The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume I Part 86

By the invitation of Mr. Herschel, I now took a walk which will sound to you rather strange: it was through his telescope and it held me quite upright, and without the least inconvenience; so would it have done had I been dressed in feathers and a bell hoop--such is its circ.u.mference.

Mr. Smelt led the way, walking also upright; and my father followed.

After we were gone, the bishop and Dr. Douglas were tempted, for its oddity, to make the same promenade.

ILLNESS, AND SOME REFLECTIONS IT GAVE RISE TO.

_Wednesday, Jan. 10, 1787._--This morning, when I was hurrying to the queen, I met Mr. Fairly, who said he was waiting to see me. Very melancholy he looked-very much changed from what I had seen him. His lady, to whom he is much attached, is suffering death by inches, from the most painful of all complaints, a cancer. His eldest son, who seems about twelve years old, was with him. He was going, he said, to place him at Eton.

The day following I was taken very ill myself; a bilious fever, long lurking, suddenly seized me, and a rheumatism in my head at the same time. I was forced to send to Mr. Battis...o...b.. for advice, and to Miss Planta to officiate for me at night with the queen.

Early the next morning Miss Planta came to me from the queen, to desire I would not be uneasy in missing my attendance, and that I would think of nothing but how to take care of myself. This, however, was not all, for soon after she came herself, not only to my room, but to my bedside, and, after many enquiries, desired me to say sincerely what I should do if I had been so attacked at home.

A blister, I said, was all I could devise; and I had one accordingly, which cured the head, and set me at ease. But the fever had been long gathering, and would not so rapidly be dismissed. I kept my bed this day and the next. The third day I was sufficiently better to quit my bed and bedroom; and then I had not only another visit from the queen, but also from the two eldest princesses.

_Tuesday, Jan. 16_--Was the day appointed for removing to town for the winter; from which time we were only to come to Windsor for an occasional day or two every week.

I received a visit, just before I set out, from the king. He came in alone, and made most gracious enquiries into my health, and whether I was sufficiently recovered for the journey.

The four days of my confinement, from the fever after the pain, were days of meditation the most useful: I reflected upon all my mental sufferings in the last year; their cause seemed inadequate to their poignancy. In the hour of sickness and confinement, the world, in losing its attractions, forfeits its regrets:--a new train of thinking, a new set of ideas, took possession of all my faculties; a steady plan, calm, yet no longer sad, deliberately formed itself in my mind; my affliction was already subsided; I now banished, also, discontent. I found myself as well off, upon reflection, as I could possibly merit, and better, by comparison, than most of those around me. The beloved friends of my own heart had joined me unalterably, inviolably to theirs--who, in number, who, in kindness, has more?

Now, therefore, I took shame to myself, and resolved to be. And my success has shown me how far less chimerical than it appears is such a resolution. To be patient under two disappointments now no longer recent;--to relinquish, without repining, frequent intercourse with those I love;--to settle myself in my monastery, without one idea of ever quitting it; to study for the approbation of my lady abbess, and make it a princ.i.p.al source of content, as well as spring of action;--and to a.s.sociate more cheerily with my surrounding nuns and monks;--these were the articles which were to support my resolution.

I thank G.o.d I can tell my dearest friends I have observed them all; and, from the date of this illness to the time in which I am now drawing out my memorandums, I can safely affirm I know not that I have made one break with myself in a single promise here projected.

And now, I thank G.o.d, the task is at an end;-what I began from principle, and pursued from resolution, is now a mere natural conduct.

My destiny is fixed, and my mind is at ease; nay, I even think, upon the whole, that my lot is, altogether, the best that can betide me, except for one flaw in its very vitals, which subjects me at times, to a tyranny wholly subversive of all power of tranquillity.

END OF VOL. 1.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Dr. Arne.--ED.]

[Footnote 2: The lady's maiden name was Esther Sheepe. She was, by the mother's side, of French extraction, from a family of the name of Dubois--a name which will be remembered as that of one of the characters in her daughter f.a.n.n.y's first novel, "Evelina."--ED.]

[Footnote 3: She was born on the 13th of June, 1752--ED.]

[Footnote 4: This degree was conferred upon him on Friday, the 23rd of June, 1769.--ED.]

[Footnote 5: The "Early Diary of Frances Burney, from 1768 to 1778," recently published, throws some new light upon her education. It is her own statement that her father's library contained but one novel--"Amelia"; yet as a girl we find her acquainted with the works of Richardson and Sterne, of Marivaux and Provost, with "Ra.s.selas" and the "Vicar of Wakefield." in history and poetry, moreover, she appears to have been fairly well read, and she found constant literary employment as her father's amanuensis. As to Voltaire, she notes, on her twenty-first birthday, that she has just finished the "Heoriade"; but her remarks upon the book prove how little she was acquainted with the author.

She thinks he "has made too free with religion in giving words to the Almighty. But M. Voltaire, I understand, is not a man of very rigid principles at least not in religion" (!).--ED.]

[Footnote 6: This is not quite accurate. Burney secured the relic in the manner described, not, however, to gratify his own enthusiasm, but to comply with the request of his friend Mr. Bewley, of Ma.s.singham, Norfolk, that he would procure for him some memento of the great Dr. Johnson. The tuft of the Doctor's hearth-broom, which Burney sent him, half in jest, was preserved with the greatest care by its delighted recipient. "He thinks it more precious than pearls," wrote f.a.n.n.y. ("Early Diary," vol. i, p.

169.) This incident occurred in 1760.--ED.]

[Footnote 7: The "Early Diary," however, proves that, in spite of her shyness, f.a.n.n.y was very much at home in the brilliant society which congregated at her father's house, and occasionally took her full share in the conversation. Nor do we find her by any means avoiding the diversions common to young ladies of her age and station. She goes to dances, to the play, to the Opera, to Ranelagh, and even, on one memorable occasion, to a masquerade--"a very private one," however."--ED.]

[Footnote 8: Mrs. Stephen Allen, a widow, of Lynn. She was married to Dr. Burney (not yet Doctor, however) in October, 1767. His first wife died on the 28th of September, 1761.--ED.]

[Footnote 9: There is some difficulty here as to the chronology. "This sacrifice," says the editor of "The Diary," "was made in the young auth.o.r.ess's fifteenth year." This could not be; for the sacrifice was the effect, according to the editor's own showing of the remonstrances of the second Mrs. Burney; and Frances was in her sixteenth year when her father's second marriage took place.]

[Footnote 10: Chesington, lying between Kingston and Epsom.--ED.]

[Footnote 11: The picture drawn by Macaulay of Mr. Crisp's wounded vanity and consequent misanthropy is absurdly overcharged. In the first place, his play of "Virginia," which was first produced at Drury Lane on the 25th of February, 1754, actually achieved something like a succes d'estime.

It ran eleven nights, no contemptible run for those days; was revived both at Drury Lane and at Covent Garden; was printed and reprinted; and all this all in his own lifetime. It had, in fact, at least as much success as it deserved, though, doubtless, too little to satisfy the ambition of its author. In the second place, there is absolutely no evidence whatever that his life was long embittered by disappointment connected with his tragedy. It is clear, from Madame D'Arblay's "Memoirs of Dr. Burney," that Mr. Crisp's retirement to Chesington, many years after the production of "Virginia," was mainly due to a straitened income and the gout. Nor was his seclusion unenlivened by friendship.

The Burneys, in particular, visited him from time to time; and f.a.n.n.y has left us descriptions of scenes of almost uproarious gaiety, enacted at Chesington by this gloomy recluse and his young friends. But we shall hear more of Chesington and its inmates hereafter--ED.]

[Footnote 12: Scarcely, we think; when her fame was at its height, f.a.n.n.y Burney received no more than 250 pounds for her second novel, "Cecilia." See the "Early Diary," vol. ii. p. 307.--ED.]

[Footnote 13: Christopher Anstey, the author of that amusing and witty poetical satire, the "New Bath Guide."--ED.]

[Footnote 14: John Wilson Croker.--ED.]

[Footnote 15: Richard c.u.mberland's fame as playwright and novelist can hardly be said to have survived to the present day. Sheridan caricatured him as Sir Fretful Plagiary, in the "Critic." We shall meet with him hereafter in "The Diary."--ED.]

[Footnote 16: See note ante, p. xxiv.]

[Footnote 17: "Probationary Odes for the Laureateship," a volume of lively satirical verse published after the appointment of Sir Thomas Warton to that office on the death of William Whitehead, in 1785.--ED.]

[Footnote 18: See "Cecilia," Book V. chap. 6.--ED.]

[Footnote 19: In "Cecilia."--ED.]

[Footnote 20: The "Mr. Fairly" of "The Diary."--ED. [21: Macaulay is mistaken.

f.a.n.n.y did receive the gown, a "lilac tabby," and wore it on the princess royal's birthday, September 29, 1786.--ED.]

[Footnote 22: The fifth volume of "The Diary" concludes with f.a.n.n.y's marriage to M. d'Arblay. The seven volumes of the original edition were published at intervals, from 1842 to 1846.---ED.]

[Footnote 23: The rumour was probably not far from correct. "Camilla" was published by subscription, at one guinea the set, and the subscribers numbered over eleven hundred. Four thousand copies were printed, and three thousand five hundred were sold in three months. Within six weeks of its publication, Dr. Burney told Lord Orford that about two thousand pounds had already been realized.--ED.]

[Footnote 24: f.a.n.n.y's tragedy of "Edwy and Elgiva", written during the period of her slavery at court, was produced by Sheridan at Drury-lane in March, 1795. It proved a failure, although the leading parts were played by Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. This tragedy, which was never published, is occasionally referred to in her letters of that year. See also an article by Mr. E. S. Shuckburgh, in "Macmillan's Magazine" for February, 1896.---ED.]

[Footnote 25: We find it difficult to understand Macaulay's estimate of "The Wanderer." Later critics appear, in general, to have echoed Macaulay without being at the pains of reading the book. If it has not the naive freshness of "Evelina," nor the sustained excellence of style of "Cecilia," "The Wanderer" is inferior to neither in the "exhibition of human pa.s.sions and whims." The story is interesting and full of variety; the characters live, as none but the greatest novelists have known how to make them. In Juliet, f.a.n.n.y has given us one of her most fascinating heroines, while her pictures of the fashionable society of Brighthelmstone are distinguished by a force and vivacity of satire which she has rarely surpa.s.sed. It is true that in both "The Wanderer"

and "Camilla" we meet with occasional touches of that peculiar extravagance of style which disfigure, the "Memoirs of Dr. Burney," but these pa.s.sages, in the novels, are SO comparatively inoffensive, and so nearly forgotten in the general power and charm of the story that we scarcely care to instance them as serious blemishes--ED.]

[Footnote 26: This criticism of Madame D'Arblay appears to us somewhat too sweeping. It must be remembered that the persons of "one propensity,"

instanced by Macaulay, are all to be found among the minor characters in her novels. The circ.u.mstances, moreover, under which they are introduced, are frequently such as to render the display of their particular humours not only excusable, but natural. But surely in others of her creations, in her heroines especially, she is justly ent.i.tled to the praise of having portrayed "characters in which no single feature is extravagantly overcharged."--ED.]

[Footnote 27: This conjecture may be considered as finally disposed of by Dr.

Johnson's explicit declaration that he never saw one word of "Cecilia"