For the next year, 1777, there is only one letter to Mr. Crisp; but it is an important one, since it gives Miss Burney’s account of her first meeting with Dr. Johnson, to which accident, indeed, it owes its preservation. Dr. Burney had for some time known Johnson slightly, — he had written to him from Lynn with regard to the Dictionary; he had also met him at intervals; and, as we have seen, Johnson, notwithstanding his insensibility to music, had read and appreciated the Musical Tours. Writing Dr. Burney’s Memoirs in extreme old age, his daughter seems to have thought that Johnson had already accompanied her father to Winchester to put his youngest son, Richard, under the care of the then Head Master of that day, Joseph Warton; and that he had also, before this date, interested himself to procure Dr. Burney access to the libraries at Oxford. But her memory must have led her astray, for both these things, as is plain from Boswell, belong to 1778, while Miss Burney’s “first sight” of the great man demonstrably took place on the 20th March, 1777,[25] and came about in this wise. Dr. Burney had been invited by Mr. and Mrs. Thrale to give lessons in music to their eldest daughter, Queenie, afterwards Viscountess Keith. Report says that the lessons were not a great success, since Mrs. Thrale was in the habit of interrupting them sadly in order to talk politics and literature with the clever Historian of Music. But, as usual, Dr. Burney speedily became a favourite with all the household; and, as Johnson was then staying at Streatham, one of the results was a joint visit by the Doctor and Mrs. Thrale to St. Martin’s Street, which visit was promptly reported by Fanny for consumption at Chessington. It took place fourteen years before Boswell’s book, and as printed in the Early Diary of 1889, exhibits a fresher version than that put forward later by the writer herself in the Memoirs of her father. No excuse therefore is needed for giving it the preference here.
“Mrs. and Miss Thrale, Miss Owen, and Mr. Seward came long before Lexiphanes. [This was a name given to Johnson in 1767, in a little book written to burlesque his style by a Scotch purser named Campbell.] Mrs. Thrale is a very pretty woman still; she is extremely lively and chatty; has no supercilious or pedantic airs, and is really gay and agreeable. Her daughter [Queenie] is about twelve years old, stiff and proud, I believe, or else shy and reserved: I don’t yet know which.” . . . “My sister Burney [Esther] was invited to meet and play to them. The conversation was supported with a good deal of vivacity (N.B. my father being at home) for about half an hour, and then Hetty and Susette, for the first time in public, played a duet; and in the midst of this performance Dr. Johnson was announced. He is, indeed, very ill-favoured; is tall and stout; but stoops terribly; he is almost bent double. His mouth is almost constantly opening and shutting, as if he was chewing. He has a strange method of frequently twirling his fingers, and twisting his hands. His body is in continual agitation, see-sawing up and down; his feet are never a moment quiet; and, in short, his whole person is in perpetual motion. His dress, too, considering the times, and that he had meant to put on his best becomes, being engaged to dine in a large company [at Mrs. Montagu’s], was as much out of the common road as his figure; he had a large wig, snuff-colour coat, and gold buttons, but no ruffles to his shirt, doughty fists,[26] and black worsted stockings. He is shockingly near-sighted, and did not, till she held out her hand to him, even know Mrs. Thrale. He poked his nose over the keys of the harpsichord, till the duet was finished, and then my father introduced Hetty to him as an old acquaintance, and he cordially kissed her! When she was a little girl, he had made her a present of The Idler.
“His attention, however, was not to be diverted five minutes from the books, as we were in the library; he pored over them, shelf by shelf, almost touching the backs of them with his eye-lashes, as he read their titles. At last, having fixed upon one, he began, without further ceremony, to read to himself, all the time standing at a distance from the company. We were all very much provoked, as we perfectly languished to hear him talk; but it seems he is the most silent creature, when not particularly drawn out, in the world.
“My sister then played another duet with my father; but Dr. Johnson was so deep in the Encyclopédie that, as he is very deaf, I question if he even knew what was going forward. When this was over, Mrs. Thrale, in a laughing manner, said, ‘Pray, Dr. Burney, can you tell me what that song was and whose, which Savoi sung last night at Bach’s concert, and which you did not hear?’ My father confessed himself by no means so good a diviner, not having had time to consult the stars, though in the house of Sir Isaac Newton. However, wishing to draw Dr. Johnson into some conversation, he told him the question. The Doctor, seeing his drift, good-naturedly put away his book, and said very drolly, ‘And pray, Sir, who is Bach? is he a piper?’ Many exclamations of surprise you will believe followed this question. ‘Why, you have read his name often in the papers,’ said Mrs. Thrale; and then she gave him some account of his Concert, and the number of fine performances she had heard at it.[27]
“‘Pray,’ said he, gravely, ‘Madam, what is the expense?’
“‘Oh,’ answered she, ‘much trouble and solicitation to get a Subscriber’s Ticket; — or else half a Guinea.’
“‘Trouble and solicitation,’ said he, ‘I will have nothing to do with; but I would be willing to give eighteen pence.’
“Ha! ha!
“Chocolate being then brought, we adjourned to the drawing-room. And here, Dr. Johnson being taken from the books, entered freely and most cleverly into conversation; though it is remarkable he never speaks at all, but when spoken to; nor does he ever start, though he so admirably supports, any subject.
“The whole party were engaged to dine at Mrs. Montague’s. Dr. Johnson said he had received the most flattering note he had ever read, or that anybody had ever read, by way of invitation. ‘Well! so have I too,’ cried Mrs. Thrale; ‘so if a note from Mrs. Montague is to be boasted of, I beg mine may not be forgot.’
“‘Your note,’ cried Dr. Johnson, ‘can bear no comparison with mine; I am at the head of the Philosophers, she says.’
“‘And I,’ cried Mrs. Thrale, ‘have all the Muses in my train!’
“‘A fair battle,’ said my father. ‘Come, compliment for compliment, and see who will hold out longest!’
“‘Oh, I am afraid for Mrs. Thrale,’ cried Mr. Seward, ‘for I know Mrs. Montague exerts all her forces, when she attacks Dr. Johnson.’
“‘Oh yes,’ said Mrs. Thrale, ‘she has often, I know, flattered him, till he has been ready to faint.’
“‘Well, ladies,’ said my father, ‘you must get him between you to-day, and see which can lay on the paint thickest, Mrs. Thrale or Mrs. Montague.’
“‘I had rather,’ cried the Doctor, drily, ‘go to Bach’s Concert.’”
The talk then shifted to Garrick, who, having retired from the stage in the previous year, had been recently reading his farce of Lethe to the King and Queen. Dr. Johnson spoke of his old friend and pupil with his wonted candour, and not without touches of critical humour which must have been highly relished by that still-sore author of Virginia to whom Miss Burney’s budget was addressed. Of Garrick’s popular faults Johnson said— “Garrick is accused of vanity; but few men would have borne such unremitting prosperity with greater, if with equal moderation. He is accused, too, of avarice; but, were he not, he would be accused of just the contrary; for he now lives rather as a prince than an actor; but the frugality he practised, when he first appeared in the world, and which, even then, was perhaps beyond his necessity, has marked his character ever since; and now, though his table, his equipage and manner of living, are all the most expensive, and equal to those of a nobleman, yet the original stain still blots his name! Though, had he not fixed upon himself the charge of avarice, he would long since have been reproached with luxury and with living beyond his station in magnificence and splendour.” Another of the Doctor’s animadversions serves to explain an aspect of the actor’s character which has already been illustrated in this chapter.[28] “Garrick never enters a room,” he said, “but he reg
ards himself as the object of general attention, from whom the entertainment of the company is expected; and true it is, that he seldom disappoints them; for he has infinite humour, a very just proportion of wit, and more convivial pleasantry, than almost any other man. But then off as well as on the Stage, he is always an Actor; for he thinks it so incumbent on him to be sportive, that his gaiety becomes mechanical from being habitual, and he can exert his spirits at all times alike, without consulting his real disposition to hilarity.”[29]
Previous to Dr. Johnson’s visit to St. Martin’s Street, Miss Burney had been staying at Chessington, whence, to the disgust of Mr. Crisp, she had been hastily recalled to meet her uncle, Mr. Richard Burney of Worcester, whose son Charles her sister Hetty had married. She then went on a visit to her uncle at Barborne (familiarly “Barebones”) Lodge, a little out of Worcester; and here she took part in some private theatricals, playing Mrs. Lovemore in what was apparently the first three-act form of Murphy’s Way to Keep Him, a comedy in which there are manifest traces of that pioneer sentimental drama, La Chaussée’s Préjugé à-la-mode — the prejudice in question being, that it is a mistake to love one’s wife. She seems, by her own account, to have been terribly nervous (in green and gray); but to have acquitted herself creditably in the crucial third Act. She afterwards appeared as Huncamunca in Fielding’s burlesque of Tom Thumb, the rival character of Glumdalca being taken by her cousin James, and that of Lord Grizzle by Edward Burney the artist. The Tom Thumb of the piece was the youngest of the family, Ann or Nancy, a child of seven, the daughter of Charles Burney and Hetty. By this time Miss Burney had entirely got over her stage fright, and entered thoroughly into her part of Tom Thumb’s fiancée.
One of the things Huncamunca has to do in Tom Thumb is to express her anxiety to be married. It is not, however, this unbecoming aspiration (upon which Miss Burney was of course afterwards sufficiently rallied) that prompts the “Oh! Huncamunca, Huncamunca, oh!” of Fielding’s parody of Thomson. But the point serves to remind us that, in this chapter, nothing has been said of Miss Burney’s admirers. Scattered through her Journal are various fugitive references to different gentlemen, old and young, who were evidently attracted by her vivacity and charm, shy and demure as she professed to be. But she had not yet realised her own ambition, and fallen seriously in love. “I am too much spoilt,” she says, “by such men as my father and Mr. Crisp to content myself with a character merely inoffensive.” These words were written of an importunate suitor, with the unpromising name of Thomas Barlow, who made his appearance early in May, 1775. He seems to have been very much in earnest, indeed, — to use the expression of Mr. Toots, of whom he somehow contrives to remind us, — to have been “perfectly sore” with devotion. His ardent, or (as he terms it) “ardurous” Pen addresses to Miss Burney several long-winded and very alembicate epistles, but she will have none of him, although, strange to say, nearly all her family, including the paternal Crisp, — who was particularly urgent that she should not lose a chance of establishing herself, — favour Mr. Barlow’s pretensions. But, as she very sensibly tells Mr. Crisp, she is “determined never to marry without having the very highest value and esteem for the man who should be her lord.” And Mr. Barlow, besides that he is “extremely precipitate,” does not “hit her fancy.” So there is no more to say.
Upon the whole, when it is remembered that this retiring but observant young lady of five-and-twenty had a travelled sailor brother, and two sisters who had been educated at Paris; — that she had seen the town and country both in London and King’s Lynn; — that she had read Richardson and Marivaux and Sterne, if not Fielding; — that she knew Sir Joshua and Nollekens, and was familiar with the acting of Garrick, both on and off the stage; — that she had heard Agujari at her best, and the Gabrielli at her worst; — that she had been introduced to Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale; — that she had conversed with Otaheitan Omai, eaten roast apples with Abyssinian Bruce, and been allowed to inspect what Horace Walpole calls the “infamous diamonds” of the veneered barbarian, Alexis Orloff, — it will, we think, be admitted that her experience of things in general had been of a very varied kind. If to this be added that she was a copious and diligent diarist; — the sworn “anecdote-monger” of a distant correspondent; — and the faithful secretary of a scribbling father — it must also be granted that she was by no means ill-equipped for the production of that work of fiction to the story of which the ensuing chapter is devoted.
[12] Catherine Hyde was still living in Fanny Burney’s day; and Fanny saw her at Covent Garden Theatre in January, 1773, when Mason’s Elfrida was being acted. “I had the pleasure to see Prior’s celebrated fair ‘Kitty, beautiful and young,’ now called Kitty, beautiful and old, in the stage box.” (Early Diary, 1889, i. .)
[13] “There are now,” said Cunningham, writing as far back as 1849, “at least 2 square miles of brick and mortar between it [Queen Square] and the view.” (Handbook for London, ii. .)
[14] See ante, .
[15] In Recreations and Studies of A Country Clergyman of the Eighteenth Century [Thomas Twining], 1882, there are several letters from Twining to Burney and vice versa, some of which will be hereafter cited.
[16] “So much of his [Garrick’s] drollery belongs to his voice, looks and manner,” says the Diary, “that writing loses it almost all.” Yet more than forty years afterwards, in her Memoirs of her father (1832, i. p-3), she expanded the above, about seven lines in the original, to a page and three quarters. It is clear that she worked from the Diary, for some of the expressions are identical. But many decorative particulars are added to the record of Garrick’s visit, which are not in the first account. We have preferred the earlier, if less picturesque, narrative. Boswell, of course, has nothing of this anecdote; which was not printed until long after his death.
[17] The fate of Cowper’s “gentle savage” was pathetic. Painted by Reynolds and patronised by Lord Sandwich, — lionised by Lady Townshend and the Duchess of Devonshire, — he was suffered to go back once more to his own people, among whom he had neither status nor importance. He died soon after, having shown himself (says Vancouver) both “vain and silly.” And no wonder!
[18] Agujari, according to Grove’s Dictionary of Music, was the highest and most extended soprano on record. Her voice reached “from the middle of the harpsichord to two notes above it,” says Miss Burney.
[19] He is generally called “Count.” But in her letters, diary, and Memoirs, Fanny styles him “Prince.”
[20] Early Diary, 1889, ii. 121.
[21] Memoirs of the Margravine of Anspach, 1826, ii. 125.
[22] Dr. Burney evidently had mild qualms about these Sunday concerts. When after the first occasion here referred to, Dr. King and Dr. Ogle supped at St. Martin’s Street, he said that he hoped for absolution from them if there was any crime in having music on a Sunday. To which Dr. Ogle replied discreetly that music was an excellent thing any and every day; and Dr. King evasively— “Have we not music at church?”
[23] The second volume appeared in 1782, and the third and fourth volumes, completing the work, in 1789.
[24] In September, 1785, Miss Sally Payne married Captain James Burney, Fanny’s brother.
[25] Early Diary, 1889, ii. 153; Birkbeck Hill’s Johnson’s Letters, 1892, ii. 5, and note.
[26] The editor of the Early Diary “strongly suspects” that these words in the altered MS. were originally “dirty fists.” There are other indications that later corrections have somewhat modified the portrait.
[27] The Bach referred to was Bach’s son, John Christian Bach, or (as he was called) “English” Bach. He was a famous harpsichord player, who, with Abel of the viol de gamba, conducted Mrs. Cornelys’ concerts in Soho Square.
[28] See ante, p-40.
[29] Early Diary, 1889, ii. p-60.
CHAPTER III. THE STORY OF EVELINA
At the beginning of 1778, English Literature, and especially that branch of it which consists of fiction, seems to have b
een suffering from a kind of sleeping sickness. The great masters who had followed upon Richardson’s success with Pamela, were gone, — as was Richardson himself. Fielding, whose last novel of Amelia had appeared in 1751, was dead; and his far younger rival, Smollett, whose Humphry Clinker came twenty years later, was also dead. Sterne was dead; Goldsmith was dead; and both Tristram Shandy and the Vicar of Wakefield had been a considerable time before the public. Johnson, whose Rasselas dated from 1759, and Horace Walpole, whose Castle of Otranto dated from 1764, were the only living writers of fiction of any eminence, for it is impossible to give a very high place to the Julia de Roubigné of Sterne’s tearful imitator, Henry Mackenzie, or to the Champion of Virtue, which Walpole’s disciple, Miss Clara Reeve, afterwards re-named The Old English Baron. Both of these, however, belong to 1777. Apart from them, there is nothing that rises above the average level of the
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