the chief objects of the new Minister. | of the year, presented to the forces of The policy then followed inspired Fre- Maria Theresa a front as formidable as deric with an unjust, but deep and before the great reverses of 1759. bitter aversion to the English name, Before the end of the campaign, his and produced effects which are still friend, the Emperor Peter, having, by felt throughout the civilised world. To a series of absurd insults to the instituthat policy it was owing that, some tions, manners, and feelings of his peoyears later, England could not find on ple, united them in hostility to his the whole Continent a single ally to person and government, was deposed stand by her, in her extreme need, and murdered. The Empress, who, against the House of Bourbon. To under the title of Catherine the Second, that policy it was owing that Frederic, now assumed the supreme power, was, alienated from England, was compelled at the commencement of her administo connect himself closely, during his tration, by no means partial to Frederic, later years, with Russia, and was in- and refused to permit her troops to duced to assist in that great crime, the remain under his command. But she fruitful parent of other great crimes, observed the peace made by her husthe first partition of Poland. band; and Prussia was no longer threatened by danger from the East. Scarcely had the retreat of Mr. Pitt deprived Prussia of her only friend, when the death of Elizabeth produced an entire revolution in the politics of the North. The Grand Duke Peter, her nephew, who now ascended the Russian throne, was not merely free from the prejudices which his aunt had entertained against Frederic, but was a worshipper, a servile imitator of the great King. The days of the new Czar's government were few and evil, but sufficient to produce a change in the whole state of Christendom. He set the Prussian prisoners at liberty, fitted them out decently, and sent them back to their master; he withdrew his troops from the provinces which Elizabeth had decided on incorporating with her dominions; and he absolved all those Prussian subjects, who had been compelled to swear fealty to Russia, from their engagements. Not content with concluding peace on terms favourable to Prussia, he solicited rank in the Prussian service, dressed himself in a Prussian uniform, wore the Black Eagle of Prussia on his breast, made preparations for visiting Prussia, in order to have an interview with the object of his idolatry, and actually sent fifteen thousand excellent troops to reinforce the shattered army of Frederic. Thus strengthened, the King speedily repaired the losses of the preceding year, reconquered Silesia, defeated Daun at Buckersdorf, invested and retook Schweidnitz, and, at the close England and France at the same time paired off together. They concluded a treaty, by which they bound themselves to observe neutrality with respect to the German war, Thus the coalitions on both sides were dissolved; and the original enemies, Austria and Prussia, remained alone confronting each other. Austria had undoubtedly far greater means than Prussia, and was less exhausted by hostilities; yet it seemed hardly possible that Austria could effect alone what she had in vain attempted to effect when supported by France on the one side, and by Russia on the other. Danger also began to menace the Imperial house from another quarter. The Ottoman Porte held threatening language, and a hundred thousand Turks were mustered on the frontiers of Hungary. The proud and revengeful spirit of the Empress Queen at length gave way; and, in February 1763, the peace of Hubertsburg put an end to the conflict which had, during seven years, devastated Germany. The King ceded nothing. The whole Continent in arms had proved unable to tear Silesia from that iron grasp. The war was over. Frederic was safe. His glory was beyond the reach of envy. If he had not made conquests as vast as those of Alexander, of Cæsar, and of Napoleon, if he had not, on fields of battle, enjoyed the constant success of Marlborough and Wellington, he stance, indeed, there was. No debt had been incurred. The burdens of the war had been terrible, almost insupportable; but no arrear was left to embarrass the finances in time of peace. had yet given an example unrivalled of silent villages, in which not a single in history of what capacity and resolu- inhabitant remained. The currency tion can effect against the greatest had been debased; the authority of superiority of power and the utmost laws and magistrates had been susspite of fortune. He entered Berlin in pended; the whole social system was triumph, after an absence of more than deranged. For, during that convulsive six years. The streets were brilliantly struggle, every thing that was not mililighted up; and, as he passed along in tary violence was anarchy. Even the an open carriage, with Ferdinand of army was disorganized. Some great Brunswick at his side, the multitude generals, and a crowd of excellent offisaluted him with loud praises and bless-cers, had fallen, and it had been imings. He was moved by those marks of possible to supply their place. The attachment, and repeatedly exclaimed difficulty of finding recruits had, to"Long live my dear people! Long wards the close of the war, been so live my children!" Yet, even in the great, that selection and rejection were midst of that gay spectacle, he could impossible. Whole battalions were not but perceive every where the traces composed of deserters or of prisoners. of destruction and decay. The city It was hardly to be hoped that thirty had been more than once plundered. years of repose and industry would The population had considerably dimi-repair the ruin produced by seven years nished. Berlin, however, had suffered of havoc. One consolatory circumlittle when compared with most parts of the kingdom. The ruin of private fortunes, the distress of all ranks, was such as might appal the firmest mind. Almost every province had been the seat of war, and of war conducted with merciless ferocity. Clouds of Croatians had descended on Silesia. Tens of thousands of Cossacks had been let loose on Pomerania and Brandenburg. The mere contributions levied by the invaders amounted, it was said, to more than a hundred millions of dollars; and the value of what they extorted was probably much less than the value of the Seven Years' War. what they destroyed. The fields lay uncultivated. The very seed-corn had been devoured in the madness of hunger. Famine, and contagious maladies produced by famine, had swept away the herds and flocks; and there was reason to fear that a great pestilence among the human race was likely to follow in the train of that tremendous war. Near fifteen thousand houses had been burned to the ground. The population of the kingdom had in seven years decreased to the frightful extent of ten per cent. A sixth of the males capable of bearing arms had actually perished on the field of battle. In some districts, no labourers, except women, were seen in the fields at harvest-time. In others, the traveller passed shuddering through a succession Here, for the present, we must pause. We have accompanied Frederic to the close of his career as a warrior. Possibly, when these Memoirs are completed, we may resume the consideration of his character, and give some account of his domestic and foreign policy, and of his private habits, during the many years of tranquillity which followed MADAME D'ARBLAY. (JANUARY, 1843.) Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay. Five vols. 8vo. London: 1842. THOUGH the world saw and heard little of Madame D'Arblay during the last forty years of her life, and though that little did not add to her fame, there were thousands, we believe, who felt a singular emotion when they learned that she was no longer among us. The news of her death carried the minds of men back at one leap over two generations, to the time when her first literary triumphs were won. All those whom we had been accustomed to revere as intellectual patriarchs seemed Having always felt a warm and sincere, though not a blind admiration for her talents, we rejoiced to learn that her Diary was about to be made public. Our hopes, it is true, were not unmixed with fears. We could not forget the fate of the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, which were published ten years ago. That unfortunate book contained much that was curious and interesting. Yet it was received with a cry of disgust, and was speedily consigned to oblivion. The truth is, that it deserved its doom. It was written in Madame D'Arblay's later style, the worst style that has ever been known among men. No genius, no information, could save from proscription a book so written. We, therefore, opened the Diary with no small anxiety, trembling lest we should light upon some of that peculiar rhetoric which deforms almost every page of the Memoirs, and which it is impossible to read without children when compared with her; for Burke had sate up all night to read her writings, and Johnson had pronounced her superior to Fielding, when Rogers was still a schoolboy, and Southey still in petticoats. Yet more strange did it seem that we should just have lost one whose name had been widely celebrated before any body had heard of some illustrious men who, twenty, thirty, or forty years ago, were, after a long and splendid career, borne with honour to the grave. Yet so it was. Frances Burney was at the height of fame and popularity before Cowper had published his first volume, before Porson had gone up to college, before Pitt had taken his seat in the House of Commons, before the voice of Erskine had been once heard in Westminster Hall. Since the appearance of her first work, sixty-two years had passed; and this interval had been crowded, not only with political, but also with intellectual revolutions. a sensation made up of mirth, shame, Thousands of reputations had, during that period, sprung up, bloomed, withered, and disappeared. New kinds of composition had come into fashion, had gone out of fashion, had been derided, had been forgotten. The fooleries of Della Crusca, and the fooleries of Kotzebue, had for a time bewitched the multitude, but had left no trace behind them; nor had misdirected genius been able to save from decay the once flourishing schools of Godwin, of Darwin, and of Radcliffe. Many books, written for temporary effect, had run through six or seven editions, and had then been gathered to the novels of Afra Behn, and the epic poems of Sir Richard Blackmore. Yet the early works of Madame D'Arblay, in spite of the lapse of years, in spite of the change of manners, in spite of the popularity deservedly obtained by some of her rivals, continued to hold a high place in the public esteem. She lived to be a classic. Time set on her fame, before she went hence, that seal which is seldom set except on the fame of the departed. Like Sir Condy Rackrent in the tale, she survived her own wake, and overheard the judgment of posterity. The two and loathing. We soon, however, dis- We may, perhaps, afford some harmless amusement to our readers, if we attempt, with the help of these two books, to give them an account of the most important years of Madame D'Arblay's life. She was descended from a family which bore the name of Macburney, and which, though probably of Irish origin, had been long settled in Shrop shire, and was possessed of consider- childhood indicated that she would, able estates in that county. Unhappily, while still a young woman, have secured many years before her birth, the Mac- for herself an honourable and permaburneys began, as if of set purpose nent place among English writers. She and in a spirit of determined rivalry, was shy and silent. Her brothers and to expose and ruin themselves. The sisters called her a dunce, and not heir apparent, Mr. James Macburney, without some show of reason; for at offended his father by making a run- eight years old she did not know her away match with an actress from Good-letters. man's Fields. The old gentleman could devise no more judicious mode of wreaking vengeance on his undutiful boy than by marrying the cook. The cook gave birth to a son named Joseph, who succeeded to all the lands of the family, while James was cut off with a shilling. The favourite son, however, was so extravagant, that he soon became as poor as his disinherited brother. Both were forced to earn their bread by their labour. Joseph turned dancing master, and settled in Norfolk. James struck off the Mac from the beginning of his name, and set up as a portrait painter at Chester. Here he had a son named Charles, well known as the author of Mr. Burney at once obtained as many the History of Music, and as the father pupils of the most respectable descripof two remarkable children, of a son tion as he had time to attend, and was distinguished by learning, and of a thus enabled to support his family, daughter still more honourably distin-modestly indeed, and frugally, but in guished by genius. In 1760, Mr. Burney quitted Lynn for London, and took a house in Poland Street; a situation which had been fashionable in the reign of Queen Anne, but which, since that time, had been deserted by most of its wealthy and noble inhabitants. He afterwards resided in Saint Martin's Street, on the south side of Leicester Square. His house there is still well known, and will continue to be well known as long as our island retains any trace of civilization; for it was the dwelling of Newton, and the square turret which distinguishes it from all the surrounding buildings was Newton's observatory. comfort and independence. His professional merit obtained for him the degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Oxford; and his works on subjects connected with his art gained for him a place, respectable, though certainly not eminent, among men of letters. Charles early showed a taste for that art, of which, at a later period, he became the historian. He was apprenticed to a celebrated musician in London, and applied himself to study with vigour and success. He soon found a kind and munificent patron in Fulk Greville, a highborn and highbred man, The progress of the mind of Frances who seems to have had in large mea- Burney, from her ninth to her twentysure all the accomplishments and all fifth year, well deserves to be recorded. the follies, all the virtues and all When her education had proceeded the vices, which, a hundred years ago, no further than the hornbook, she lost were considered as making up the cha- her mother, and thenceforward she racter of a fine gentleman. Under educated herself. Her father appears such protection, the young artist had to have been as bad a father as a very every prospect of a brilliant career in honest, affectionate, and sweet temthe capital. But his health failed. It pered man can well be. He loved his became necessary for him to retreat daughter dearly; but it never seems to from the smoke and river fog of Lon- have occurred to him that a parent has don, to the pure air of the coast. He other duties to perform to children than accepted the place of organist, at Lynn, that of fondling them. It would indeed and settled at that town with a young have been impossible for him to superlady who had recently become his wife. intend their education himself. His professional engagements occupied him all day. At seven in the morning he At Lynn, in June, 1752, Frances Burney was born. Nothing in her began to attend his pupils, and, when | maker who lived in the adjoining house. London was full, was sometimes em- Yet few nobles could assemble in the ployed in teaching till eleven at night. He was often forced to carry in his pocket a tin box of sandwiches, and a bottle of wine and water, on which he dined in a hackney coach, while hurrying from one scholar to another. Two of his daughters he sent to a seminary at Paris; but he imagined that Frances would run some risk of being perverted from the Protestant faith if she were educated in a Catholic country, and he therefore kept her at home. No governess, no teacher of any art or of any language, was provided for her. But one of her sisters showed her how to write; and, before she was fourteen, she began to find pleasure in reading. It was not, however, by reading that her intellect was formed. Indeed, when her best novels were produced, her knowledge of books was very small. When at the height of her fame, she was unacquainted with the most celebrated works of Voltaire and Moliere; and, what seems still more extraordinary, had never heard or seen a line of Churchill, who, when she was a girl, was the most popular of living poets. It is particularly deserving of observation that she appears to have been by no means a novel reader. Her father's library was large; and he had admitted into it so many books which rigid moralists generally exclude that he felt uneasy, as he afterwards owned, when Johnson began to examine the shelves. But in the whole collection there was only a single novel, Fielding's Amelia. most stately mansions of Grosvenor Square or Saint James's Square, a society so various and so brilliant as was sometimes to be found in Dr. Burney's cabin. His mind, though not very powerful or capacious, was restlessly active; and, in the intervals of his professional pursuits, he had contrived to lay up much miscellaneous information. His attainments, the suavity of his temper, and the gentle simplicity of his manners, had obtained for him ready admission to the first literary circles. While he was still at Lynn, he had won Johnson's heart by sounding with honest zeal the praises of the English Dictionary. In London the two friends met frequently, and agreed most harmoniously. One tie, indeed, was wanting to their mutual attachment. Burney loved his own art passionately; and Johnson just knew the bell of Saint Clement's church from the organ. They had, however, many topics in common; and on winter nights their conversations were sometimes prolonged till the fire had gone out, and the candles had burned away to the wicks. Burney's admiration of the powers which had produced Rasselas and The Rambler bordered on idolatry. Johnson, on the other hand, condescended to growl out that Burney was an honest fellow, a man whom it was impossible not to like. Garrick, too, was a frequent visiter in Poland Street and Saint Martin's Lane. That wonderful actor loved the society of children, partly from good nature, and partly from vanity. The ecstasies of mirth and terror, which An education, however, which to most girls would have been useless, but which suited Fanny's mind better than elabo-his gestures and play of countenance rate culture, was in constant progress during her passage from childhood to womanhood. The great book of human nature was turned over before her. Her father's social position was very peculiar. He belonged in fortune and station to the middle class. His daughters seemed to have been suffered to mix freely with those whom butlers and waiting maids call vulgar. We are told that they were in the habit of playing with the children of a wig-down their cheeks. VOL. II. never failed to produce in a nursery, flattered him quite as much as the applause of mature critics. He often exhibited all his powers of mimicry for the amusement of the little Burneys, awed them by shuddering and crouching as if he saw a ghost, scared them by raving like a maniac in Saint Luke's, and then at once became an auctioneer, a chimneysweeper, or an old woman, and made them laugh till the tears ran U |