Complete Works of Frances Burney

by Frances Burney

  Dr. Hawkesworth called here lately. He has been, and still is, extremely engaged in writing this Voyage round the World, which I doubt not will be a very charming book. He is very pressing in inviting my father and family to Bromley where he lives. I should extremely like such a jaunt.

  I have had the honour, also, of seeing Mr. Baretti, author of the Journey to Spain, and many other books. He is a very good-looking man; which is all I can say, as I have not exchanged more than half a dozen words with him. But I have a most prodigious enthusiasm for authors, and wish to see all of all sorts. [And I believe they find it out; for they all look at me with benevolence. Though perhaps it is the nature of literary pursuits and meditations to soften the manners and the countenance. What would I not go through to see Dr. Johnson! Mr. Bewley accepted as a present or relic, a tuft of his hearth-broom, which my father secretly cut off, and sent to him in a frank. He thinks it more precious than pearls.]

  Monday, May 5th [? 4th].

  If my father was disposed to cultivate with the world, what a delightful acquaintance he might have! We had yesterday another noble concert, at which we had again Celestini, who led the band, and charmed us all with a solo. We had Tacet also, who gave us a solo on the flute.

  Sir William Hamilton, who my father knew at Naples, where he was Ambassador, honoured us with his assistance. He is mentioned with gratitude, in my father’s book, for his very great attention to him when abroad; as is his Lady for her fine playing. They were then Mr and Mrs. Hamilton; but he has since been created Knight of the Bath. He played out of Celestini’s book, and I believe very well.....

  Mr. Beckford brought his flute with him, and played under Tacet. He has won all our hearts by the extreme openness, good-humour, and friendly fervency of his manners. My father and Mr. Burney... played.

  Mr. Price, who I have mentioned formerly, and who is one of the macaronis of the age, came with Sir William.

  Mr. Fitzgerald, a very sensible old acquaintance of the family’s was another hearer, as was Mr. Bagnall, a yet more sensible new acquaintance. He is indeed a sweet man; his manners are all gentleness; his countenance, the picture of benevolence. I hear from my father, that he is learned, fond of the polite arts, and himself well versed in them.... His son and daughter came with him; the son has just purchased a commission in the Guards; he is too insignificant to deserve further mention. Miss Bagnall, too, though modest and obliging, does not appear to deserve a father of such shining and winning merit, as Mr. Bagnall — Dr. King completes my list.

  Mr. Burney was again the King of the evening. His performance will never, I believe, cease to be wonderful, even to such frequent hearers. When the concert was over, my father talked over with Sir William Hamilton his Italian expedition. Sir William is a very curious man, a very great naturalist, and antiquary. He took a house, or for aught I know built it, within a short distance of Mount Vesuvius, on purpose to observe its [eruptions,] and ran daily the utmost risque of his life, to satisfy his curiosity. He spoke with great pleasure of the fine eruptions he had seen, and told us that Mount AEtna was now playing the devil. He has wrote several accounts of both these mountains to the Royal Society,.... which he said he was now correcting and collecting to print in one volume. He is to return in June to Naples, unless there is an Installation, which will detain him, as he has yet received no Star, only the Garter. He said he should pass through Germany. “Shall you?” cried my father, “why, I believe I shall go to Germany this summer.”

  “Well,” cried Sir William, “if you’ll go with me, I’ll give you a cook and a bed.” I verily believe, though this was said en passant, that my father will reflect upon it, for he has an insatiable rage of adding to the materials for his History, and could not go in better company. Sir William has, in a striking degree,... a look that is sensible, penetrating, and even piercing; his singularly curious and enterprising turn seems marked strongly in his countenance.

  To this select party had Mr. Crisp and Miss Allen been added, we should scarce have wished another.

  * * * * *

  Sunday, May 10th.

  * * * * *

  My brother took leave of us last week in health and spirits. I should prefer this voyage to any in the world if my ill stars had destined me a sailor. I had a letter from him yesterday in which he tells me they shall not sail till near July. I have some hope therefore that he will be with us again.

  Monsieur L’Abbé Morellet spent this evening with my father. He is a French writer of fame; his subject, Commerce and Agriculture. He is a man of science and learning, and has lately written a book on Music, which has been very much approved. He is come to England for a few months, and we hope to have the favour of seeing him often. It was to meet this very Abbé that Mr. Garrick sent the card I have before mentioned.

  Thursday, May 21st.

  Miss Allen, — for the last time I shall so call her, — came home on Monday last. Her novel is not yet over; nevertheless, she — was married last Saturday!

  Good Heaven! what a romantic life has this beloved friend lived! I dare not commit particulars to paper — till they have taken a house, and got their servants, equipage, &c — In the mean time, from the moment he arrives he is openly to appear as her lover — and they intend being married again in England. What scenes we shall have!

  * * * * *

  [After writing came meeting. These young folks, Maria Allen and Mr. Rishton, met somewhere abroad, and were married at Ypres, on the 16th of May, 1772, Mrs. Maria reaching England, if not her “Governor,” on the 18th. Fanny and Susan were told the secret of the marriage, but all three were afraid to disclose it to the proper people, Maria’s own mother and kindred. It was most likely Fanny’s suggestion that it should be broken to, and by, Mr. Crisp. Mrs. Maria went, as Miss Allen, to see Garrick in Richard III upon the 30th of May, and, in fact, masqueraded as a single woman until the 7th of June. She then took Susan to Chesington, where a scene of confession to Mr. Crisp was arranged, which is thus described in a joint letter from the two young ladies to Fanny; who had probably designed it as an artist. Maria begins: “My dear Fan — all’s over — Crisp knows I am Maria Rishton.... To begin in a concise pleasing manner — He took me aside the first night after I had by hints hums and ha’s told him Rishy and I were to be one — and shewd him the dogs picture — well the old devil grew so scurrilous — he almost made me mad — if he had been a Mahoon he could not have merited what Crisp said. — So I sent him a message by Kate” [Cooke]—” who, with her thick skull guessed the whole affair from the beginning — that Mrs. Rishton sent compts and hoped to see him at Stanhoe this summer.” Here Susan thus begins: “Sue — he came into the room to us. Maria fell on her knees instantly and hid her face on the bed — Why what is all this? sd he. Kate claw’d hold of her left hand, and shew’d him the Ring.” Whereupon Mr. Crisp used some expressions which, among cultivated gentlemen like himself, were rather obsolete even in 1772, but were not oaths. They signified that Maria had worked too much upon his feelings, when “all the while she knew he cou’d do her no good—”

  “He then came to me—’ Susettikin,’ sd he, ‘You know all this affair — is it so?’ — I had had my cue before— ‘yes Sir — Indeed’ — — ‘She is really married,’ sd he, arching his eyebrows with such a stare of astonishment— ‘She is upon my honour’ — [MARIA:] ‘NO — No — No — Indeed — Nothing — Nothing at all — its all the lyes of that impudent little toad’ — [meaning me.] ‘ However poor Maria still kept hiding her face in agonies — which confirmed what I had before said — We shewed him the 2 letters which she has received” [from Mr. Rishton] “since she has been in England.” Soon Mr. Crisp was convinced, and laughed. After this, in his capacity of Daddy to them all, “he enquired particularly where she was married — by whom — who were the witnesses, &c., &c.” Susan writes again: “Maria, as you will perhaps guess, told a hundred lyes in a moment,” but Mr. Crisp made out from Susan, as well as from herself, enough to show him that it was “a well-w
itnessed” and valid marriage, although they could not give him any very satisfactory answers to several of his questions. “He took” (Maria away from Susan and Kitty Cooke) “into his own room.” Next “M. Rishton “ seizes the pen, and tells how (after making her give a minute account) Mr. Crisp at once (like the man of the world, which he once had been) “changed his tone about my sposo,” and even “said, in the room before Sue,” etc., “You may see he is a man of sence and a gentleman — and he had before call’d him all the designing worthless dogs he coud think of — he wont hear of our being married again as he says that woud be putting odd thoughts into people’s heads — and nothing was wanting if he had the certificate and my relations might write to Ypres if they (sic) but he insisted on the affair being immediately known and declared in a publick-way — and grew almost angry on my remonstrating — all the objections I coud make were like dirt in his eyes — what did we want with a house — while we had money in our pockets we might find a place any where — besides he woud have us go directly into Norfolk together and settle our affairs on the spot, he has wrote to Mama to tell her the whole affair and insists upon my going back to Queen Square Mrs. Rishton and writing immediately to Martin to come over. Maria is to write to my Uncles about this affair — and in short I am no longer to conceal my name. I told him what Rishton had said that people woud attribute to indifference his being absent from me now— ‘not in the least — things are exactly as they shoud be’ — that I must go to my Lord and Master the instant he arrived in London if Mama would not give him house room for a day or two till we went into Norfolk — in short I fear there will be a terrible bustle — Write me word how Mama takes it — and in what manner. I hope she will send me an answer on Tuesday as I am losing my time at Chesington which is now quite precious to me if you are asked about it tell all you know — and speak a good word for us — tell Hetty the same — and bid Molly” [Stancliffe] “not fright herself but answer clearly all the questions asked her and let her go to Mrs. Searle’s” [a milliner, or dressmaker] “to get some of my things ready to be tried on on Thursday morning — and to get on with the handkerchiefs — .... I shan’t come until I hear something from my Mother, if she is civil to you do press her to write directly that I may come up immediately on the receipt of her letter. Speak to that poor toad Molly directly — and write the return of the post yourself — Adieu my own Fan.” This letter is numbered 14, is addressed to Fanny in Queen’s Square, and has a London postmark of 8. IV. and an illegible country-mark.

  What a kind “Daddy Crisp” he was to be a father to all these girls! He let Maria off very lightly — telling her only, “What a pretty piece of work she might have made of it!” and uttering a few reflections upon “the thousand difficulties in which young people involved themselves before they were aware, by concealing things from their relations”; but even at more than a hundred years distance, we cannot help pitying Fanny, who was involved in the secret of one who had no drop of her blood, and was obliged to front the culprit’s mother, who was also her own stepmother. Nor was Fanny the bearer of a word of penitence or of apology. She was only told to look to the progress of Maria’s “things” — that is, of her trousseau, “What scenes we shall have!” writes Fanny, then draws her pen through the words. We also have had scenes out of it, for the situation of “Evelina,” disowned by her father, who had been “a very profligate young man,” and had married that “ill-advised” young lady, her mother, privately in Paris, then “infamously burnt the certificate of their marriage, and denied that they had ever been united,” might well have been suggested by some of the words and warnings which fell from Mr. Crisp on that night in June, 1772. Mainly for this have we dwelt upon Mr. Rishton and Maria Allen. How did Mrs. Burney take it? Very warmly, as well she might! We know not what she said to Fanny, but thenceforth she put obstacles in the way of her visiting Maria. She did receive the couple, sooner or later; but spoke her mind with vigour; upon one occasion giving Mr. Rishton (as poor Maria complains) an account of “every vice, fault, or foible I had ever been guilty of since my birth.” The wrath of Mrs. Burney was, most likely, not so “implacable” as Maria describes it to have been; but although Maria nobly announces that she forgets all her mother has ever made her suffer when Miss Allen now that they are parted; as Mrs. Rishton, she resented Mrs. Burney’s resentment at her marriage, for long-and-long. No mention of a second marriage has, so far, been found. The Rishtons pass from our view until the beginning of 1773. The wild “Allen” is being tamed during these next months. She has married “a Bashaw” (as she was told by his sister, Mrs. Edgell) — a very affectionate Bashaw, but still a Bashaw; although not “a Mahoon,” as Mr. Crisp had almost made him out to be, but just an only son, inclined to show and extravagance, sensitive as to what appearance was made by the careless Maria, touchy towards his kindred and hers, with many dislikes of people, which she fell into, but a loving husband when he was humoured, as he always seems to have been during the years of their married life of which we have cognizance through the letters of his wife to Fanny.]

  No wonder that this Fan should prove

  A vehicle to convey love;

  But to return it I desire,

  Lest it too much should fan the fire.

  I think the lines worth preserving; so flew [out of the room] to write them down.

  I have had a very clever letter from my dear Daddy Crisp; I am charmed at entering into a correspondence with him.

  * * * * * *

  My dear father intends going to Germany this summer, to see if he can gather any materials for his History of Music. If the most indefatigable pains and industry will render his work worthy of approbation, it will meet with the greatest.

  May 30th.

  Maria, Susan, and myself had the happiness to see Garrick, last night, in Richard the Third. We had always longed to see him in all his great characters, though least in this which is so shocking, though not the least, of the praise of his acting (SIC).... Garrick was sublimely horrible! Good Heavens — how he made me shudder whenever he appeared! It is inconceivable how terribly great he is in this character! I will never see him so disfigured again; he seemed so truly the monster he performed, that I felt myself glow with indignation every time I saw him. The applause he met with, exceeds all belief of the absent. I thought at the end they would have torn the house down: our seats shook under us.

  My mother has at length spoken to Maria about Mr. Rishton, and I hope...

  [It may be remarked that what remains of this year’s Diary is prior to Dr. Burney’s departure on his German Tour, in July, 1772. Fanny fills the gap in her Memoir of her father, and gives an account of his severe illness on his return, in the very stormy weather of December, 1772; and of the droll, but dismal, incident, that he was so much exhausted by sea-sickness, that when he was told that the sailing-vessel had reached Dover, he begged to be left to rest before landing, fell asleep, was forgotten, and woke, in mid-channel, to find himself on his way back to Calais, with another stormy passage to Dover before him. He had a most severe illness on reaching Queen’s Square, was sent to Chesington on recovery, and forbidden writing books for some time. The affectionate outburst in praise of Dr. Burney, written in the beginning of the Diary for January, 1773, may have been a tribute from Fanny to his patience and cheerfulness in illness.]

  1773

  [To give an account of the condition of this year’s journal would be to repeat much of what has been said of others. One point of difference is to be noted, this is much more bulky; partly because Fanny’s pleasure in writing grew with her age, partly because it consists of two journals; one of them private, to which another has been attached, which is addressed to her sister Susan. This latter describes a delightful visit to Devonshire. The following extract from a letter of Maria Rishton’s to Fanny, is a piece of playful rhodomontade about what was, perhaps, one of those bursts of authorship which Fanny no longer tried to restrain. It is convenient to place it here, although it was written aft
er the Teignmouth visit.

  “And so by way of return to the very Curious Manuscript I received I have named the first Cow I ever was Mistress of Fanny. How can I thank you enough my friend for the Invaluable Treasure you have sent me. My workmen are now employed in turning an Arched Vault where it is to be deposited in An Iron Chest to preserve it from the Ravages of Times and hand down this Valuable piece of Antiquity to future Ages yet unborn — I intend leaving it as An Inheritance to one of my Sons who shall be instructed Early in All the Hidden misteries of Science that he may understand this great production — but as I am Afraid I am not Worthy of being Mother to such A Son I must select some favorite of the Muses to intrust this Treasure with — How came you in possession of this precious pearl? — and how is it possible your Friend ship coud Transport you so far to let you part with it — Happy Britain! to live to see the days when thy Children are Capable of Such Astonishing Actions — but my gratitude transports me so far I am unable to pursue the Theme, and heartily I coud with propriety begin your Tambour Apron At this Time — and so you wish all how and About us — upon my head is so filled with household affairs And my life at Stanhoe is so different from the Serenity of Tingmouth I can bring my ideas into order enough to Attempt anything in the Narritive Style” — ]

  January 16th, Queen’s Square.

  London

  I shall begin this year without any preamble, having nothing new to say. I am in the situation of the Poet-Laureat, and with him may exclaim:

  For on a subject so to tatters tore;

  What can be said, that ha’nt been said before?