"Corot, on canvas, might have signed the 'Ode to Dr. Johnson, who was a strong friend of Collins, tells us, in his Lives of the Poets, that he died in 1756; and that story is repeated by most early biographies; the truth is, however, that after that date he was living-only a sort of death in life, under the care of his sister at Chichester; and it was not until 1759, when his moral and physical wreck complete - the end came. - Miss Burney. We have next to bring to your notice, a clever, somewhat frisky, débonnaire young person of the other sex, whom you should know-whom perhaps you do know; I mean Miss Frances Burney.* You will remember that we have encountered her once before pushing her kindly way into old Dr. Johnson's ante-room when he was near to death. The old gentleman had known intimately her * Frances Burney, b. 1752 ; d. 1840. She is perhaps better known as Mme. D'Arblay; though she married somewhat late in life, and after her reputation had been won. father, Dr. Burney, and had always shown for her a strong attachment; so did a great many of Dr. Burney's acquaintances, Garrick among them and Burke; and it was probably from such men and their talk that she caught the literary bee in her bonnet and wrote her famous story of Evelina. You should read that story-whatever you may do with Cecilia and other later ones- if only to see how good and cleanly a piece of work in the way of a society novel can come out of those broiling times, when Humphrey Clinker and Tom Jones and the prurient and sentimental languors of Richardson were on the toilette tables of the clever and the honest. The book of Evelina is, all over, Miss Burney; that gives it the rarest and best sort of realism. Through all her work indeed, we have this over-jubilant and gushing, yet timid and diffident young lady, writing her stories—with all her timidities and large, unspoken hopes, tumbling and twittering in the bosoms of her heroines: if my lady has the fidgets, the fidgets come into her books; and you can always chase back the tremors that smite from time to time the fair Evelina, to the kindred tremors that afflict the clever and sensitive daughter of old Dr. Burney. The book was published anonymously at first, and the secret of authorship tolerably well kept; she says her papa did not know; but young ladies are apt to put too small a limit to the knowledge of their papas! It is very certain that her selfconsciousness, and tremulous, affected, simpers of ignorance, were not good to stave away suspicion. It was not long before the world, confounding book and person, came to call her "Evelina. A pretty picture with this motif comes into her Diary: On a certain morning, our Dr. Franklin-being then in London on colonial business - makes a call upon Dr. Burney: and in absence of her father, meets the daughter: a big, square-shouldered man, very formal, very stout, but very kindly, approaches her and says "I think I have the pleasure of speaking with Evelina." "Oh, no," she replies, "I am Frances Burney," and he-"Ah-indeed! I thought it had been Evelina" and there it ends, and we lose sight of our broad-shouldered Dr. Franklin, with only this "Ah!" upon his lips. She had a modesty that was vain by its excess, and was awkward when caught unexpectedly or with strangers; in great trepidation lest her books might be talked of-yet with her books and her authorship always tormentingly uppermost in her thought. Her Diary and letters are full of them. Yet she is attractive- strangely so- by her sympathetic qualities; so responsive to every shade of sorrow or of joy; winning, because so tell-tale of heart; and with a tongue that could prattle gracefully when at ease; Evelina, in short, without Evelina's beauty or expectations. I have read the book over again after a gap of many years- with a view to this talk of the authoress, and find myself wondering more than ever, how so many of great and commanding intellect should have so heartily admired it. Burke read it with most eager attention and largest praise; old Dr. Johnson delighted in it, and declared it superior in many points to Richardson (which for him was extravagant commendation). Even Mme. de Stael, some few years later, gave it her applause; and the quick and swift-witted Mrs. Thrale was in raptures with it; and Mrs. Thrale knew a dunce, and detested dunces. There must have been a deftness in her touch of things local, of which, I think, she was but half conscious; there was beside a pretty dramatic art which found play in many pages of her Diary, and in all she did and all she spoke. For her third novel of Camilla, which scarce ever comes off the shelf of old libraries now- where it survives in deserved retirement-she received, according to the rumors current in those days, the sum of £3,000; such rumors, very likely exaggerated the amount; they are apt to do so-in all times. Her Diary is of special interest; particularly the portion which takes one into the domestic life of Royalty. For one of the bitter fruits of her celebrity, was her appointment as Lady of the Robes (or other such title), to the Queen. The service indeed did not last many years, but long enough to give us a good sight of the well-dis *The newest and most faithful copy of her Diary and Letters has been published by George Bell & Sons, London, 1889, 2 vols., 8vo. |