My poor mother is extremely ill of a bilious fever. This is the third night that I have sit up with her; but I hope to Heaven, that she is now in a way to recover. She has been most exceeding kind to us, since her return to town; which makes me the more sensibly feel her illness — She is now sleeping, so is her nurse, and I write to avoid the contagion.
* * * * * *
Dr. Fothergill, the celebrated Quaker, is mama’s physician. I doubt not his being a man of great skill; but his manners are stiff, set, and unpleasant. His conversation consists of sentences spoken with the utmost solemnity, conciseness, and importance. He is an upright, stern, formal-looking old man. He enters the room, and makes his address with his hat always on, and lest that mark of his sect should pass unnoticed, the hat which he wears, is of the most enormous size I ever beheld. Nevertheless, this old prig sometimes affects something bordering upon gallantry. The first time he came, after he had been with Mrs. Allen to the bed-side, and spoken to mama, — and then written her prescription; — he stalked up to me, and endeavouring to arrange his rigid features to something which resembled a smile; “And what,” cried he, “must we do for this young lady’s cough?” Then he insisted on feeling my pulse, and with a kind of dry pleasantry, said, “Well, we will wait till to-morrow; we wont lose any blood to-night.”
Novr. 24th, 2 in the morning.
Though it is now a fortnight since I wrote last, I take up my pen exactly in the same situation and with the same view, as I then did, — save that mama is exceedingly recovered, and thank God! nearly well. Since I wrote last, I have myself been ill with a sore throat, which I believe was the effect of over-rating my strength. Dr. Fothergill has been my very good friend, and that, whether I would or not. He immediately perceived when I was taken ill, and after seeing mama, said to me, “I am afraid thee art not well thyself?” On examining my throat, he advised me to be very careful; for that it was catching, the sort which I had, which was the putrid, though in a slight degree. He told me what to take &c., and was most exceeding attentive to me the whole time; and really, for him, has been amazingly civil and polite to me. But yesterday, after complaining of his fatigue and great business, he turned suddenly to me, and taking my hand, cried, “My dear, never marry a physician. If he has but little to do, he may be distressed; if he has much, it is a very uncomfortable life for his companion.”
He came here several times, before he saw my father, who, when at home, is always shut up in his study; but one evening, when mama was very ill, being anxious to hear the Doctor’s opinion, he came up stairs. He addressed himself, like a man of the world, to the Doctor, who rose, and with great solemnity said, “I suppose it is Dr. Burney that I see?” My father bowed, and said he was happy in being known to him. “I never,” answered he, “had the satisfaction of seeing Dr. Burney before!”
“No, Sir;” said my father, “I have always been so unfortunate as to be out, when you have been here.”
“Most commonly,” answered the old Quaker, with a dryness that seemed not to give implicit faith to the assertion. But since this, they have had many conversations, and are very good friends. And really with all his stiffness and solemnity he appears to be as humane as he is skilful.
Mama has so good a night, that I fancy this will be the last of my nocturnal communications. While she was ill, she desired me to write for Miss Young, who is now here. I had not seen her some years; she is exactly the same she was, — sensible, intelligent, bashful, shy, awkward, affectionate, feeling, and truly worthy. I love her much, and hope we shall keep her some time. [Mama is almost recovered. Dr. Fothergill makes his visits very seldom. He says he always knows when his patients are really recovering by these signs: if men, he finds their beds covered with newspapers; if women, he sees them with new top-knots, or hears them exclaim, “Dear me! what a figure I am!”]
* * * * *
I have now entered into a very particular correspondence with Mr. Crisp. I write really a Journal to him, and in answer he sends me most delightful long, and incomparably clever, letters, animadverting upon all the facts &c., which I acquaint him with, and dealing with the utmost sincerity in stating his opinion and giving his advice. I am infinitely charmed with this correspondence — ant I mean — which is not more agreeable than it may prove instructive.
[From Mr. Crisp.]
[I773.]
My Dear Fanny,
In consequence of our agreement, I shall now begin with an instance of the most pure and genuine sincerity, when I declare to you that I was delighted with your letter throughout, — a proof of which (that perhaps you would have excus’d) is this immediate answer with a demand for more — The horseleech hath two daughters, saith the wise man, saying, “Give! Give!” — I find myself nearly related to them on this occasion. I profess there is not a single word or expression or thought in your whole letter, that I do not relish, — not that in our Correspondence I shall set up for a Critic or Schoolmaster or observer of composition — the [deuce take them] all! I hate [them.] If once you set about framing studied letters, that are to be correct, nicely grammatical, arid run in smooth periods, I shall mind them no otherwise than as newspapers of intelligence. I make this preface, because you have needlessly enjoined me to deal sincerely, and to tell you of your faults; and so let this declaration serve [to tell you] once for all, that there is no fault in an epistolary correspondence like stiffness and study. Dash away whatever comes uppermost; the sudden sallies of imagination, clap’d down on paper, just as they arise, are worth folios, and have all the warmth and merit of that sort of nonsense that is eloquent in love. Never think of being correct when you write to me. So I conclude this topic, and proceed to be sorry and glad that you and your Mammy have been ill and are better. Your Dr. Fothergill I am well acquainted with by character, and pronounce you a very able portrait painter. I find he has taken to you, and I observe we old fellows are inclinable to be very fond of you. You’ll say, “What care I for old fellows? give me a young one!” Well; we don’t hinder you of young ones; and we judge more coolly and disinterestedly than they do; so don’t turn up your nose even at our approbation.
Now, Fanny, I do by no means allow of your re-consideration and revocation of your Tingmouth Journal; on the contrary, I demand it, and claim your promise, and confirm my own, viz.; to return it safe to Charly Burney’s, well and carefully sealed up, and the contents lodged in my own snowy bosom. Your pleas, frivolous ones they are; and I reject them all —
As to that rogue your father, if I did not know him to be incorrigible, I should say something of that regular course of irregularity he persists in — two, three, four, five o’clock in the morning, sups at twelve! — is it impossible for him to get the better of his constitution? has he forgot the condition he was in the winter after his first return to England? perhaps he is like a seasoned old drinker, whose inside is so lined with a coat of tartar, that his brandy only goes in like a worm in a still, without affecting the vessel it passes through. Certain it is, that he uses his thin carcass most abominably, and if it takes it at his [hands,] it is the most passive, submissive slave [of a carcass] in Europe. —
I am greatly pleased with the growing reputation of his Tours; of which I never had the least doubt; and no less so, with those marks of favour and esteem for the Great and the Eminent, and only wish him to make that worldly use of them, which he ought; in which particular he has hitherto been so deficient; and I desire you would transmit to him the enclosed quotation, which I have lately read in a Letter from his friend Petrarch to Mainard Accurse: —
Now, if Petrarch (for whom all the Princes and Geniuses of Europe were contending for fifty years together) could find out this severe and mortifying truth, surely ’tis a lesson to all future candidates for fame and favour, to make that bienveillance (which at bottom is all self and vanity) turn to some account, and make hay while the sun shines.
* * * * *
I am quite comforted to hear he is so full [of business, which] if it does not improve and increase
, ’tis his own fault — On my blessing I charge him, not for any consideration, to neglect that and which at last, and at the long run, will prove his surest, firmest, best, perhaps his only Friend — mark that — while he preserves that, it will prove his best security for holding fast other friends — I cannot too much inculcate, beat, drive, hammer, this saving Doctrine into him which makes me dwell so long on this Article —
[MR. CRISP TO FANNY BURNEY.]
[Although this fragment of a letter from Mr. Crisp to Fanny is not of the same date as that which precedes it, we place it here, as it dwells on the same subject, Dr. Burney’s bent towards working more than was good for his health. At its head are these words written by Mme. D’Arblay. “ Written at the time when my dear indefatigable father was working at night at his History.”]
I’ll tell you what, Fanny. — I yesterday received a letter from Hettina, wherein she gives such an account of your papa that, when I come to town (which I believe will not be very distant) I shall without ceremony send for Dr. Monro, have a strait waistcoat immediately put on him, debar him the use of pen, ink, and paper and books, to which (if he is mutinous) shall be added a dark room — what does he mean? if he has no consideration for himself, has he no regard for his relatives? I am out of all patience with him, — I have lately had just the same pain in my side he has; but ’tis of no consequence; it comes and goes, and the booby has nothing to do, but to allow some repose to his thin carcase, to get well again. — I call him booby; but that is not half bad enough for him; ’tis downright idiotism; how true is it, that he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow! I had rather be a frog, an oyster, an onion, than a Scavant at such a rate! Devil take him....
I sadly want to know about Mr. Greville and his motions;.... have you seen him lately? send me all about him and your absurd Father particularly, and that immediately. Adieu! ——
I am glad that my father has recovered an old friend, with whom he had a breach; he is, at length, entirely and most cordially reconciled to Mr. Greville, who has been here two or three times, in his old way, without fuss or ceremony —
I have had, lately, a very long, and a very strange conversation with Mr. Young. We happened to be alone in the parlour, and either from confidence in my prudence or from an entire and unaccountable carelessness of consequences, he told me “that he was the most miserable fellow breathing,” and almost directly said that his connections made him so, and most vehemently added, that if he was to begin the world again, no earthly thing should ever prevail with him to marry! that now he was never easy, but when he was litterally in a plow cart; but that happy he never could be! I am sorry for him — but cannot wonder....
I am truly concerned, as we all are, at the untimely death of Dr. Hawkesworth. He had not strength to support the abuse he has most unjustly been loaded with. I cannot help attributing his death to the uneasiness of his mind, which brought on a slow fever, that proved mortal. When he was last here, he told us his plan of defence, which he was then preparing for the press, as soon as a lawsuit, then depending, was decided. I am doubly sorry that he left this plan unaccomplished and his fame and reputation at the mercy of his enemies; who have, however, been wholly silent since his death. The world has lost one of its best ornaments, — a man of letters who was worthy and honest. Poor Mrs. Hawkesworth is in great affliction.
* * * * *
REMNANT OF AN OLD LETTER TO MR. CRISP. [1773].
* * * * *
The death of poor Dr. Hawkesworth is most sincerely lamented by us all, the more so as we do really attribute it to the abuse he has of late met with from the newspapers. His book was dearly purchased at the price of his character, and peace, and those envious and malignant Witlings who persecuted him, from his gaining money, are now satisfied and silent. You may perhaps doubt of this, but indeed if you had known him more, you would not. He dined with us about a month before he died, and we all agreed we never saw a man more altered, thin, livid, harassed! He conversed very freely upon the affair of his book and abuse: my father told him there was hardly a man in the kingdom who had ever had a pen in his hand, who did not think that he could have done it with more propriety, and that his enemies were all occasioned by his success, for if he had failed, every voice would have said “poor man ’tis an ingenious, well written book, he deserved more encouragement.” Dr. Hawkesworth said that he had not yet made any answer to the torrent poured upon him, except to Dalrymple who had attacked him by name. He added he was extremely sorry when any of his friends had vindicated him in print, for that a lawsuit was then depending upon Parkinson’s publication, and that he would take no methods of influencing justice, but as soon as it was decided, he should publish at once a full and general answer to the invidious, calumniating and most unjust aspersions which had been so cruelly and wantonly cast on him. He has not lived to accomplish his plan! He told my father that he had earned every thing he possessed by dint of labour and industry, except the last £6000 — that he had had no education or advantage but what he had given himself: but that he had preserved an unblemished character and reputation till this last year; since when, I believe he has had reason to detest the fortune which only preceded detraction and defamation. He died of a lingering fever which had begun to prey upon him when we last saw him. My father read to him a great deal of his history, with which he appeared much pleased, and only objected to one word all the way. He candidly declared it was all new to him, and that though he had never studied or cared for music, he found it easy to understand, and very entertaining. He expressed much curiosity about the remainder, and made my father explain his design and intentions —
[When their pleasant sojourn at Teignmouth was ended, the Rishtons, after leaving Fanny in London, went to visit Mr and Mrs. Western at Cokethorpe, in Oxfordshire. Maria wrote from Tetsworth, the very next day after a parting so tender that she threatened Fanny with a quarrel when next they met for “making the first fifteen miles of her journey very uncomfortable.” Indeed her distress confused Mr. Rishton, who lost his way, and, instead of taking the Oxford Road, (now Oxford Street,) drove up the Tottenham [Court] Road in order to go to “the Crown and Cushion,” at Uxbridge, where they were to sleep. They next ran over “Tingmouth,”
“who was travelling under the body of the whiskey, but though the wheel went clean over her body, after giving herself two or 3 hearty shakes and wriggles she began romping with Trump... and pursued her journey on foot.” Maria “begs an account of the governour’s health.” In her next, of “Oct ye 2nd, 1773,” she hopes Fanny and herself will soon meet and “forget over a chearfull bottle all past sorrows.” She dwells on the beauty of the road from High Wycombe to Tetsworth, lying chiefly through Lord Le de Spencer’s woods. As she is “not gifted with a descriptive talent,” she will defer “these beauties” until they meet; but she pauses to tell of his stables, &c., which he has made so “ornamental as they appear like temples.” They arrive at Oxford on a showery morning, and “R. did not seem sorry, as I believe he much dreaded trailing about Oxford to shew me the colleges — it was almost as bad as driving thro’ London in a buggey — vous m’entendez — how coud we bear to be seen in Oxford, where we had once shone forth the gay, the extravagant Martin Rishton — whose only carriage was a phaeton and four bays — metaphorsed (sic) into the attentive kind husband, who I believe prefers a dot-and-go-one with his wife to the fiery coursers without, as I saw how matters stood, I put of seing anything and begd it might be left to another opportunity, on which I was exceedingly press’d, but I was obdurate.” She had her hair dressed by the worst friseur she had seen for many years— “took a snap-dinner,” and then set off. Next they ran over another of their dogs, “Judge,” and hurt “Tingmouth,” as well as a dog called “Swinger”; the dogs being “crazy.” From Witney to Cokethorpe the road was almost impassable. The mud hindered them from more than walking the horse at the slowest pace. Cokethorpe they gained at halfpast six. “The park and house very melancholly... as we drove up there se
emed a deadlike silence.... The shutters were shut in the front.... We drove into the stable-yard; still no appearance of any living creature... but Rishton attributed all this to the order and method of Mr. Western. Thomas dismounted and hallowd. No one answerd.... Still R. said, ‘Ah, you see what order and regularity reigns in this family — the servants are all employed.’ I own my thoughts were full of the sleeping beauty in the wood, which I dared not communicate. After straining our voices the old shepherd appeared, who told us Maister and Madam was not at home, but he woud call Maister Thomas, who coud tell us more about it.” This was a servant, who said that Mr and Mrs. Western were gone into Buckinghamshire, and had written to prevent the Rishtons coming there until Wednesday. He pressed them to stay, but they braved the bad road and slept at Witney; returning next day to meet their kinsfolk. “Whisker” (the horse) is knocked up, Swinger is better, Tingmouth has had the distemper, “been blooded,” and “takes regularly” the powders “of Dr. James” (which are said to have been fatal to Oliver Goldsmith), and “is walked out gently for exercise,” led by Maria in a string; “it is thought that Tingmouth must ride all the way to town.”
After a few days, they again passed through London, on their way to an old house, at Stanhoe, infested by rats, and much out of repair, which belonged to the wife of one of Maria’s Allen kinsmen. A letter is extant in which Maria first says that she will send Fanny a plan of the house, next adds, that Fanny would not understand it if she did; then begins a description of it, but breaks off with, “but hang descriptions — I never understood one in my life till I had seen the premises, so will give you some account of our manner of life. We have hardly seen a soul since our arrival except Mrs. Mun Allen who comes prying about pretending to look after her workmen — she has given us a ten years lease on the condition we go half the expence of new sashing the house — which we agreed to do readily as we have at present nothing to look forward to that need make us mind a hundred pounds, for look and convenience; it is a monstrous good bargain for her, as the frames of the windows are so rotten they woud not have hung together two years longer and then she must have done them at her own expence — we are making vast out door improvements. We found every thing in the most ruinous condition we are new planting in the garden — cleaning and cutting out new walks in the wood — indeed it is a sweet spot I every day find new beauties in it and am determined to think it my own and not look too much into futurity ten years will make a great break in our lives and I hope we are comfortably settled for the best ten years of it. I own when I first came for a day or two I let the foul fiend get so much the better of me as to think within myself what signifies making this place agreeable to me or laying out money on Other people’s estates, tis ours to day and theirs to morrow — but I hope I chased such narrow minded ideas from my heart and that I shall be as happy to see the fruit trees I plant flourish the last year of my lease as I shoud the first — you may remember while at Tingmouth I dreaded engaging in the cares of so large a family but am now convinced there are pleasures for every station and employment for I now woud not give up my bustling mornings for the loitering life I led in Devonshire — that might have tired this cannot as I hope I am acting properly what shoud I do — As I have no children, to fill up my mornings with — sometimes Rishton is out from breakfast till dinner — I then dedicate an hour or two to the kitchen.... Mr. R. has spared me a very pretty yard and house for my poultry and I have several friends who have promised to supply me with some — we have got one cow and are to have others and have one of the prettiest neatest dairys you can imagine. I potter after Rishton everywhere.” — Then comes a list of the dogs, old and new; the last being “a Portugal pointer from the banks of the Dowrow — from whence he takes his name.” For awhile, Maria wrote of her house and manner of living with a sense of enjoyment — so that she has little time to write to Fanny, whom she is always begging to visit her. There is even a very daring statement that she “does not envy Fanny Lord Stanley’s fite-champitre. I think the entertainment of my chicken and poultry-yard and dog-kennel, far exceeds it” But her spirits rose and fell. At another time, it was a cry of “How I regret the calm life I led at Tingmouth.”— “Ah, Fanny, Tingmouth, Tingmouth! What a difference between a man and a maid, and nine servants!”—” I am not formd to manage a set of caballing insolent servants.”—” The more there are, the more insolent, and if R. was of my mind, I woud give up one half of those we have.” Her Lynn connexions visit her and pity her for living away from “that seat of the muses, that meridian of taste, the second Athens for learning, the favourite retreat of the gods where the golden age flourishes again, where simplicity, virtue, benevolence, candour, have taken their abode — Lynn — I will endeavour to prevail on my soaring gineus (sic) to drop his fluttering pinions and descend to a vulgar style suited to your grovling ideas,” &c.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 474
