Quite sick of pursuing each troublesome elf,
He grew lazy at last, and drew from himself?”-ED.
(122) The novels of Mrs. Radcliffe were now at the height of their popularity. “The Mysteries of Udolpho,” perhaps the most powerful of her works, had recently been published, to the intense delight of all lovers of the thrilling and romantic.-ED.
(123) The name was then “Ariella,” changed afterwards to “Camilla.”
(124) Written during his embarrassments from the French Revolution, and answer to a letter expressing bitter disappointment from repeated losses.
(125) M. de Narbonne, in reply, expressed, in lively terms, his gratitude for Madame d’Arblay’s invitation, and his pleasure in receiving it. But he declined the proposal. He was not, he said, wholly without resources, or without hopes for the future, and circumstances made it desirable that he should reside at present near the French frontier.-ED.
(126) Gainsborough Dupont, a nephew of the great Gainsborough. He was a portrait-painter of some merit, and an excellent mezzo- tint engraver. some of his best plates were engraved after paintings by Gainsborough. Mr Dupont died in 1797.-ED.
(127) “ The Birth of Love;” a poem: with engravings, from designs by her royal highness the Princess Elizabeth.
(128) i.e., the Duke of York, second son of the king. He had been appointed field-marshal and commander-in-chief early in 1795.-ED.
(129) The Duchess of York was daughter to the King of Prussia.- ED.
(130) Susan’s little son, Norbury Phillips.-ED.
(131) Rose Dale, Richmond, Surrey. This place was formerly the residence of the poet Thomson, and afterwards became the property of the Honourable Mrs. Boscawen.
(132) The princess royal was married, May 18, 1797, to Frederick William, hereditary prince of Wurtemberg.-ED.
(133) Editor and proprietor of the “Monthly Review.”
(134) The death of Dr. Burney’s second wife.
(135) Fanny alludes to the so-called “loyalty loan,” proposed and carried by Mr Pitt, to meet the expenses of the war. “Pitt evinced his own Public spirit, when he relied on and appealed to the public spirit of the People. He announced a loan of 18,000,000 pounds, at five per cent., to be taken at 112 pounds , 10 shillings, for every 100 pounds stock, and with an option to the proprietors to he paid off at par within two years after a treaty of peace.”-(Stanhope’s “Life of Pitt,” vol. ii., P. 389.) The loan was taken up by the Public with extraordinary eagerness, 5,000,000 pounds being subscribed on the first day of issue (December 1, 1796).-ED. .’
(136) They had commenced building the cottage in October. Fanny writes, November 29: “Our cottage building stops now, from the shortness of the days, till the beginning of March. The foundation is laid, and it will then be run up with great speed. The well, at length, is finished, and it is a hundred and odd feet deep. The water is said to be excellent, but M. d’Arblay has had it now stopped to prevent accidents from hazardous boys, who, when the field is empty of owners, will be amusing themselves there. He has just completed his grand plantations; part of which are in evergreens, part in firewood for future time, and part in an orchard.”-ED.
SECTION 21.(1797-8)
“CAMILLA” COTTAGE. SUNDRY VISITS TO THE ROYAL FAMILY.
[Fanny’s pen portraits of the princesses are as fascinating as Gainsborough’s paintings of them. Their truly amiable characters and sweet dispositions are nowhere more pleasantly illustrated than in the following section of the “Diary.” A list of their names, with the dates of their births and deaths, may be useful to the reader.
1. Charlotte, princess royal. born 1767: Queen of Wirtemburg: died 1828.
2. Augusta, Fanny’s favourite, as she well deserved to be. Born 1768 : never married : died 1840.
3. Elizabeth, the artist of the family. Born 1770 : married the hereditary prince (afterwards, in 1820, Landgrave) of Hesse- Homburg in 18 18, and settled in Germany: died 1840.
4. Mary. Born 1776 : married her cousin, William Frederick, Duke of Gloucester, in 1816: died 1857.
5. Sophia, born 1777: died 1848.
6. Amelia, born 1783. Her health first gave way in 1798 (see ): she died, unmarried, at Windsor, in 1810. A few days before her death she gave her poor blind, old father, a ring containing a scrap of her hair; saying only, as she pressed it into his hand, “Remember me!” The poor king’s anguish brought on a fresh attack of insanity, from which he never recovered.-ED.]
A DISAGREEABLE JOURNEY HoME.
(Madame d’Arblay to Dr. Burney.) Bookham, January 3, ‘97. WAS extremely vexed at missing our uncertain post yesterday, and losing, unavoidably, another to-day, before I return my dearest father our united thanks for the kind and sweet fortnight passed under his roof. Our adventures in coming back were better adapted to our departure than our arrival, for they were rather rueful. One of the horses did not like his business, and wanted to be off, and we were stopped by his gambols continually , and, if I had not been a soldier’s wife, I should have been terribly alarmed; but my soldier does not like to see himself disgraced in his other half, and so I was fain to keep up my courage, till, at length, after we had passed Fetcham, the frisky animal plunged till he fastened the shaft against a hedge, and then, little Betty beginning to scream, I inquired of the postilion if we had not better alight. If it were not, he said, for the dirt, yes. The dirt then was defied, and I prevailed, though with difficulty, upon my chieftain to consent to a general dismounting. And he then found it was not too soon, for the horse became inexorable to all menace, caress, chastisement, or harangue, and was obliged to be loosened.
Meanwhile, Betty, Bab, and I trudged on, vainly looking back for our vehicle, till we reached our little home — a mile and a half. Here we found good fires, though not a morsel of food; this however, was soon procured, and our walking apparel changed for drier raiment; and I sent forth our nearest cottager, and a young butcher, and a boy, towards Fetcham, to aid the vehicle, or its contents, for my chevalier had stayed on account of our chattels: and about two hours after the chaise arrived, with one horse, and pushed by its hirer, while it was half dragged by its driver. But all came safe; and we drank a dish of tea, and ate a mutton chop, and kissed our little darling, and forgot all else of our journey hut the pleasure we had had at Chelsea with my dearest father and dear Sally.
And just now I received a letter from our Susanna, which tells me the invasion(137) has been made in a part of Ireland . where all is so loyal there can be no apprehension from any such attempt; but she adds, that if it had happened in the north everything might have been feared. Heaven send the invaders far from all the points of the Irish compass! and that’s an Irish wish for expression, though not for meaning. All the intelligence she gathers is encouraging, with regard to the spirit and loyalty of all that surround her. But Mr. Brabazon is in much uneasiness for his wife, whose situation is critical, and he hesitates whether or not to convey her to Dublin, as a place of more security than her own habitation. What a period this for the usual journey of our invaluable Susan!
BURKE’s FUNERAL AT BEACONSFIELD.
(Dr. Burney to Madame d’Arblay.) Saturday Night, July 22, 1797. I was invited to poor Mr. Burke’s funeral,(138) by Mrs. Crewe and two notes from Beaconsfield. Malone and I went to Bulstrode together in my car, this day sevennight, with two horses added to mine. Mrs. Crewe had invited me thither when she went down first. We found the Duke of Portland there; and the Duke of Devonshire and Windham came to dinner. The chancellor and speaker of the House of Commons could not leave London till four o’clock, but arrived a little after seven. We all set off together for Beaconsfield, where we found the rest of the pall-bearers — Lord Fitzwilliam, Lord Inchiquin, and Sir Gilbert Eliot, with Drs. King and Lawrence, Lord North, Dudley North, and many of the deceased’s private friends, though by his repeated injunction the funeral was to be very private. We had all hatbands, scarfs, and gloves; and he left a list to whom rings of remembrance are to be sent, among whom my name o
ccurred, and a jeweller has been here for my measure. I went back to Bulstrode, by invitation, with the two dukes, the chancellor, and speaker, Windham, Malone, and Secretary King. I ,stayed there till Sunday evening, and got home just before the dreadful storm. The duke was extremely civil and hospitable, — pressed me much to stay longer and go with them, the chancellor, speaker, Windham, and Mrs. Crewe, to Pinn, to see the school, founded by Mr. Burke, for the male children of French emigrant nobles; but I could not with prudence stay, having a couple of ladies waiting for me in London, and two extra horses with me.
So much for poor Mr. Burke, certainly one of the greatest men of the present century; and I think I might say the best orator and statesman of modern times. He had his passions and prejudices to which I did not subscribe - but I always admired his great abilities, friendship, and urbanity - and it would be ungrateful in you and me, to whom he was certainly partial, not to feel and lament his loss.
(Madame d’Arblay to Dr. Burney.) Bookham, July 27, ‘97. I was surprised, and almost frightened, though at the same time gratified, to find you assisted in paying the last honours to Mr. Burke. How sincerely I sympathise in all you say of that truly great man! That his enemies say he was not perfect is nothing compared with his immense superiority over almost all those who are merely exempted from his peculiar defects. That he was upright in heart, even where he acted wrong, I do truly believe; and that he asserted nothing he had not persuaded himself to be true, from Mr. Hastings’s being the most rapacious of villains, to the king’s being incurably insane. He was as generous as kind, and as liberal in his sentiments as he was luminous in intellect and extraordinary in abilities and eloquence. Though free from all little vanity, high above envy, and glowing with zeal to exalt talents and merit in others, he had, I believe a consciousness of his own greatness, that shut out those occasional and useful self-doubts which keep our judgment in order, by calling our motives and our passions to account.
DEATH OF M. D’ARBLAY’S BROTHER.
(Madame d’Arblay to Dr. Burney.) Bookham, August 10, ‘97. You know, I believe, with what cruel impatience and uncertainty my dear companion has waited for some news Of his family; no tidings, however, could be procure, nor has Page 127 ever heard from any part of it till last Saturday morning, when two letters arrived by the same post, with information of the death of his only brother. impossible as it has long been to look back to France without fears amounting even to expectation of horrors, he had never ceased cherishing hopes some favourable turn would, in the end, unite him with this last branch of his house; the shock, therefore, has been terribly severe, and has cast a gloom upon his mind and spirits which nothing but his kind anxiety to avoid involving mine can at present suppress. He is now the last of a family of seventeen, and not one relation of his own name now remains but his own little English son. His father was the only son of an only son, which drives all affinity on the paternal side into fourth and fifth kinsmen.
On the maternal side, however, he has the happiness to hear that an uncle, who is inexpressibly dear to him, who was his guardian and best friend through life, still lives, and has been permitted to remain unmolested in his own house, at Joigny, where he is now in perfect health, save from rheumatic .attacks, which though painful are not dangerous. A son, too, of this gentleman, who was placed as a commissaire-de-guerre by M. d’Arblay during the period of his belonging to the war committee, still holds the same situation, which is very lucrative, and which M. d’A. had concluded would have been withdrawn as soon as his own flight from France was known.
The little property of which the late Chevalier d’Arblay died possessed, this same letter says, has been “vendu pour la nation,”(139) because his next heir was an migr; though there is a little niece, Mlle. Girardin, daughter of an only sister, who is in France, and upon whom the succession was settled, if her uncles died without immediate heirs.
Some little matter, however, what we know not, has been reserved by being bought in by this respectable uncle, who sends M. d’Arblay word he has saved him what he may yet live upon, if he can find means to return without personal risk, and who solicits to again see him with urgent fondness, in which he is joined by his aunt with as much warmth as if she, also, was his relation by blood, not alliance.
The late chevalier, my M. d’A. says, was a man of the softest manners and most exalted honour; and he was so tall and so thin, he was often nicknamed Don Quixote, but he was so completely aristocratic with regard to the Revolution, Page 128 at its very commencement, that M. d’A. has heard nothing yet with such unspeakable astonishment as the news that he died, near Spain, of his wounds from a battle in which he had fought for the Republic. “How strange,” says M. d’A., “is our destiny! that that Republic which I quitted, determined to be rather an hewer of wood and drawer of water all my life than serve, he should die for.” The secret history of this may some day come out, but it is now inexplicable, for the mere fact, without the smallest comment, is all that has reached us, In the period, indeed, in which M. d’A. left France, there were but three steps possible for those who had been bred to arms-flight, the guillotine, or fighting for the Republic, “The former this brother,” M. d’A. says, “had not energy of character to undertake in the desperate manner in which he risked it himself, friendless and fortuneless, to live in exile as he could. The guillotine no one could elect; and the continuing in the service, though in a cause he detested, was, probably, his hard compulsion.” . . .
Our new habitation will very considerably indeed exceed our first intentions and expectations. I suppose it has ever been so, and so ever must be; for we sought as well as determined to keep within bounds, and M. d’A. still thinks he has done it - however, I am more aware of our tricks upon travellers than to enter into the same delusion.
The pleasure, however, he has taken in this edifice is my first joy, for it has constantly shown me his heart has invariably held to those first feelings which, before our union, determined him upon settling in England. O! if you knew how he has been assailed, by temptations of every sort that either ambition, or interest, or friendship could dictate, to change his plan,-and how his heart sometimes yearns towards those he yet can love in his native soil, while his firmness still remains unshaken, — you would not wonder I make light of even extravagance in a point that shows him thus fixed to make this object a part of the whole system of his future life.
FROM CREWE HALL TO CHELSEA.
(Dr. Burney to Madame d’Arblay.)
Friday Night, September 13, 1797.
My dear Fanny,-Where did I leave off? — hang me if I know! — I
believe I told you, or all when with YOU, Of the Chester and
Liverpool journey and voyage. On Saturday
26th August, the day month from leaving London, M. le prsident de Frondeville and I left Crewe Hall on our way back. The dear Mrs. Crewe kindly set us in our way as far as Etruria. We visited Trentham Hall, in Staffordshire, the famous seat of the Marquis of Stafford, — a very fine place — fine piece of water — fine hanging woods, — the valley of Tempe — and the river Trent running through the garden. Mrs C. introduced us to the marchioness, who did us the honour of showing us the house herself; it has lately been improved and enlarged by Wyatt: — fine pictures, library, etc.
After a luncheon here, we went to Etruria, which I had never seen. Old Mr. Wedgwood is dead, and his son and successor not at home; but we went to the pottery manufacture, and saw the whole process of forming the beautiful things which are dispersed all over the universe from this place. Mrs. C. offered to send you a little hand churn for your breakfast butter; but I should have broke it to pieces, and durst not accept of it. But if it would be of any use, when you have a cow, I will get you one at the Wedgwood ware-house in London. Here we parted.
The president and I got to Lichfield by about ten o’clock that night. In the morning, before my companion was up, I strolled about the city with one of the waiters, in search of Frank Barber,’ who I had been told li
ved there; but on ,inquiry I was told his residence was in a village three or four miles off. I however soon found the house where dear Dr. Johnson was born, and his father’s shop. The house is stuccoed, has five sash-windows in front, and pillars before it. It is the best house thereabouts, near St. Mary’s Church, in a broad street, and is now a grocer’s shop.
I went next to the Garrick house, which has been lately repaired, stuccoed, enlarged, and sashed. Peter Garrick, David’s eldest brother, died about two years ago, leaving all his Possessions to the apothecary that had attended him. But the will was disputed and set aside not long since, it having appeared at a trial that the testator was insane at the time the will was made; so that Mrs. Doxie, Garrick’s sister, a widow with a numerous family, recovered the house and -30,000, She now lives in it with her family, and has been able to set up a carriage. The inhabitants of Lichfield were so pleased with the decision of the court on the trial, that they illuminated the streets, and had public rejoicings on the occasion.
After examining this house well, I tried to find the residence of Dr. James, inventor of the admirable fever powders, which have so often saved the life of our dear Susey, and others without number. But the ungrateful inhabitants knew nothing about him. . . .
The cathedral, which has been lately thoroughly repaired internally, is the most complete and beautiful Gothic building I ever saw. The outside was trs mal trait by the fanatics of the last century; but there are three beautiful spires still standing, and more than fifty whole-length figures of saints in their original niches. The choir is exquisitely beautiful. A fine new organ is erected, and was well played, and I never heard the cathedral service so well performed to that instrument only before. The services and anthems were middle-aged music, neither too old and dry, nor too modern and light; the voices subdued, and exquisitely softened and sweetened by the building,
While the lessons were reading, which I could not hear, I looked for monuments, and found a beautiful one to Garrick, and another just by it to Johnson; the former erected by Mrs. Garrick, who has been daily abused for not erecting one to her husband in Westminster Abbey; but sure that was a debt due to him from the public, and that due from his widow best paid here.(141) Johnson’s has been erected by his friends: — both are beautiful, and alike in every particular.
Complete Works of Frances Burney Page 634
