
1 Op. cit. p. 21. * Op. cit. p. 22.



foolish preface of Miss Edgewortb or Madame de Staël, and to praise herself so directly. The last may be partly simplicity of character; the first looks petty."1
Fanny's last letter in the possession of Mrs. Waddington was written in July 1821. The friends were estranged and Fanny assured Mrs. Waddington that her letters would be sent back after her death, to prevent publication. Mrs. Waddington seems to have been annoyed at some passages in the Diary and Letters, but they cannot justify the malignant attack of Lady Llanover on Fanny's character in her edition of the Autobiography and Correspondence of Mrs. Delany, where she gave the following account of Fanny's life at court:
"The Queen was persuaded to appoint Miss Burney, — Mrs. Delany and Mr. Smelt having deceived themselves into believing her capable of adapting herself to her place, and performing her new duties satisfactorily; their earnest desire to ensure Miss Burney a certain salary instead of the precarious income arising from her works having blinded their better judgment. Miss Burney was elated to such a degree by the appointment that she gradually lost all consciousness of her actual or relative position. She lived in an ideal world of which she was, in her own imagination, the centre. She believed herself possessed of a spell which fascinated all those she approached. She became convinced that all the equerries were in love with her, al though she was continuaUy the object of their ridicule, as they discovered her weakness and played upon her credulity for their own amusement. Many entertaining anecdotes might be collected of the ludicrous effect produced by Miss Burney's far-fetched expressions when she desired to be especially eloquent, and particularly courtly. On one occasion when she had been laid up by a violent headache, to which she was often subject, one of the attendants told her that His Majesty had
1 Op. cit. p. 48.



askcd if she was better, or how she was. 'Give my duty to His Majesty', said Miss Burney, 'and teil him the tittle machine has not yet quite ceased to vibraté. Miss Burney's situation certainly was anomalous, for though as a dresser she had a fixed (though subordinate) positkm; as a successful novel-writer she had an undefined sort of celebrity won by her taleats; and though as the daughter of a muskm aster she had previously no individuat position whatever, there was in her case more personal interest manifested on account of her being the daughter of so excellent a man as Dr. Burney, who was much respected, and it required a much better understanding than she ever possessed to discriminate between all these various hearings. She had a particularly large share of vanity, a particutarly lively imagination, and between both, she made numerous mistakes in the course of her various representations of her foor characters — of the timid nobody ; the wonderful girl who had written Evelina; the Queen's dresser; and the amiabk and devoted daughter, 'Fanny Burney.'"1
Mr. Shuckburgh pointed out how unfair this view of Miss Burney was and called it "the lady-in-waiting's lady'smaid's view". From such a sneer as "the girl who had written Evelina", it is obvious that Lady Llanover was influenced by Croker. * As a Keeper of the Robes Miss Burney's time was so taken up, that she had hardly any left for literary work. The few spare hours she could keep for herself, had to be devoted to her "toilette". This became a subject of great importance to Fanny, who never before had bothered about it more than was absolutely necessary. As she said in her diary, one might as well leave off the '—effe', for to her
1 Printed in the article by E. S. Shuckburgh, Macmillan's Magazine for Febr. 1890.
* Cf. Croker's article* in the Ouarterly Review of April 1833 and June 1842.



at any rate it was a great toil. However, in spite of her lack of spare time, Fanny managed to keep up the habit of writing a diary. This habit had become a sort of necessity to her and in her present seduded situation she feit a great need to write down her thoughts and feelings for a few intimate friends. Her diary, written during the five years that she stayed at Windsor and Kew gives such a lively picture of that secluded life at court that it diminishes the regret that Fanny was forced into a situation so absolutely unsuited to her. Though her sentimental admiration for thé condescending queen and the sweet princesses sometimes makes even the most sympathetic reader lose patience, the diary is on the whole extremely entertaining. Fanny's love of fun saves her narrative from being spoilt by sentimentality. Everything with regard to the royal family, is spoken of with the greatest respect, but her love of fun generally gets the upperhand when she is speaking about the other court officials.
It is not, however, the unconcerned love of the ridiculous as we used to find it in her earlier diary. It is only too obvious that in spite of all efforts to be cheerful and contented, Fanny was sad at heart from the very beginning of her court career. This is not surprising if we consider how she had to spend her days, attending the queen, looking after her own toilet and finally, what was by far the most tiresome, sitting together for hours with Mrs. Schwellenberg. This lady, who is said to have behaved better towards Miss Burney than to anybody else at court, must have had a very extraordinary manner of showing her favour. The picture given of this companion in the Diary makes one feel sorry for Fanny. It is not likely that she consciously exaggerated the disagreeable behaviour of „Cerbera". As she said herself, she never mixed truth with fiction and never had been a "sayer of the thing that is not". F. F. Moore remarks in connection with her opinion of M. de Guiffardière, called Mr. Turbulent in the Diary:



"It is our knowledge of how distasteful he was to her, and yet of the freedom with which she acknowledges hts abilities and records the good things that were said of him by other people, from the Queen down. that convinces us that we can place our trust implicitly in her Diary. We cannot but feel that she is absolutely fair in all her references to the people about her. In reading such a work one need not fear being misled by the judgments of the writet respecting people in whose favour she was prejudiced. What we have to be careful about accepting is all that is said about people for whom the writer had some animosity. We have, however, scores of instances of Fanny Burney's fairness on every hand. Her work is a notable example of the triumph of an artistic instinct over personal prejudice. Hence its great value as a chronicle."1
It is possible, however, that, irritated by the daily returning troubles, she saw Mrs. Schwellenberg in a less favourable light than was altogether fair. Whatever may have been the exact truth, it is certain that not only Miss Burney, but all the court officials revived when Mrs. Schwellenberg was confined to her room by illness. Besides, the plain facts speak for themselves. Not only in Fanny's diary do we find Mrs. Schwellenberg described as tyrannical, stupid, jealous, quick-tempered and even cruel. These statements are confirmed by others, such as Mrs. Papendieck:
"Mademoiselle Schwellenberg, who had been with the Queen from infancy, and who was a shrewd, ambitious woman, now assumed to herself a new character — that of female mentor to the Queen. She was to be styled Madame, as a distinetion from her companion; her apartments Were to join those of the Queen, and no one was to be adnritted to her Majesty's presence without first having been introduced to Madame . . .
1 F. F. Moore: A Keeper of the Robes, p. 208.



"By some unaccountable forbearance, the interference of Madame Schwellenberg was never done away with, though many ladies expostulated with the Queen upon her presomption. Her prevention of the intrusion of visitors may in some instances have saved the Queen much trouble, but in others it had the effect of disturbing, if not of destroying, friendship, and with the Duchess of Ancaster, who was high-minded, it was quite an unnecessary interference. By imperceptible degrees, Madame brought herself to the head of the wardrobe department, to the regulation of the persons therein employed, and to the regulation also of the expenditure, as far as was to be defrayed by the Queen's private allowance. She certainly kept up from first to last a becoming dignity in the system, but the discipline was severe, and the power she usurped to herself was unjust towards the companion with whom she had embarked, who was a placid, amiable, ladylike woman. Madame Schwellenberg no longer dressed the Queen, but stood by while others performed the taak, sometimes of difficulty, which her presence did not ameliorate ....
"What my father expected did occur within a few years. The strides of Madame were too great. The King desired that she should be dismissed, and return to Germany upon an allowance suitable to her position in that country. Finding that this intention made the Queen uneasy, not so much from sorrow at parting with her, as from regret that so unpleasant a circumstance should have happened, the King revoked his determination upon these conditions, that she should not resist his commands, nor influence the Queen's mind upon any subject, that she should share the labours of her place equally with her companion, and infringe upon no regulations unconnected with her immediate appointment. This remonstrance, given by the King in the presence of his mother, hurt the Queen very sensibly; and I fear that at times through life the overbearing disposition of this woman did disturb the harmony of the circle, al-



though the check given did, in some measure, put her on her guard."1
A totally different opinion of Mrs. Schwellenberg was expressed by Dr. John Watkins: "she was a well-educated and higly accomplished woman, extremely courteous in her manner, much respected by all the domestics of the royal household, and devotedly attached to the illustrious family with whom she lived, who, in their turn, entertained for her the sincerest affection. Madame Schwellenberg had been, however, most cruelly and wantonly held up to the public ridicule* by a profligate wit, whose delight lay in ribaldry, as a woman of a sordid disposition, than which nothing could be more opposite to her real character, for she was ever ready to oblige all who applied to her for assistance; and though, like her royal mistress, she chose to do good by stealth, her charities were very extensive." *
Dr. Watkins seems to stand alone in his opinion and though Mrs. Papendieck may have had a grudge against Mrs. Schwellenberg on account of this lady's interfering with the queen in order to give a place to a friend instead of MTS. Papendieck's brother, it is far more likely that Mrs. Papendieck's view is right here, as agreeing better with that of other court officials. In favour of Mrs. Papendieck's view is also the confidential remark of the king to Miss Burney in Kew Gardens:
"He asked after the coadjutrix, laughing, and saying "Never mind her! — don't be oppressed — I am your friend! don't let her cast you down! — I know you have a hard time of it — but don't mind her!'"*
1 Mrs. Papendieck: Court and Private Life in the time of Queen Charlotte, Vol. I, p. 14-17-
2 «yyfcf Schwellenberg is now in eternal abuse from all these scribblers . Diary and Letters, Febr. 9, 1789-
* Dr. John Watkins: Memoirs of Queen Charlotte, quoted in Papendieck Vol. Ip. t%
* Diary and Letters, Febr. 2, 1789.



When Fanny gave an account to the queen of her conversation with the king, she did not mention this reference to Mrs. Schwellenberg, out of consideration for the feelings of the queen. It is only in her private diary that Fanny gave vent to her feelings. She never spoke about her diffkult position at all and never complained to the queen whom she knew to be greatly attached to Mrs. Schwellenberg. One day during the illness of the king when Mrs. Schwellenberg had complained to the queen that she was left alone while Miss Burney received visits from Colonel Digby, and Fanny had been questioned about it, she wrote: "My spirits quite panted at this moment to make a full confession of the usage I had endured from the person thus compassionated; but I had so frequently resolved, in moments of cool deliberation, not even to risk doing mischief to a fayourate old servant, however personally provoked, that I withstood the impulse . . .
"This, too, is the last time to take for either attack or defence. It would be distressing; it would be unfeeling."*
As Edith J. Morley says, "her determination not to gossip or cause mischief, in spite of her loneliness and misery, is not the least admirable thing about her."*
The extreme monotony of her life was very depressing. Her life at home, though quiet, had been the very opposite of monotonous. The cheerful Burneys would have kept monotony away themselves, but they were visited, too, by a great many interesting people from different circles, who added greatly to the liveleness of the little household. And though, during the last years before going to court, Fanny had had a sad time owing to the loss of several dear friends, her company was constantly sought by the leading men and women of the age. Fanny had never known much discipline.
1 Quoted from the Burney MSS. by Constance HUI in: Fanny Burney
at the Court of Queen Charlotte, p. 257.
* E. J. Morley: Fanny Burney, Engl. Ass. pamphlet 60.



She had never been at school and, especially before her father's second marriage, she had been greatly left to herself. The change to the routine of this quiet court was a sad one. The only variety in its monotony was made by the regular changes of the court from Windsor to St. James's and Kew and by the few visits of the royal family to other places such as Oxford, Cheltenham and Weymouth. Of these excursions we find the most lively accounts in the Dtary. Though extremely tiring, they were welcomed by Fanny as a pleasant change from the dull court routine.
Miss Burney was friendly with almost all the court officials except Mrs. Schwellenberg, but with none of them was she intimate. Miss Planta, with whom she was a good deal together, seems to have been friendly but dull. Fanny writes about her:
"We do together perfectly well, for she is good, and sensible, and prudent, and ready for any kind office: but the powers of giving pleasure are not widely bestowed: we have no right to repine that they are wanting where the character that misses them has intrinsic worth; but, also, we have no remedy against weariness, where that worth is united with nothing attractive."1
It is interesting to compare Fanny's opinion of Miss Planta with Mrs. Papendieck's:
"Her manner was more brilliant than that of her sister; her disposition more flexible, and her whole deportment more suited to a court... Miss Peggy Planta was, however, well received, and much approved, and the schoolroom now was one of gaiety and cheerfulness."'
The two opinions differ obviously. We can only say in favour of Fanny that she saw a great deal more of Miss Planta than Mrs. Papendieck did.
1 Diary and Letters, July 15. x788.
» Mrs. Papendieck: Court and Private Life in the time of Queen Charlotte, Vol. I p. 64.



One of the equerries, however, seems to have made a deeper impression upon Fanny. That is Colonel Digby, or Mr. Fairly as he is called in the Diary. It was especially during the visit to Cheltenham that she became better acquainted with him. More than at Windsor they could find opportunities to talk together. He read aloud to her and it is obvious from the Diary how highly Fanny valued his company and the moral tone of his conversation. The visit to Cheltenham was the happkst period in Fanny's court career, owing to the absence of Mrs. Schwellenberg and the constant company of Colonel Digby. Whether the colonel had ever seriously thought of a marriage with Miss Burney is doubtful, but he had certainly awakened such thoughts in her. That her diary was not strictly private, but a journal written to Susan and probably also meant for some other intimate friends, accounts for the fact that she does not express those thoughts. Another reason for not writing down her feelings in thk case and even hardly admitting them to herself, was the recent death of the colonel's first wife. She only mentions him as a friend. When he took leave of her at Cheltenham, she wrote in her diary:
"He left me firmly impressed with a belief that I shall find in him a true, an honourable, and even an affectionate friend for life."1
But her disappointment when the future marriage of Colonel Digby with Miss Gunning (Miss Fuzilier in the Diary) was mentioned is evident. In an unpublished portion of the Burney MSS. there is the following comment by Fanny on the rumour of Colonel Digby's marriage: "I feit there could be no medium between the utter falsehood of the report, or the total reverse of that bask of honour and goodness on which my friendship had been built, and I found not even the power to hesitate which must be given up."
1 Diary and Letters, Aug. g, 1788. 7



And when the rumour has become certainty she adds:
"So great, however, had been my incredulity, so unspeakable . . . was my astonishment, that I feel satisfied, if my heart had been engaged in this af fair, if my affections had been touched beyond gratitude and esteem, the instantaneous effect of this sudden conviction would infallibly have been immediate death by an apoplectick stroke, and let me as I recount this most thankfully consider my almost wonderful preservation. He has risked my whole earthly peace with a defiance of all mental integrity the mbst extraordinary to be imagined! . .. What may have stimulated him, I can form no idea, his conscience seemed so delicate, so disinterested . . .
It is not him I have to thank that he has not broken my heart! It is Heaven alone I have to praise."1
It is difficult to find out how far this sad experience has affected Fanny, for several factors conspired to make her life at court sad after this. The royal family returned to Windsor and Fanny had to go back to the dull court routine and the disagreeable company of Mrs. Schwellenberg. What made life at court particularly dismal at that time was the illness of the king. The queen was in great distress and Fanny's surroundings were extremely depressing, especially when, for the recovery of the king, the court removed to Kew.
It was in Kew Gardens that Fanny met with the extraordinary adventure which has been mentioned as an example of her artfulness. During a walk by herself she accidentally met the king and his attendants. As strict orders had been given to avoid the king, she tried to prevent this meeting by running away. But the king had seen her and as she did not stop when he called out, he pursued her, till she was ordered by the doctors to stop. An extremely kind
1 Printed in: Fanny Burney at the Court of Queen Charlotte, by Constance Hill, p. 315-



interview followed, during which conversation the poor king poured out his heart to her.1 Mrs. Masefield says:
"It has been suggested that Fanny could be sly upon occasion, and that she may have courted some of the incidents which she pretended to endure with so much trepidation (such as George III's chase of her in Kew Garden)." * But Fanny's behaviour during this strange adventure, as described in the Diary, seems perfectly natural.
Fanny's respect for rank greatly increased during her residence at court. It was her kind heart that made her so devoted to the unhappy queen during the king's illness, but it seems to have been her heart only that led her. When she gives her opinion upon matters of state, it is obvious that she is strongly under the influence of the general feeling at court. According to her, the people had no right whatever to inquire into the state of the king. She shudders to hear the Regency Bill named.3 In the trial of Warren Hastings, too, her partiality is tremendous. It was a happy choice of the queen's when she sent Miss Burney to Westminster Hall in order to attend the trial and to report to her afterwards. Fanny was glad to meet old friends there, and this was the only duty during her court career which really suited her. From her fine descriptions in the Diary we can see how very capable she was of giving an interesting and vivid account. Timid Fanny found it a formidable task to give a report, and we find expressions of dissatisfaction with her performance, as:
"I was called upon, on my return, to relate the day*s business. Heavy and lame was the relation; but their majesties were curious and nothing better suited truth." *
But after a victory of Mr. Hastings' she came home
1 Diary and Letters, Febr. 2, 1789.
' Mrs. Ch. Masefield: Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay, p. 8.
* Diary and Letters, Febr. 6, 1789.
* Op. cit. Febr. 16, 1790.



delighted, and vivid enough will her narrative have been
that time. 
"I had the pleasure to deliver this myself to their majesties and the princesses; and as I was called upon while it was fresh in my memory I believe but little of the general energy was forgotten. It gave me great pleasure to repeat so strikmg an affirmation of the innocence of so high, so injiired I believe, a character. The queen eagerly declared I should go again the next sitting."1
Fanny knew nothing about the case. She had little or no interest in politics as being too masculine an occupation for a woman. But she was absolutely convinced that Hastings was innocent. Her partiality in this respect was owing to the influence of the queen and to that of her brother-in-law, Mr Francis, who had been private secretary to Hastings in India, but also to her own friendship with Hastings and his wife. She considered Hastings as the victim of hisi cruel enemies and her behaviour towards her old friend Burke was most ungracious. Only Mr. Windham she saw in a more favourable light in spite of his principles. Her conversations with him, as related in the Diary, are interestmg, as is the whole of that lively picture she has given of the Hastings trial.
While at court, Miss Burney was asked to enter into correspondence with Madame de Genlis. She had made her acquaintance when this lady visited England in 1785 and Fanny then called her "the sweetest as well as the most accomplished Frenchwoman I ever met with." She received once a very kind note from Madame de Genl*:
"Je vous aime depuis 1'instant oü j'ai lu Evelina et CeciUa, et le bonheur de vous entendre et de vous connoitre personellement a rendu ce sentiment aussi tendre qu'il est bien fondé." But Fanny never answered at all. She was in great difficulty, not knowing what to do. 
* Op. cit. May 18. i79°-



"Alas! what can I do? — I think of her as of one of the first among women — I see her full of talents and of charms — I am willing to believe her good, virtuous, and dignified; — yet, with all this, the cry against her is so violent and so universal, and my belief in her innocence is wholly nnsurported by proof in its favour, or any other argument than internal conviction, from what I observed of her conduct and manners and conversation when I saw her in London, that I know not how to risk a correspondence with her till better able to satisfy others, as well as I am satisfied myself."1
It is a struggle between Fanny's prudery and her inclination to judge for herself. That she is now even less independent than she used to be, is shown by the fact that she consulted the queen in this matter. She was perfectly aware of the change herself:
"It was fearfully that I took this liberty. I dreaded lest she should imagine I meant to put myself under her direction, as if presuming she would be pleased to direct me. Something, I told her, I had to say, by the advice of Mrs. Delany, which I begged her permission to communicate. She assented in silence, but with a look of the utmost softness, and yet mixed with strong surprise. I feit my voice faltering, and I was with difficulty able to go on — so new to me was it to beg to be heard, who, hitherto, have always been begged to speak. There is no absolutely accounting for the forcible emotions which every totally new situation and new effort will excite in a mind enfeebled, like mine, by a long succession of struggling agitations. I got behind her chair, that she might not see a distress she might wonder at: for it was not this application itself that affected me; it was the novelty of my own situation, the new power I was calling forth over my proceedings, and the — O my Susan! — the all that I was changing from — relinquishing
1 Op. cit. Aug. or Sept. 1786.



— of the past — and hazarding for the future!"1 There were several things which hurt Fanny and seemed humiliating to her when she first came to court. One of them was the manner in which she was summoned to the queen.
"At first, I feit inexpressibly discomfited by this mode of call. A bell! — it seemed so mortifying a mark of seryitude, I always feit myself blush, though alone, with conscious shame at my own strange degradation. But I have philosophized myself now into some reconcilement with this manner of summons by reflecting that to have some person always sent would be often very inconvenient. and that this method is certainly less an interruption to any occupation I may be employed in, than the entrance of messengers so many times in the day. It is, besides, less liable to mistakes. So I have made up my mind to it as well as I can; and now I only feel that proud blush when somebody is by to revive my original dislike of it."'
Though Fanny was extremely sensitive, she got used to most of these small matters. But there were other, far more serious humiliations, and Fanny did not bear those quite so meekly. One day she was informed that the queen intended to give her a gown, but Mrs. Schwellenberg managed this affair so ungraciously that Fanny could not possibly be grateful. The account in the Diary of the conversation of Mrs. Schwellenberg in broken English is amusing, though it did not seem so to Fanny at that moment.
"'I might teil you now, the queen is going to Oxford, and you might go with her; it is a secret — you might not teil it to nobody. But I teil you once, I shall do for you what I can; you are to have a gown'.
"I stared, and drew back, with a look so undisguised of wonder and displeasure at this extraordinary speech, that I
1 Op. cit. Aug. or Sept. 1786. * Op. cit. July 24, 1786.



saw it was understood, and she then thought it time, there fore, to name her authority, which with great emphasis, she did thus: 'The queen will give you a gown! The queen says you are not rich,' etc. There was something in the manner of this quite intolerable to me; and I hastily interrupted her with saying, 'I have two gowns by me, and therefore do not require another'.
"Perhaps a proposed present from her majesty was never so received before; but the grossness of the manner of the messenger swallowed up the graciousness of the design in the principal: and I had not even a wish to conceal how little it was to my taste.
"The highest suprise sat upon her brow; she had imagined that a gown — that any present — would have been caught at with obsequious avidity; but indeed she was mistaken. Seeing the wonder and displeasure now hers, I calmly added, 'The queen is very good, and I am very sensible of her majesty's graciousness; but there is not, in this instance, the least occasion for it'.
"'Miss Bernar', cried she, quite angrily, 'I teil you once, when the queen will give you a gown, you must be humble, thankful, when you are Duchess of Ancaster'.
"She then enumerated various ladies to whom her majesty had made the same present, many of them of the first distinction, and all, she said, great secrets. Still I only repeated again the same speech.
"I can bear to be checked and curbed in discourse, and would rather be subdued into silence — and even, if that proves a gratification that secures peace and gives pleasure, into apparent insensibility; but to receive a favour through the vehicle of insolent ostentation — no! no! To submit to ill humour rather than argue and dispute I think an exercise of patience, and I encourage myself all I can to practice it: but to accept even a shadow of an obligation upon such terms I should think mean and unworthy; and therefore I mean always, in a Court as I would elsewhere,



to be open and fearless in declining such subjection.
"When she had finished her list of secret ladies, I told her I must beg to speak to the queen, and make my own acknowledgments for her gracious intention. This she positively forbid; and said it must only pass through her hands. When I give you the gown', she added, 'I will teil you when you may make your curtsey.'
"I was not vexed at this prohibition, not knowing what etiquette I might offend by breaking it; and the conversation conduded with nothing being settled.
"How little did the sweet queen imagine that this her first mark of favour should so be offered me as to raise in me my first spirit of resistance! How differently would she have executed her own commission herself! To avoid exciting jealousy was, I doubt not, her motive for employing another."1
This passage shows clearly that Fanny, though generally meek, when once properly roused, could behave with spirit and dignity. The spirit of resistance did rise in Fanny sometimes, though not often, and even then it was immediately softened by her respect for the queen. One day she had been late for her summons and the queen had been displeased-
"She said no more, and I stood behind her chair. The princess and two ladies were seated.
"What republican feelings were rising in my breast, till she softened them down again, when presently, in a voice changed from that dryness which had wholly disconcerted me, to its natural tone, she condescended to ask me to look at Lady Frances Howard's gown, and see if it was not very pretty. This made a dutiful subject of me again in a moment." *
With all her respect for rank she could not help making fun of the court etiquette and of her own feelings on this subject. 
1 Op. cit. Aug. 8, 1786. * Op. cit. Nov. 6, 1786.



Though Fanny had lived so much in society and had been admired as the celebrated authoress, she never lost her shyness. Mrs. Delany, who knew her so weH, expressed this in an amusing manner to the queen, before Fanny was at court. Mrs. Delany had said that Miss Burney had read The Clandestine Marriage to her.
" 'O then,' cried the queen, 'if Miss Burney reads to you, what a pleasure you must have to make her read her own works!'
"Mrs. Delany laughed and exclaimed. 'O ma'am! read her own works! — your majesty has no notion of Miss Burney! I believe she would as soon die!'"1
Any reference to her works at once threw Fanny into the greatest confusion. In the Diary she speaks of her embarrassment when Cecilia was mentioned on the stage.
"Once about this time I went to a play myself, which surely I may live long enough and never forget. It was 'Seduction', a very clever piece, but containing a dreadful picture of vice and dissipation in high life, written by Mr. Miles Andrews, with an epilogue — O, such an epilogue! I was listening to it with uncommon attention, from a compliment paid in it to Mrs. Montagu, among other female writers; but imagine what became of my attention when I suddenly was struck with these lines, or something like them: —
"Let sweet Cecilia gain your just applause, Whose every passion yields to Reason's laws.' "To hear, wholly unprepared and unsuspicious, such lines in a theatre — seated in a royal box — and with the whole royal family and their suite immediately opposite me — was it not a singular circumstance? To describe my embarrassment would be impossible. My whole head was leaning forward, with my opera glass in my hand, examining
1 Op. cit. Dec. 3, 1785.



Miss Farren, who spoke the epilogue. Instantly I shrank back, so astonished and so ashamed of my public situation, that I was almost ready to take to my heels and run, for it seemed as if I were there purposely in that conspicuous place —
'To list attentive to my own applause.'
"The king immediately raised his opera-glass to look at me, laughing heartily — the queen's presently took the same direction — all the princesses looked up, and all the attendants, and all the maids of honour!
"I protest I was never more at a loss what to do with myself: nobody was in the front row with me but Miss Goldsworthy, who instantly seeing how I was disconcerted, prudently and good-naturedly forbore taking any notice of me. I sat as far back as I could, and kept my fan against the exposed profile for the rest of the night, never once leaning forward, nor using my glass.
"None of the royal family spoke to me on this matter till a few days after; but I heard from Mrs. Delany they had all declared themselves sorry for the confusion it had caused me. And some time after the queen could not forbear saying, 'I hope, Miss Burney, you minded the epilogue the other night?'
"And the king, very comically, said: 'I took a peep at
you! I could not help that. I wanted to see how you
looked when your father first discovered your writing — and now I think I know!'"1
Mr. Austin Dobson points out that Fanny's quotation from the epilogue is wrong. The correct lines are: 'And oft let soft Cecilia win your praise; While Reason guides the clue in Fancy's Maze.' It shows that Fanny wrote down her diary spontaneously, without verifying matters.
1 Op. cit. March, i787-



Soon after the visit to Cheltenham Fanny's health had begun to fail and her state at last became so alarming that her friends urged her to resign. She longed for freedom and rest, but had not the courage to make her wish known to the queen. When at last, after an actual breakdown, the much dreaded step had to be taken, it appeared that Fanny had very good reason for her fear. Mrs. Schwellenberg considered it a downright crime, but even the queen showed herself surprised, and suggested a leave of absence. There is a striking passage in the Diary before the resignation memorial was offered:
"There seemed no time to be lost; when I saw my dear father he recommended to me to be speedy, and my mother was very kind in urgency for immediate measures. I could not, however, summon courage to present my memorial; my heart always failed me, from seeing the queen's entire freedom from such an expectation: for though I was frequently so ill in her presence that I could hardly stand, I saw she conduded me, while life remained, inevitably hers."1
Retirement, however, became unavoidable, and after a long delay Miss Burney was delivered of her duty. The queen's opinion on Fanny's character, as expressed to Mrs. de Luc, is in te resting:
"O, as to character, she is what we call in German 'true as gold'; and, in point of heart, there is not, all the world over, one better."*
Mrs. Papendieck liked Fanny. She even speaks of "my ever dear Miss Burney" and seems to have had a high opinion of her, as we can see from a passage in her memoirs:
"Miss Burney called upon me, as she promised she would do, but brought Miss Planta with her, who, she said, should relate all this disagreeable business to me, as she had been the principal mover in all the changes and new arrangements
1 Op. cit. Dec. 1790. * Op. cit. April 1791.



that had been made. Miss Burney added that the Queen had said that 'she would not keep her from her writing', and so had sent for Miss Planta to assist her in settling the unpleasant affair. Miss Burney thought that the honour of the house ought to have been kept up, and that the waiting women should certainly have been provided for separate from the Royal attendants, for many reasons. She knew the world, and the Queen knew that her propositions would have been those of a lady who well understood the position of people of all ranks, and who possessed a mind liberal, magnanimous, and totally devoid of prejudice. The Queen's judgment, combined with the amiable feelings of the dresser, might have laid down rules for the comfort and respect of every individual, to the honour of such an establishment, and for the happiness of those dependent on it. But now, alas! there was much inconvenience, and many discussions, and a good deal of discontent had arisen."1
According to Mrs. Papendieck, the particular affair referred to in this passage, ought to have been discussed with Miss Burney, but "the Queen never asked her advice". It is, however, not at all certain that Mrs. Papendieck was right, for we find another passage in her memoirs, referring to Miss Burney, which is definitely wrong. It is about Fanny's resignation. Mrs. Papendieck says that "the Queen was about to dismiss Miss Burney".
"What gave rise to the change was Miss Burney telling the Queen that she had written a third novel; that it would gratify her much if her Majesty would permit her to read it; that if approved her Majesty would title it, and grant Miss Burney the honour and indulgence of dedicating it to her.
"The Queen immediately replied that she could do neither, as it would not be consistent with her feelings to encourage
* Mn. Papendieck: Court and Private Life in the time of Queen Charlotte, Vol. II p. 4.



or even sanction novel writing, particularly under her own roof. She added that she perceived a want of cheerfulness and pleasurable attendance in Miss Burney, and always feit certain that whenever she rang her bell, the pen was laid down with regret; and that she thought Miss Burney would feel happier to resumé her writing for the public than to continue in a situation that did not appear to snit her, and of which the duties were irksome and uncongenial to her.
"Poor thing, she bowed out; and not being in good circumstances as to pecuniary matters in her home with her father, Dr. Burney, it was a severe blow."1
This narrative is altogether incorrect. It was not a dismissal, but a resignation of her own accord, obtained with great difficulty. Mrs. Papendieck seems not to have known that Miss Burney got a pension and that Camilla, when it appeared several years afterwards, was dedicated to the queen. We have seen enough of Fanny's character to know that her asking the queen for permission to read her own novel to her is an utter impossibility. Besides, Camilla had not yet been written. During the dismal days of the king's illness Fanny had worked at a tragedy, but that is the only literary work she did during those five years. Hers was not a very energetic nature, and in her depressed state of mind during most of the time at court she could not settle to any real work. As she said to the king, she thought her invention exhausted.
Much time, however, was devoted to her journal, and the descriptions of this period are among the finest of the whole diary1. She has given an excellent picture of the domestic life and manners of the royal family and their court. She was not interested in secrets of state or in politics, but what is even more remarkable in a situation like hers, she took no interest in court-scandal. With regard to her
1 Op. cit. Vol. II p. 259.



opinion of Mrs. Schwellenberg, she has been called unforgiving towards an enemy of her own sex1, and the Duke of Sussex, who greatly liked the Diary, said that she had been "hard on poor old Schwellenberg" \ but the duke cannot possibly have known her as Fanny knew her, and it seems only human to resent such treatment as Fanny suffered during five long years. Most people would have given up the unpleasant situation much sooner. That Fanny managed to endure it for such a long time, shows that she possessed a certain amount of perseverance. Her ever accepting the post was a sad mistake, for, though her health soon returned, and she went back to a happier life and to work more suited to her taste, she never recovered that vivacity which had been the charm of her youth.
1 L. B. Seeley: Fanny Burney and her friends, p. 159. » Op. cit. p. 158.



Charter IV
MADAME D'ARBLAY
When Miss Burney came home at last, she was so weak that she could not think of visiting her friends, but the old acquaintances soon came to see her and rejoiced at her resignation. Walpole especially sent the most cordial congratulations. Numerous also were the invitations she received to go and stay with friends in the country in order to recover her health. Mrs. Ord had long been an intimate friend of Fanny's. Together with Dr. Burney she had taken Fanny to Windsor when the latter was going to enter upon her court duties and after the resignation it was Mrs. Ord again who made her a very kind offer. Fanny was to make a tour with her in the West of England and take the waters at Bath in order to recover her strength completely before she settled down in London. This excursion proved beneficial to her in every way. The quiet manner of travelling gave her sufficiënt opportunity for rest and new acquaintances made a welcome diversion. In Bath she met the celebrated Duchess of Devonshire and was charmed with her, but Miss Burney, now so devoted to Queen Charlotte and a more staunch Tory than ever, thought it was rather a singular circumstance that so soon after leaving court she made the acquaintance of the famous Whig Duchess.
When she returned home in October 1791 she feit recovered and mentally refreshed. Her home was now Chelsea



College where her father was organist and there she settled down to her literary work. She had made rough sketches of a few tragedies during the dismal time of the king's illness, when she feit her mood best suited to that type of work and now she wanted to finish them. But though, when she had once set herself a task, she generally carried it'out conscientiously, her energy had never been of the greatest, Thm was no Daddy Crisp now to stimulate her by his criticism and, though her father hoped that she would resumé her literary pursuits, she did not display a great activity during this period of her life;
After the many years of seclusion at Windsor, societylife again had the attraction of novelty. She went to visit Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Crewe and met many old friends. At Mrs. Crewe's she met Burke again and was as much charmed with him as before the Hastings trial. He was very glad that she was no longer a courtier and said:
"You look quite renewed, revived, disengaged; you seemed when I conversed with you last, at the trial, quite altered; I never saw such a change for the better as quitting a Court has brought about."1
Burke evidently did not guess the real reason of Miss Burney's coldness when she spoke to him at the trial. He certainly had been too good a friend to be treated in this manner, but Fanny's honesty is her excuse. She could not be kind where her whole heart objected to his behaviour, in the same way as she could not "break bread" with Mr. Windham and in her conversations with him defended the accused with great ardour.
The happiness of seeing old friends again was mixed, however, with sadness. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was glad to see her again, was nearly blind and died soon after. And the sudden death of her brother-in-law, Mr. Francis, detained her in Norfolk to keep her widowed sister Charlotte
1 Diary and Letters, June 18, 1792-



company. The dearest friends she possessed during this period of her life were her sister Susan Phillips and her family, and Mr. and Mrs. Locke. She often went to stay with Susan at Mickleham or with the Lockes at Norbury Park, and it is there that she met the French exiles who had found a refuge in Juniper Hall. Susan, with her French education and French sympathies, had already shown herself a warm friend to them and was greatly liked in return. Fanny's sympathies with the French were not so deep, but she, too, had a reason to be interested in these exiles. Her Toryism, greatly strengthened during her life at court, made her abhor everything connected with the French Revolution. She did not think deeply on the subject, as, in fact, she never did on public matters, but simply consulted her feelings. She made no allowance whatever for the people who had been oppressed by the nobility and clergy, but only judged them by the terrible stories of their cruelty. These people were propagating opinions which were the very opposite of what she had always learned to hold sacred. The re volt against their king and the action against the Christian religion made her consider them as monsters. The history of their victims, as Susan wrote it to her, naturally excited her interest and before she had met the emigrants they already had her warmest sympathy. But when she was actually introduced to the inhabitants of Juniper Hall and heard their brilliant conversation, she was delighted. Fanny had been used to the conversation of Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, but she was astonished and charmed to hear the eloquence of this little group of French emigrants.
In spite of the sad circumstances the conversation is sure to have been brilliant, for among this little group were Madame de Staël, Talleyrand, Narbonne and his friend d'Arblay. Fanny's maternal grandmother had been French and she herself, though timid in society, possessed something of the French spirit. This company was extremely congenial to her and she deeply pitied the misfortunes of her new
8



friends. Just before her arrival they had received the news that Louis the Sixteenth had been executed. The event overwhelmed the little group at Juniper Hall and Fanny, who considered this so terrible that she had never thought tt would really happen, feit the keenest sorrow and sympathy. In a letter to her father she writes:
"I have been wholly without spirit for writing, reading, working, or even walking or conversing, ever since the first day of my arrival. The dreadful tragedy acted in France has entirely absorbed me. Except the period of the illness of our own inestimable king, I have never been so over come with grief and dismay, for any but personal and family calamities. O what a tragedy! how implacable its villainy, and how severe its sorrows! You know, my dearest father, how little I had believed such a catastrophe postoble: with all the guilt and all the daring already shown, I had still thought this a height of enormity impracticable. And, indeed, without military law throughout the wretched city, it had still not been perpetrated. Good heaven! — what must have been the sufferings of the few unhardened in crimes who inhabit that city of horrors! — if h an English person, have been so deeply afflicted, that even this sweet house and society — even my Susan and her lovely children — have been incapable to give me any species or pleasure, or keep me from a desponding low-spmtedness, what must be the feelings of all but the culprits m France t "M. de Narbonne and M. d'Arblay have been almost annihilated: they are for ever repining that they are French, and though two of the most accomplished and elegant men I ever saw, they break our hearts with the humilution they feel for their guiltless birth in that guilty country
The French exiles were interested in the author of Ceciha, which had been translated into French.1 Madame de Stael
1 Op. cit. Jan. 28, 1793-
* Cécilia ou memoires d'une héritière, Neucbitel 1783-



in particular was eagcr to make her acquaintance. She wrote several notes to Miss Burney, assuring her of her friendship and inviting her to come and stay at Juniper Hall. In one of them especially she expresses her high opinion of Fanny as an author:
"Teil me, my dear, if this day is a charming one, if it must be a sweet epoch in my life? — do you come to dine here with your lovely sister, and do you stay night and day till our sad separation? I re joke me with that hope during this week; do not deceive my heart.
"I hope that card very clear, mak, pour plus de certitude, je vous dk en francok que votre chambre, la maison, les habitants de Juniper, tout est prêt a recevok la première femme d'angleterre."1
Fanny had a great admiration for Madame de Staël who reminded her of Mrs. Thrale, though she had far more depth than that lady. After many pressing invitations from Madame de Staël, Fanny intended to go and stay for some time at Juniper Hall. In a letter to Dr. Burney in which she asked hk permission she wrote:
"She exactly resembles Mrs. Thrale in the ardour and warmth of her temper and partialities. I find her impossible to resist, and therefore, if your answer to her k such as I conclude it must be, I shall wait upon her for a week." *
Dr. Burney, however, was not at all pleased with Fanny's friendship for Madame de Staël. He had heard some gossip about her and persuaded hk daughter not to go and stay under her roof, if the vkit could still be prevented. The careful, prudish Fanny drew back at once, though not at all convinced herself that there was any truth in thk gossip. She had become really attached to the inhabitants of Juniper Hall and kept up her friendship with them, but after hearing only the shadow of a rumour about some members
* Printed in the Diary and Letters, Jan. 1703.
* Op. cit. Febr. 29, 1793.



of this little circle she carefully avoided going to stay there. Madame de Staël was visibly disappointed and displeased, hut when she left Juniper Hall, she said to Susan:
"Et dites a Mlle. Burney que je ne lui en veux pas du
tout1 que je quitte le pays 1'aimant bien sincèrement, et
sans rancune."
Afterwards, when Madame d'Arblay was in France, Madame de Staël wished to renew the acquaintance, but Fanny took great pains to prevent it. In a letter written at Chessington to Mrs. Locke in 1793 she expressed her regret that this friendship should come to such a sudden end: "I have regretted excessively the finishing so miserably an acquaintance begun with so much spirit and pleasure, and the dépit I fear Madame de Staël must have experienced. I wish the world would take more care of itself, and less of its neighbours. I should have been very safe, I trust, without such flights, and distances, and breaches. But there seemed an absolute resolution formed to crush this acquaintance, and compel me to appear its wilful renouncer. AU I did also to clear the matter, and soften to Madame de Stael any piqué or displeasure, unfortunately served only to increase them. Had I understood her disposition better, I should certainly have attempted no palliation, for I rather offended her pride than mollified her wrath. Yet I followed the golden rule, for how much should I prefer any acknowledgment of regret at such an apparent change, from anyone I esteemed, to a seeming unconscious complacency in an unexplained caprice! I am vexed, however, very much vexed, at the whole business. I hope she left Norbury Park with full satisfaction in its steady and more comfortab e connection. I fear mine will pass for only a fashionable
one.
i The English translation is of conrse: «that I take no offence" and not: «that I do not desire it of her", as W. C. Ward puts it in a note in his edition of the Diary.



Yet Fanny did not break off her connections with all the French friends in this nnpleasant manner. From the very beginning she had been charmed with M. d'Arblay. Before Fanny's stay at Norbury Park, Susan had given her a description of M. d'Arblay:
"I was extremely pleased at his coming, and more and more pleased with himself every moment that passed.
"He seems to me a trué 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 coeur, and, at the same time, of natveté and bonne foi."
Shortly after her arrival, Fanny mentioned him in a letter to her father: "This latter is one of the most delightful characters I have ever met, for openness, probity, intellectual knowledge, and unhackneyed manners."1 In another letter to Dr. Burney she says:
"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."*
We cannot be surprised that such a character appealed to Fanny, and their friendship soon became more intimate. They exchanged English and French lessons and in a letter written at Mickelham to Mrs. Locke Fanny speaks of "this enchanting M. d'Arblay." Soon afterwards M. d'Arblay made her an offer of marriage and, in spite of the objections of Dr. Burney, it was accepted. This marriage was a romantic one and, for the first time in her life, Fanny op-
1 Op. cit. Febr. 4, 1793. * Op. cit. Febr. 29, 1793.



posed the wish of her father. Dr. Burney had very good reason to object to the marriage, for M. d'Arblay had completely lost his fortune and Fanny had nothing but her pension from the queen. She did not even know whether this pension would be continued after the marriage, but she did not hesitate long. Financial considerations had never been very important to her. When she was twenty-three she refused an offer from Mr. Barlow in spite of its material advantages. Now at forty she had met the man whom she called "the most peculiarly to my taste, and whom I think the most peculiarly formed for my happiness of any mortal I ever saw or ever knew in my life,"1 and, in spite of financial difficulties and even the disapproval of her father, she risked it.
On the 28th of July 1793 Miss Burney was married in Mickleham Church and a few days afterwards in the Chapei of the Sardinian Ambassador. In a letter to a friend, shortly after the marriage, she mentions with regret her father's disapproval, but continues:
"I feel satisfied, however, that time will convince him I have not been so imprudent as he now thinks me. Happiness is the great end of all our worldly views and proceedings, and no one can judge for another in what will produce it. To me, wealth and ambition would always be unavailing; I have lived in their most centrical possessions, and I have always seen that the happiness of the richest and the greatest has been the moment of retiring from riches and from power. Domestic comfort and social affection have invariably been the sole as well as ultimate objects of my choice, and I have always been a stranger to any other species of felicity."*
This letter has a more independent tone than we have
1 Printed from an unpublished letter to her brother Charles in: Juniper Hall, by Constance HUI, p. 163.
2 Diary and Letters, Aug. 2, 1793.



ever before heard from Fanny. She feit that m this important case she had to choose for herself, and she soon convinced her father that she had been right in her choke, for her marriage was singularly happy.
In another letter to the same friend Fanny mentions her own surprise at the change in her situation and admits that, though she had never decided against married life, she had been persuaded that she would remain single.
"The account of your surprise, my sweet friend, was the last thing to create mine. I was well aware of the general astonishment, and of yours in particular. My own, however, at my very extraordinary fate, k singly greater than that of all my friends united. I had never made any vow against marriage, but I had long, long been persuaded it was for me a state of too much hazard and too little promise to draw me from my individual plans and purposes. I remember, in playing at questions and commands, when I was thirteen, being asked when I intended to marry? and surprising my playmates by solemnly replying, 'When I think I shall be happier than I am in being single'. It k true, I imagined that time would never arrivé; and I have pertinaciously adhered to trying no experiment upon any other hope; for, many and mixed as are the ingredients which form what is generally considered as happiness, I was always fully convinced that social sympathy of character and taste could alone have any chance with me; all else I always thought, and now know, to be immaterial."1
The first years of her marriage, when she lived in a little cottage in Sussex, were probably the happiest of her life. The letters written during that period to Dr. Burney and some other friends show her peaceful and happy state of mind. Her original sense of humour, which had suffered considerably from her weak health, had come back again as we can see in the stories of M. d'Arblay's energetic but
1 Op. cit. no date.



unsuccessful gardening. In these early years, as later on in her married life, Fanny had to face many difficulties and sorrows, but they were always owing to outward circumstances. There never was any discord in the little family.
M. d'Arblay's intention to offer his services for the Toulon expedition was a severe blow to his wife, who had before expressed her delight that his sword was not used for anything else but cutting the hedge. But her attitude in this case is characteristic of her high sense of duty. In a letter to her father she says:
"I dare not speak of myself, except to say that I have forborne to oppose him with a single softkitation: all the feKcity of this our chosen and loved retirement would effectually be annulled by the smallest suspicion that it was enjoyed at the expense of any duty; and therefore, since he is persuaded it is right to go, I acquiesce."1
The offer, however, was not accepted and they contmued undisturbed their quiet and retired life. The only friends they frequently met were Susan and her husband and the Lockes of Norbury Park. But while M. d'Arblay was gardening, Fanny was not without occupation either, for very soon after her marriage she was called upon to recommence her literary work.
Among the French emigrants who sought a refuge in England, there were a great many priests. They lived in extreme poverty and as their circumstances became daily worse, Mrs. Crewe asked Madame d'Arblay to write an addresS to the ladies of Great Britain in order to raise funds. Fanny readily complied and towards the end of 1793 was published at Thomas Cadell's, in the Strand the Brief Reftections telative to the Emigrant French Ctergy. The little pamphlet contains an apology which is characteristic of Fanny's nature. She had never shown any interest in public affairs herself and did not approve of women
* Op. cit. Sept. 29, 1793-
I



occupying themselves with these things. It seems extraordinary, therefore, that now all at once she came forward with such a public address. Fanny feit that strongly herself and was eager to defend her action in an apology. The privacy of the life of women was, according to her, the dictate of common sense. This retirement, which divested them of practical skill for public purposes, yet guarded them against the heart-hardening effects of general worldly commerce. They had leisure to reflect upon the misery they saw and upon the pleasures of benevoknce. And here they would find a cause which did not make it a disgrace to women to come forward.
"It is here, then, in the cause of tenderness and humanity, they may come forth, without charge of presumption, or forfeiture of delicacy. Exertions here may be universal, without rivality or impropriety; the head may work, the hand may labour; the heart may suggest, indiscriminately in all, in men without disdain, in women without a blush: and however truly of the latter to withdraw from notice may be in general the first praise, in a service such as this, they may with yet more dignity come forward: for it is here that their purest principles, in union with their softest feelings, may blend immediatc gratification with the most solemn future hopes."
After this introduction which is intended to defend her own act and at the same time to convince the ladies she addresses- that nothing will be asked of them which might hurt their dignity or delicacy, she goes on to relate in a most pathetic manner the misfortunes of the unhappy French clergy, displaying all her deep-felt horror of the French Revolution and finishes by exhorting the ladies to spare a little from their luxuries to help these poor men, pointing out that their reward in heaven for so good a deed will be great. This high-flown address had the desired effect on the ladies of the eighteenth century and entirely answered its purpose. Fanny herself feit strongly on the



subject. When she sent the pamphlet to her father, she wrote:
"It is a matter truly near my heart; and though I have not done it rapidly, I have done it with my whole mind, and, to own the truth, with a species of emotion that has greatly affected me, for I could not deeply consider the situation of these venerable men without feeling for them to the quick."1
Madame d'Arblay also began her third novel and another tragedy, but she could not devote her whole time to her work for on the i8th of December 1794 her son Alexander was born. This increase of the little family greatly added to its happiness. When her baby was about five months old Fanny told in a letter to her father an amusing story of her and M. d'Arblay's parental pride:
"As you say, 't is pity M. d'A. and his rib should have conceived such an antipathy to the petit monsieur'. O if you could see him now! My mother would be satisfied, for his little cheeks are beginning to favour of the trumpeter's, and Esther would be satisfied, for he eats like an embryo alderman. He enters into all we think, say, mean, and wish! His eyes are sure to sympathise in all our af fairs and all our feelings. We find some kind reason for every smile he bestows upon us, and some generous and disinterested motive for every grave look.
"If he wants to be danced, we see he has discovered that his gaiety is exhilarating to us; if he refuses to be moved, we take notice that he fears to fatigue us. If he will not be quieted without singing, we delight in his early gout for les beaux arts. If he is immovable to all we can devise to divert him, we are edified by the grand sérieux of his dignity and philosophy: if he makes the house ring with loud acclaim because his food, at first call, does not come ready
1 Op. cit. Oct. 21, 1793.



warm into his mouth, we hold up our hands with admiration at his vivacity."1
Fanny's tragedy Edwy and Elgiva was produced by Sheridan at Drury Lane on March 21, 1795. It was acted only once and "withdrawn for alterations". Mr. Shuckburgh, who examined the manuscript was not surprised at the failure. He said:
"No alterations could have made the play other than ludicrously bad. It is not so much the defect in plot and the absence of movement and action, as the incurable poverty of its stilted language, its commonplace sentiments, and its incorrect and inharmonious versification. Indeed the manuscript now lying before me as I write is a painful proof of what a woman of Madame d'Arblay's genius is capable, when she leaves her proper business of novel-writing, and aspires to Shakespeare's art."*
There is no reason to doubt this statement as Mr. Shuckburgh is very fair to Madame d'Arblay in his article. but it makes it the more extraordinary that Sheridan should have accepted the play so readily.
It is only fair to mention the unfortunate circumstances under which the tragedy was performed. It was shown to Sheridan while Fanny was ill and she had no time to make the intended corrections. She was present at the performance and saw a great many mistakes herself, but also complained of the very bad acting of all the players except Mrs. Siddons, Mr. Kemble and Mr. Bensley. The play was never produced again or printed. Fanny went home and thought very little about it. Evidently the success of her literary work had no longer the same importance for her. She had other ambitions now and most of her attention was taken up by her family.
Mrs. Siddons wrote in March 1795 to Mrs. Piozzi:
"Oh there never was so wretched a thing as Mrs. d'Arblay's
1 Op. cit. May 13, 1795.
* MacmiUan's Magazine, Febr. 1890.



Tragedy, even your friend Dr. Delap's was inferior in point of laughable circumstances. She was at the representation in spite of all I coud say of the ill effects so much agitation as she must necessarily feel woud have upon an invalide, for she has been extremely ill. . . In truth it needed no discernment to see how it woud go, and I was grievd that a woman of so much merit must be so much mortified. The Audience were quite angelic and only laughed where it was impossible to avoid it. . . Her brother negotiated the whole business, I never saw herself, but she went to my brothers the next day and nobly said, she had been deceivd by her friends, that she saw it was a very bad thing, and withdrew it immediately — that was done like a woman of an exalted Spirit and has wonderfully raisd her in the Opinion of all those who know the circumstances."1
In July 1796 appeared Camilla, at which she had been working for several years. A rough sketch had already been drawn up at Windsor. At the publication of this new novel, which was printed by subscription Madame d'Arblay's famous old friends showed once more that they had not forgotten her. In particular Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Crewe and Mrs. Locke took great pains to obtain subscribers, and so did Hastings, while Burke, in spite of illness and sorrow at the death of his brother and his only son, in an extremely kind letter expressed his friendship and admiration for Madame d'Arblay. Fanny was pleased that she was allowed to dedicate the book to the queen and together with her husband she went to Windsor to present it. She was delighted with the kind reception not only of herself, but also of M. d'Arblay, and in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney she mentioned the moment on Windsor Terrace when the king spoke to M. d'Arblay as the proudest instant of her life.
The usual opinion of the critics is that there is a gradual
1 W. Wright Roberts: Charles and Fanny Burney in the light of the new Thrale Correspondence in the John Rylands Library, p. 17-



falling off in the works of Fanny Burney. Her later works are either condemned as tedious and deplorable or they are simply ignored. In a modern critical essay, such as that of Edith J. Morley \ Camilla is hardly mentioned at all while no notice whatever has been taken of The Wanderer or the Memoirs of Dr. Burney. There is no doubt a falling off, but it is mainly in style. Macaulay* compares Madame d'Arblay's style at different periods of her life and the change for the worse is only too obvious. Evelina is simple in style, and it is fresh and natural. In Cecilia Miss Burney aimed higher. She had lived in the Streatham circle and though Macaulay is wrong in saying that Johnson polished and corrected Cecilia, its style betrays Johnson's strong influence. On comparing this novel with Camilla we find again a great change. Though it is a matter of taste as to whether one prefers the natural, simple style of Evelina or the more polished and dignified one of Cecilia, there can be no doubt that the change in Camilla is for the worse. It has a certain pomposity, which, especially to the modern reader, does not make the book pleasant reading. There was a period of fourteen years between the publication of Cecilia and that of Camilla. Great changes had taken place in Fanny's life. There was no longer the influence of the Streatham circle; she had devoted very little time to literary work and she was not a great reader. It is astonishing how, at the height of her fame, she was unacquainted with the works of many famous authors. She took no trouble to improve her style or to keep up her reputation. Her marriage with a Frenchman cannot have had a good influence on her style either, but that which, more than all these reasons, seems to account for this unfortunate change, is, as Austin Dobson says', that she had been writing her
1 Fanny Burney, by Edith J. Morley, Engl. Ass. pamphlet 60, 1925.
* Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1843.
* Austin Dobson: Fanny Burney, English Men of Letters, 1904.



tragedy in blank verse and insensibly often feil into this laboured style while writing her novel. It is interesting to compare the style of Camilla with that of her letters, written at the same time. Her letters are easy and natural, but in her novel she has been trying fine writing.
If, however, we consider the character-drawing we find the same power as displayed in the preceding novels. The character of the fop is even decidedly better drawn than that of his predecessors. Lovel in Evelina and Meadows in Cecilia are weakly portrayed in comparison with the f inished picture of Sir Sedley Clarendel. Though Macaulay's opinion that Madame d'Arblay has given us nothing but humours does not seem fair to her, we must admit that Meadows in Cecilia is not a finished character at all, but really a humour. He never opens his mouth but to express apathy and weariness of life. Sir Sedley Clarendel is a man of parts, who simply sacrifices his better self to his vanity, which makes him behave with extreme affectation in order to be considered a man of fashion. He cannot, however, always prevent his good qualities from getting the upperhand, as when he is surprised out of his apathy by the danger that ia threatening Camilla at Tunbridge Wells and he rushes forward to save her life. When afterwards he imagines that Camilla is in love with him, he behaves more naturally, too, at least when no company is near. Clarendel is a clever and agreeable young man, utterly spoilt by his own vanity. Of Meadows we know nothing at all, except his apathy, his weariness and his impudence.
The characters of the cheerful, thoughtless Camilla and the more serious Edgar Mandlebert are well-drawn, too, though the latter's extreme caution in choosing his beloved, due to the influence of his tutor, makes him rather a poor hero. It is more the weak plot than the portrayal of the characters which makes the book dif f kult reading. The long series of misapprehensions between Edgar and Camilla make it extremely tedious. We no longer find the gay,



sparkling humour of the preceding novels, but humour there is in abundance, though of a quicter kind. To this humour we owe such delightful characters as Sir Hugh Tyrold and his Yorkshire friend Mr. Westwyn, those two kind-hearted, childishly naïve old gentlemen, each speaking in a dialect of his own.
Camitla does not bring us anything new. Many of the characters remind us of those in Miss Burney's previous novels. She again makes lower class people mix with the upper classes and delights in describing the vulgar characters of a Mr. Dubster and a Mrs. Mittin. There is a great deal of moralizing in this novel, not, as in her previous works, by means of the heroine or one of the principal characters, but by the author herself. She again attacks the dissipation of the rich and points out the danger for young people who want to take part in it, but have not the means to do so.
There is, however, one element in Camilla which, though it is not at all new in Fanny Burney's works, deserves some attention here, as in none of her other novels it is so striking and that is sensibility. Fanny mentions it herself in describing the character of Camilla:
"the ardour of her imagination, acted upon by every passing idea, shook her Judgment from its yet unsteady seat, and left her at the mercy of wayward Sensibility — that delicate, but irregular power, which now impels to all that is most disinterested for others, now forgets all mankind, to watch the pulsations of its own fancies."1
That the lengthy novel nowadays is no longer read cannot cause surprise, but it seems a pity that even by the critics so little notice has been taken of Camilla, as, for our knowledge of Fanny Burney's character, Camilla is of great importance. "The fact is," says Mr. Brimley Johnson, "that in this work Miss Burney has given full rein to her ideal of women, her conception of home life, and her notions about
1 Camilla, book VIII, ch. XI.



marriage: all eminently characteristic of the age and full of suggestion as to the work of women."1
Both Fanny and her sister Susan possessed an uncommon sensibility. This quality, so greatly admired in the eighteenth century, did not show itself in the Burney sisters by means of fainting fits and torrents of tears, but as it was expressed in a less ostentatious way, it formed, as Mr. Brimley Johnson says1, the great charm of their characters.
They both lacked emotional balance and in their letters often express their feelings in over-sweet words of love. Though the sensibility of Camilla herself and of the other characters in the novel may seem overcharged to the modern reader, it was one of the most becoming attributes of a young lady in Fanny Burney's days and gives expression to a quality which the author possessed to such an uncommon degree.
It is interesting, therefore, to see the opinion of critics who lived at the same or nearly the same time as Fanny Burney. Horace Walpole, that old friend of Madame d'Arblay, was so disappointed with het new novel that he spoke in a letter to Miss Berry of the "deplorable Camilla":
"Next arrived Dr. Burney, on his way to Mrs. Boscawen. He asked me about deplorable 'Camilla'. Alas! I had not recovered of it enough to be loud in its praise." *
With respect to the style and the construction of the plot, this may be true, but the delineation of character in Camilla can hardly be called "deplorable". Dr. Johnson's little character-monger had not yet forgotten the art of describing the different types of people with their whims and their peculiarities.
Jane Austen's opinion is totally different from that of
* R. Brimley Johnson: The Women Novelists, p. 35-
2 R. Brimley Johnson: Fanny Burney and the Burneys.
» Letters of Horace Walpole. edited by Cunningham. Vol. IX, letter
2641, Aug. 16, 1796.



Walpole. She mentions Camilla with high praise together with Cecilia and Miss Edgeworth's Belinda:
'"And what are you reading, Miss—?' 'Oh, it is only a novel!' replies the young lady; while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. 'It is only Cecilia, or Camilla or Belinda'; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language."1
It is not so much by the scènes of great distress at the end of the novel that we are touched as by some pathetic little scènes of natural tenderness, such as the parting of Sir Hugh and Camilla when they think that he is going to die. Sir Hugh asks his brother to preach his funeral sermon in spite of his faults:
" 'However, I hope you won't object to preach my funeral sermon, for all my bad faults, for nobody else will speak of me so kindly; which may serve as a better lesson for those I leave behind.'
"Tears flowed fast down the cheeks of Mr. Tyrold, as he uttered whatever he could suggest most tenderly soothing to his brother: and the young mourners, not daring to resist, were all gliding away, except Camilla, whose hand was fast grasped in that of her uncle.
"'Ah, my Camilla', cried he, as she would gently have withdrawn it, 'how shall I part with my little dear darling? this is the worst twitch to me of all, with all my contentedness! And the more because I know you love your poor old uncle, just as well as if he had left you all he was worth, though you won't get one penny by his death!'
"'O my dear, dearest Uncle—' exclaimed Camilla, in a passionate flood of tears; when Mr. Tyrold, assuring them
1 Northanger Abbey, Ch. V. 9



both the consequences might be fatal, tore her away from the bed and the room."1
In the introduction Madame d'Arblay calls herself an investigator of the feelings and changes of the human heart and she considers her task much more difficult than that of the historian of human life, for the most unassimilating eccentricities of Fortune "are mocked, laughed at, and distanced by the wilder wonders of the Heart of man; that amazing assemblage of all possible contrarieties, in whkh one thing alone is steady — the perverseness of spirit whkh grafts desire on what is denkd. Its qualities are indeftnabte, its resources unfathomable, its weaknesses indefensible. In our neighbours we cannot judge, in ourselves we dare not trust it. We lose ere we karn to appreciate, and ere we can comprehend it we must be born again. Its capacity o'er-leaps all limit, while its futility indudes every absurdity. It lives its own surprise... it ceases to beat... and the void k inscrutibk! In one grand and general view, who can display such a portrait? Fairly, however faintly, to delineate some of its features, k the sole and discriminate province of the pen which would tracé nature, yet blot out personality."1 In Camilla Fanny has certainly very carefully searched the workings of the human heart, and, in between much common moralizing, we are often struck by passages whitk display her knowledge of human nature. When Mr. Tyrold talks about the unhappy state of hk brother he says: "To save the mind from preying inwardly upon itself, it must be encouragéd to some outward pursuit. There k no other way to elude apathy, or escape discontent; none other to guard the temper from that quarrel with itself, whkh ultimately ends in quarrelling with all mankind." *
We find other interesting passages in which Fanny shows
* Camilla, book IV, ch. IX.
* Op. cit. introduction.
* Op. cit. book I, ch. V.



her knowledge of the warkings, if not of the human heart in general, at least of the feminine heart, in the sermon written by Mr. Tyrold for Camilla who is struggling with her love for Edgar. He puts the contents of this lengthy discourse briefly as follows:
"I mean not to propose to you in the course of a few days to reinstate yourself in the perfect security of a disengaged mind. I know too much of the human heart to be ignorant that the acceleration, or delay, must depend upon circumstance: I can only require from you what depends upon yourself, a steady and courageous warfare against the two dangerous underminers of your peace and of your fame, imprudence and impatience. You have champions with which to encounter them that cannot fail of success ... good sense and delicacy." 1
Camilla's bitter remark in a conversation with her sister is extraordinary, as bitterness did not belong to her nature:
"Lavinia! if you would avoid deceit and treachery, look at a man as at a picture, which tells you only the present moment! Rely upon nothing of time to come! They are not like us, Lavinia. They think themselves free, if they have made no verbal profession; though they may have pledged themselves by looks, by actions, by attentions, and by manners, a thousand and a thousand times!"'
It is very likely that this bitterness, which seems to belong as Httle to Fanny's nature as it does to Camilla's, has some painful experience for its cause. There had been a disappointment in Fanny's Kfe, though she managed to conceal it so well that we cannot make out how deeply it affected her. In writing down this exdamation, Fanny very probably thought of the intimate conversations in her little parlour at Cheltenham with Colonel Digby, who soon afterwards married Miss Gunning.
1 Op. cit. book V. ch. V. » Op. cit. book VII, ch. IV.



The criticism in the Monthly Review was very favourable indeed, but an objection was made to the careless language and to some sentences which are very deservedly called "singularly obscure". Referring to Evelina and Cecilia the re viewer says:
"The high distinction among novelists, which these productions have procured for the ingenious writer, is doubtless to be chiefly ascribed to the peculiar felicity with which she has sketched real manners in various walks of life, and to the lively vein of humour with which she has portrayed many of her principal characters.
"In the present work Mrs. d'Arblay, (formerly known as Miss Burney), with equal judgment and modesty, pursues the track in which she has already acquired so much deserved reputation, without suffering herself to be diverted from her native bent by an affectation of excelling in different kinds of writing1 and without catching the infection of that taste for the marvellous and the terrible, which since the appearance of her former productions, has with some writers, become the fashion of the day. We have not perused the story of Camilla without seeing reason to admire its general structure, nor without feeling ourselves interested in the occurences and catastrophe. Our chief pleasure, however, has arisen from the highly animated scènes of life and manners which have passed before us, and from the accurate and lively portrait of various characters, which the writer has drawn, if not from individual originals, at least fróm that great general exemplar, the world." *
Pointing out some caricatures, such as the romantic Meimond, the author continues:
"but it is by no means true that Mrs. d'Arblay's general delineations of character are 'broad farce'. They are, com-
1 The writer either does not know or altogether ignores Madame d'Arblay's tragedy Edwy and Elgiva, and its unhappy fate.
2 Monthly Review, Oct. 1796-



monly, portraits of real manners and it may be difficult to find any novels, except those of Fielding, in which characters are more accurately drawn than in those of this very ingenious lady. We particularly admire the happy facility with which she gives to each person a language of his own and preserves it uniformly through the work. Every reader must notice and be charmed with the perfect exactness with which Sir Hugh's round-about manner of saying a plain thing, and his good-natured endeavours to correct himself when he supposes he has said too much, are kept up in all his conversations."
Mrs. Crewe proposed to Madame d'Arblay that she should edit The Breakfast Table, an Anti-Jacobin journal, but Fanny declined the offer. Probably the office was too public for her liking. It was more to her taste to try her hand at a comedy, which for so many years had been her ambition, and it was only owing to Dr. Burney's fear of a failure that Love and Fashion, then actually being put into rehearsal, was withdrawn at the last moment. After this Madame d'Arblay produced no literary work for a long time. Her life was becoming more eventful, and sorrow deprived her of the pleasure she had always feit in writing.
In the au turn n of 1796 Mrs. Burney died after a long illness, and Fanny left her little son in the care of M. d'Arblay in order to spend some time with her father, who was in deep sorrow. Dr. Burney feit the loss terribly, and long after Fanny had returned to her home, her attention was divided between her own little family and her father, who feit very lonely at Chelsea College. There is, however, no tracé in Fanny's letters of her own grief at the death of her step-mother. All her sorrow is for her lonely father.
There was at this time yet another change in the Burney family, which, more than the death of Mrs. Burney, seems to have influenced Fanny. Her sister Susan, who during her married life had lived in Mickleham, was obliged to



follow her husband to his estate in Ireland. The departure of this beloved sister who had always been her most intimate friend was a terrible blow to Madame d'Arblay. Susan had been the darling of her family, and the separation was keenly feit by all her friends, as is shown in the lines written by Dr. Burney On the departure of my daughter Susan to Ireland.1 Susan, who had never been strong, was in very weak health when she went to Ireland. There is, however, another fact, which explains this great sorrow of the family at Susan's departure for several years. Her marriage was not happy. Captain Phillips no longer cared for his wife and did not treat her well. He even tried to deprive her of the love of their little son, Norbury. Madame d'Arblay, who in later years left out of her diary everything that seemed too familiar for publication, does not mention the tragedy of Susan's life at all. But in her letters, as they are printed by Mr. Brimley Johnson from the Burney MSS.,2 Susan speaks frankly about the unhappy state of her family life. She was, however, too dutiful a wife to complain, and when Captain Phillips, who had for some time been in Ireland, arranged for her to go there too, she did not object, in spite of her weak health. Though she feit heart-broken, she did not show her grief in order to spare her father this sorrow. In Ireland her health became worse. The house had not nearly enough comforts for such a delicate woman, and, more than this, it was her unhappy life and homesicknèss which utterly exhausted her. Captain Phillips neglected her and was in love with Jane Brabazon, a young lady from the neighbourhood. Susan, however, saw that Jane not only did not return his love, but feit a great friendship for her. This friendship gave her great comfort during this difficult time. When, however, her health failed more and more, she was
1 Memoirs of Dr. Burney, Vol. III p. 221.
3 R. Brimley Johnson: Fanny Burney and the Burneys.



allo wed to return to England, but she feil seriously ill and died during the journey.
These sad events cast a shadow over Fanny's life, and when she heard of Susan's death at the very moment that she expected to see her safe back again after all these sufferings, she was almost distracted. Truly patfaetic is her letter to Mrs. Locke. written shortly after Susan's death, which shows how intense her grief was.
"She was the soul of my soul! — and 't is wonderful to me, my dearest Fredy, that the first shock did not join them immediately by the flight of mine — but that over — that dreadful, harrowing, never-to-be-forgotten moment of horror that made me wish to be mad — the ties that after that first endearing period have shared with her my heart, come to my aid ...
"forgive me my distraction. I write so fast I fear you can hardly read; but you will see I am conversing with you, and that will show you how I turn to you for the comfort of your tenderness."1
Though her letters at this period are still fairly natural, it is evident from this expression that she was not in the habit of writing as if she were conversing. That she did do so here is what makes this letter so attractive.
As soon as there was peace between France and England M. d'Arblay took the opportunity to go back to his country in order to try to recover some of his lost property, and was soon afterwards followed by his wife and son. The account of this journey is interesting and lively. It is extraordinary how very little Fanny, who had French friends and even a French husband, knew about France. She is surprised to meet with civility and gentleness on the other side of the Channel. Up to this time she had indeed a very poor opinion of the French, and, if it had not been to join M. d'Arblay, she would not have been at all anxious to
* Diary and Letters, Jan. 9, 1800.



go abroad. In these new surroundings, the deepest impression was made upon her by the restoration of public worship:
"What most in the course of the journey struck me, was the satisfaction of all the country people, with whom I could converse, at the restoration of the Dimanche; and the boasts they now ventured to make of having never kept the décade, except during the dreadful reign of Robespierre, when not to oppose any of his severest decrees was insufficiënt for safety; it was essential even to existence to observe them with every parade of the warmest approval. . .
"At a little hamlet near Clermont, where we rested some time, two good old women told us that this was the happiest day ('twas Sunday) of their lives; that they had lost le bon Dieu for these last ten years, but that Bonaparte had now found him! In another cottage we were told the villagers had kept their own curé all this time concealed, and though privately and with fright, they had thereby saved their souls through the whole of the bad times! And in another, some poor creatures said they were now content with their destiny, be it what it might, since they should be happy, at least, in the world to come; but that while denied going to mass, they had all their sufferings aggravated by knowing that they must lose their souls hereafter, besides all that they had to endure here!
"O my dearest father! That there can have existed wretches of such diabolical wickedness as to have snatched, torn, from the toiling indigent every ray even of future hope! Various of these little conversations extremely touched me."1
Madame d'Arblay was very kindly received by the friends of her husband, and she met a great many distinguished people, among whom were Louis Bonaparte and Madame de Lafayette, but she avoided Madame de Staël.
1 Op. cit. April 1802.



In a long letter she told of the parade of the troops before Bonaparte, but her letters from France are extremely scarce. Soon after her arrival in Paris, war broke out again, and prevented the d'Arblays from going back to England. A great many letters were lost and they had to be very careful what they wrote. The impossibility of going back to her country was a terrible disappointment to Fanny, but she was happy with M. d'Arblay and her son and had several dear friends. Their income was very small, but that did not interfere with Fanny's happiness. She had always been used to making the most of things, and the few letters that are left of this period are cheerful. Shortly after her arrival in France, they had moved to Passy and seem to have been fairly comfortable there. In a letter to Dr. Burney she writes:
"We live in the most quiet, and, I think, enviable retirement. Our house is larger than we require, but not a quarter furnished. Our view is extremely pretty from it, and always cheerful; we rarely go out, yet always are pleased to return. We have our books, our prate, and our boy — how, with all this, can we, or ought we to suffer ourselves to complain of our narrowed and narrowing income? If we are still able to continue at Passy, endeared to me now beyond any other residence away from you all, by a friendship I have formed here with one of the sweetest women I have ever known, Madame de Maisonneuve, and to M. d'Arblay by similar sentiments for all her family, our philosophy will not be put to severer trials than it can sustain. And this engages us to bear a thousand small privations which we might, perhaps, escape, by shutting ourselves up in some spot more remote from the capital. But as my deprivation of the society of my friends is what I most lament, so something that approaches nearest to what I have lost affords me the best reparation."1
This letter shows how Madame d'Arblay, now over fifty,
1 Op. cit. April ii, 1804.



still had that great need of friendship which made financial difficulties of minor importance. She seems to have been greatly loved by her friends in Paris, and, according to her niece Charlotte Barrett, she was called Vange for her gentleness and for the fortitude with which she bore her sufferings daring a very serious illness. When Alex was seventeen, and consequently would soon be liable to the French conscription, Madame d'Arblay resolved, in spite of all difficulties, to go back with him to England. After a long and eventful journey she was thankful to see her friends and her aged father again.
Many things had happened during her absence. When she went to visit the queen at Windsor, she was delighted at the kind reception after an absence of so many years. The change at court, however, was sad. The king was again seriously ill without any hope of recovery and Princess Amelia was dead. The best friend left to Fanny was Mrs. Locke, who had lost her husband. It was at that time that a meeting was planned between Madame d'Arblay and Shelley. In connection with that meeting T. J. Hogg wrote some pages on Madame d'Arblay which are as incorrect as they are disagreeable.1 He had met her when she had been telling of her experiences in France. Her whole residence in France is explained as a vain search of the forsaken wife after General d'Arblay, accompanied by the most extraordinary adventures. Hogg says: "The effect of this celebrated lady's conversation, like her written narratives, was often to inspire astonishment, but certainly not always implicit belief." That is the very thing that might be said of Mr. Hogg himself who has taken the liberty to teil her story in his own manner. With reference to Shelley he says:
"They were not suited for each other; whatever merit Miss Burney had, and no doubt she possessed much, was
1 T. J. Hogg: The life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1858, Vol. II, p. 399-404.



not to his taste. The daughter of a music-master, who got his bread by giving lessons at Court and to the children of the aristocracy, who had been herself a sort of handmaid to the queen. an unworthy and unpleasant employment, according to her own account of the matter, could be neither more nor less than what she in fact was, a bundie of con▼entionalities; and these, however clever and well arranged, would not have proved attractive to the Divine Poet. Her conversation was not without ability, but it was wholly about herself, and the self not being at all interesting, the conversation could not be so."
That the two authors were not suited to each other is certainly true, and it is probably just as well that the meeting never took place.
Alex was sent to Cambridge, but his mother was too occupied to feel lonely. She had brought back from France the manuscript of The Wandecer; or Female Difficulties and was giving it the last touches before publication. This, the last of her novels, like the first, was dedicated to Dr. Burney, only a month before his death. The dedication of The Wanderec is important as the author here expresses her opinion on fiction.
"With regard to the very serious subject treated upon, from time to time, in this work, some, — perhaps many, — may ask, Is a Novel the vehicle for such considerations? such discussions?
"Permit me to answer; whatever, in illustrating the characters, manners or opinions of the day, exhibits what is noxious or reprehensible, should scrupulously be accompanied by what is salubrious, or chastening. Not that poison ought to be infused merely to display the virtues of an antidote; but that, where errour and mischief bask in the broad light of day, truth ought not to be suffered to shrink timidly into the shade.
"Divest, for a moment, the title of Novel from its stationary Standard of insignificance, and say! What is the



species of writing that offers fairer opportunities for conveying useful precepts? It is, or it ought to be, a picture of supposed, but natural and probable human existence. It holds, therefore, in its hands our best affections, it exercises our imaginations; it points out the path of honour; and gives to juvenile credulity knowledge of the world, without ruin, or repentance; and the lessons of experience, without its tears.
"And is not a Novel, permit me, also, to ask, in common with every other literary work, entitled to receive its stamp as useful, mischievous, or nugatory, from its execution? not necessarily, and in its changeless state, to be branded as a mere vehicle for frivolous, or seductive amusement? If many may turn aside from all but mere entertainment presented under this form, many, also, may, unconsciously, be allured by it into reading the severest truths, who would not even open any work of a graver denomination."
This passage is important, because it touches on what is so intrinsically the merit of Fanny Burney's work. She was the first to show that a novel could be written both about upper and lower class life without giving the slightest offence. She showed that this part of literature, which had been branded as immoral, need not necessarily be so. She first made it possible for a woman to write novels and be respectable, and, in so doing, she has raised the novel to its present important position in literature by paving the way for her successors. Fanny has put down her views more clearly and at greater length in the dedication of The Wanderer than in the preface to Evelina, which is generally cited in this connection. What she had put down briefly as an anonymous young author, she could now safely state in public, for when she wrote Evelina she had to wait to see how the public and the critics would respond, but now her literary success had sufficiently shown that her work was approved and that her new novel would be received with sympathy.



In this last novel Madame d'Arblay has pointed out the difficulties and the helpless state of a respectable young woman who has to take care of herself without the help of friends or of money. To this end she has described the adventures of a girl of high rank, who, through family circumstances, is obliged to conceal her name, and who is besides penniless, as her purse has been stolen during her crossing from France. The difficulties of this young Wanderer, who is persecuted by one of the agents of Robespierre, are great indeed. Madame d'Arblay points out that it is almost impossible for a girl in such a situation to earn her living in a respectable manner, as there are always people who try to take advantage of her helplessness. Striking, in this respect, are her experiences in Brighton, where she has several protectresses who, with great condescension, profess willingness to help her on in life, but who in reality only think of themselves. At the end of the novel Madame d'Arblay briefly gives her opinion on these female difficulties and the means of conquering them.
"How mighty, thus circumstanced, are the Difficulties with which a Female has to struggle! Her honour always in danger of being assailed, her delicacy of being offended, her strength of being exhausted, and her virtue of being calumniated!
"Yet even Difficulties such as these are not insurmountable, where mental courage, operating through patience, prudence, and principle, supply physical force, combat disappointment, and keep the untamed spirits superior to failure, and ever alive to hope."1
The very serious subject to which Fanny refers in the dedication is the immortality of the human soul. She almost apologizes for introducing characters who doubt this immortality and says that it is owing to her residence in France,
1 The Wanderer, Ch. XCII.



where she had met with so much unbelief, that she introduced this subject.
"I am aware that all which, incidentally, is treated of in these volumes upon the most momentous of subjects, may here, in this favoured island, be deemed not merely superfluous, but, if indulgence be not shewn to its intention, impertinent; and here, had I always remained, the most solemn chapter of the work, — I will not anticipate its number \ — might never have been traced; for, since my return to this country, I have been forcibly struck in remarking, that all sacred them es, far from being either neglected, or derided, are become almost common topics of common discourse; and rather perhaps, from varying sects, and diversified opinions, too familiarly discussed, than defyingly set aside.
"But what I observed in my long residence abroad, presented another picture; and its colours, not, 'indeed, with cementing harmony, but to produce a striking contrast, have forcibly, though not, I hope, glaringly tinted my pen.
"Nevertheless, truth, and my own satisfaction, call upon me to mention, that, in the circle to which, in Paris, I had the honour, habitually, to belong, piety, generally, in practice as well as in theory, held its just pre-éminence; though almost every other society, however cultured, brilliant, and unaffectedly good, of whkh occasionally I heard, or in which, incidentally, I mixed, commonly considered belief and bigotry as synonymous terms." *
Fanny's unshaken belief is nowhere else so clearly expressed as in chapter LXXXV of The Wanderer, where Harleigh tries to convince Elinor of the immortality of the human soul, and indeed succeeds. More than in the previous novels the philosophic conversations have little connection with the general action, and tend to weaken the plot. The plot k complicated enough. There are many thrilling
1 The reference is to ch. LXXXV. * Op. cit. dedication.



adventures, and the suspense is kept up well till the end, but all this cannot prevent the book from being extremely tedious. The reason of this is that the story is far too longdrawn-out, and that the style which had to some extent spoilt Camilta, is still worse in The Wanderer. Even in her private letters Fanny was no longer so natural as she used to be, but there she writes simple language in comparison with the laboured style of this novel. The character-drawing is good, as usual and the characters really live. At the beginning, however, and for some time after, we are not so interested in the heroïne as we used to be in her predecessors, since we only know her from her actions. Her whole being is so wrapped in mystery that we know very little of her character. We cannot share her sorrow because we do not know it, and only feel sympathy for an interesting stranger.
The sensibility which was so clearly expressed in Camilla, is less evident in The Wanderer. Altogether, there is more action, but less character-study in the later novel. Some of the characters are again portrayed with a sense of humour, but it is very weak in comparison with Fanny's first novels. The rough sea-captain of Evelina has been replaced by a much more attractive character. While reading about the worthy old admiral, we are inclined to think of James Burney, which we could not do in connection with the coarse Captain Mirvan, in spite of Fanny's protestations that sailors were all like him. Her keen sense of humour in her younger days tended more to the burlesque, while later on there is more quiet, good-natured humour, which is so striking in Camilla, and, in a minor degree, is also found in The Wanderer.
The reviewers were severe on The Wanderer. According to the Quarterly Review this novel is greatly inferior to Madame d'Arblay's previous works. It is said to have a total want of vigour, vivacity, and originality. A severe criticism of the plot might be expected as it is extremely improbable, but the review finishes with an attack on



Madame d'Arblay herself. The indignation of the re viewer is roused by the fact that an Englishwoman should say that she had spent ten happy years in France, a stranger to all personal disturbance. That is base flattery of "that tiger" Bonaparte! And he continues:
"Though the whole scène is laid in the time of Robespierre, and though she, in her text, takes very carefully the Buonapartian tone of abuse of the republican revolution, yet whenever she has occasion to allude to any of the horrors of that period, she does not fail to subjoin, with a loyal accuracy, a note to testify that she alludes to the tyranny of Robespierre; — she did not see, good lady, that this disclaiming note was the most severe satire against her imperial protector, as it leads the reader to suppose, that without its assistance, it would be doubtful to which of these monsters she alluded. We cannot bear these base condescensions. Madame d'Arblay might have been silent; but she ought not as an Englishwoman, as a writer, to have debased herself to the little annotatory flatteries of the scourge of the human race.
"This fault, however, — if the work should come to another edition, — Madame d'Arblay will probably correct: because, since the publication of the last, Buonaparte has been overthrown and exiled; and we think we may assume, from the style of the passages to which we allude that Madame d'Arblay is not likely to continue to flatter, when her flattery can no longer conduce to her personal convenience. Hereafter, therefore, we shall be prepared to find, instead of 'this alludes to the days of Robespierre', 'this alludes to the days of Buonaparte', and instead of acknowledgment for the ten happy years spent under his reign, to hear of the ten happy years when she proposes to pass under the parental government of Louis the Eighteenth."1
1 Quarteriy Review, April 1814.



This remark is extremely unfair. Anybody who had the slightest knowledge of Fanny's character would know that she was not in the habit of flattering, and certainly not for the sake of her personal convenience. It was simply loyalty to the country of her hushand and a sense of justice which made her, though thoroughly English in her opinions, appreciate the kindness she had received in France.
The criticism in the Edinburgh Review is not favourable either. The reviewer does not agree with Madame d'Arblay's idea of refinement.
"The difficulties in which she involved her heroines are indeed 'Female Difficulties'; — they are difficulties created out of nothing. The author appears to have no other idea of refinement than that it is the reverse of vulgarity; but the reverse of vulgarity is fastidiousness and affectation. There is a true, and a false delicacy. Because a vulgar country Miss would answer 'Yes' to a proposal of marriage in the first page, Mad. d'Arblay makes it a proof of an excess of refinement, and an indispensable point of etiquette in her young ladies, to postpone the answer to the end of five volumes, without the smallest reason for their doing so, and with every reason to the contrary."1
Though this is rather hard, there is some truth in it. Affectation had never formed part of Fanny's character, but her fastidious notions about female delicacy, as expressed in her novels, might easily be taken for affectation.
Madame d'Arblay took very little notice of the reviews at the time, as she was too much occupied with the illness and death of Dr. Burney. She had the satisfaction of nursing her aged father during his last illness, but her attachment to him, which had not lessened after her marriage and during her long absence abroad, was such that she was quite overpowered with grief at his death. In a letter to a friend she asks her not to be uneasy as her affliction was heavy but
1 Edinburgh Review, Febr. 1815. 10



not acute. Her father had been spared her too long to allow repining. In her private diary, however, she tells how she set out with courage to call on Lady Crewe, but that on meeting this friend of her father's, she could not control her feelings and gave way to her sorrow.
"When the morning arrived I set off with tolerable courage. Arrived, however, at Lady Crewe's, when I entered the room in which this dear and attached friend of my father received me, the heaviness of his loss proved quite overpowering to my spirits; and in meeting the two hands of my hostess, I burst into tears and could not, for some time, listen to the remonstrances against unavailing grief with which she rather chid than soothed me. But I could not contest the justice of what she uttered, though my grief was too fresh for its observance. Sorrow, as my dearest father was wont to say, requires time, as well as wisdom and religiën, to digest itself ; and till that time is both accorded and well employed, the sense of its uselessness serves but to augment, not mitigate, its severity."1
She then gives an elaborate account of her presentation to Louis the Eighteenth.
She tells how Lady Crewe took care to get her presented, while she herself tried all she could to prevent it. It is astonishing how, at the age of sixty-one and after having lived for so many years in society and at court, she still had preserved her original shyness. She had, however, learnt to conceal it better. The king was extremely gracious and let her go with the words: "Bonjour, madame la comtesse." Madame d'Arblay never used her title. She was, however, very proud of it for her husband's sake, because, as she said herself, she did not owe it to any merit of her own, but to that of M. d'Arblay.
Soon afterwards Madame d'Arblay again joined her husband, who had entered the King's Body Guard in France,
1 Diary and Letters, 1814.



while she left Alex at Cambridge. She expected to settle down quietly now, but her peace was disturbed by Bonaparte's escape from Elba and the following Hundred Days. The most eventful period of her life was still to come. The Diary during this period is much more elaborate than it has been for a long time and the narrative of her various adventures is written with something of her original vivacity. The last days in Paris were terrible indeed. M. d'Arblay tried to persuade his wife to go back to England, but she would not leave France as long as her husband was there, even though they could not remain together. The general made preparations to take the field and Fanny lived in the greatest anxiety, for she saw that his health was too weak to carry him through a military expedition. Truly pathetic was their parting, when they tried to give each other courage by apparent cheerfulness. It was the first time during her married life that Fanny experienced the anxiety of the wife of a military man, and when she saw him depart on horseback, encircled, as she said, with instruments of death, she was totally overcome with terror and had just enough self-control left to turn from the window, that he might not see her distress. She had to think of her own safety now, for, being the wife of an officer of Louis the Eighteenth and an Englishwoman besides, she might get into serious trouble. Putting herself, therefore, under the protection of Madame d'Hénin, who in her despair was a most irritable companion, she set out for Brussels. But as it was not safe to mention her name, she was to pass for première femme de chambre of the Princess d'Hénin. When they had supper with the prefect of Amiens, Fanny found her situation extremely awkward, but her anxiety to hear something of M. d'Arblay made her prefer joining the company to staying in another room.
"I was simply acquiescent; and, distantly following Madame d'Hénin, remained at the end of the room while the servants and the waiters adjusted matters for supper.



"In a situation of such embarrassment I never before was placed. I knew not which way to look, nor what to do. Discovery at such a crisis might have been fatal, as far as might hang upon detention; and detention, which would rob me of all means of hearing of M. d'Arblay, should I gather what was his route, and be able to write to him, was death to my peace. I regretted I had not demanded to stay in another room; but, in such heart-piercing moments, to be in the way of intelligence is the involuntary first movement." 1
In her younger days Fanny might possibly have enjoyed the humorous side of the situation, but she had very little left of her old sense of humour, and, besides, the circumstances were too serious for any enjoyment of this kind. She reached Brussels at last, after many adventures and a meeting with Chateaubriand, whom she found very amiable and interesting, but whom she seems to have displeased by telling him how much she had enjoyed reading The Itinerary to Jerusalem" without mentioning his other works.
The first days at Brussels were wretched, without any news from M. d'Arblay. He only came to see his wife on his way to Luxembourg and left her in even greater anxiety about his health than before. She spent some days full of misgiving during the battle of Waterloo, and worked among the wounded soldiers. Soon afterwards she was again alarmed by the news that M. d'Arblay had received a kick from a horse and was seriously ill. Fanny determined to join him at once, and, not discouraged by the almost insurmountable difficulties of going from Brussels to Trèves, she arrived there to find her husband safe. They were soon able to go back to Paris and from there to England, where, to Fanny's great joy, they decided to remain.
From France Madame d'Arblay wrote a remarkable letter to her son: 
1 Op. cit. no date. The narrative was written some time after the events. * Itinéraire de Paris a Jérusalem, 1811.



".. .easily, too easily, I conceive the melancholy reflections that were awakened by the sight of our dear, dear cottage; yet your expressiona upon its view lose much of their effect by being overstrained, recherchés, and designing to be pathetic. We never touch others, my dear Alex, where we study to show we are touched ourselves. I beg you, when you write to me, to let your pen paint your thoughts as they rise, not as you seek or labour to embellish them. I remember you once wrote me a letter so very fine from Cambridge, that, if it had not made me laugh, it would certainly have made me sick. Be natural, my dear boy, and you will be sure to please your mother without wasting your time."1
It is true that her own diary and letters at this time are still fairly natural, but it seems strange that, so shortly after the publication of The Wanderer, Madame d'Arblay should find fault with the unnatural style of her son. There can be no doubt that she consciously used that flowery style, which we already find in The Wanderer and which is so much worse in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, although she did not approve of it in letters.
The d'Arblays went to Bath and were joined there by their son, who, according to his mother, was still "as inartificial in his character as irregular in his studies." ' While M. d'Arblay went for a short time to France, Fanny and her son stayed at Ilfracombe, where she had an ad venture which gave her a terrible fright. During a walk along the beach she was caught by the tide and had to seek refuge in a little cave. The water rose continually, and she spent several hours in the greatest anxiety, expecting to be drowned in this miserable little cave. The tide, however, turned before it could reach her and she was rescued by her son and some friends. This adventure made such a deep impression upon her that the account in the Diary is written with the force and vivacity of her younger days.
1 Diary and Letters, April 26, 1815.
3 Op. cit. Letter to Mrs. Locke, Febr. 15, 1816.



General d'Arblay again joined her at Bath, but his health was now in such a bad state that Fanny became seriously alarmed. The account of M. d'Arblay's illness and death was written a year and a half after the sad event. At the periods of deepest sorrow in her life, Fanny did not write in her diary. She wrote very little immediately after Susan's death and after she had lost her husband, there are only very short entries. But soon she feit it as a reliëf during the solitary evenings to put down an account of his last illness. It is a most pathetic narrative, telling how these two people, who, after a most eventful life, had at last settled down quietly, now summoned courage to support each other at this new and final parting. Their union had been a perfect one, which even their difference in religion had never been able to disturb. The last words which the general spoke were:
"Je ne sais si ce sera le dernier mot — mais ce sera la dernière pensee — Notre réunion!"
Left behind, lonely, with only a son to live for, Madame d'Arblay was broken-hearted.
"I suffered certainly a partial derangement, for I cannot to this moment recollect anything that now succeeded, with truth or consistency; my memory paints things that were necessarily real, joined to others that could not possibly have happened, yet so amalgamates the whole together as to render it impossible for me to separate truth from. indefinable, unaccountable fiction.
"Even to this instant I always see the room itself charged with a medley of silent and strange figures grouped against the wall just opposite to me. Mr. Tudor, methought, was come to drag me by force away; and in this persuasion, which was false, I remember supplicating him to grant me but one hour, telling him I had solemnly engaged myself to pass it in watching . ..
"But why go back to my grief? Even yet, at times, it seems as fresh as ever, and at all times weighs on me with



a feeling that seems stagnating the spring of life. But for Alexander — our Alexander! — I think I could hardly have survived. His tender sympathy, with his claims to my love, and the solemn injunctions given me to preserve for him, and devote to him, my remnant of life — these, through the Divine mercy, sustained me."1
The first years after the death of M. d'Arblay were extremely sad. The few entries in her diary, and her letters to some intimate friends show clearly Madame d'Arblay's dejected state of mind. She wished ardently that her own death might soon come, and more than ever she sought consolation in religion. She lived in absolute retirement and had to force herself to appear in company, even of the most intimate friends. She accompanied her son to London, utterly indifferent as to where she was going to live. For a long time Alex and several friends tried in vain to make her give up this secluaion and to persuade her that she should not yield so entirely to her sorrow. She was grateful to receive the kind sympathy of her friends, but the af f liction was so great that she was insensible to any feeling of pleasure. Her spirits failed her sadly. At the end of the year 1820, in a letter to Mrs. Piozzi, there is the first sign that she was recovering:
"You inquire if I ever see any of the friends we used to live amongst: — almost none; but I may resumé some of those old ties this winter, from the ardent desire of my son. I have, till very lately, been so utterly incapable to enjoy society, that I have held it as much kindness to others as to myself, to keep wholly out of its way. I am now, in health, much better, and consequently more able to control the murmuring propensities that were alienating me from the purposes of life while yet living, — this letter, indeed, will show that I am restored to the wish, at least, of solace, and that the native cheerfulness of my tempera-
1 Op. cit. March 20, 1820.



ment is opening from the weight of sadness by which I had long believed it utterly demolished. But Time, 'uncalled, unheeded, unawares', — works as secretly upon our spirits as upon our years, and gives us as little foresight into what we can endure, as into how long we shall exist."1
From this time onward the letters are less dejected, though the old cheerfulness was gone for ever. Madame d'Arblay's life remained very retired and without any important events. Alex was ordained, and his mother now began to arrange the manuscripts for the Memoirs of Dr. Burney. This was not an easy task, for her father had left her a large number of letters and private notes, and these, combined with her own memoirs and the family correspondence, formed such an enormous pile of papers that it seemed hopeless to try to arrange them. She worked hard at her new task, but her health began to fail her again. The reading of all those old family papers caused her too much emOtion, and she feit that if she wanted to finish the work at all, she ought to be more careful and not devote whole days to it. In a letter to her sister Hetty she writes:
"I have been suddenly taken a third time, in the middle of the night, with a seizure as if a hundred windmills were turning round in my head: in short, — I had now recourse to serious medical help, and, to come to the sum total, I am now so much better that I believe myself to be merely in the common road of such gentle, gradual decay as, I humbly trust, I have been prepared to meet with highest hope, though with deepest awe — for now many years back.
"The chief changes or reforms from which I reap benefit are, i st. Totally renouncing for the evenings all reviaioh or indulgence in poring over those letters and papers whose contents come nearest to my heart, and work upon its bleeding regrets. Next, transferring to the èvening, as far as is in my power, all of sociality with Alex, or my few
1 Op. cit. Dec. 15, 1820.



remaining friends, or the few he will present to me of new ones. 3 rd. Constantly going out every day — either in brisk walks in the morning, or in brisk jumbles in the carriage of one of my three friends who send for me, to a tête-d-tête tea-converse. 4th. Strict attention to diet.
"I ought to have told you the medical sentence upon which I act. These were the words — 'You have a head overworked, and a heart over-loaded'.. .
"The worst of all is, that I have lost, totally lost, my pleasure in reading! except when Alex is my lecturer, for whose sake my faculties are still alive to what — erst! gave them their greatest delight. But alone; I have no longer that resource! I have scarcely looked over a single sentence, bttt some word of it brings to my mind some mournful recollection, or acute regret, and takes from one all attention — my eyes thence glance vainly over pages that awaken no ideas. — This is melancholy in the extreme; yet I have tried every species of writing and writer — but all pass by me mechanically, instead of instructing or entertaining me intellectually. But for this sad deprivation of my original taste, my evenings might always be pleasing and reviving — but alas! ..
In another letter to the same sister she tells how she destroyed all the letters that either were not important or were too confidential for publication.
Among the few people Madame d'Arblay still met were the princesses. They sometimes called on her at her own house and she was extremely proud of this friendship. Sir Walter Scott was introduced to her by Samuel Rogers, who referred to this visit in his Table Talk. * Sir Walter seems to have liked her, and describes her as follows:
"Was introduced by Rogers to Mad. d'Arblay, the celebrated authoress of Evelina and Cecilia — an elderly lady,
1 Op. cit. Febr. 29, 1833.
3 Table Talk of Samuel Rogers, edited by G. H. Powell 1903, p. 152.



with no remains of personal beauty, but with a gentle manner and a pleasing expression of countenance. She told me she had wished to see two persons — myself, of course, being one; the other George Canning. This was really a compliment to be pleased with — a nice little handsome pat of butter made up by a neat-handed Phillis of a dairymaid, instead of the grease, fit only for cart-wheels, which one is dosed with by the pound.
"Mad. d'Arblay told us the common story of Dr. Burney, her father, having brought home her own first work, and recommended it to her perusal, was erroneous. Her father was in the secret of Evelina being printed. But the following circumstances may have given rise to the story: — Dr. Burney was at Streatham soon after the publication, where he found Mrs. Thrale recovering from her confinement, low at the moment, and out of spirits. While they were talking together, Johnson, who sat beside in a kind of rêverie, suddenly broke out, 'You should read this new work, madam — you should read Evelina; every one says it is excellent, and they are right.' The delighted father obtained a commission from Mrs. Thrale to purchase his daughter's work, and retired the happiest of men. Mad. d'Arblay said she was wild with joy at this decisive evidence of her literary success, and that she could only give vent to her rapture by dancing and skipping round a mulberrytree in the garden. She was very young at this time. I trust I shall see this lady again. She has simple and apparently amiable manners, with quick feelings."1
In 1832 the Memoirs of Dr. Burney were published. In this book Madame d'Arblay has collected the memoirs of her father together with her own recollections of his life. It is to be regretted that she destroyed so many of her father's papers as being unfit for publication. The doctor's history would probably have been more interesting if written in
1 Journal of Sir Walter Scott, Nov. 18, 1826.



his own words than it is now, as toW by his daughter. The laboured and unnatural style, first seen in Camilla and more conspicuous in The "Wanderer, has developed in the Memoirs into a rhetorical pomposity. The following sentences hardly seem to be written by the author of Evelina.
"Rarely can the highest zest of pleasure awaken, in its most active votary, a sprightliness of pursuit more gay or more spirited, than Mr. Burney now experienced and exhibited in the commonly grave and sober career of business, from the ardour of his desire to obtain self-dependence.
"He worked not, indeed, with the fiery excitement of expectation; his reward was already in his hands; but from the nobler impulse he worked of meriting his fair lot; while she, his stimulus, deemed her own the highest prize from that matrimonial wheel whence issue bliss or bane to the remnant life of a sensitive female."1
After his tour on the continent Dr. Burney came home with recovered spirits.
"With all the soaring feelings of the first sun-beams of hope that irradiate from a bright, though distant glimpse of renown; untamed by difficulties, superior to fatigue, and springing over the hydra-headed monsters of impediment that every where jutted forth their thwarting obstacles to his enterprize, Dr. Burney came back to his country, his friends, his business, and his pursuits, with the vigour of the first youth in spirits, expectations and activity."*
Some of Dr. Burney's friends believed that books of general travels were already too numerous and suggested his omitting parts of his Musical Tours.
"If such, at that distant period, was the numerical condemnation of this species of writing, which circumscribed the first published tour of Dr. Burney to its own professional subject, what would be now the doom of the
1 Memoirs of Dr. Burney, Vol. I, p. 81.
' Op. Cit. Vol. I, p. 222.



cndless herd of tourists of all ranks, qualifications or deficiences, who, in these later times, have sent forth their divers effusions, without sparing an idea, a recollection, or scarcely a dream, to work their way into the world, through that general master of the ceremonies, the press? whose portals, though guarded by two vis a vis sentinels in eternal hostility with each other, Fame and Disgrace, open equally to publicity."1
These few sentences show the language generally used in the book. Worse examples might be found and Macaulay points out some very bad ones. *
Very striking is the difference between her early and later styles when Madame d'Arblay quotes parts from her diary. In judging the work, we must not forget that Madame d'Arblay was eighty when it was published. The years during which she worked at the book were sad and lonely. She had entirely lost her cheerfulness and vivacity, and even her letters had lost their natural ease. For the sake of her literary reputation it is to be regretted that the Memoirs were published at all, but the contents are interesting enough. That the book is nowadays hardly ever read is due to the pompous style, and to the fact that soon afterwards appeared the Diary and Letters which give so much information about the Burney family in a much more attractive form. However, the Memoirs give much useful information about the period of Dr. Burney's life before Fanny began to write her early diary, as well as about the numerous celebrated persons with whom he was acquainted.
There is an amusing story of a visit of Garrick to St. Martin's Street, which occurs in the Early Diary', but has been worked out at greater length in the Memoirs. * Dr. Burney himself had written a paragraph on his friend Garrick
1 Op. cit. Vol. I, p. 224.
* Essay on Madame d'Arblay, Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1843.
* Early Diary, March 26, 1775.
* Memoirs, Vol. I, p. 345.



and his amiable wife, which was copied by Madame d'Arblay from an old memorandum:
"My acquaintance, at this time, with Mrs. as well as Mr. Garrick, was improved into a real friendship; and frequently, on the Saturday night, when Mr. Garrick did not act, he carried me to his villa at Hampton, whence he brought me to my home early on Monday morning. I seldom was more happy than in these visits. His wit, humour, and constant gaiety at home; and Mrs. Garrick's good sense, good breeding, and obliging desire to please, rendered their Hampton villa, on these occasions, a terrestrial paradise.
"Mrs. Garrick had every faculty of social judgment, good taste, and steadiness of character, which he wanted. She was an excellent appreciator of the fine arts; and attended all the last rehearsals of new or of revived plays, to give her opinion of effects, dresses, scenery, and machinery. She seemed to be his real other half; and he, by bis intelligence and accomplishments, seemed to complete the Hydroggynus."1
There is also an interesting description of Boswell by Fanny herself. This sketch is sure to be correct, as even Croker, in his disagreeable article in the Quarterly Review, approved of it:
"He spoke the Scotch accent strongly, though by no means so as to affect, even slightly, his intelligibility to an English ear. He had an odd mock solemnity of tone and manner, that he had acquired imperceptibly from constantly thinking of and imitating Dr. Johnson; whose own solemnity, nevertheless, far from mock, was the result of pensive rumination. There was, also, something slouching in the
gait and dress of Mr. Boswell, that wore an air, ridiculously enough, of purporting to personify the same model. His clothes were always too large for him; his hair, or wig,
was constantly in a state of negligence; and he never for
1 Op. cit. Vol. I, p. 166.



a moment sat still or upright upon a chair. Every look and movement displayed either intentional or involuntary imitation. Yet certainly it was not meant as caricature; for his heart, almost even to idolatry, was in his révérence of Dr. Johnson. . . and of every one else, when in that presence, he was unobservant, if not contemptuous. In truth, when he met with Dr. Johnson, he commonly forbore even answering anything that was said, or attending to any thing that went forward, lest he should miss the smallest sound from that voice to which he paid such exclusive, though merited homage. But the moment that voice burst forth, the attention which it excited in Mr. Boswell amounted almost to pain. His eyes goggled with eagerness; he leant his ear almost on the shoulder of the Doctor; and his mouth dropt open to catch every syllable that might be uttered: nay, he seemed not only to dread losing a word, but to be anxious not to miss a breathing; as if hoping from it, latently, or mystically, some information."1
I might quote many other sketches, which make the work of importance to the student of eighteenth century life and literature. For the general reader, however, the book will have very little attraction in comparison with the lively and entertaining Diary.
The Quarterly was very severe on the Memoirs, and, as far as the literary value of the book is concerned, this severity might be expected. But the review contains such a personal attack upon Madame d'Arblay that she was deeply hurt. The objection is made that the book contains so little material in the Doctor's own style, which could not have been "more feeble, anile, incoherent, or 'sentant plus 1'apoplexie', than that which she has substituted for it." The reviewer, Mr. Croker, then tries to find out the real object of the work:
"Madame d'Arblay, with consummate art — or a
1 Op. cit. Vol. II, p. 191-194.



confusion of ideas which has had the same effect as consummate art, — conceals from her readers, and perhaps from herself, that it is her own Memoirs, and not those of her father that she has been writing; and we confess that we have a strong suspicion that it was because her father's autobiography did not fulfil this object, that it has been suppressed — and this joint-stock history (in which, as in other joint-stock concerns, the managing partner has the larger share) has been substituted for it."1
It is not surprising that Madame d'Arblay, who only suppressed the old family papers as being of no importance to the general public or too intimate to be published, feit hurt at this insinuation. She had, however, even more reason to be hurt at the second attack. The author suspects that literary vanity is the cause of "the remarkable suppression of dates." He had always believed that Fanny Burney was seventeen when she published Evelina. The same mistake occurs in the Quarterly Review of 1814 and seems to have been fairly common at the time. The careful reader of the preface to Evelina will notice that Fanny had not given occasion to this error. But the suspicious reviewer, who went to search the registry at Lynn, found out that she was twenty-five when Evelina was published. He had now found the reason of her suppressing the dates in the Memoirs:
"We need not repeat our observation of the vast difference between a shy, backward, neglected girl of seventeen, writing in the play-room and a woman of five-and-twenty, who had probably passed seven or eight years in general society; and we are, therefore, not much surprised that Madame d'Arblay, though she may have had no share in propagating the original error, should have shown so little anxiety to correct it. To this feeling, therefore, we are now constrained to attribute that studious omission of dates which had at first appeared quite unaccountable." *
1 Quarterly Review, April 1833.
2 Op. cit. same date.



The remark that a bona fide memoir of herself would be interesting must have painfully struck Madame d'Arblay, who, throughout her long life, had been admired for her truthfulness. It is true that in some unimportant details she contradicts what she has written in her letters during the publication of Eveüna, but Croker did not know this, as it has only been pointed out later by Walter Frith.1 Besides, it is much more Iikely that these details should have escaped her at the age of eighty than that she should have stated them incorrectly on purpose. Croker's feeble observation at the end, where he remarks that the book shows the best feelings and. principles and that the author is amiable and respectable, does not compensate for the extremely unpleasant impression which the article makes on the impartial reader.
Very little is known about Madame d'Arblay's last years. Her weak eyes made reading and writing difficult for her. She had, besides, lost two of her regular correspondents, her sister Hetty and Mrs. Locke. But a worse affliction was in store for her; her son Alex, who had recently been nominated minister of Ely Chapel, Holborn, and was besides preparing to marry, died suddenly of influenza. The loss was a terrible one to his mother, but even more than in her younger days she found consolation in religion. There is a touching paragraph in her private notebook:
"1837 — On the opening of the most mournful — most earthly hopeless, of any and of all the years yet commenced of my long career! Yet, humbly I bless my God and Saviour, not hopeless; but full of gently-beaming hopes, countless and fraught with aspirations of the time that may succeed to the dread infliction of this last irreparable privation, and bereavement of my darling loved, and most touchingly loving, dear, soul-dear Alex." *
1 Autour d'Evelina. Cornhill Magazine, April 1905. ' Diary and Letten, 1837.



Her life was now sad indeed. She was lonely, and her sight and hearing had nearly failed her. But she still seems to have retained to a peculiar degree not only her intellectual powers, but also the warm and generous affections of her youth. A letter written to Mrs. Barrett soon after the death of her sister Charlotte, is probably the last she ever wrote.
"Ah, my dearest! how changed, changed I am, since the irreparable loss of your beloved mother! that last original tie to native original affections! ...
"Wednesday. — I broke off, and an incapable unwillingness seized my pen; but I hear you are not well, and I hasten — if that be a word I can ever use again — to make personal inquiry how you are.
"I have been very ill, very little apparently but with nights of consuming restlessness and tears. I have now called in Dr. Holland, who understands me marvellously, and I am now much as usual; no, not that — still tormented by nights without repose — but better.
"My spirits have been dreadfully saddened of late by whole days — nay weeks — of helplessness for any employment. They have but just revived. How merciful a reprieve! How merciful is all we know! The ways of Heaven are not dark and intricate, but unknown and unimagined till the great teacher Death developes them."1
In his Table Talk, Samuel Rogers refers to a conversation with Madame d'Arblay shortly before her death. She told him that every night before going to sleep she repeated to herself the famous stanza of Mrs. Barbauld:
"Life! We have been long together, Through pleasant, and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear:
1 Op. cit. March 5, 1839. 11



Then steal away; give litde warning; Choose thine own time;
Say not good-night; but, in some brighter clime, Bid me good-morning."
In her last illness she suffered from spectral illusJons; She was perfectly aware that her death was approaching and died calmly on the sixth of January, 1840, the anniversary of her beloved sister Susan's death.
When, in 1842, the Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay were published by her niece Mrs. Barrett, the Athenaeum devoted a series of articles to them. On the whole the reviewer speaks very kindly of the work. Long and entertaining passages are quoted, and one article is entirely devoted to that interesting part of the Diary in which Fanny relates her court experiences during the illness of the king. At the end of the article is added:
"On another occasion, we shall search its pages for those livelier sketches and amusingly prosy recitals, in which we cannot but think Fanny Burney is incomparable."1
In one of the articles, however, the reviewer is so hard on Miss Burney that even Croker approved of it. The reviewer is disappointed in the description of the Streatham circle:
"Of Dr. Johnson personally, we could hardly expect to learn much that was new. We see him in Miss Burney's kaleidoscope, a thought more gentle and amiable than we had hitherto beheld him; and there is something whimsical and Sir Roger de Coverley-ish in his love-making hoverings round the fair narrator. But we were scarcely prepared for the infinite deal of twaddle and commonplace which escapes his lips, and those of the vishors at Streatham. The eye, indeed, is dazzled by the names of Burke, Murphy, Cumberland, Reynolds, and others of great contemporary celer brity; but little is recorded in the dialogues so minutely
1 Athenaeum, July 23, 1842.



reported, which rises above the most ordinary mediocrity. With the lady lionesses it is still worse. Enormous pretentions, and no little vulgarity, are their prevailing characteristics; and the Montagues, the Bowdlers, the Carters, and the Mores, with all their stiffness and pedantry, are as wearisome and insipid as if their minds had never been raised above the contemplation of herringbone and tentstitch."1
The reviewer now tries to find out how far that depends upon some peculiarity in the mind of the narrator. With respect to the heroines of her novels, he remarks:
"The groundwork of these imaginary characters is a vain conceit that all eyes are fixed on their persons and actions, and a morbid sensibility to the appearance they must make in the public apprehension. But this is, to a line, the portrait Miss Burney has drawn of herself in every page of the Diary. She goes into society with an overwhelming consciousness of the authoress about her; and all that she 'sees, hears, tastes, smells, and touches' is nothing but Evelina."
He adds however:
"It is undoubtedly to this identification of her heroines With herself, this reflection from within, this self-portraiture, that she owes both the vivacity and the truth of her delineations."
The writer has formed the opinion that Fanny took no interest in the conversations in which she was not concerned and consequently omitted the most brilliant talk between the great men and women at Streatham. It is certainly true that if Fanny had cared for politics she would have been more interested in some of the conversations she must have heard. With regard to vulgarity, it would be difficult to find any in the literary ladies, as described by Miss Burney. As the kind, but inconsiderate Mrs. Thrale delighted in surprising people by suddenly presenting to them the author
1 Athenaeum, April 23, 1842.



of Evelina, it is no wonder that timid Fanny often feit embarrassed. This was no affectation at all. She was in her heart modest, but she would have been more than human if she had not enjoyed the praise which the foremost men and women of the age so freely bestowed on her. We must not forget that when she wrote this part of her diary, she never thought of publication. It was strictly private and exclusively written for the pleasure of herself and a few sympathizing friends, whom she knew to be interested in her personal experiences.
The critic evidently gets a better opinion of Miss Burney as he advances in the Diary and he speaks very well of her behaviour at court. Croker, however, agreed particularly with the article in the Athenaeum for April. He reviewed the Diary in the Quartetty, and, as the nature of the work gave him an opportunity to be even more personal than he had been when reviewing the Memoirs, he eagerly seized it. The very malicious feelings of Croker towards Fanny are conspicuous, and had, according to Macaulay*, their origin in her refusal to supply him with material for his edition of Boswell's Life of Johnson. The "capital Burney Diary"a and even more the character of the diarist are sadly abused in this review. All her actions are placed in a wrong light. Out of all these disagreeable remarks only a few of the most important, which deal dircctly with her character, can be mentioned here. The eminent and illustrious personages, brought before us in the Diary, form, according to Croker, "a wearisome congregation of monotonous and featureless prosers, brought together for one single object, in which they, one and all, seem occupied, as if it were the main business of human life — namely, the glorificatioft of Miss Fanny Burney — her talents — her taste — her sagacity — her wit - her manners — her temper — her
* Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1843.
* W. M. Thackeray: The Four Georges, 1879, p. 81.



delicacy — even her beauty — and, above all, her modesty!"1 Much follows about Miss Burney's uncommon vanity and then the reviewer returns to the subject dealt with in the article on the Memoirs. Croker's opinion is that Fanny kept up the mistake about her age on purpose, and even misled such intimate acquaintances as Dr. Johnson, with a most injurious effect on her character and manners.
"We are convinced that this unlucky secret caused her many awkward embarrassments and many anxious moments, and had an injurious effect both on her own personal manners and the style of her subsequent works. It is impossible in reading her journals not to be struck by the everlaating conflict between her inordinate appetite for praise and her professed uneasiness at any mention of her works. Much of this uneasiness was no doubt mere affectation, put on as a kind of cloak, under which she might enjoy her vanity more decentlyj but there was also probably some real trepidation at bottom. We cannot conceive a more painful catastrophe than if, on one of those numerous occasions where a crowd of eminent admirers were celebrating her precocious talents, the truth had by any accident transpired, and it had appeared that this arttess girl and her amiable family had been guilty of so enormous a deception on the public as the substraction of one-third from her real years. We can therefore very well imagine the mixture of fright and vanity with which she must have heard the bold and voluble Mrs. ChoJmondeley descanting on her youth, and pronouncing her with such marked emphasis 'not a woman, but a gkl' — a girl of 27!
"But though it is possible that this deception began in accident or thoughtlessness, we cannot doubt that the natural predisposition of her mind was towards artifice and manoeuvring. It was early remarked as a prominent defect in her novels that all her heroines were exhibited as the victims
1 Quarterly Review, June 1842.



of trifling annoyances and imaginary difficulties, from which two words of candour and common sense would have extricated them. The same error runs through her own memoirs. She represents herself as thrown into confusions, embarrassments, terrors, miseries, and so forth, by the most ordinary occurrences of common life. If she is spoken to, she is in a flutter of modest agitation: if not spoken to, she is still more alarmed at such ominous silence. If complimented, she is inclined to creep under the chair: if not attended to she retreats into indignant seclusion. She is afraid to make tea at an evening party, lest she should appear too obtrusive; and if she does not, she is in still worse agonies, lest she should be thought supercilious."
It is quite possible that Croker could not understand a sensitive nature, such as Fanny Burney's, but it is far more probable that he did not wish to understand it. The review, indeed, gives the impression of a wilful misunderstanding and the story that her embarrassment should be occasioned by the concealment of her age is entirely of Mr. Croker's making.
But Croker has discovered another serious offence:
"the unpardonable breach of confidence, in thus stealthily treasuring up for publication every idle word which was uttered in the unsuspicious freedom of private society. She anticipated in her youth faults that more usually accompany a gossiping 'widowhood'. She was idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but a tatler also, and a busybody, speaking things which she ought not."
Croker has no softer name for this than treachery. This remark "on principle" does not hinder him from regretting that Miss Burney has written so little about the private life of the royal family. This fact is attributed to Miss Burney's subservient position at court, and not to the discretion of one who was daily in attendance on the queen.
A. Napier has pointed out in a note1 to his edition of 1 Boswell's Life of Johnson, edited by Napier, Vol. IV, p. 368.



Boswell's Life of Johnson, how unfair Croker's treatment of Miss Burney was. It should not be regrettcd, however, that Croker's review was ever written, for it called forth an answer from the Edinburgh Review in which periodical Macaulay wrote his well known essay on Madame d'Arblay. Though it contains some slight mistakes, such as the savage. gloom of Mr. Crisp's seclusion and the revision of Cecilia by Dr. Johnson, the review is on the whole excellent. Macaulay defends Miss Burney against the accusation of vanity:
"It would not have been surprising if such success had turned even a strong head and corrupted even a generous and affectionate nature. But in the Diaru we can find no tracé of any feeling inconsistent with a truly modest and amiable disposition. There is, indeed, abundant proof that Frances enjoyed with an intense, though a troubled, joy, the honours which her genius had won; but it is equally dear that her happiness sprang from the happiness of het father, her sister, and her dear Daddy Crisp. While flattered by the great, the opulent, the learned, while followed along the Steyne at Brighton and the Pantiles at Tunbridge Wells by the gaze of admiring crowds, her heart seems to have been still with the little domestic circle in St. Martin's Street. If she recorded with minute diligence all the compliments, delicate and coarse, whkh 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 egotkm of a bluestocking who prates to all who come near her about her own novel or her own volume of sonnets."1
Mr, Shuckburgh said of the Diary: "Madame d'Arblay's
1 Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1843.



letters and journals for the most part have this charm, that they are outspoken and natural, and represent what she thought and feit at the moment. It is a pity that this is not the case with them all. Madame d'Arblay's fortune led her among stirring scènes; and a diary instead of a memoir (as at this point it is), of her adventures during the Hundred Days would have been infinitely more satisfactory. The greater part of the book, however, has the higher merit of cOntemporary composition; and it is this that puts it side by side with Pepys, Evelyn, and Boswell's biography of Johnson, as an inexhaustable storehouse of amusement and information as to the manners and customs of the second half of the eighteenth century. It has kept Madame d'Arblay's memory green even more than her novels."1
Much of Fanny Burney's present reputation is due to Macaulay's essay. Not only were her literary merits pointed out, but her character also was successfüly defended against Croker's malicious charges. Mr. Shuckburgh, too, took part against Croker and besides cleared Fanny Burney's character of the suspicion cast on it by Lady Llanover. In the introduction to her edition of Evelina, Mrs. Raine Ellis showed once more how incorrect many of Lady Llanover's statements were and that Mrs. Waddington's supposed influence at Windsor, which she was said to have used in favour of Madame d'Arblay, had never existed. In 1889 Mrs. Raine Ellis published the Early Diary, which, much better than the Memoirs, has given a picture of home life in the Burney family and has greatly added to our better understanding of Fanny Burney's personality.
1 Macmillan's Magazine, Febr. 1800.



Chapter V
THE CHARACTER OF FANNY BURNEY IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN PSYCHOLOGY
In the preceding chapters most of the events in Fanny Burney's life were traced, her surroundings were described and the opinions which various people had formed of her were discussed. This has thrown some light on her personality, and has given occasion to dispute the statements of several critics. If, however, we wish to penetra te somewhat deeper into Fanny Burney's character, we cannot do without the help of modern psychology. Both the static and the dynamic qualities of her character have to be studied. The genetic study of character contains for the greater part hypotheses. Therefore only a short sketch of it will be given. The static qualities will be considered first, as we possess so much material for this subject. Among the various systems, that of Dr. Ludwig Klages seems particularly suited for the purpose, as it examines so many sides of the personality with which we wish to be acquainted.
investigation according to the system of klages
Klages divides his research into the investigations of the material, the structtxre and the nature of character1, and he indicates that other qualities might be examined, such as the architectural qualities and the constant qualities of behaviour.
1 The terminology has been taken from W. h. Johnston's translation of Klages' work: The Science of Character.



The Material of Character
The material of character is the totality of personal gifts, both of mind, of feeling and of will. We must here distinguish the vital conditions of the manner of perception, the faculties for impressions, from its spiritual conditions, the directions of apprehension.
The faculties for impressions have again been subdivided into five groups:
I. Personal ReceptiiAty for Impressions.
The average freshness, hreadth and strength of receptivity, which vary extremely from person to person, were extraordinarily great in Fanny Burney. She has unanimously been called a keen observer by the people who were personally acquainted with her, as well as by the critics who had studied her works. Macaulay says:
"She had not, it is true, an eye for the fine shades of character. But every marked peculiarity instantly caught her notice and remained engraven on her imagination."1
In the Cambridge History she is called "a keen observer", Leslie Stephen speaks of her "quick observation" * and even her great enemy, Mr. Croker, could not help calling her "a woman of observation and sagacity."5
Klages attributes the fact that great poets have a much larger vocabulary than ordinary people not only to their greater grasp of the linguistic element, but also to their greater sensitiveness, by virtue of which they are continually absorbing fresher, richer and stronger linguistic impressions than the owners of a mere habitual speech. Such was also the case with Fanny Burney. Her sensitiveness was one of her most characteristic qualities, and she had, indeed, a large vocabulary, not only in writing but also in ordinary
1 Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1843. * Dictionary of National Biography. ' Ouarterlv Review, Jane 1842.



conversation. Samuel Crisp, her great friend and sincere critic once wrote to her:
"I affirm that in common conversation I observe in you a ready choice of words, with a quickness and conciseness that have often surprised me."1 II. Personal Füllness.
The content of every impression effects some change in the living organism and the tracé left by this impression is undergoing continual change through the growth or decay of this organism. If two individuals receive simultaneously identical or very similar impressions, then after a considerable interval the effects of these will vary largely in accordance with the nature, age, and growing force of the organism, which seeks to assimilate physkal and psychical elements, and also rejects some psychically indigestible element. According to Klages this so-called tracé of the impression turns into something different in a rich and in a meagre soul. Some people seem to draw with each word which they pronounce, from a full vessel. Fanny Burney did so when she was at ease. Among strangers she was checked by diffidence. The result of this fullness of impressions depends upon the other capacities of the person in question. In artistically gifted persons it may increase creative force. That is what happened in the case of Fanny Burney. She drew from a fullness of fancy and of combining power, when she created and arranged the various characters in her novels. Edmund Burke expressed it well when he wrote to her about Cecilia in a letter which has already been quoted:
"You have crowded into a few small volumes an in• credible variety of characters; most of them well planned, well supported, and well contrasted with each other. If the» be any fault in this respect, it is one in which you are in no great danger of being imitated. Justly as your characters
* Diary and Letters, Dec. 8, 1778.



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."1
After the publication of Cecilia, however, Fanny wrote very little for a long time. Her third novel Camilla was published fourteen years after Cecilia and it had not the same brilliancy. When past thirty, Fanny probably was already beginning to lose something of this original opulence, though we cannot entirely judge by the fact that she published so little afterwards. That depended greatly upon her energy which had lost its stimulus after the death of Samuel Crisp. Miss Burney's own words to King George are of greater importance in this respect than te scarcity of her literary productions: "I believe I have exhausted myself, Sir." She wrote in her diary that the king laughed, "civilly treating a plain fact as a mere bon mot."3
It is not quite true. Camitla and The Wanderer show that she had not yet exhausted herself, but the great pleasure she had always found in literary work was now practically confined to the writing of her diary and letters. III. Personal Warmth of the Material of Intuition.
Fanny Burney received impressions with great sensuous freshness. In her personality sensuous vitality predominated over intellectual vitality. She did not make the impressions the occasion of thought and abstraction, which may lead to the fading of sensuous freshness. On the contrary, she had a great capacity to bring before the mind past images with sensuous exactness. The Diary shows clearly that she possessed this capacity to an extraordinary degree in her youth and gradually lost it. After she had spent an evening in company she used to write down hér impressions in her diary and of ten reproduced the whole scène. Long conversations were written down with extraordinary vivacity,
1 Printed in the Diary and Letten, July 29, 1782. * Op. cit. Dec. 14, 1785.



a fact which greatly annoyed Croker and made him draw the conclusion that Miss Burney must needs be unreliable as he considered it impossible to remember so many details.1 /V". Personal Motility of the Material of Intuition.
The motility of Fanny Burney's material of intuition had a certain lightness. She did not dweil long on one image. Her attention was not attracted by one impression to the exclusion of many others, but she received a great many impressions and her spirit passed from one image to another. This occasioned a lack of profundity, but at the same time it gave a peculiar charm to her writings. It is this light touch which is characteristic of Fanny Burney and has greatly added to her fame. M. E. Christie said in an article on Miss Burney's novels:
"She constructed her personages not from within (as is the modern fashion) but by means of a thousand minute touches showing their conversation and behaviour in an infinite variety of such small circumstances as make up the daily round of existence. She positively revelled in descriptive minutiae of this sort. Nothing was too trivial for her, nothing too intricate in the web of petty embarrassments and mortifieations and misunderstandings, that make the sum of a vast majority of human lives, and a tremendous factor of the remainder."*
V. Personal Depth of the Capacity for Impressions.
Fanny Burney's capacity for impressions had little depth. With Klages, we can speak of a certain shallowness. She belonged to the extraverted type. As a rule the impression had not for her the weight of meaning which it has for introverted people. This lack of depth was compensated by an accumulation of impressions. In this extraverted personality we might expect great adaptability. Such, however, was not the case with Fanny Burney, at least not in her
1 Quarterly Review, June 1842.
* Contemporary Review, Dec. 1882.



youth. Her diminished gift for adaptation at that period was not due to depth of the capacity for impressions, hut to emotionality and extreme timidity. Though she remained emotional and timid throughout her long life, she could conceal it better in later years. Her adaptability greatly increased after her entrance into society. The large circle of her friends and admtrers shows it dearly. With very few exceptions she lost her friends only by death and she kept on making new ones. F. F. Moore remarked that she possessed a faculty for making friendships1 while E. J. Morley said:
"Her friends were innumerable in her life time; they were of both sexes and of all ages, and they were drawn from every rank of society. She had, indeed, a positive genius for friendship."*
The faculties for apprehension have been subdivided into se ven groups:
I. Degree of the Activity of Apprehension.
Fanny Burney was not only highly receptive. She also possessed a fairly great activity of apprehension. The Church Quarterly Review speaks of her tenacious memory. * As she was extremely timid and emotional in childhood, she could not express herself well and consequently was considered dull. But it soon appeared that she was all alive. She imitated the actors and when her eldest sister Hetty recited for her mother, Fanny learned whole pieces by heart without being able to read them. When sitting quietly in a corner she not only noticed everything that was going on, but was able to give a minute account of it afterwards, as we learn from her journal. Besides she could subordinate her impressions to that direction of apprehension which was the natural resultant of her interests. She made use of her impressions in her works of fiction. As she possessed considerable talents,
1 F. F. Moore: A Keeper of the Robes.
2 Fanny Burney, Engl. Ass. pamphlet 60, p. 18. * Church Quarterly Review, Jan. 1891.



she was capable of achievements which people with an equal receptivity for impressions but less activity of apprehension would not be able to effect. The reviewer of Dobson's book1 in the Athenaeum said:
"Like all women of the same delicate, nervous organization, she was a quick and close observer of men and manners: what she noted accurately she retained faithfully — for, as Dr. Burney used to say, 'Fanny carried birdlime in her brains'; and these qualities, combined with a natural gift for the expression of character in dialogue, made her at once the most vivacious story-teller and the most entertaining diarist of her day." *
II. The Vital and the Spiritual Direction of Apprehension.
Fanny Burney's mode of apprehension was vital. It depended mainly on Life.3 Klages calls the view that the typical woman has less intellect than the typical man thoroughly false. The typical woman has a different intellect from the typical man, the chief cause of which ia that women's comprehension and thought are essentially based upon Life, while men's are essentially based upon Spirit. Fanny Burney was a typical woman. Hazlitt remarks this in his review of The Wanderer *:
"The author of the present novel is, however, quite of the old school, a mere common observer of manners, w» and also a very woman. It is this last circumstance which forms the peculiarity of her Writings , and distinguishes them from those masterpieces whkh we have before mentioned. 1 She is unquestionably a quick, lively and accurate observer of persons and things; but she always looks at
1 Austin Dobson: Fanny Bnrney, English Men of Letters. ' Athenaeum, Jan. 1904.
• Mr. Johnston's method has been followed here of using a capital
when the words are used in a technical sense wherever it seemed that
there was a risk of ambiguity.
4 Edinburgh Review, Febr. 1815.
1 The works of the great eighteenth century novelists.



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."
It is true that Fanny Burney looked at persons and things from a point of view very different from that of the great eighteenth century novelists. This cannot surprise us if we consider that these novelists were all men. Hazlitt continues:
"Women, in general, have a quicker perception of any oddity or singularity of character than men, and are more alive to every absurdity which arises from a violation of the rules of society, or a deviation from established custom. This partly arises from the restraints on their own behaviour, which turn their attention constantly on the subject, and partly from other causes.. . The intuitive perception of their minds is less disturbed by any general reasonings on causes or consequences. They learn the idiom of character and manner, as they acquire that of language, by rote merely, without troubling themselves about the principles."
Fanny Burney is an example of a typical woman whose manner of apprehension was based on Life. Her comprehension and thought were only in a slight degree based On Spirit. She hardly occupied herself with general laws, maxims and programmes. With the exception of religious subjects she took very little interest in universal thoughts. She drew from the depth of her vitality and always required an intuitive experience in order to reach certainty about a matter. E. J. Morley says:
"The writer draws always upon her experience and observation: even her fiction is founded upon fact. Since she is an artist, she does not merely transcribe; she views reality through the medium of her own emotions and personality, and everything is coloured by her outlook. But it is reality that she depicts — not an idealized world or idealized or imaginary personages."1
1 Fanny Burney, Engl. Ass. pamphlet 60, p. 13.



III. The Subjective and the Objective Direction of Apprehension.
Klages calls the vitally dependent direction of apprehension objective in the truest sense. According to him, women — at least in their judgments of persons — are universaUy more objective than men. This statement is in direct opposition to a very common view, but if we consider Fanny Burney, who, both in her diary and in her novels, almost I exclusively describes persons, Klages proves to be right. I In the Diary. she is extremely egotistical but even in that work her descriptions of persons show an objective judgment. Her description of Miss Brown1 is certainly objective. j It shows a keen insight into character, and there is not the I slightest tracé of spite, though Miss Brown was the queen i of the day. On the contrary, the fact is honestly admitted, and Fanny obviously wishes her well. The case of Colonel ! Digby (Mr. Fairly) is more difficult to judge. He is very often mentioned, but not much described and after his marriage he is hardly mentioned at all. Fanny feit too deeply in this case to put down her feelings in the diary, which was no longer strictly private. We can only guess that she was not quite so objective here, and this would be only natural. Her reserve makes it impossible to examine the case any further.
Miss Gunning (Miss Fuzilier) is rarely mentioned in the Diary, but always quite kindly. Mrs. Schwellenberg, as described in the Diary, is certainly not amiable, but the descriptions of contemporaries have shown that the picture was true to life, and throughout the Court-Diary we notice that Fanny wished to be fair to her and see her good points as well. Miss Burney behaved coldly to Burke, whose attitude in the Hastings trial she disliked, but this did not prevent her from praising his speeches. Mary Webb speaks of her chilly, objective style in revealing a character such as the
1 Diary and Letters, Jane 13, 1770. Ï2



Captain's in Evelina1 and Austin Dobson mentions the objective characterization in the Diary and in Evelina. *
However, if persons were not concerned, she was of ten extremely subjective. Leslie Stephen' speaks of "her vehement prejudices corrected by flashes of humour." It is certainly true that her sense of humour often saved her from subjectivity, but there are cases where that happy quality entirely failed her. Striking examples of this are her partiality in the Hastings trial and her abhorrence of the Regency Bill. IV. Direction of Apprehension towards Persons and towards Facts.
Fanny Burney's apprehension was directed towards persons far more than towards facts. She delighted in describing persons and everything which concerned them. In drawing her characters she seldom went below the surface. It is the outside of life which is portrayed in her works. She described the manner of living of the
«mnrcicTs, meir conversations ana ail sorts Or gossip.
iNothmg was too tnvial for her. That is why it is so extraordinary that she took no interest whatever in dress. Her characters, though very much alive, would have gained in clearness if their clothes had been described. She took hardly any interest in facts. We seldom find her occupied with matters of state, law, profession, sciences or politics. The Burneys were an artistic family, but even the subject of art was hardly dwelt upon in Fanny's writings. She mentions incidentally that she enjoyed the music at home, but all her real attention is turned to the people who came to listen to the concerts and a minute account is given of their behaviour and conversations.
Fanny Burney's attitude in the Hastings trial shows clearly the truth of the statement made by Klages that the
1 Little Miss Burney. Bookman, June 1927.
* Fanny Burney, English Men of Letters, p. 205.
3 Dictionary of National Biography.



preponderance of a personal direction of appreheniion may lead to ialse judgments. She paid no attention to the case itself, about which she knew nothing, but she took a keen interest in the person of the accused. Her judgment was greatly influenced by her sympathy for Haetings.
V. Concrete and Abstract Direction of Apprehension, Like most women, Fanny Burney had a preponderantly
concrete intelligence. She used to dweil upon individual cases. That among women concrete intelligence predominates is, according to Klages, owing to the fact that they are more devoted to personal interests, while men are more interested in facts. Fanny Burney's interests were strongly personal, and her feelings played an important part in her relation to persons and things, which is one of the requirements for concreteness of thought. She possessed a very good memory for names and stories. Her gift of reproducing long conversations almost literally was quite remarkable. She never took any interest in such subjects as mathematica and philosophy, for which abstract thought is indispensable. Both in the Diary and novels there is some general reasoning, or rather moralizing, but even that ia always closely connected with individual cases and persons.
VI. Close-Focused and Far-Focused Direction of Apprehension.
Fanny Burney was close-focused, that is, she was in an intensely visual relation to the individuals and objects she described. Klages distinguishes definitely artistic from definitely inartistic persons. Fanny Burney possessed the intuitive force of apprehension of an artistic nature. Mrs. Masefield says: "hers was not a universal genius but a particular one, she does not so much hold the mirror up to Nature as up to the society of the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Her art was primarily photographic, although she completed her best portraits with a lively suggestiveness of
humour and imagination."1 
1 Mrs. Ch. Masefield: Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay, p. 11.



VII. The Formalistic Direction of Apprehension.
Klages also distinguisb.es a formalistic direction of apprehension, that is, the capacity to use mere symbols without consciously thinking of the values they symbolize. Nobody, at least no modern person, can entirely do without formalistic thought. Financial, mathematical and technical subjects absolutely require the formalistic method of apprehension, but even in ordinary calculations it is required. Fanny Burney's manner of apprehension was hardly formalistic at all. She knew nothing about mathematics or financial and technical subjects. They were entirely beyond her range of thought. Her manner of apprehension was close-focused and mainly dependent on Life.
The Structure of Character
The structure of character is the totality of dispositions of the personal medium, which determine in what form internal processes take their course. The qualities of the structure of character are relative. They may each be represented by the proportion between two magnitudes. Klages distinguishes three properties of structure: the personal capacity for stimulation of feelings, that for stimulation of the will and the personal capacity for expression.
I. Personal Capacity for Stimulation of Feelings.
There are two factors upon which the personal capacity for stimulation of feelings depends. It grows with the growing liveliness of feelings and diminishes as their depth grows. The liveliness of Fanny Burney's feelings was uncommonly great. She was extremely sensitive and impressionable. That is why she had so little control over herself in her youth. As the young authoress in the brilliant company of literary people and statesmen, it gave her the attitude which made Croker accuse her of gross affectation.
"If she is spoken to, she is in a flutter of modest agkation:



if not spoken to, she is still more alarmed at such ominous silence. If complimented, she is indined to creep under the chair: if not attended to she retreats into indignant aecluaion. She is afraid to make tea at an evening party, lest she should appear too obtrusive; and if she does not, she is in^ still worse agonies, lest she should be thought supercilious."1
It is certainly true that Fanny Burney was often troubled by small things which moré thick-skinned people would not have noticed at all. She also possessed a fairly great depth of feeling. This was first noticed when her mother died and she showed such intense grief. It was obvious at her second great loss, that of her sister Susan when she experienced "that dreadful, harrowing, never-to-be-forgotten moment of horror that made me wish to be mad." 1
Afterwards she showed her depth of feeling particularly in her sympathy with the queen during the illness of the king, and in her grief at the death of her husband and son. Her depth of feeling was certainly great. It is, however, not so great if we compare it with the extraordinary liveliness of her feelings, and it is owing to this relation between these two qualities that her capacity for stimulation of feelings was so considerable. As a girl of sixteen she remarked that she was "one moment flighty and half mad,
the next sad and melancholy." s Sir Walter Scott who
met her when she was seventy-four at once noticed her "quick feelings". *
She was, indeed, liable to moods and generally reacted quickly upon any stimulus. She often longed for a change. While she was staying at Lynn, though quite happy there, she was already thinking of going back to Londen. After a discussion of a book she had read she continues:
1 Quarterly Review, June 1842. 1 Diary and Letters, Jan. 9, 1800. ' Early Diary, 1769.
« Journal of Sir Walter Scott, Nov. 18, 1826.



"Well, I am going to bed — Sweet dreams attend me — and may you sympathizc with me. Heigh ho! I wonder when I shall return to London! — Not that we are very dull here — no, really — tolerably happy." 1
At another time she writes these characteristic lines:
"I have not wrote you a line this age, my sweet Journal. Indeed I have no wonderful matters to scrawl, now. — Is it not very perverse in Dame Fortune to deny me the least share in any of her so much talk'd of tricks? especially as I should, by means of my inimitable pen immortalize every favour she honour'd me with: but so it is, and so it seems likely to be; that I am to pass my days in the dullest of dull things, insipid, calm, uninterrupted quiet. This life is by many desired — so be it — But it surely was design'd to give happiness after (and not one ounce before) twenty full years are past, but till then — no matter what happens — the spirits — the health — the never dying hope are too strong to be much af fected by whatever comes to pass — Supper bell, as I live!"'
This passage shows clearly that a person with a great capacity for stimulation of feelings seeks the stimulus.
Her unhappiness at court was, among other things, largely due to the fact that the extreme tediousness of life at Windsor and Kew disagreed with her. The pathetic complaint in her diary speaks volumes:
"The many now wishing for just the same — O! could they look within me. I am married, my dearest Susan — I look upon it in that light — I was averse to forming the union, and I endeavoured to escape it; but my friends interfered — they prevailed — and the knot is tied. What then now remains but to make the best wife in my power? I am bound to it in duty, and I will strain every nerve to succeed." *
1 Early Diary, 1768.
* Op. cit. Sept. 21, 1768.
* Diary and Letten, July 17, 1786.



As Fanny also had an urgc for expression. we should expect her to show activity and readiness in making plans. In ordinary life we see very little of these qualities in Fanny, but she used much of her activity in writing and she made many schemes. if not in actual life. then in fiction. There are hardly any signs of active or reactive affectivity in Fanny Burney. Her affectivity was mainly P»»™ The qualities belonging to this category were nigMy developed. She was very susceptible. Sometimes the shghtest events or expressions would affect her deeply. Her sensitiveness. which has been most literally expressed m Camilla, is notorious and she possessed besides an extraordinary receptivity for impressions. II Personal Capacity for Stimulation of Will.
Like the personal capacity for stimulation of feehngs. the capacity for stimulation of will also results from the relation between two magnitudes. It grows with the mcrease of the urge-force and it diminishes as the inhibitive emotion increases. Here we find a different quotiënt from that of the feelings. The attractive power of the goal was never so strong in Fanny Burney that she lost sight of the ob• stades. The inhibitive emotion was generally fairly great and consequently her capacity for stimulation of willwas not so great as her capacity for stimulation of feehngs. lUere are many events in her life where we notice a fairly strong urge-force which was, however. accompamed by a still stronger consciousness of the obstacles. We have only to think of her wish to stay at home instead of going to court and of her friendship with Madame de Staël. There is only one striking case where the urge-force was so strong that no resistance could conquer it. That was her wish to marry M d'Arblay. In this case she acted entirely according to her own will. and not even her father's disapproval could make her change her mind. We do not find much energy. much resolution in Fanny Burney. On the other hand we cannot sav that she had no will of her own. The fact is.



that her capacity for stimulation of will was, for the greater part, passive. That is evident from her power of resistance. her firmness, constancy and perseverance. Though these qualitks are obvious throughout her long life, they are particularly conspicuous during her court-career. More than anywhere else she had an opportunity to show them at Windsor. In spite of her meekness, she could be firm and openly resist Mrs. Schwellenberg when she considered her pnde offended. That was obvious when the queen presented her with a gown and Mrs. Schwellenberg announced it to her in a very ungracious manner. Fanny wrote indignantly m her diary:
". . . to receive a favour through the vehide of insolent ostentation — no! no! To submit to ill-humour rather than argue and dispute I think an exercise of patience, and I encowage myself all I can to practice it: but to accept even a shadow of an obligation upon such terms I should think mean and unworthy; and therefore I mean always, in a Court as I would elsewhere, to be open and fearless in dedining such subjection."1
• Miss Burney knew that the queen did not like her to invite visitors to dinner, and, though it sometimes led to great difficulties, she remained firm and never gave in to the most urgent requests. The amusing story» in her journal about Madame de la Fite who took Madame de la Roche to Windsor and wished to stay for dinner is a good illustration of Fanny's firmness.
Fanny Burney certainly showed great perseverance when she spent five long years at court, where she had to lead a life so definitely unsuited to her and so injurious to her health. But even when she was much older she showed the same flrlnness. We need only think of her undertaking the journey from Brussels to Trèves, which seemed almost an
1 Op. cit. Aug. 8, i786. * Op. cit. Sept. 17, 1786.



impossibility at the time. 1 But nothing could keep her from joining her husband, who was ill. She also possessed great constancy. Her constancy in friendship was even remarkable.
These qualities are all passive. Of an active capacity for stimulation of the will we find very little in Fanny Burney. Klages mentions among the weak points of an easy capacity for stimulation of the will, a flighty and superficial nature. Fanny Burney did not possess such a nature, though this has often been said. It is very true what M. E. Christie wrote of her:
"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 surf ace, 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." 1
We find in Fanny Burney qualities which accompany a difficulty in stimulation of the will, such as endurance, conscientiousness and patience. Her capacity for endurance became particularly obvious during her life at court, while her conscientiousness may already be observed in her youth. When her step-mother did not approve of her writing she gave it up and burnt her papers. She did not do this under pressure, which we know from the fact that Mrs. Burney
1 Op. cit. July 1815.
' Contemporary Review, Dec. 1882.



was away from home at the time. It was her own conscience, which, influenced by Mrs. Burney, persuaded her that all this writing was wrong and that she ought to apply herself to domestic occupations and needlework. It was her conscience again which told her that she ought to accept the post at court if her father wished her to do so, and very conscientiously indeed did she apply herself to the task, for a long tune not even knowing whether it would be right to resign on account of ill health.
Klages says that there is hardly a better Standard for the degree of personal capacity for stimulation of the will than the degree of our disposition for patience. This is another argument in favour of the opinion that Fanny Burney's capacity for stimulation of will was not very great, as she was decidedly patiënt. Like most people, she was more so at an advanced age than when she was young, but even then her patience was fairly great. This quality also is most obvious during her Windsor time. Mrs. Schwellenberg tried her patience sadly, but she commonly managed to preserve her usual calmness and in spite of all unkindness she tried over and over again to be cheerful and entertaining. ƒƒƒ. Personal Capacity for Expression.
The stimulation of feelings and of the will are both internal processes. The impulses are accompanied by bodily processes, which, if they become visible, are called their expression. The personal capacity for expression again depends upon two factors. It grows with growing excitement and diminishes as the resistance to expression grows.
Fanny Burney's capacity for expression was considerable, owing to her small power of resistance. She used to blush quickly and had very little control over her features. Mrs. Raine Ellis is indined to think that Fanny could look charming from variety and force of expression rather than from beauty of complexion and regularity of features.
"There are proofs in these diaries that, when a girl, Fanny was attractive, and she looked like a girl long after



she was a woman. Mrs. Piozzi, when an unfriendly witness, tells us that she was much admired at Bath when eightand-twenty; and Miss Berry (who does not seem to have met her until she was Madame d'Arblay, and not far from fifty years of age) says, that at sixty, after her absence in France, she had 'wonderfully improved in good looks in ten years, which have usually a very different effect at an age when people begin to fall off. Her face had acquired expression, and a charm which it never had before. She has gained an embonpoint very advantageous to her face'.
It was the restoration, rather than the acquisition of a charm, as we have ample proof that Fanny's earlier, as well as later, power of pleasing lay in her variability of expression. Her countenance reflected her feelings, or (as her father said), 'poor Fanny's face tells us what she thinks, whether she will or no'. Mr. Thrale repeatedly pressed her to read a tragedy to him, because she had what he termed 'such a marking face'. She herself wrote, 'Nobody, I believe, has so very little command of countenance as myself — I could feel my whole face on fire'.
"When, in 1802, she went to live in Paris among what was left unguillotined of the best French society, it was said by Mme de Tessé that 'Mme d'Arblay's looks filled up what her words left short', in her efforts to speak French."1
Her capacity for expression by means of speech, however, was not so great. In that case there was a far greater resistance, owing to her extreme timidity. Fanny Burney's character is a striking illustration of Klages' statement that a person with a high capacity for stimulation of feelings, but without the gift for easy reaction. takes every thing too seriously, easily feels injured and often tends to excessive conscientiousness. If she was among intimate friends, where she was perfectly at ease, she could
1 Preface to the Early Diary, p. htxxü.



express herself very well indeed, but as soon as strangers came in, she drew back and was incapable of expressing herself with the same ease. This was very remarkable in her youth, and, though to a less extent, it gave her still great trouble when she was older. Even when she was over sixty she still complained of her timidity. Fortunately for the young Fanny she soon discovered another manner of expression, which was not hindered by her timidity. Constance Hill says:
"Reserved and shy by nature, it was easier to her to give vent to 'her fancies and vagaries' on paper than to express them by word of mouth."1
That explains her writing stories, poems and even tragedies so very early. She really needed this manner of expression, and the bonfire which she made of her treasures was a great sacrifice on her part. But she soon feit that she could not do without writing at all and started a diary. This was a lucky choice as it gave her exactly what she wanted. She could now express her feelings and thoughts on the common events of daily life. She actually talked in the diary, and discussed in a very lively manner the scènes at which she had been present, keeping quietly in the background. Afterwards, when she had lost some of her timidity, she still kept up the habit of writing a diary. She had got used to it and could not do without it. We need not admire her for writing such an elaborate diary throughout her life, as it was no task to her. On the contrary, it was a pleasure and served as an amplification of the insufficiënt expression in speech of her lively feelings.
The Nature of Character
The nature of character is the totality of personal driving forces, which are also called dispositions of feeling. The
1 The House in St. Martin's Street, p. 97.



qualities of the nature of character are directive. Klages makes a distinction between binding and releasing driving forces. Every binding driving force or bond is an impulse towards self-assertion, while an unbinding driving force or release is an impulse towards devotion. There is besides a division into spiritual and personal driving forces, each of which contains bonds and releases. I. Spiritual Driving Forces.
Fanny Burney possessed a strong analytic will. She took a delight in character-analysis. In many of the secondary characters in her novels only a few outstanding features are described, but in the more important characters there is a careful portrayal of many sides of their natures by means of a great number of small touches. Madame Duval, Captain Mirvan, the Branghtons and Mr. Smith in Evelina, the Delviles, the Harrels and Mr. Monckton in Cecilia, Sir Hugh, Camilla and Edgar in Camilla and the Brighton ladies in The Wanderer are only the most important of numerous examples. But not only in her works of fiction do we find this character-analysis. Her diary, too, is full of it. The visitors of her father whom she watched in St. Martin's Street, the famous people she met at Streatham and in London society, the court-officials at Windsor and the French emigrants are all portrayed with penetrating accuracy.
She had a strong critical tendency, which is only too obvious from her descriptions of society. Cecilia is an excellent caricature of English Society in the latter half of the eighteenth century.
Fanny Burney could be objective as long as persons were concerned. Her diary contains many examples. But as soon as she had to deal with facts she did not even seem to take the trouble to be objective. She could then show the most violent prejudices. (Hastings Trial, Regency Bill, French Revolution.)
A love of facts and the will to make the world intelligible



were hardly developed in Fanny Burney, while the releases like intellectual passion and urge after knowledge, did not belong to her character at all. She had no great devotion to the task either. Evelina had not been a task at all. It was a secret pleasure, indulged in during her spare time. Cecilia was much more of a task. Fanny took a keen interest in everything going on among her family and friends and could only with dif f iculty apply herself entirely to her work. Dr. Burney and Daddy Crisp had some trouble to make her finish the novel and there are several complaints in the Diary, that she could not visit her friends because of her work. While at Chessington she wrote to Susan, who was going to be married:
"What shall we do, my dearest girl? I will scrawl night and day if I can. .. O if this book proves as great a bore to anyone else as just now to me! — L—d help it! .. . . What shall I do with my father to prevent displeasure at my return? ... I wait here for nothing else! I will manage Mr. Crisp, I will throw my book into a bonfire ... sooner than for anything but my father stay away another minute."1
After the death of Daddy Crisp she did not write anything for many years, and her two last novels were partly written for money.
Fanny Burney possessed the will to make comprehensible the world of intuition. She was an extraordinarily keen observer and loved to reproduce her impressions. In the Diary she put down her impressions exactly as she received them, while in the novels, they formed the material by means of which she arranged the story. Very little in the novels is purely imaginative. They are the result of the will to reproduce and to explain the material of intuition.
Her sense for organization is obvious from the clever
1 Printed from the Burney MSS. by Constance Hill in: The House in St. Martin's Street, pp. 320-321.



way of arranging the different groups of persons in the novels. Probability is often violated, as in the scène1 in Cecilia where Mr. Delvile, Hobson, Briggs and Albany are brought together, but she always knows how to arrange the groups in order to produce the best effect. Fanny was orderly. Though not interested in dothes, she was always neat, and disliked carelessness. At home she was largely left to herself, which did her no great harm for she was orderly by nature, but the many rules and regulations of court-life oppressed her and sometimes made her feei rebellious. Against the rules of convention, however, she never sinned in all her life.
She had a certain need of "style". In the novels we find the continual contrast between highly educated and vulgar people. Though her portraits of the vulgar characters are masterly, and betray her pleasure in describing them, we always feel her dislike of vulgarity. She liked to mix with refined people, as is evident from her friendship with Mrs. Delany and the French emigrant nobitity at Juniper Hall, and it is here that she became acquainted with M. d'Arblay whom she called "the most peculiarly to my taste, and whom I think the most peculiarly formed for my happiness of any mortal I ever saw or ever knew in my life." *
As Brimley Johnson says: "It cannot be too often emphasized that Miss Burney was most extraordinarily refined for her age." *
Of the releases, Fanny Burney possessed a love of beauty. She loved music and poetry and thoroughly enjoyed good acting. She also expresses admiration for personal beauty (Mrs. Crewe, the Duchess of Devonshire, Mrs. Sheridan) but her sensitive disposition never seems to have responded to the beauties of nature. Her retirement in her Sussex
1 Cecilia, Vol. II p. 290 ff.
* From an unpublished letter to her brother Charles printed by Constance HUI in: Juniper Hall, p. 163.
* The Women Novelists, p. 249.



cottage was not so much due to a love of nature as to the proximity of her dearest friends and to financial reasons. She had a creative urge. From the moment she could use her pen she started writing stories. When she was fifteen she burnt all her scribblings and decided to write no more, but she could not keep her promise, and, as she did not think it right to take up novel-writing once more, she started a diary. Her works are not creative in the real sense of the word, as she had no great imagination or invention, but she could not do without her writing. She had to produce something.
Fanny Burney had not a strong will to equality. She considered herself a mere nobody and looked up with the greatest révérence to her father, Daddy Crisp and the great men who became her friends, such as Johnson, Reynolds, Garrick, Burke, Sheridan and Hastings. She also had a pro found respect for rank as is particularly obvious from the court-diary. Mrs. Thrale did not think her quite so modest and disliked her great attachment to her family and her longing for home. But very probably the fault was Mrs. Thrale's, as she assumed the attitude of the rich patroness, to which Fanny justly objected, not so much for her own sake as for the sake of her father, whose dignity she was mucb more eager to uphold than her own.
Her sense of duty was greatly developed. She was an extremely dutiful daughter, a dutiful subject and also a dutiful wife and mother. At a hint from her step-mother, she burnt all ber beloved writings and applied herself to needlework. It was partly her sense of duty which made her accept the post at court in spite of her own reluctance and made it so extremely difficult for her to resign when she noticed the queen's displeasure. Duty also made her follow her husband to France, of which country she was extraordinarily ignorant and had a very poor opinion. Sense of duty always plays an important part too in her novels.



- She was besides very conscientious. She had been extremely careful ia the affair with Mr. Barlow and did not consider herself at all guilty, bat still she was greatly annoyed at the reproach of Mrs. O'Connor, for, as she wrote to Mr. Crisp. she "would not for the world be thought to trifte with any man."1
She regretted her behaviour towards Madame de Staël, and, though her prudery would have made her do the same thing over again under the same circumstances, she was sorry that it had happened and that she had hurt Madame de Staël's feelings.
She was truthful and she had a great love and révérence for several persons, but she was too careful and too sensible to allow these impulses to develop into a passion for truthful ness and into "Schwarmerei" or utopianism.
On the whole we can say that of the spiritual driving forces Fanny possessed many honds but very few releases. II. Personal Driving Forces.
Fanny Burney had a great many spontaneous tendencies towards devotion. She was far too tender-hearted not to be kind to animals. At Streatham she could not see a dog being punished, and she pitied Mr. Rishton's spaniel that was drowned at Teignmouth. Camilla bought a bird in order to prevent further ill treatment. But the references to animals and to planta in Fanny Burney's works are very few. She obviously took as little interest in them as in nature in general. Her love of home and country, however, was very strongly developed. She greatly annoyed Mrs. Thrale by always longing for home, and it was a great distress to her when war broke out again while she was in France and prevented her from going back to England for so many years. In the Diary for 1812, written a long time after the event, she said:
"We had anchored about half a mile, I imagine, from the
1 Early Diary, May 16, 177$. 13



shore; which I no sooner touched than, drawing away my arm from Mr. Har ford, I took up on one knee, with irrepressible transport, the nearest bright pebble, to press to my lips in grateful joy at touching again the land of my nativity, after an absence, nearly hopeless, of more than twelve years."
Fanny was glad of any small present,, made by a friend. Her own works, her novels, she called her children and she was very much attached to the medallions of the king and queen and a few other small things, left to her by Mrs. Delany. Any remembrance of a dear friend was valuable to her. In Cmlia we have seen that she could sympathize with Mrs. Delvile's ancestor worship.
Even more than to this extra-persooal world, Fanny's devotion was directed towards persons. She was rarely passionate, but she had a great capacity for love. Her love for her father, her mother, Susan and afterwards for M. d'Arblay and her son was of an uncommon depth, while the friends to whom she was warmly attached were numerous. She had besides a strong nrge to admire and to venerate, This is partkularly obvious in her attitude towards her father, Dr. Johnson, Mrs. Delany and the royal family, but also towards her famous friends Garrick, Burke, Reynolds, Sheridan and the Italian musiciens. In the case of her father it almost amounted to adoration. She gave herself entirely to the beloved person. While in her youth she was so extremely timid and had great difficulty in expressing herself, she had no secrets from her mother and her sister Susan. Never in her life was she in such circumstances as to be able to give much, but she was always ready to share with a friend. Besides writing a pamphlet in order to raise funds for the emigrant French clergy, she also wanted to contribute her mite, though she was herself in financial difficulties, and when M. de Narbonne was in trouble she sent him a very considerate and kind invitation



to come and live in the little cottage till better times should arrivé.1
Money was of little importance to her. In connection with the marriage of her sister Susan she wrote to Mrs. Thrale: "there is not any part of our family that cannot live upon very little as cheerfully as most folks upon very much." *
She proved the truth of this statement by her own marriage. But though she did not consider money of great importance, she knew its value and had no tendency towards prodigality. On the contrary, she could be very economical.
Her letters written after her son was born show her motherliness. She had also a tendency towards self-immolation. Her decision to accept the post at court was a sacrifice of her own love of freedom and literary society to the wishes of her father, and her effort to look cheerful when, with a heavy heart, she took leave of him, was quite pathetic. At court she sacrificed her own comfort in order to spare Mrs. Schwellenberg. She had resolved not to do mischief to a favourite old servant. When M. d'Arblay considered it his duty to join the Toulon expedition, she did not speak a word to detain him, though she had been married only a short while ago and hoped that he would give up his military career.
Very few spontaneous egoisms belonged to Fanny Burney's nature. She had no great love of action and enterprise, and no aggressiveness or reforming zeal. Her lust of success was commonly sacrificed to other considerations. M. E. Christie said: "where ver Frances Burney's lot had f allen, 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 was above all things affectionate, and cared more for the goodwill of
1 Diary and Letters, Dec. 26, 1795. * Op. cit. Dec. 10, 1781.



those about her than for any other worldly consideration." *
She was not independent. The only time that she acted quite independently was when she married M. d'Arblay against the wish of her father. When she met Miss Burney, Madame de Staël declared, that she behaved more like a girl of fottrteen than a woman of forty. She was not seifish or eager to dominate, and had little ambition and vanity. She has been repeatedly accused of extreme vanity, but that is partly due to Croker's malicious articles, and to the fact that the Diary is egotistical. Macaulay has suf f iciently refuted this view and the Athenaeum wrote in a review of the Early Diary: "No woman of any age ever bore the burden of popularity more graciously. Like her father, she was eminently modest and sweet-tempered." 1
She only had a certain egoism of the "Heart". She was not coquettish, but she had a desire to please- and was extremely sensitive to the opinion of other people.
She possessed benevolence and kindliness, while warmth of heart was one of the prominent features of her character. The Athenaeum said of her: "She was blessed with good sense, a warm heart, and a keen faculty of enjoyment." 3
Macaulay mentioned her kind heart, and Brimley Johnson called sensibility the prevailing impulse of her nature and her greatest charm. * That she was faithful is shown by the large circle of friends to whom she remained attached all her life. She was besides very gentle. Her friends at Paris called her tange.
Of the passive egoisms she possessed prudence and a certain amount of watchfulness, to which were due her breach of friendship with Madame de Staël and her careful submission to the rules of convention. T. Hogg even went so
1 Miss Burney's Novels. Contemporary Review, Dec. 1882.
* Athenaeum, Jan. 25, 1890. ' Op. cit. Jan. 25, 1890.
* Brimley Johnson: Fanny Burney and the Burneys.



far as to call her "a bundie of conventionaUties." 1 Calculation did not belong to her character at all, neither did suspicion or distrust. Timidity, however, was one of her characteristic qualities. In her youth it made her extremely awkward before strangers, and afterwards, when she was quite used to society and court-life, she still could not master it altogether. At the age of sixty-one she wrote:
"Never yet had the moment arrived in which to be marked had not been embarrassing and disconcerting to me, even when most flattering."1
At home she remained in the back-ground. Her early writings were shown to her sister Susan only, and when she had written the novel which took London by storm, she dared hardly confess it to her father.
She was not hypocritical, but she has been accused of artfulness and cunning. Besides the story in Croker's article about her taking off one third from her real age, it has been said that much of her timidity was affectation and that she may have courted the incident with the king in Kew Gardens. The careful reader of the Diary and especially of the Early Diary, however, will draw the conclusion that her nervous embarrassment was only too real and that she was besides a stranger to any form of artfulness or cunning.
Of the reactive tendencies towards devotion Fanny Burney possessed a great capacity for sympathy. She was always ready to share joy or sorrow. After the death of Mr. Thrale she went to stay with his widow. When Mrs. Delany lost her friend, the Duchess of Portland, Fanny at once hastened to her. Before Johnson's death she sat on the stairs in his house in order to get some information at least, if she could not be admitted. Particularly deep was her sympathy with the royal family during the illness of the king and her
1 T. Hogg: Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley. * Diary and Letters, 1814.



friendship with the French emigrants was greatly due to the sorrow she feit for their misfortunes. When the king had recovered she wrote in her diary:
"My heart was so full of joy and thankfulness I could hardly breathe! Heaven — heaven be praised!"
She could show mercy. Even to Mrs. Schwellenberg, if she was ill and in pain, Fanny could be kind. She also possessed a great readiness to self-denial. Though she was longing to see her friends. she hardly saw any during the king's illness, as she considered it unfeeling to think of her own pleasure during such a sad time, and she denied herself a great deal of comfort by her kindness towards her servants at court.
There is hardly any reactive egoism which Fanny Burney possessed to a high degree. She was not obstinate or argumentative, but she showed a certain readiness to take offence. As she was extremely sensitive, she was often hurt by things which other people would hardly have noticed. Mr. Crutchly greatly offended her by his haughty manner1, as did Mrs. Thrale, when she became too patronizing towards the daughter of Dr. Burney. That Fanny was annoyed at the gross speeches of Mrs. Schwellenberg is only natural, but many small matters at court offended her pride, such as the summons to the queen by means of a bell, which seemed to her a mortifying mark of servitude. It is characteristic that many of the troubles of her heroines consisted of small offences against their pride. Though ready to take offence, she was never reluctant to be reconciled, and she had no craving for revenge.
Both the novels and the Diary show a great deal of inockery, and she had a strongly marked love of criticism. Yet it always remained good-natured and never developed into sarcasm. During her court career it became obvious that she took not the slightest interest in scandal or intrigue.
1 Op. cit. May 1781.



Of the isolated egöisms Fanny Burney had a tendency to self-attention, while the Diary shows much self-reference. On the whole, we can say that of the personal driving forces Fanny Burney possessed a great many which were directed towards self-devotion, and comparatively few egoisms. She had a great depth of feeling. Of the qualities which often accompany a rather small capacity for enthusiasm she only possessed, strictness. There is no tracé in her of drynen. predominance of cold reason, coldness or impatknce. She was strict in moral and religious principles and in matters of convention, but she was not intolerant, as is evident from her love for her Roman Catholic grandmother and her marriage with M. d'Arblay.
Fanny Burney had a great amount of unselfishness. As Edith J. Morley said, her diary depicts for us "an extremely diffident and retiring girl, who develops gradually, and in spite of extraordinary literary success, into a modest, affectionate, self-effacing, but extremely competent woman, with plenty of common sense and power of judgment in the ordinary as in the many unusual situations of her life."'1
J. C. Bailey called her "The Martyr of conscience, the devotedly obedient daughter, the most sincerely humbleminded of all the people who have written successful books."1
She has shown her unselfishness by going to court and her behaviour towards Madame Schwellenberg. She also possessed compliance, sometimes even too much of it. Her surroundings had a great influence on her, as was particularly obvious at the Hastings trial. She was very patiënt, even if she had to put up with a great many daily annoyances as was the case at court and also during a dangerous illness in France. Her modesty was quite remarkable, and with Macaulay, we can give this reply to Croker:
1 Fanny Burney. Engl. Ass. pamphlet 60. p. 17. * Quarterly Review, Jan. 1906.



"In the Diary we can find no tracé of any feeling inconsistent with a truly modest and amiable disposition."1
In some of the heroines of her novels, especially in Camilla, we find carelessness and an unsuspecting nature, but in this respect the heroine does not resemble the authoress. Though Fanny was not suspicious, she was very prudent and careful. She did not soon give her confidence, but when once she had really attached herself to a friend, she gave herself entirely. She not only shared the joys and sorrows of those who were dear to her, but had herself a great need of sympathy, and, implicitly relying upon her friends, she gave them her confidence completely. III. Sensuous Driving Forces.
In addition to the personal and spiritual driving forces Klages also distinguishes sensuous driving forces and divides them into those which show a sensuous need of devotion and those which show a sensuous need of pleasure. Fanny Burney had a great love of pleasure. Her life at home was very happy, and, like all the Burneys, she was cheerful by nature. Both the Diary and the novels show that she had a lively sense of fun and the Athenaeum speaks of her "keen faculty of enjoyment".' The descriptions of the shy, demure child, rather backward, and wholly unnotked by the strangers who came to her home, might lead to the conclusion that she really was a little "old lady", as her friends used to call her. The Early Diary, however, has thrown a totally different light on her character. It shows that she could be in very high spirits. One need only read the introduction and the first entries in her diary to be convinced of her vivacity and playful moods. Her first description of a tea-party * shows that she was lively and whimsical and in another entry in the Diary of the same
1 Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1843.
* Athenaeum, Jan. 25, 1890.
* Early Diary, May 30, 1768.



year we also notice this playfulnees in spite of a certain artificiality.
"I am prodigioualy surprised, immensely astonishd — indeed absolutely petrified with amazement — and what do you imagine the cause? You can never guess; I shall pity your ignorance and incapacity, and, generous, nobleminded as I am, keep you no longer in suspense. Know
then Ha! this frightful old watchman how he has
startled me — past eleven o'dockl bless you, friend. don't bawl so loud, — my nerves can't possibly hear it — no — I shall expire — this robust, gross creature will be the death of me — yes! I feel myself going — my spirits fail — my blood chüls — I am gone! To my eternal astonishment, I am recovered! — I really am alive — I have actually and truly survived this bawling. Well, and now that I have in some measure recoüected my scattered spirits, I will endeavour sufficiently to compose myself to relate the cause of wonder die first."*
She herself was perfectly aware of her changing moods.
"How truly does this Journal contain my real and undisguised thoughts! — I always write in it according to the humour I am in, and if any stranger was accidentally reading it, how capricious — inconsistent and whimsical I must appear! One moment flighty and half mad, — the next sad and melancholy." *
Any change in the daily routine was welcome to her, and she could look forward eagerly to a party or small trip.
"Last night, to my great satisfaction, mama prevail'd on Mr. Y .... to promise to be of our party to-day to Greenwich. Well. he slept here. For my part, I could not sleep all night, I was up before five o'clock." *
1 Op. cit. Sept. 12. 1768.
* Op. cit, Febr. 1769.
* Op. cit. May 30, 1768.



Her love of pleasure and capacity for enjoyment are quite obvious, but with regard to the other sensuous driving forces it is extremely difficult to conclude anything with certainty. Though we possess an elaborate diary we lack entirely the material for the study of that part of her character. That is not surprising. No eighteenth century young lady who respected herself would have written anything in her diary with regard to sexuality, and Fanny Burney was a far greater prude than most young ladies of her time. In her novels, too, the subject is avoided. But though we cannot teil with certainty, we can guess what her attitude in these mattere must have been, and, as we know a great deal about her character, we have a fair chance of guessing right. It is very probable that Fanny not only did not write anything about it in her diary, but even that she hardly admitted any thoughts on the subject. There is no reason to suppose that she possessed a strong sexual craving, but it is likely that whatever were the feelings she may have had in this oonnection, they were carefuliy repressed. This repression, however, did not lead to great conflicts, which justifies the opinion that the feelings were not very powerful. Except for a certain unstability there is no indication that the harmony of her nature ever was greatly disturbed. Soon after her marriage she wrote to a friend:
"I had never made any vow against marriage, but I had long, long been firmly persuaded it was for me a state of too much hazard and too little promise to draw me from my individual plans and purposes." This shows a strong binding to the ego.
She Was not a "sweet-tooth". Meals were entirely beneath her literary attention. She was delicate and she does not seem to have cared greatly for the copious meals at Streatham, as far as we can guess from an incidental remark in her diary:
"Just as we had got our biscuits and toast-and-water, which make the Streatham supper, and which, indeed, is



all there is any chance of cating after our late and great dinners, Mr. Lort suddenly said ..."
Mrs; Piozzi wrote to her in 1821:
"Have no fears for the health of your son; a slight frame escapes many ills that beset a robust one; water-gruel and spinach ware all you ever wanted."1
Of the releases Fanny Burney had a love of living. There were periods in her life when she lost her spirits, as was particularly the case during her life at court, but it was always owing to outward circumstances, and her original cheerfulness never failed her after a period of dejection. After the blow of Susan's death she recovered again to meet courageously and cheerfully the many adventures of her later life. Her tendency to self-surrender was always strong, but, owing to her great reserve, it is impossible to know whether it was strongly erotic.
Most forms of self-control were ströngly developed in Fanny Burney. Such qualities as restraint and steadfastness she possessed to a high degree. When she had once decided to go to court, she behaved with great firmness and bravely carried out her intention not to complain to the queen. It is quite true what the Athenaeum said:
"Her conduct seems to have been marked by as much self-command as spirit." 1
There are a few cases where we find lack of self-control. She did not possess much moderation in her emotions. This is obvious in her letters and in her journal, but even more so in the novels. The heroines are continually petrified or thunderstruck, liable to fainting fits and melting into torrents of tears. We should, however, be careful when drawing any conclusions, as this emotionality was fashionable in eighteenth century novels. As a girl she also complained that she had so little control over her features, and Dr. Burney
1 Diary and Letters, Jan. 18, 1821. * Athenaeum, April 30, 1842.



remarked that her face always betrayed what she thought.
Of the many forms of self-estimation mentioned by Klages Fanny Burney possessed a sense of inferiority and self-doubt and great humility, while the Diary also betrays a certain amount of self-love. The manifestations of her self-estimation were great modesty, an unassuming manner and a tendency to révérence.
S u m m a r y
The Material. To recapitulate, Fanny Burney possessed a great receptivity for impressions, a personal fullness, warmth and motility of the material of intuition, while the depth of her capacity for impressions was inconsiderable. She also had a fairly great actvity of apprehension. The direction of her apprehension was vital, concrete, close-focused and it was objective where persons were concerned. Otherwise she could be very subjective. Her apprehension was hardly formalistic at all and mainly directed towards persons.
The Structure. Her personal capacity for stimulation of feelings was very considerable, that for stimulation of the will was less so, and, with the exception of expression by means of speech, she had a great capacity for expression.
The Nature. She had an analytic will, a critical tendency and the will to make comprehensible the world of intuition. She had besides need of "style" and a sense of duty, she was very conscientious, and she had a love of beauty and a creative urge.
She was strongly attached to her home and country as well as to memories, and had a great capacity for love and an urge to admire and to venerate. With a tendency to adoration and self-immolation, she possessed benevolence, kindliness, warmth, faithfulness and gentleness, and had a capacity for sympathy, mercy and self-denial. She was unselfish, and showed compliance and confidence. On the other hand she had a desire to please, was prudent, watchful



and timid, ready to take offence, and showed a tendency to mockery and to strictness. She had a love of pleasure; she showed restraint, resistance, steadfastness and firmness, and also possessed a love of living and self-surrender.
The fundamental note of Fanny Burney's life can be expressed by passivity, "heart" and révérence. The poles of her moods were melancholy and gaiety or serenity. Success and failure, though they gave her joy and dejection when she was young, were not of really great importance to her.
A GENETIC VIEW OF FANNY BURNEY'S CHARACTER
Thus far the character of Fanny Burney has been discussed by means of Klages' system. Some attention has also to be paid to the genetic study of her character. There are indications of moving forces in the system of Klages. His driving forces are more than static magnitudes. On the whole, however, we can say that the system is static and consequently of no great use to the genetic study of character.
Many qualities which are striking in Fanny were characteristic of the Burney family. It has been remarked before that most of the Burneys had artistic gifts. Several of Fanny's ancestors had been either painters or musicians. Dr. Burney was a musician, and his children were musical. Fanny did not perform before strangers, but she loved music. Of the Worcester Burneys, Charles Rousseau was a musician, while his brother Edward was a painter. Nearly all of them loved acting. Even the timid Fanny acted at a family party in her uncle's house at Worcester. She was, besides, not the only author in the family. Her father had written several works on music and other subjects. He loved literature. Most of her brothers and sisters were good diarists and letter-writers, and her half-sister, Sarah Harriet, was a novelist. Her mother is said to have had quick parts. L. B. Seeley says:



"Her French blood undoubtedly contributed its full share to the quick and lively parts that in different degrees distinguished their children."1
Mrs. Burney possessed great charm, and the amiable personality of Dr. Burney has become famous. Not only Fanny was greatly loved by her friends. Susan possessed a particular, endearing charm, and James, the sailor, was remarkable for his great humanity. They were all cheerful, simple, honest and kind. Mrs. Raine Ellis said in connection with Dr. Burney's numerous friendships:
"His friendships and acquaintanceships were an inheritance and an education for his children. They inherited also from him, and gave to, and took from, each other, pleasing manners and kindly ways. Family tradition ascribes to his eldest child, Esther ("Hetty"), great loveliness, great sweetness of temper, much good sense and 'a strong love of fun'." 1
Diffidence was also a striking quality of the Burneys. Those who probably suffered most from it were Fanny and her cousin Edward.
A spirit of Bohemianism had been characteristic of the whole Burney family, and Dr. Burney and his children could all live cheerfully on very little. Fanny showed this particularly by her marriage with M. d'Arblay.
Dr. Burney was impulsive, and when he thought himself offended he spoke his mind, even to Dr. Johnson. Fanny did the same, especially at court. Her tendency to run into fustian, which was hardly to be noticed in her youth, but became more obvious in The Wanderer and especially in The Memoirs of Dr. Burney, was also a characteristic of her father.
All this shows clearly that Fanny possessed many qualities which were characteristic of her parents and sometimes of
1 L. B. Seeley: Fanny Burney and her Friends. * Preface to the Early Diary, p. LXXI.



the whole family. It is extremely likely that much of this is due to heredity, but it is not at all certain that we must assume heredity as the sole explanation.
According to Freud much of this may be explained by means of identification. The ties which bound Fanny to her parents were very strong. The example of her father and her mother had a great influence upon her, and it is qüite likely that she unconsciously tried to resemble them. She lost her mother early, but besides her father she had another fatherly friend in Daddy Crisp, who had a great influence upon her. Fanny's attachment to her father was remarkably strong and became hardly less in the years of puberty. It is still obvious during her life at court where she showed such respect for authority. It seems strange that a woman who was so much admired, should get married so late. This may be partly due to the fact that men were afraid of having such a clever woman for a wife, but her marrying so late can be explained more satisfactorily by her father-fixation. She wrote in her diary after refusing Mr. Barlow's offer of marriage:
"Singleness, therefore, be mine — with peace of mind and liberty. My father and Mr. Crisp spoil me for every other male creature."1
The main driving force in the process of identification is, according to Freud, erotic. There are, however, other forces which influence the growth of character. Adler says that the great driving force which, far more than any other, influences the development of character, is the repression of the sense of inferiority and the craving for superiority. In her youth especially Fanny Burney exhibited an inferiority complex. Her character shows a striking proof of Adler's statement that persons with an inferiority complex are good observers of character. It was her sense of inferiority which made Fanny so quickly detect the ridiculous element in other
* Early Diary, June 11, 1775.



persons. She was the least noticed of the Burney children. She could not express herself nearly as well as her brothers and sisters. Her extreme timidity and uncertainty made her backward. At eight she did not yet know her letters. Her brother James used to tease her by giving her a book upside down and trying to make her read. She was soon considered dull, and, as she knew perfectly well that others considered her "the little dunce" of the family. it only tended to make her more timid and backward. But if we consult the Early Diary we do not find a single tracé of any real conflict in this connection. It is. besides, very remarkable that, while at eight she did not yet know her letters, she wrote stories when she was ten years of age. Her mother's death, whkh caused her being left so much to herself, seems to have hastened her development. She had a poor opinion of herself, but it did not prevent her from being very cheerful and happy. She was not ambitious and does not seem to have tried to compensate her apparent lack of intelligence. She did not strive after compensation but after security, which she tried to attain by retreating into the background.
Marcinowski considers need of love the most important factor in the development of character. This statement is very true with regard to Fanny Burney. Love was of far greater importance to her than learning or genius, and she knew that she was not loved less for being less brilliant. Her longing for love, probably more than any other impulse, had a great influence upon the development of her character. In her youth it led to a very deep love for a few people, especially her father, Susan and Daddy Crisp. Later on it caused her vulnerability and her sensibility as to the opinion of others, but it also gave her that peculiar gift for friendship.
It will be useful here to consider her qualities at different periods of her life and to tracé their development. In her youth she was shy and silent in company and backward in learning but she showed humour and invention at play and an uncommon power of observation. She possessed



great sensibility and a profound respect for her parents, especially for her father, was obedient, prudish, sensible, absolutely reliable and sincere, and had a warm heart, amiable manners and a natural simplicity. The Early Diary shows her sprightly vivacity, critical tendency, varying moods and great family affection. She was religious, but not intolerant, was not anxious to be married, had an inclination to give love and an aversion to publicity.
In the admired young authoress we notice humour and spontaneity, respect for rank and a tendency to moralize. She was a warm friend, glad with her success, but not ambitious, not annoyed by criticism and objective where persons were concerned.
When she went to court she declared herself averse to a life of dependence, but she had never been very independent, and became less so at court. She had a high sense of duty, great perseverance and hardly ever complained. She showed great partiality and had sympathy with anybody in distress. Though she was soon offended, and then inclined to speak her mind, she was always ready to be reconciled. She lost some of her vivacity at court and became more conventional than ever.
During her married life it was particularly obvious that she was strongly attached to home and country. She was still shy, sensitive and attached to her father. Like him she showed a tendency to run into fustian. The humour in her later works, especially in Camilla, is more good-natured than in the first novels.
We find from this list of qualities that Fanny Burney retained her sensibility and vulnerability throughout life. Her liveliness diminished as she grew older. Her conventionality, on the other hand, increased. It is true that this growing conventionality is largely due to her residence at court, but her decision to accept the post, as well as the fact that she remained at court for five years, show a tendency towards this conventional life. The different kind of
14



humour which distinguishes Camilla from the previous novels shows Fanny's altered attitude towards other people. The humorous characters in Camilla, especially Sir Hugh, are described with much more sympathy. Though some of them are caricatures and altogether ludicrous, they do not betray that eagerness, on the part of the author, to detect the ridiculous element in others, to which in former days, she was led by her inferiority complex. Her tendency to moralize, which she already possessed as a child, ("the old lady"), increased when she grew older. Her profound veneration for her father lasted till the end of her life. It is very interesting in this connection that M. d'Arblay reminded her of her father. Fanny never grew up altogether. This infantilism is particularly evident from her dependence, her respect for authority and her tendency to venerate.
Fanny Burney's modesty is a very precarious subject. Personal investigation has led to the conclusion that she was modest. Croker and others have said that she was the very opposite. The fact that she was modest can be deduced from certain instances of her behaviour. Modesty is not a fundamental quality, but a resultant. Probably it is partly the result of timidity and restraint. These qualities often go with inward uncertainty. In the case of Fanny Burney one of the roots is her infantilism. From her vulnerability it follows that she was not entirely modest. Against modesty is also ranged her sensitiveness as to the opinion of others. A third reason why we cannot call her altogether modest is her tendency to moralize. All this has been explained by Croker as vanity. That is not correct. Croker's facts are often correctly stated, but their meaning is distorted. The cause of Fanny's behaviour was not vanity, but a desire for sympathy.
PERSONALITY AND WORKS
The Diary and Letters and especially the Early Diary are the two works from which we have acquired most of our



knowledge of Fanny Burney's character. But besides these journals, both the novels and the Memoirs of Dr. Burney add much to the knowledge of her character and of her views at different periods of her life. In the first novels, in particular, Fanny identified herself to a large extent witb her heroines. This makes Evelina and Cecilia important for a study of her personality.
When Fanny was twenty-five, she depicted in Evelina a very young, unaffected and inexperienced heroine, who looked up to the perfect and condescending hero and considered him her superior in every way. She possessed great sensibility and was very timid in society, but in spite of her timidity she was very critical. She was unaffected herself and disliked the affectation of the young men of fashion. Her love of fun is evident from her descriptions of these young men. The hero despised all affectation and had the courage to be better than other men. Evelina greatly respected people who were older and wiser than herself. She revered Mr. Villars, and even was a respectful daughter to her profligate father and a dutiful granddaughter to Madame Duval. She showed great admiration for rank, but it was not a blind admiration. Lord Orville was respected more for his good qualities than for his high rank. The letter written by Mr. Villars on the pistol-scene shows that Fanny, in spite of her admiration for feminine delicacy and timidity, approved of courage and fortitude in women when occasion demanded them. Evelina did not talk much about religion, but her whole behaviour showed that she was very religious. She was a warm and faithful friend. It has been remarked before that the coarse scènes in Evelina are due to the fact that Fanny Burney lived in the eighteenth century, and that it is not right to deny her kindness of heart because of those few scènes. Evelina, though very feminine in every way, took no interest whatever in dress. Her descriptions of Mrs. Selwyn show her dislike of the masculine type of woman.



The resemblance of Eveüna's nature with that of the author is obvious. The novel also shows that Fanny Burney possessed a real gift for comedy. Playwrights like Murphy and Sheridan even encouraged her to write for the stage. It displays besides an extraordinary knowledge of lower class life, and, as it is very unlikely that Fanny should have mixed with lower class people after her first youth, we must ascribe this knowledge to her keen observation whenever she had an opportunity to see such people. Evelina shows Fanny's knowledge of the world and her insight into human character. The book is also remarkable for its spontaneity.
When Fanny Burney was thirty she depicted a different hero and heroine. Cecilia was older and far more independent than Evelina. She had to think and act for herself, and did not consider Delvile so very much her superior. Delvile ia less perfect than Orville, less condescending and altogether more natural and more human. The descriptions of society life show that Fanny knew that sort of life perfectly. She still laughs at affectation, and Cecilia's complaint that she is tired of the continual parties exactly expresses the feelings of Fanny, who complained of the same thing in her diary of that time. There is far more moralizing in Cecilia, than in the first novel. Fanny talks a great deal about the folly of dissipation, avarice and pride. Cecilia has courage and is independent, but she is not happy till she is married to Delvile. In Monckton Fanny has tried to depict a more complex personality than she usually does in the secondary characters. Altogether, she has aimed higher in Cecilia. The style is different from that of Evelina. It is far more dignified, but at the same time it has lost much of its freshness. The spontaneity which formed the greatest charm of Evelina is far less noticeable in Cecilia. In CeciUa, too, the heroine resembles the authoress, and the novel clearly shows Fanny's views on life.
Fanny Burney was forty-four years of age when she



published her next novel. In Camilla we observe a definite falling off in style. The language is laboured and often artificial. Her letters written at the same time were far more natural. It is obvious that in her novel she tried fine writing. Brimley Johnson remarked that Camilla, more than any of the other novels, is the literal expression of Fanny's sensibility. There are some fine touches of real tenderness in Camilla. The humour is of a different kind. We do not find so strongly that keen sense of the ridiculous, but there is a quiet, good-natured kind of humour, especially in the descriptions of Sir Hugh. There is one remarkable passage in Camilla. That is the bitter observation on men.1 Fanny was married and very happy when she published Camilla, but this remark reminds us of her sad experiences at court.
The greater part of The Wanderer was written in France. Madame d'Arblay was sixty-one when she published it. The style shows a further change for the worse. It is pompous and artificial. There is a tendency to melodrama, and, though the characters are really alive, there is altogether less study of character and more action. The novel contains very long and tiresome conversations on the immortality of the human soul, which leave no doubt as to Fanny's point of view. She even considered it necessary to apologize in the dedication for the fact that she had thought this subject fit for discussion, mentioning as an excuse her long residence in France, where there were so many people who did not believe in this immortality. There is still some humour in The Wanderer, but it is very weak, and there is more moralizing than in the previous novels.
Madame d'Arblay was eighty when she published the Memoirs of Dr. Burney. The language is extremely pompous and rhetorical and it is especially in this Work that we notice what Seeley called her "strong hereditary tendency to run into fustian". Her original vivacity and cheerfulness
* Camilla, book VII, ch. IV.



are totally gone. The book is only worth reading because it throws some light on her early youth and accordingly forms a useful addition to the diaries.
It is the diaries which, far more than any of her other works, offer the opportunity to become acquainted with this interesting woman's character. She revealed her own personality not only by what she said about herself, but also by her manner of describing other people, and, as T. de Wyzewa says, none of the people she has portrayed delight us so much as "la petite Burney elle-même, silencieuse et timide, promenant autour d'elle, a travers prés d'un siècle, le sourire ingénument malicieux de ses grands yeux gris."1
1 Une femme de lettres anglaise du XVIIIe siècle. Revue des deux Mondes, janvier 15, 1904.



CONCLUSION
Fanny Burney was in her youth extremely shy. She was backward and developed slowly. Owing to this infantilism she was less noticed than her more brilliant brothers and sisters, and had a sense of her own inferiority. This sense of inferiority made her still more timid but, contrary to the theory of Adler, it did not make her wish for overcompensation. On the contrary, she was very happy and cheerfully accepted the fact that she was considered "the dunce" of the family.
It is remarkable that, after the slow development of the first eight years, she began to express her feelings in fanciful stories when she was only ten years of age. Afterwards she found a very satisfactory means of expression in her diary. Like all the Burneys she had amiable manners and a very strong family affection. She repressed everything that was not strictly conventional. This repression caused a lack of depth in her novels, but it did no great harm to herself. Gradually she developed into a warm-hearted, unselfish and modest woman, in spite of her gifts.
Her outstanding quality, which is clearly expressed in the novels and in her diary, is sensibility; To the modern reader this extravagance of feeling seems affectation, but change of manners accounts for this apparently false sentiment. She was very refined and hated all affectation. Her prudishness and respect for rank were very great, but her sense of humour and love of fun saved her from becoming small-minded. She had a strong sense of duty and great perseverance. The publication of her first novel required



considerable courage on her part, and she showed this quality whenever she considered her pride offended, and also when she had to face the many adventures of her later life.
Her timid behaviour in society can be satisfactorily explained by infantilism. It was not due to affectation and vanity but had its origin in her infantile attitude towards life, her dependence, respect for authority and tendency to venerate. Most qualities of her character originated in this infantilism, which formed the basis of her personality. In physical appearance, too, she was youthful, but the infantilism is more obvious in her psychical life, especially in her father-fixation.
Fanny Burney was a typical woman, and looked at everything from the woman's point of view. Always ready to share the joy and sorrow of her friends, she had herself a great need of love. She cared more for the love of those who were dear to her than for any other worldly consideration. Her literary success suffered repeatedly from the attention she paid to family affairs and the opinions of friends. She was spontaneous and had a great liveliness of feeling and of expression, but she lost much of it at court. She chose conventionality and consequently lost her freshness. Her tendency to repression led to egotism and the wish for self-expression.
The contradictions in Fanny Burney's character stimulated her literary work. She was decidedly what Dr. Johnson called a "character-monger". She possessed the power of giving life to her characters and the right manner of arranging them into groups. She had a talent for comedy, a strong critical tendency, a dear judgment and she was an exceedingly keen observer of men and manners.
Being the writer of the first tea-table novels, she introduced domestic realism into literature, and showed that it was possible to give a portrait of both the fashionable and the vulgar life of London with great humour, and yet to remain within the limits of feminine decorum. She raised



the moral Standard of the novel and the reputation of the woman-novelist. She revealed character in dialogue, but the conversations did not yet contribute much to the development of the characters or to the progress of the plot. This was left to Jane Austen and the other great women-novelists. It is Fanny Burney's literary merit that she was the forerunner of this new school of fiction.



BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arblay. Mad. d', Memoirs of Dr. Burney. Moxon, 1832.
, Diary and Letters, ed. Dobson, 6 vols, MacmUlan 1904.
Ed. Ward, 3 vols, 1890. Athenaeum 1842, 1890, 1904. Bailey, J„ Dr. Johnson and his circle.
, Fanny Burney, Quarterly Review, Jan. 1906.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 51.
Boswell, J„ The Life of Samuel Johnson, ed. A. Napier, 1884. Bouten, Dr. J., Mary Wollstonecraft and the beginnings of female
ernancipation in France and England. Diss. H. J. Paris, 1922. Bcoadley, A. M., Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, 1910. Bcugmam, Dr. H. J. F. W„ Psychologische Methoden en Begrippen.
Bohn, Haarlem, 1922. Bühler, Dr. Ch., Das Seelenleben des Jugendlichen. Jena, 1927. Burney, Frances, Evelina, ed. Raine Ellis, 1904, ed. Mackinnon, 1930. , Cecilia, ed. Raine Ellis, 1904.
, Brief Reflectiona relative to the Emigrant French Clergy. T.
Cadell, 1793.
. Camilla; or, a Picture of Youth. 5 vols. Payne and Cadell,
1796.
, The Wanderer; or, Female Difficulties. 5 vols. London, 1814.
, Early Diary, ed. Raine Ellis. George Bell and Sons, 1889.
Büttner, Karl, Die Sprache in Frances Burney's 'Evelina'. Universitat
Gieszen, Engl. Seminar, 1924. Cambridge History of English Literature. Vol. X. Chambers, Cyclopaedia.
Christie, M. E., The Novels of Madame d'Arblay. Contemporary
Review, Dec. 1882. March 1883. Church Quarterly Review, 31.
Croker, J. W., Memoirs of Dr. Burney, Quarterly Review, April 1833.
, Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay. Quarterly Review,
June 1842.
Dam, Karl, Frances Burney's Evelina und das Aufkommen der Frauenromane. Anglia XLVIII, Oct. 1924.



Dibelius, W., Englische Romankunst, Palaestra XCVIII. Dictionary of National Biography.
Dobson, Austin. Fanny Burney, English Men of Letters, Macmillan, 1903.
Edinburgh Review, Febr. 1815, Jan. 1906.
Elton, O., A Survey of English Literature (1780—1830). London 1912. Elwood, Mrs. A. K. Memoirs of the Literary Ladies of England. 1843. Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Forsyth, Novels and Novelists of the Eighteenth Century, 1871.
Francois, Dr. <ƒ., Karakterleer van L. Klages. Sythoff, Leiden.
Frkh, W., Autour d'Evelina. Cornhill Magazine, April 1905.
Garnett, R., Fanny Burney, Bookman, Jan. 1904.
Gosse, E., A History of Eighteenth Century Literature.
Hale, W. T., Madame d'Arblay's Place in the Development of the
English Novel. Indiana University Studies, No. 28. Hayward, A„ Autobiography of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale). 1861. Hazlitt, W„ Lectures on English Comic Writers, 1870. .
Sketches and Essays, 1839. Hilt, Constance. The House in St. Martin's Street. John Lane, 1907. , Frances Burney at the Court of Queen Charlotte. John Lane,
1912.
, Juniper Hall. John Lane, 1904.
Hogg, T. J., The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1858. Hoop, J. H. van der. Nieuwe Richtingen in de Zielkunde. Arnhem 1927. Jeaffreson, J. Cordy, Novels and Novelists from Elizabeth to Victoria, 1858.
Johnson, R. Brimley, Fanny Burney and the Butneys. Stanley Paul 1926. , English Letter Writers.
, Jane Austen, Sheed and Ward, London 1927.
, The Women Novelists. Collins 1922.
Johnsoniana, ed. R. Napier 1884.
Kavanagh, J„ English Women of Letters, Leipzig, 1862.
Klages, Dr. L„ Prinzipien der Charakterologie. Barth, Leipzig 1920.
1 Die Grundlagen der Charakterkunde. Barth, Leipzig 1928.
, The Science of Character. Transl. by W. H. Johnston. London,
Allen and Unwin 1929.
, Persönlichkeit, Muller, Potsdam. Füssli, Zfiricb 1928.
Kooiman-van Middendorp, Mrs. G. M., The Hero in the Feminine
Novel. Diss.
Lamb, Charles, The Essays of Elia. Moxon 1869.
Legouis and Gazamian, A History of English Literature. Transl. by
W. D. Maclnnes. Dent and Son, London 1927. Llanover, Lady, Autobiography and Correspondence of Mrs. Delany.



Macaulay, T. B„ Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay. Edinburgh Review, Jan. 1843.
Marcinowski Dr. J„ Minderwertigkeitsgefühle. Niels Kampmann Verlag. 1924.
Masefield, Mrs. Ch., The Story of Fanny Burney. Cambr. Univ. Press. 1927.
, The Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay. London 1931.
Melville, L., A Keeper of the Robes. Bookman, Nov. 1912. Monthly Review, April 1778.
Moore, F. F., A Keeper of the Robes, Hodder and Stoughton, 1912.
Morgan, Ch. E., The Rise of the Novel of Manners. (1600—1740). New York 1911.
Morley, E. J., Fanny Burney, Engl. Ass. Pamphlet No. 60. Oxford Univ. Press. 1925.
Papendieck, Mrs., Court and Private Life in the time of Queen Charlotte. 1887.
Paston, G., Sidelights on the Georgian Period, 1902. Prinsen, Dr. J., Lzn., De Roman in de 18de Eeuw in West Europa. Groningen 1925.
Ptinzhorn, H., Charakterkunde der Gegenwart. Philosophische For-
schungsberichte. Heft 11, Berlin 1931. Quarterly Review, April 1814. Raleigh, W„ The English Novel, 1925.
Roback, Dr. A. A., The Psychology of Character. London 1928. Rogers, S., Table Talk, ed. G. H. Powell.
Rümke, Dr. H. C Inleiding in de Karakterkunde. Bohn, Haarlem, 1929. Saintsbury, G., A Short History of English Literature.
, The English Novel.
Saturday Review, March 1883. Scotr, Sir Walter, Journal for Nov. 18, 1826. Seeley, L. B., Fanny Burney and her Friends. Seeley and Co. 1890. Seldam, W. H. ten, Psychologische Hoofdstukken. Amsterdam, 1926. Shaw, T. B., A History of English Literature. London, John Murray 1864.
Shuckburgh, E. §L Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay. Macmillan's
Magazine, Febr. i8go. Spender, H., The Woman who defied Napoleon. Contemporary Review,
Aug. 1926.
Thackeray, W. M„ The Foor Georges. London 1879. Tinher, Chauncey Brewster, Letters of James Boswell. 2 vols. Oxford 1924.
Villard, L., Jane Austen, sa vie et son oeuvre.



Walpole, H„ Letters, ed. Cunningham. Grant, Edinburgh 1906. Supplement, ed. Paget Toynbee.
Webb, M„ Little Miss Burney. Bookman, June 1927.
Wright Roberts, W., Charles and Fanny Burney in the light of the new Thrale correspondence in the John Rylands Library. Manchester University Press. 1932.
Wyzewa, T. de, Une femme de lettres anglaise du XVIIIe siècle. Revue des deux Mondes, 15 janvier 1904.



I



STELLINGEN
i.
Ten onrechte vermeldt Mrs. Ch. Masefield (The Story of Fanny Burney, p. 158) Madame d'Arblay als de schrijfster van de Ttagic Dramas, gepubliceerd in 1818.
2.
De bewering van Karl Danz in zijn artikel Frances Burney und das Aufkommen der Frauenromane [Anglia XLVIII (Oct. 1924) p. 363]: „Daneben hatte F. B. Interesse für politische Literatur und Pamphlete," is niet juist.
3-
De onbekendheid van Dibelius met Camilla heeft invloed gehad op zijn oordeel over Miss Burney als romanschrijfster (Englische Romankunst, Band II. Palaestra XCVIII).
4-
De gevolgtrekking van W. T. Hale in zijn artikel over Madame d'Arblay (Indiana University Studies, 28): "she seems to have had a bitter attitude towards life", is niet vol te houden.
5-
Bij een karakterologische beschrijving van een persoon verdient het schema van Klages de voorkeur.
6.
Rosamond Langbridge gaat in haar boek: Charlotte Bront'é, a psychotogicat study te veel uit van de oude opvatting dat Patrick Brontë een harde, despotische vader was.
A. A. OVERMAN



7-
Marlowe, The Jew of Malta II 674-677 (cd. Tucker Brooke):
Then, gentle sleepe, where e're his bodie rests, Give charge to Morpheus that he may dreame A golden dreame, and of the sudden walke, Come and receive the Treasure I have found. Voor walke leze men wake.
8.
In Marlowe's Doctor Faustus 1443-49 (ed. Tucker Brooke):
You starres that raignd at my nativitie, Whose influence hath alotted death and hel, Now draw up Faustus like a foggy mist, Into the intrailes of yon labring cloude, That when you vomite foorth into the ayre, My limbes may issue from your smoaky mouthes, So that my soule may but ascend to heaven: moet gelezen worden clouds — they — their.
9-
Trautmann's verklaring (Bonner Beitrage, Heft XIX p. 202) van het Oud Engelsche raadsel 72 (Grein 73):
Ic waes faêmne geong, feaxhar cwene
ond aênlic rinc on ane tid;
fleah mid fuglum ond on flode swom,
deaf under ybe dead mid fiscum
ond on foldan stop; haefde ferö cwicu. is niet bevredigend.
10.
De uitspraak van Vagn Borge (August Strindberg og H. C. Andersen, p. 21) dat Strindberg's werken na de religieuze crisis ongetwijfeld de belangwekkendste zijn, is niet aan te nemen.



11.
Meer nog dan onder invloed van Richardson stond Frederika Bremer onder invloed van de school der Engelsche romanschrijfsters van dien tijd, hetgeen vooral blijkt uit haar roman Grannarne.
12.
Het is gewenscht dat bij het onderwijs in de moderne talen op de H.B.S. en het Gymnasium meer aandacht wordt besteed dan tot nu toe het geval is aan vaardigheid in het spreken, zooals dat op de Engelsche scholen gebeurt.







B