|
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 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 anybody had heard of some illustrious men, who, twenty, thirty, or forty
years ago, were, after a long and splendid career, borne with honor 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.
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, and 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.
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 a sensation made up of mirth, shame, and loathing. We
soon, however, discovered to our great delight that this Diary was kept before
Madame D'Arblay became eloquent. It is, for the most part, written in her
earliest and best manner, in true woman's English, clear, natural, and lively.
The two works are lying side by side before us; and we never turn from the
Memoirs to the Diary without a sense of relief. The difference is as great as
the difference between the atmosphere of a perfumer's shop, fetid with lavender
water and jasmine soap, and the air of a heath on a fine morning in May. Both
works ought to be consulted by every person who wishes to be well acquainted
with the history of our literature and our manners. But to read the Diary is a
pleasure; to read the Memoirs will always be a task.
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 Shropshire, and was
possessed of considerable estates in that county. Unhappily, many years before
her birth, the Macburneys began, as if of set purpose and in a spirit of
determined rivalry, to expose and ruin themselves. The heir apparent, Mr. James
Macburney, offended his father by making a runaway match with an actress from
Goodman'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 favorite son, however, was so
extravagant, that he soon became as poor as his disinherited brother. Both were
forced to earn their bread by their labor. 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 the History of Music, and as the father of two remarkable
children, of a son distinguished by learning, and of a daughter still more
honorably distinguished by genius.
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 vigor and success. He soon found a kind and
munificent patron in Fulk Greville, a highborn and highbred man, who seems to
have had in large measure all the accomplishments and all the follies, all the
virtues and all the vices, which, a hundred years ago, were considered as making
up the character of a fine gentleman. Under such protection, the young artist
had every prospect of a brilliant career in the capital. But his health failed.
It became necessary for him to retreat from the smoke and river fog of London,
to the pure air of the coast. He accepted the place of organist, at Lynn, and
settled at that town with a young lady who had recently become his wife.
At Lynn, in June 1752, Frances Burney was born. Nothing in her childhood
indicated that she would, while still a young woman, have secured for herself an
honorable and permanent place among English writers. She was shy and silent. Her
brothers and sisters called her a dunce, and not without some show of reason;
for at eight years old she did not know her letters.
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.
Mr. Burney at once obtained as many pupils of the most respectable description
as he had time to attend, and was thus enabled to support his family, modestly
indeed, and frugally, but in 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.
The progress of the mind of Frances Burney, from her ninth to her twenty-fifth
year, well deserves to be recorded. When her education had proceeded no further
than the hornbook, she lost her mother, and thenceforward she educated herself.
Her father appears to have been as bad a father as a very honest, affectionate,
and sweet tempered man can well be. He loved his daughter dearly; but it never
seems to have occurred to him that a parent has other duties to perform to
children than that of fondling them. It would indeed have been impossible for
him to superintend their education himself. His professional engagements
occupied him all day. At seven in the morning he began to attend his pupils, and
when London was full, was sometimes employed 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.
An education, however, which to most girls would have been useless, but which
suited Fanny's mind better than elaborate 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-maker who lived in the adjoining house. Yet few nobles could assemble in
the 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 visitor in Poland Street and Saint Martin's Street.
That wonderful actor loved the society of children, partly from good-nature, and
partly from vanity. The ecstasies of mirth and terror, which his gestures and
play of countenance 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 chimney-sweeper, or an old
woman, and made them laugh till the tears ran down their cheeks.
But it would be tedious to recount the names of all the men of letters and
artists whom Frances Burney had an opportunity of seeing and hearing. Colman,
Twining, Harris, Baretti, Hawkesworth, Reynolds, Barry, were among those who
occasionally surrounded the tea-table and supper-tray at her father's modest
dwelling. This was not all. The distinction which Dr. Burney had acquired as a
musician, and as the historian of music, attracted to his house the most eminent
musical performers of that age. The greatest Italian singers who visited England
regarded him as the dispenser of fame in their art, and exerted themselves to
obtain his suffrage. Pachierotti became his intimate friend. The rapacious
Agujari, who sang for nobody else under fifty pounds an air, sang her best for
Dr. Burney without a fee; and in the company of Dr. Burney even the haughty and
eccentric Gabrielli constrained herself to behave with civility. It was thus in
his power to give, with scarcely any expense, concerts equal to those of the
aristocracy. On such occasions the quiet street in which he lived was blocked up
by coroneted chariots, and his little drawing-room was crowded with peers,
peeresses, ministers, and ambassadors. On one evening, of which we happen to
have a full account, there were present Lord Mulgrave, Lord Bruce, Lord and Lady
Edgecumbe, Lord Carrington from the War Office, Lord Sandwich from the
Admiralty, Lord Ashburnham, with his gold key dangling from his pocket, and the
French Ambassador, M. De Guignes, renowned for his fine person and for his
success in gallantry. But the great show of the night was the Russian
Ambassador, Count Orloff, whose gigantic figure was all in a blaze with jewels,
and in whose demeanor the untamed ferocity of the Scythian might be discerned
through a thin varnish of French politeness. As he stalked about the small
parlor, brushing the ceiling with his toupee, the girls whispered to each other,
with mingled admiration and horror, that he was the favored lover of his august
mistress; that he had borne the chief part in the revolution to which she owed
her throne; and that his huge hands, now glittering with diamond rings, had
given the last squeeze to the windpipe of her unfortunate husband.
With such illustrious guests as these were mingled all the most remarkable
specimens of the race of lions, a kind of game which is hunted in London every
spring with more than Meltonian ardor and perseverance. Bruce, who had washed
down steaks cut from living oxen with water from the fountains of the Nile, came
to swagger and talk about his travels. Omai lisped broken English, and made all
the assembled musicians hold their ears by howling Otaheitean love songs, such
as those with which Oberea charmed her Opano.
With the literary and fashionable society, which occasionally met under Dr.
Burney's roof, Frances can scarcely be said to have mingled. She was not a
musician, and could therefore bear no part in the concerts. She was shy almost
to awkwardness, and scarcely ever joined in the conversation. The slightest
remark from a stranger disconcerted her; and even the old friends of her father
who tried to draw her out could seldom extract more than a Yes or a No. Her
figure was small, her face not distinguished by beauty. She was therefore
suffered to withdraw quietly to the background, and, unobserved herself, to
observe all that passed. Her nearest relations were aware that she had good
sense, but seem not to have suspected that, under her demure and bashful
deportment, were concealed a fertile invention and a keen sense of the
ridiculous. 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. Thus, while still a girl, she had laid up such a store of
materials for fiction as few of those who mix much in the world are able to
accumulate during a long life. She had watched and listened to people of every
class, from princes and great officers of state down to artists living in
garrets, and poets familiar with subterranean cookshops. Hundreds of remarkable
persons had passed in review before her, English, French, German, Italian, lords
and fiddlers, deans of cathedrals and managers of theatres, travelers leading
about newly caught savages, and singing women escorted by deputy husbands.
So strong was the impression made on the mind of Frances by the society which
she was in the habit of seeing and hearing, that she began to write little
fictitious narratives as soon as she could use her pen with case, which, as we
have said, was not very early. Her sisters were amused by her stories: but Dr.
Burney knew nothing of their existence; and in another quarter her literary
propensities met with serious discouragement. When she was fifteen, her father
took a second wife. The new Mrs. Burney soon found out that her stepdaughter was
fond of scribbling, and delivered several good-natured lectures on the subject.
The advice no doubt was well meant, and might have been given by the most
judicious friend; for at that time, from causes to which we may hereafter
advert, nothing could be more disadvantageous to a young lady than to be known
as a novel-writer. Frances yielded, relinquished her favorite pursuit, and made
a bonfire of all her manuscripts.1
She now hemmed and stitched from breakfast to dinner with scrupulous regularity.
But the dinners of that time were early; and the afternoon was her own. Though
she had given up novel-writing, she was still fond of using her pen. She began
to keep a diary, and she corresponded largely with a person who seems to have
had the chief share in the formation of her mind. This was Samuel Crisp, an old
friend of her father. His name, well known, near a century ago, in the most
splendid circles of London, has long been forgotten. His history is, however, so
interesting and instructive, that it tempts us to venture on a digression.
Long before Frances Burney was born, Mr. Crisp had made his entrance into the
world, with every advantage. He was well connected and well educated. His face
and figure were conspicuously handsome; his manners were polished; his fortune
was easy; his character was without stain; he lived in the best society; he had
read much; he talked well; his taste in literature, music, painting,
architecture, sculpture, was held in high esteem. Nothing that the world can
give seemed to be wanting to his happiness and respectability, except that he
should understand the limits of his powers, and should not throw away
distinctions which were within his reach in the pursuit of distinctions which
were unattainable.
"It is an uncontrolled truth," says Swift," that no man ever made an ill figure
who understood his own talents, nor a good one who mistook them." Every day
brings with it fresh illustrations of this weighty saying; but the best
commentary that we remember is the history of Samuel Crisp. Men like him have
their proper place, and it is a most important one, in the Commonwealth of
Letters. It is by the judgment of such men that the rank of authors is finally
determined. It is neither to the multitude, nor to the few who are gifted with
great creative genius, that we are to look for sound critical decisions. The
multitude, unacquainted with the best models, are captivated by whatever stuns
and dazzles them. They deserted Mrs. Siddons to run after Master Betty; and they
now prefer, we have no doubt, Jack Sheppard to Von Artevelde. A man of great
original genius, on the other hand, a man who has attained to mastery in some
high walk of art, is by no means to be implicitly trusted as a judge of the
performances of others. The erroneous decisions pronounced by such men are
without number. It is commonly supposed that jealousy makes them unjust. But a
more creditable explanation may easily be found. The very excellence of a work
shows that some of the faculties of the author have been developed at the
expense of the rest; for it is not given to the human intellect to expand itself
widely in all directions at once, and to be at the same time gigantic and well
proportioned. Whoever becomes pre-eminent in any art, in any style of art,
generally does so by devoting himself with intense and exclusive enthusiasm to
the pursuit of one kind of excellence. His perception of other kinds of
excellence is therefore too often impaired. Out of his own department he praises
and blames at random, and is far less to be trusted than the mere connoisseur,
who produces nothing, and whose business is only to judge and enjoy. One painter
is distinguished by his exquisite finishing. He toils day after day to bring the
veins of a cabbage leaf, the folds of a lace veil, the wrinkles of an old
woman's face, nearer and nearer to perfection. In the time which he employs on a
square foot of canvas, a master of a different order covers the walls of a
palace with gods burying giants under mountains, or makes the cupola of a church
alive with seraphim and martyrs. The more fervent the passion of each of these
artists for his art, the higher the merit of each in his own line, the more
unlikely it is that they will justly appreciate each other. Many persons who
never handled a pencil probably do far more justice to Michael Angelo than would
have been done by Gerard Douw, and far more justice to Gerard Douw than would
have been done by Michael Angelo.
It is the same with literature. Thousands, who have no spark of the genius of
Dryden or Wordsworth, do to Dryden the justice which has never been done by
Wordsworth, and to Wordsworth the justice which, we suspect, would never have
been done by Dryden. Gray, Johnson, Richardson, Fielding, are all highly
esteemed by the great body of intelligent and well informed men. But Gray could
see no merit in Rasselas; and Johnson could see no merit in the Bard. Fielding
thought Richardson a solemn prig; and Richardson perpetually expressed contempt
and disgust for Fielding's lowness.
Mr. Crisp seems, as far as we can judge, to have been a man eminently qualified
for the useful office of a connoisseur. His talents and knowledge fitted him to
appreciate justly almost every species of intellectual superiority. As an
adviser he was inestimable. Nay, he might probably have held a respectable rank
as a writer, if he would have confined himself to some department of literature
in which nothing more than sense, taste, and reading was required. Unhappily he
set his heart on being a great poet, wrote a tragedy in five acts on the death
of Virginia, and offered it to Garrick, who was his personal friend. Garrick
read, shook his head, and expressed a doubt whether it would be wise in Mr.
Crisp to stake a reputation, which stood high, on the success of such a piece.
But the author, blinded by ambition, set in motion a machinery such as none
could long resist. His intercessors were the most eloquent man and the most
lovely woman of that generation. Pitt was induced to read Virginia, and to
pronounce it excellent. Lady Coventry with fingers which might have furnished a
model to sculptors, forced the manuscript into the reluctant hand of the
manager; and, in the year 1754, the play was brought forward.
Nothing that skill or friendship could do was omitted. Garrick wrote both
prologue and epilogue. The zealous friends of the author filled every box; and,
by their strenuous exertions, the life of the play was prolonged during ten
nights. But, though there was no clamorous reprobation, it was universally felt
that the attempt had failed. When Virginia was printed, the public
disappointment was even greater than at the representation. The critics, the
Monthly Reviewers in particular, fell on plot, characters, and diction without
mercy, but, we fear, not without justice. We have never met with a copy of the
play; but, if we may judge from the scene which is extracted in the Gentleman's
Magazine, and which does not appear to have been malevolently selected, we
should say that nothing but the acting of Garrick, and the partiality of the
audience, could have saved so feeble and unnatural a drama from instant
damnation.
The ambition of the poet was still unsubdued. When the London season closed, he
applied himself vigorously to the work of removing blemishes. He does not seem
to have suspected, what we are strongly inclined to suspect, that the whole
piece was one blemish, and that the passages which were meant to be fine, were,
in truth, bursts of that tame extravagance into which writers fall, when they
set themselves to be sublime and pathetic in spite of nature. He omitted, added,
retouched, and flattered himself with hopes of a complete success in the
following year; but in the following year, Garrick showed no disposition to
bring the amended tragedy on the stage. Solicitation and remonstrance were tried
in vain. Lady Coventry, drooping under that malady which seems ever to select
what is loveliest for its prey, could render no assistance. The manager's
language was civilly evasive; but his resolution was inflexible.
Crisp had committed a great error; but he had escaped with a very slight
penance. His play had not been hooted from the boards. It had, on the contrary,
been better received than many very estimable performances have been, than
Johnson's Irene, for example, or Goldsmith's Good-natured Man. Had Crisp been
wise, he would have thought himself happy in having purchased self-knowledge so
cheap. He would have relinquished, without vain repinings, the hope of poetical
distinction, and would have turned to the many sources of happiness which he
still possessed. Had he been, on the other hand, an unfeeling and unblushing
dunce, he would have gone on writing scores of bad tragedies in defiance of
censure and derision. But he had too much sense to risk a second defeat, yet too
little sense to bear his first defeat like a man. The fatal delusion that he was
a great dramatist, had taken firm possession of his mind. His failure he
attributed to every cause except the true one. He complained of the ill-will of
Garrick, who appears to have done for the play everything that ability and zeal
could do, and who, from selfish motives, would, of course, have been well
pleased if Virginia had been as successful as the Beggar's Opera. Nay, Crisp
complained of the languor of the friends whose partiality had given him three
benefit nights to which he had no claim. He complained of the injustice of the
spectators, when, in truth, he ought to have been grateful for their unexampled
patience. He lost his temper and spirits, and became a cynic and a hater of
mankind. From London he retired to Hampton, and from Hampton to a solitary and
long deserted mansion, built on a Common in one of the wildest tracts of Surrey.
No road, not even a sheep-walk, connected his lonely dwelling with the abodes of
men. The place of his retreat was strictly concealed from his old associates. In
the spring he sometimes emerged, and was seen at exhibitions and concerts in
London. But he soon disappeared, and hid himself with no society but his books,
in his dreary hermitage. He survived his failure about thirty years. A new
generation sprang up around him. No memory of his bad verses remained among men.
His very name was forgotten. How completely the world had lost sight of him,
will appear from a single circumstance. We looked for him in a copious
Dictionary of Dramatic Authors published while he was still alive, and we found
only that Mr. Henry Crisp, of the Custom House, had written a play called
Virginia, acted in 1754. To the last, however, the unhappy man continued to
brood over the injustice of the manager and the pit, and tried to convince
himself and others that he had missed the highest literary honors, only because
he had omitted some fine passages in compliance with Garrick's judgment. Alas
for human nature, that the wounds of vanity should smart and bleed so much
longer than the wounds of affection! Few people, we believe, whose nearest
friends and relations died in 1754, had any acute feeling of the loss in 1782.
Dear sisters, and favorite daughters, and brides snatched away before the
honeymoon was passed, had been forgotten, or were remembered only with a
tranquil regret. But Samuel Crisp was still mourning for his tragedy, like
Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted. "Never," such was
his language twenty-eight years after his disaster, "never give up or alter a
title unless it perfectly coincides with your own inward feelings. I can say
this to my sorrow and my cost. But mum!" Soon after these words were written,
his life, a life which might have been eminently useful and happy, ended in the
same gloom in which, during more than a quarter of a century, it had been
passed. We have thought it worth while to rescue from oblivion this curious
fragment of literary history. It seems to us at once ludicrous, melancholy, and
full of instruction.
1 There is some difficulty here as to the chronology. "This
sacrifice," says the editor of the Diary, "was made in the young authoress'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.
Previous |
Critical And Historical Essays, Volume II
| Next
Critical And Historical Essays, Volume II, Thomas Babbington Macaulay,
1843 |
|
Add/Correct a Link