Complete Works of Frances Burney

by Frances Burney

  The close of 1792 was saddened by the sudden death of Miss Burney’s brother-in-law, Mr. Francis of Aylsham, — an event which detained her for some time in Norfolk. It is about this time, too, that we begin to hear of the French refugees whose arrival in this country, previous to the execution of Louis the Sixteenth, was to exercise so important an influence upon Fanny’s fortunes. The letters of Mrs. Phillips from Mickleham are much occupied with these illustrious exiles. There is the Duc de Liancourt, who has escaped to England in a small boat covered with faggots; there is Mme. de Broglie, who has taken a little cottage hard by in the hamlet of West Humble. There is a group who have clubbed to rent Juniper Hall — a delightful and still existent house on the road between Mickleham and Burford Bridge. This group, or syndicate, consists of Count Louis de Narbonne, ex-Minister of War; of the Marquise de la Châtre and her son; of M. de Montmorency, “a ci-devant Duc”; of M. de Jaucourt; and afterwards of Mme. de Staël, and M. Ch. Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, late Bishop of Autun, — not yet the terrible old man of Maclise’s sketch and Rossetti’s scathing description,[73] but a dignified personage of eight-and-thirty. Finally there was M. de Narbonne’s friend, M. Alexandre D’Arblay, an artillery officer, maréchal de camp and former adjutant-general to La Fayette. On the night of the flight to Varennes he had been on guard at the Tuileries. With all these pathetic figures of exile, the waif and stray of a fallen Constitution, Mrs. Phillips, with her French traditions and education, was delighted; but particularly with the last. “He seems to me” — she writes to Fanny in November— “a true militaire, franc et loyal — open as the day — warmly affectionate to his friends — intelligent, ready, and amusing in conversation, with a great share of gaieté de cœur, and at the same time, of naïveté and bonne foi.” Further, he was announced to be about forty, tall, with a good figure, and a frank and manly countenance. Like his friend, Narbonne, he had lost almost everything, but what Narbonne had left they were to share. “Quoique ce soit, nous le partagerons ensemble,” he said. “Je ne m’en fais pas le moindre scrupule, puisque nous n’avons eu qu’un intérêt commun, et nous nous sommes toujours aimés comme frères.”

  Early in January, having duly presented herself at Buckingham House on the Queen’s Birthday, Fanny set out for Norbury Park, arriving just after the news of the execution of Louis the Sixteenth, an event which of course overwhelmed her. With her quick sympathies, she was soon absorbed by the interesting tenants of Junipère, as they called it; and they, on their side, were equally interested in the author of Cecilia.[74] Mme. de Staël, who was now at the head of the little French colony, was especially amiable to the lady whom she designates “la première femme d’Angleterre”; and Fanny seems to have been delighted from the first with Narbonne and his friend. M. D’Arblay — she tells her father— “is one of the most delightful characters I have ever met, for openness, probity, intellectual knowledge, and unhackneyed manners.” Very soon she is being pressed by Mme. de Staël — who is as ardent as Mrs. Thrale — to come and stay at Juniper. Concurrently, M. D’Arblay, who, in addition to his other good qualities, turns out to be “passionately fond of literature, a most delicate critic in his own language, well versed in both Italian and German, and a very elegant poet,”[75] undertakes to teach her French in return for lessons in English. Dr. Burney, who received these confidences (per favour of M. de Talleyrand en route to his too expensive lodgings in Woodstock Street), and no doubt recollected the similar relations of Sir Charles Grandison and Clementina, must have foreseen the result — not without misgiving. He did not like Talleyrand; there was gossip afloat about Narbonne and Mme. de Staël; and at length, when “this enchanting M. D’Arblay” (as Fanny calls him to Mrs. Locke) openly expressed what was no doubt a genuine affection for his daughter, he was naturally averse from a match which promised so little, as the gentleman had no prospect of regaining his lost fortune, and Fanny had only her pension and her pen. But romance, and the world, were, as usual, against common sense; and after retreating for a little “maiden meditation” to Chessington, whither she was promptly followed by her lover, Fanny was eventually married to M. D’Arblay at Mickleham Church on the 31st July, 1793, Captain Burney, in the absence of his father, giving her away. Owing to the bridegroom’s being a Roman Catholic, the ceremony was, on the following day, repeated at the chapel of the Sardinian Ambassador in London — the object being that, if by any chance M. D’Arblay came to his own again, his wife might not be debarred from participation. Their means for the present were limited to Fanny’s pension, which, it had been feared, might be withdrawn. This fear, however, must have been removed. Mr. Locke gave them a site for a cottage in Norbury Park, adding cheerfully that after all, £100 per annum was but the income of many curates. But the view of the outsiders is expressed by Miss Maria Josepha Holroyd in a letter to her friend Miss Firth. “I must desire you” — she writes— “to wonder at Miss Burney’s marriage if I have not mentioned it before. She met with Monsieur D’Arblay at Mr. Locke’s, therefore probably Mme. de Staël was in the secret.” . . . “He [M. D’Arblay] is even worse off than many other Emigrants, who have at least a futurity of Order in France to look forward to. But this man is disinherited by his father, for the part he took in politics, having followed LaFayette on his Étât Major. Miss Burney has nothing but the 100l from the Queen. Should you not have formed a better opinion of the author of Cecilia?”[76]

  The match, not the less, was a thoroughly happy one. “Never,” — says Mme. D’Arblay’s niece,— “never was union more blessed and felicitous; though after the first eight years of unmingled happiness, it was assailed by many calamities, chiefly of separation or illness, yet still mentally unbroken.” Pending the arrival of funds for building the cottage in Norbury Park, they went into temporary lodgings in Phenice or Phœnix Farm, and subsequently migrated to what she calls— “a very small house in the suburbs of a very small village called Bookham” — about two miles from Mickleham. Very early in his wedded life M. D’Arblay announced his intention of taking part in the Toulon Expedition; but fortunately for his wife, his services, for reasons which do not appear, were not accepted by the Government. Upon this he settled down quietly to domesticity and gardening — in which he was apparently more energetic than expert. “Abdolonime,”[77] writes Mme. D’Arblay to her father after his first visit to the Bookham hermitage,—”’Abdolonime’ [who figures her husband] has no regret but that his garden was not in better order; he was a little piqué, he confesses, that you said it was not very neat — and, to be shor! — but his passion is to do great works: he undertakes with pleasure, pursues with energy, and finishes with spirit, but, then, all is over! He thinks the business once done always done; and to repair, and amend, and weed, and cleanse, — O, these are drudgeries insupportable to him!” However, he seems to have succeeded in “plantant des choux,” as it is admitted that the Bookham cabbages were remarkable for freshness and flavour; and when La Fayette’s ex-adjutant mowed down the hedge with his sabre, his wife was “the most contente personne in the world” to see that warlike weapon so peaceably employed. Madame herself, after composing a not very persuasive Address to the Ladies of England on behalf of the Emigrant French clergy, was plying her pen upon a new novel and a tragedy. Then, at the close of 1794, — a year which had not been “blemished with one regretful moment,” her activities were interrupted by the birth (Dec. 18) of a son, who was christened Alexandre Charles Louis Piochard, his prénoms being derived from his father, and his godfathers, Dr. Burney junior, and the Count de Narbonne.

  The tragedy was the earlier of Mme. D’Arblay’s new works to see the light. She had begun it, she says, at Kew, and she finished it at Windsor (August, 1790), without any specific intention either of production or publication. Having been read by some of her family and friends, it was shown by her brother Charles to John Kemble, who pronounced for its acceptance. A few days before the birth of her son it was suddenly required for Sheridan’s inspection, with the result that, acc
ording to the author’s account, it was brought out at Drury Lane without the full revision she intended, and as she subsequently had a seven weeks’ illness, was never in a position, to give it. On the 21st March, 1795, it was played. But not even the Kembles and Mrs. Siddons, aided as they were by Bensley and Palmer, could secure a success for Edwy and Elgiva, nor could the fact that there were no fewer than three Bishops among the dramatis personae, save it from being withdrawn, nominally “for alterations,” after one solitary performance. Mme. D’Arblay quite reasonably attributes some of its ill-fortune to her inability to correct it and superintend the rehearsals; and, in a later letter, which gives an account of its fate, she lays stress upon the very unsatisfactory acting of some of the subordinate performers. But though Edwy and Elgiva was never printed, the MS., which still exists, has been carefully examined by a capable critic, whose report leaves little room for doubt as to the real cause of its faint reception.[78] Though at some points there is a certain stir and action, the plot generally lacks incident and movement. But what is said to be fatal is the “incurable poverty of its stilted language, its commonplace sentiments, and its incorrect and inharmonious versification.” The specimens given of the blank verse are certainly of the most unhappy kind. From the fact that the MS. is carefully pencilled with amendments in French and English, it is probable that, just as “Daddy” Crisp had, to the last, believed in Virginia, the author must have continued to believe in Edwy and Elgiva. But though Cumberland — always forgiving to a failure — professed that the players had lent it an ill-name, and offered to risk his life on its success if it were re-cast and submitted to his inspection, it is not likely the audience were radically wrong. What is wonderful is, that Sheridan and Kemble should have accepted it, and that Mrs. Siddons should have consented to play the heroine.

  When, a month after the production of Edwy and Elgiva, Warren Hastings, to Mme. D’Arblay’s great delight, was finally acquitted, she was apparently hard at work upon her new novel, with which she makes as rapid progress as is consistent with the absorbing care of the little personage whom she styles the “Bambino,” and to whom she hopes “it may be a little portion.” In June she tells a friend that it has been a long time in hand, and will be published in about a year. But, owing to the expenses of the press, she has now — money being a very definite object — decided to act upon the advice, formerly given to her by Burke, and to print by subscription. “This is in many — many ways,” she writes, “unpleasant and unpalatable to us both; but the chance of real use and benefit to our little darling overcomes all scruples, and, therefore, to work we go.” The Honble. Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Crewe and Mrs. Locke consented to keep the subscription books. The result of this contrivance, which Dr. Burney (who was generally unfortunate as an adviser) did not at first approve, was a complete pecuniary success. Camilla; or, a Picture of Youth, was issued in the middle of 1796, in five volumes, 8vo., with a list of subscribers rivalling that of Prior to the poems of 1718. It occupies thirty-eight pages; and the whole is headed by the Duchess of York, and the Duke of Gloucester. The volumes are dedicated, from Bookham, to the Queen, who, when they were presented to her at Windsor by Mme. D’Arblay and her husband in person, repaid the compliment by a purse of one hundred guineas from herself and the King. Many persons took more than one copy. Warren Hastings interested himself specially for his staunch adherent, and engaged to attack the East Indies on her behalf. Burke, a sad and mourning man, who had lost both son and brother, subscribed nevertheless for them, as well as for his wife, sending £20 for a single copy; three of the Miss Thrales took ten copies, Mrs. Piozzi two, and so forth. It would be idle to select further names; but two are of special interest. One is that of “Miss J. Austen, Steventon”; the other that of the sworn adversary of “what you call stuff,” Mrs. Schwellenberg, who with Miss Planta and Miss Goldsworthy rallied round an old colleague. The names of Colonel Digby and his wife are significantly absent.[79] The result of all this effort was encouraging. About a month after publication Dr. Burney told Horace Walpole that his daughter had made £2000; and three months after publication only five hundred copies remained out of four thousand. The selling price was one guinea, so that Macaulay’s estimate that the author “cleared more than three thousand guineas” is, — allowing for fancy payments and the Queen’s douceur, and deducting for the cost of publication, — probably below the mark upon this occasion.

  Camilla, however, could not be called a literary success, even by its contemporaries, and certainly was not an advance upon the writer’s previous works. Horace Walpole, who had regretted the live-burial of the author’s talents in the Windsor antechambers, was too frank to disguise his disappointment. He had not cared for Cecilia as much as Evelina: he thought the “deplorable Camilla” infinitely worse than Cecilia. “Madame D’Arblay,” — he wrote to Hannah More in August, 1796, — had “reversed experience.” She had known the world and penetrated character before she had stepped over the threshold, “and, now she had seen so much of it, she had little or no insight at all.” This, of course, did not prevent the Monthly Review from politely comparing her to Homer, — both for occasionally nodding and for the peculiar distinctness and propriety of her delineations of character. But though Mme. D’Arblay still deserves the praise which Burke had formerly given to her, and which the Monthly Review repeats, of assigning “to each person a language of his own, and preserving it uniformly through the work,” the maze of misapprehensions which encompass the loves of Camilla Tyrold and Edgar Mandlebert grows sadly tedious, and the book, it must be confessed, is difficult reading. Whether, if it had been written in the style of Evelina, it would have been more attractive, is impossible to say: the style in which it is in great part written, by reason of its absurd roundabout pomposity, is simply unendurable. “Where opinion may humour systematic prepossession, who shall build upon his virtue or wisdom to guard the transparency of his impartiality” — is one of the sentences which even Mr. Griffiths’ review is forced to characterise as “singularly obscure.” Obscure it certainly is; but it is not by any means single, for there are other passages to pattern. For this extraordinary degradation of manner various reasons have been assigned. It has been ascribed to recollections of Johnson, — to imitation of Dr. Burney, — to the influence of a French husband, — to the inflation superinduced upon a court appointment. There is another cause that has not been mentioned, which we suspect had more to do with the matter than any of the things suggested. This is, that Mme. D’Arblay had recently been engaged in the composing of much indifferent blank verse; and like other distinguished authors, she fell insensibly into this laboured style whenever she had anything to say in her own person which she regarded as unusually fine. And it is curious that the manner must have been adopted de parti pris, for, as the “Abdolonime” quotation on an earlier page almost suffices to show, she was, at this very time, writing easy and graphic letters to her friends. But apart from the style, and the fact that the personages reproduce, in many instances, the earlier types, there is still humour and careful character-drawing in the Orkbornes and Dubsters and Clarendels of Camilla. And even the impatient modern may care to remember that in Chapter V. of Northanger Abbey Jane Austen does not scruple to couple it with Cecilia and Miss Edgeworth’s Belinda in terms of enthusiastic praise; and that Charles Lamb himself, in a sonnet to Fanny’s novelist step-sister Sarah Harriet, referring to her elder as —

  “renowned for many a tale

  Of faithful love perplexed” —

  goes on to commend specially the character of Sir Hugh Tyrold —

  “that good

  Old man, who, as CAMILLA’S guardian, stood

  In obstinate virtue clad like coat of mail.”[80]

  At the close of 1796 Mme. D’Arblay lost her step-mother. By this time she was apparently engaged in converting the gains from Camilla into bricks and mortar. Upon a piece of land in a field at West Humble, leased to her husband by Mr. Locke of Norbury,[81] they built a cottage, to whic
h, at Dr. Burney’s suggestion, they gave the name of the novel;[82] and the letters at this date are full of the activities of M. D’Arblay, who was his own sole architect and surveyor, in planning his new garden, digging a well, and constructing a sunk fence to prevent the inroads of the domestic (and prospective) cow. As may be anticipated, the cost of building largely exceeded the estimate. “Our new habitation” — she writes in August, 1797— “will very considerably indeed exceed our first intentions and expectations”; and not much remained when the bills for Camilla Cottage were discharged. The expenses of living in war time, too, were exceptionally heavy, and various expedients were suggested to replenish the pot-au-feu, including the liberal planting of potatoes in every corner of the little property. It was perhaps wise that under this pressure Mme. D’Arblay did not fall in with Mrs. Crewe’s proposal that she should edit an Anti-Jacobin journal to be styled The Breakfast Table. But she again attempted the stage with a comedy called Love and Fashion, which, in 1799, was actually accepted and put into rehearsal by Harris of Covent Carden. Dr. Burney, however, had set his heart upon fiction. It was in vain that his daughter protested that all her life she had been urged to write a comedy, and that to write a comedy was her ambition. Moreover, that the incidents and effects for a drama occurred to her, and the combinations for a long work did not. Her father was seized with a panic of failure, and early in 1800 Love and Fashion was hastily withdrawn. Before this took place, Mme. D’Arblay had the misfortune to lose her sister, Mrs. Phillips, who since 1796 had been resident in Ireland. She died on the 6th January, when on her way to visit her relations. In 1801, the preliminaries for the short-lived Peace of Amiens having been signed, and the difficulties of the domestic situation being urgent, M. D’Arblay decided to return to France, hoping vaguely, first, to recover his lost property, and, secondly, to obtain from Napoleon something in the nature of a recognition of his past military services. Ultimately, having stipulated that he should not be called upon to serve against his wife’s country, and having besides pledged himself to the Alien office, when obtaining his passport, not to return to that country for a year, he found himself in the double predicament of getting nothing, and being obliged to remain in France, whither he accordingly summoned his bonne amie and his son.