Complete Works of Frances Burney

by Frances Burney

  From the order of names in a will, she seems to have been Mr. Crisp’s fourth sister. In 1725 she was still unmarried. She married a Mr. Gast, whose name has a French look. When a widow she joined her sister, Mrs. Anne Crisp, in living at Burford in Oxfordshire, a place to which Mrs. Anne had probably been drawn by its being within reach of two other branches of the Crisp family, those of “Mr. Crisp, the eminent lawyer of Chipping Norton,” and Sir Charles, the great-grandson of Sir Nicholas, and last baronet of his name, who lived at Dornford, in the parish of Wootton, in Oxfordshire.

  Unless Mr. Crisp had another sister a widow, whose name was Gough, (of which we find no sign,) the following extract from a letter of Mrs. Delany’s to her sister, Mrs. Dewes, gives us a glimpse of Mrs. Gast:

  “I must tell you a story of our old friend Nanny Crisp, though it cost me half a sheet more of paper. She has a sister Gough, younger by several years than herself, who has been abroad, and is a widow in very bad circumstances. Mrs. Bernard, who told me the story, says she is very ordinary in her appearance, but an excellent creature, and far superior to our old acquaintance in understanding. A sister of Mrs. Bernard’s was asked by a gentleman of a very good estate, who has one only daughter (a child), if she could recommend a wife to him who was qualified to make him a good companion, and to educate his daughter; she immediately thought of Mrs. Gough; as he neither insisted on youth, beauty, nor fortune. She told him she could recommend just such a person who would make him a happy man. (They were at this time at Oxford, Nanny Crisp and her sister at Burford): it was agreed that Mrs. Price should carry him there to breakfast, she did accordingly, and what do you think happened? He falls in love with Crisp, and will not hear of Mrs. Gough! but Crisp has vowed to live and die a virgin, and will not admit of any addresses.”

  Mrs. Gast took her brother’s “Fannikin” upon trust from his descriptions, and her own journals, until she met her at Chesington in 1776. In 1777 we find her calling with her brother at “Newton House,” in St. Martin’s Street.

  The first visit of Fanny to Chesington that is mentioned, was in the first half of the year 1766. Soon afterwards Fanny, with little Charlotte under her care, was to have had her turn of two years’ schooling, under Madame St. Mart, in Paris. This plan was delayed, and, in the end, dropped; owing to Mrs. Stephen Allen’s coming, when a widow, to London, that her daughter Maria might have better teaching than she could obtain at Lynn. Mrs. Allen had lamented the death of Dr. Burney’s first wife with him. He soon found the society of so handsome, well-read, intelligent a woman, consolatory. She, who had been married by her family to her cousin, (whom she merely esteemed,) found in Dr. Burney the husband of her choice. Some opposition from her family appears to have been avoided by a private marriage, in October, 1767. Mr. Crisp was in the secret, and himself hired rooms for the wedded couple in a farmhouse near Chesington. It was a stolen honeymoon. In accordance with the rules of the novel writer, the secret was made known through the misdelivery of a letter. The young Burneys and Maria Allen looked upon that marriage as a happy event which joined them all in one merry party in the same house.

  Dr. Burney describes his second wife as being of a “cultivated mind, intellects above the general level of her sex, and with a curiosity after knowledge, insatiable to the last.” Her “extensive reading, and the assistance of a tenacious and happy memory,” enabled “her to converse with persons of learning and talents on all subjects to which female studies are commonly allowed to extend; and, through a coincidence of taste and principles in all matters of which the discussion is apt to ruffle the temper, and alienate affection, our conversation and intercourse was sincere, cordial, and cheering.” There are hints in these papers, that some of her step-daughters thought she loved what they called “argumentation^ better than any other thing in the world,” and that those visitors who shared her love of discussion and controversy, were her favourites. As Mrs. Stephen Allen, she had held a sort of bas-bleu meeting once a week; as Mrs. Burney, she received men of letters, or art, almost daily, in an informal way. She was of a critical bent, and, eleven years later, Mrs. Burney was “the quarter from which” [Fanny] “most dreaded satire,” should she discover the authorship of “Evelina.” Under the influence of some hints from this new step-mother, who saw, and heard of, some scribbling, that girls who wrote lost their time, and risked their good repute, and some doubts of her own to the same effect, Fanny made that “great renunciation,” that piteous bonfire of her works in prose and verse, in the paved court in Poland Street, while Susan looked on in tears. Mrs. Burney not merely meant well, but set a great and judicious value upon Fanny’s head and heart. A singular proof of this remains in a letter which Fanny endorsed many years afterwards, “The Recommendation of Richard to F. B., when the latter was sixteen, from her mother-in-law.” This letter was written after Fanny’s return to London in the autumn of 1768, while Mrs. Burney was left at Lynn, awaiting the birth of her son Richard, to whom Fanny had written, in advance, a letter of welcome into the world; sending with it a baby’s cap of her own embroidery.

  “Thursday, ye 13th Octor.

  “My dear Fanny,

  “I’ve but a bad excuse to make for not acknowledging your two letters — as well as generous present to the Unborn — I’ve not been Well, and what was worse woefully out o’ spirits — so much that I wanted resolution to take pen in hand, to any one but you know who — and I ought not even there — but I am better both as to health and chear-fullness — so will try to thank you for all you say to me and mine indeed I comfort myself often, when I think how doubtfull the continuance of my Life is, by considering and reflecting on the goodness of your heart and disposition that they will expand in Acts of Kindness and Affection towards even the half of sweet Charlotte’s relationship to you. Allow me my dear Fanny to take this moment (if there proves occasion) to recommend a helpless infant to your pity and protection, you will ev’ry day become more and more capable of the task — and you will, I do trust you will, for your same dear Father’s sake, cherish and support His innocent child, tho’ but half allied to you. — My weak heart speaks in tears to you my love, Let it be the Voice of nature, which is always heard, where the heart is not harden’d to its dictates. I’m sure yours is not. There — somehow I am easier now, I think you’ve heard and will listen to me — so I’ll dry my eyes and seek a more chearfull subject. As for your letter, I shall lay it by, and it shall be ye first letter ever read by those it is addressed to, — as your cap shall be its first covering.”

  This surely is a letter which does credit to her who wrote, and to her who received it. Fanny was never called upon to be more than a kind sister to the child, but she many times nursed his mother in illness with great attention. Allowing for what Maria Allen called “the little rubs” of life, Mrs. Burney’s affection for, and confidence in Fanny, was never lessened, and hers was a hearty letter of congratulation to Fanny when she learnt the authorship of “Evelina.”

  We may suppose this great burning of manuscripts to have happened just before these early diaries begin, as it is obvious that such an instinct for writing as Fanny’s could not have been resisted for any length of time.

  There was living while these journals were being written a young lady some part of whose early life ran singularly parallel with part of the early life of Fanny Burney. This was Laetitia Hawkins, only daughter of Sir John. The father of each girl wrote a “History of Music.” The whole book of Sir John Hawkins, and part of that of Dr. Burney, were published in the same year, 1776. Each father employed his daughter as his amanuensis. Each daughter was secretly occupied in writing a novel, which the youngest brother of each aided her in getting published without her name. In Fanny’s case, Dr. Burney’s consent was asked, but so far as we see, Sir John Hawkins died in ignorance that his “girl” had published several novels anonymously. “I was,” (wrote Miss Hawkins,) “I will not say educated, but broke, to the drudgery of my father’s pursuits. I had no time but what I could purloin from
my incessant task of copying, or writing from dictation—” writing six hours in the day for my father, and reading nearly as long to my mother.” Fanny nowhere mentions how much time she spent daily in copying for her father, until at last she feared that her hand-writing had become so well known among compositors that she was fain to disguise it when transcribing her own “Evelina” for the press. She never complains; once only she speaks of “stealing time to write”; but the letters of Mr. Crisp and Mrs. Rishton show how seldom she was spared to visit her friends.

  These two clever girls knew more or less of the same people of note; — from Johnson, Hawkesworth, Garrick, and Horace Walpole, down to Nollekens and Jenny Barsanti; but there is no sign that they ever were acquainted with each other. A decorous reserve prevails in Fanny’s early diaries towards the works and deeds of the rival historian of Music, Peter Pindar’s “fiddling knight,” Sir John Hawkins. His book is merely named, without praise or blame. Each of these girls followed her father in his opinions; but what a difference there was between the fathers! To borrow Mr. Crisp’s phrase, Laetitia had been “planted against a north wall,” Fanny against a southern. Sir John was a pragmatical person: “stiff in opinions,” often “in the wrong a Puritan by birth and in grain, notwithstanding his love of music: Lady Hawkins, a severe disciplinarian towards her children and servants. All about Laetitia was what Peter Pindar calls “magistratial;” — all was intended to “awe the vicious, and encourage the deserving.” Laetitia’s “Reminiscences” and her novels bristle with moral opinions, magisterially given forth. They leave on the mind how much better it was to have been born a Burney than a daughter of Sir John Hawkins. Those nearest to Fanny’s “observant eye and attentive ear” were all gifted with good hearts, good brains, good tempers, and good spirits. The same may be said of her cousins, the children of Dr. Burney’s elder brother, Richard of Worcester, who was himself a man of some distinction. Dr. Burney was a man not worldly, but endowed with great natural and acquired tact as his safeguard against an impulsive disposition, and a very open and tender heart. His character was simple, his intellect many-sided. When naming his chief works, we passed for the moment over his byplay (which might have been the life’s labour of many an author); by-play, such as his quarto volume upon the commemoration of Handel in 1784; his three octavo volumes of the Memoirs of Metastasio, meant as a supplement to his “History of Music”; his poem (which he, perhaps wisely, burned) on Astronomy, in twelve books or cantos, each of from four to eight hundred lines; his projects for “balloon-voyages”; his Essay on Comets; and his collections for a Dictionary of Music; his many occasional pieces in prose, verse, or music; his benevolent plans and efforts; among which was one for founding a School of Music, a “Conservatorio” (like those he had seen at Naples and Vienna), “in the bosom of the Foundling Hospital,” by choosing from the boys and girls those who had good ears for music and promising voices.

  The many things which he did, or tried to do, were, perhaps, less extraordinary than the sweetness of temper which he maintained in working and in suffering. There was nothing of “the enraged musician” about him, although Reynolds has depicted him with a more restless countenance than our fancy could have foreseen.

  He was born at the close of a classic period. His young enthusiasm had been roused by the brilliant writings of the band of Queen Anne’s men. When with Mr. Greville, at Bath, he had watched and waited for hours to gain glimpses of Bolingbroke. It pleased him to think that Swift might have entered his house in Queen Square as the guest of Lord Mayor Barber, and it was suspected that he removed to a house in St. Martin’s Street chiefly because it had been the dwelling of Sir Isaac Newton. This fine enthusiasm, with his natural gifts and graces, and acquired knowledge and accomplishments, carried him, with little effort of his own, into social and friendly relations with many of the foreign, as well as with most of the English, men of note throughout his long life. 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.” The “Gentleman’s Magazine” records that when eight years old she “gained great notice among musical people by her astonishing performances on the harpsichord at her father’s parties.” Fanny describes her, at sixty-eight, as being “all spirit and vivacity,”— “the spring and spirit of her family; — happily, foreseeing neither sickness nor ennui.” Yet Hetty, and her cousin and husband, Charles Burney of Worcester, must have shared the weight of many burdens of sickness and

  toil, as well as played many a duet together to the delight of all their hearers. Charles had been a pupil of Dr. Burney, whom he sometimes assisted. He had pupils of his own; he gave concerts, was player on the harpsichord at Drury Lane Theatre, and composed music. After “long toils” he withdrew to Bath, where he passed “serene days, in the tranquil enjoyment of peace, rest, books, music, and drawing.” As Charles drew, so his brother Edward was in some measure a musician; a certain readiness, facility, and aptitude for many things being shared among the Burney family. Edward was a portrait-painter, but he is better known as a designer of illustrations for books. Good judges who have seen his drawings speak of their delicacy of outline with admiration. His diffidence, which his cousin Fanny thought was almost without parallel, withheld him from taking the place which was thought to be his due by contemporary critics. Readers will find another son of Richard of Worcester, the humorous and fantastic “Cousin Dick, the genius of the family,” giving gaiety to many pages of these diaries.

  Of Dr. Burney’s own sons, the Admiral appears to have been the most original in his ability. His wit and humour made him welcome among wits and men of letters who have preserved his name. He was so great a favourite with Mr. Crisp that Fanny often writes of him at a time when his better-known brother, the learned Dr. Charles that was to be, is only named as being “the sweetest-tempered boy in the Charterhouse School,” and Richard, Dr. Burney’s youngest son, praised only for his boyish beauty. Mr. Crisp’s interest in James Burney was an earnest of his merit.

  Susan told Mr. Crisp, “You know you do not love to throw away praise.” And how well worth having was his regard and approbation may be seen throughout these volumes. In a letter with no date but “October,” to which Fanny added many a year later, “1779, credo,” she wrote to Mr. Crisp, “Our Jem is at last come, — and I have quitted Streatham to visit him, — so now all our long anxieties and fears are over, and we are all, thank Heaven, happy, and at peace. He has brought us home an admirable journal, of which I have only read one year, but I have found it full of entertainment and matters of curiosity, and really very well-written, concise, pertinent, and rational. You will be quite delighted with it, and he means to lend it to you of his own accord.”

  Susan, the next in order of birth, although two years and a half younger than Fanny, was so early mature in mind as to influence, as well as feel with, her elder sister. In these papers no character discloses itself more delightfully than that of Susan. It is with regret that we give but few extracts from what has been preserved of her excellent “journal-letters” to Fanny, the bulk of them belonging to a time later than 1778. Susan rated her own ability far too low. She was amazed when her stepmother, Mrs. Burney, paid her the compliment of supposing her to be the joint author of “Evelina.” In a letter, which Fanny has most justly described as being “of incomparable sweetness,” Susan apologizes for occupying the precious time of such a person as Fanny with her own poor letters. All owned Susan to be a “gracious creature.” Count Louis de Narbonne said that she was “all that is ‘douce,’ with all that is ‘spirituelle’”; Owen Cambridge exclaimed to Fanny, “What a charm is that of your sister! What a peculiar felicity she has in her manner! She cannot even move, — she cannot get up, or sit down, but there is something in her manner that is s
ure to give pleasure!”