Fanny Burney

by Claire Harman

  Sarah Harriet, a novelist herself, knew all about ‘safety valves’ for a woman’s private feelings, but clearly thought those feelings shouldn’t be served up raw to the public. Fanny Burney, presumably, felt differently about her diaries: not simply that they provided ‘participation or relief’ at the time of writing, but that the ultimate revelation of her private thoughts was valuable and illuminating, that they complemented or completed the picture offered to posterity in her works. The story of the secret composition and publication of Evelina became central to her autobiography because the circumstances and difficulties of authorship were critically important to her, ‘more like a romance’, to quote her own revealing phrase, ‘than anything in the book that was the cause’.4 Her seventy-year diary therefore served as an elaborate apology for her public performances, ‘proof’ that her inhibitions were social rather than artistic.

  For this very reason, Burney’s diary fascinates modern readers as much as her novels do. They show that ‘the Mother of English Fiction’, as Virginia Woolf called her, was an anxious and vulnerable pioneer. As early as 1810 Anna Barbauld, in one of the first critical works of its kind, wrote that ‘Scarcely any name, if any, stands higher in the list of novel-writers than that of Miss Burney’,5 but four years after this Burney herself was still talking of novels as ‘degraded’. Had she lived to read Macaulay’s claim, in 1843, that her work had ‘vindicated the right of her sex to an equal share in a fair and noble province of letters’, she would probably have taken exception both to the judgement and the wording, so unfortunately reminiscent of the title of Miss Wollstonecraft’s book. What she expressed in the negative to Samuel Crisp in 1779 apropos The Witlings – ‘I would a thousand times rather forfeit my character as a writer, than risk ridicule or censure as a Female’ – held true throughout her life: she put a huge value on private life, friendships, family duties and her own behaviour ‘as a Female’, and to some extent deliberately neglected her potential as a writer. Even in her most famous and admired novels, Evelina and Cecilia, there are elements of wilful amateurism, a sprawling quality which she herself always put down to hurry but never attempted to rectify. Her revisions of Camilla, though they went on for decades, never seriously addressed the many structural and stylistic faults of that book. In a sense, she left it to Jane Austen to revise Camilla. Having played out in her own life the struggle to make female novel-writing respectable, her successors reaped the benefits.

  I am uncomfortably aware of all the stories untold in this biography, the dense patterning of information, misinformation and anecdote in the Burney papers that because of the demands of biography to tell an (artificially) coherent and approximately chronological story has had to remain obscure. There is more than ever to know about Fanny Burney and her circle: reading the existing material is an occupation in itself, and scholars grow grey in its service. I believe that Burney’s anxiety to record her life in sometimes minute detail was not simply a compulsive habit but a form of acknowledgement that experience has a complex texture and that the truth about it is elusive. Few writers leave themselves so exposed to posterity as she has done. There is a sort of courage in it, just as there is courage in her frank admission, after the death of her husband, that Truth and Fiction were sometimes ‘indivisible’ in her mind.

  Burney must have doubted that anyone, even her niece, would have read through all her papers – the residue, it must be remembered, of a much larger original archive. I have come to view the quantity of information that she left behind as an ironic challenge to anyone presuming to have the last word on this complex, wordy woman. As Fanny Burney understood all too well, ‘precise investigation of the interior movements by which I may be impelled’ was of questionable value, for, as she wrote in the rejected preface to Cecilia:

  the intricasies of the human Heart are various as innumerable, & its feelings, upon all interesting occasions, are so minute & complex, as to baffle all the power of Language. What Addison has said of the Ways of Heaven, may with much more propriety & accuracy be applied to the Mind of Man, which, indeed, is

  Dark & Intricate,

  Filled with wild Mazes, & perplexed with Error.

  Appendix A

  Fanny Burney Undergoes a Memory Test

  Fanny Burney’s powers of memory, on which she prided herself and which formed the basis of her reputation for accuracy, can be demonstrated in part. Fanny was present at the first day of the trial of Warren Hastings in 1788 and heard the opening speech by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Thurlow, which she tried to recall later for her father and sisters because she felt that the newspapers had printed it ‘far less accurately than I have retained it, though I am by no means exact or secure’.

  Fanny Burney’s account of Lord Thurlow’s speech is as follows:

  Warren Hastings, you are now brought into this Court to answer to the charges brought against you by the Knights, Esquires, Burgesses, and Commons of Great Britain – charges now standing only as allegations, by them to be legally proved, or by you to be disproved. Bring forth your answers and defence with that seriousness, respect, and truth due to accusers so respectable. Time has been allowed you for preparation, proportioned to the intricacies in which the transactions are involved, and to the remote distances whence your documents may have been searched and required. You will still be allowed Bail, for the better forwarding your defence, and whatever you can require will still be yours, of time, witnesses, and all things else you may hold necessary. This is not granted you as any indulgence: it is entirely your due: it is the privilege which every British subject has a right to claim, and which is due to every one who is brought before this high Tribunal.1

  Also present at the trial were at least three shorthand writers making a transcription of the speech for the official record. Taking theirs as the most literally accurate version available, and comparing Fanny’s with it, one can see that she has reproduced Lord Thurlow’s argument closely and repeated certain key words and phrases:

  Warren Hastings

  You are called upon, after every expedient allowance, for your defence. You have had bail: you have Counsel. Much time also has been granted you – becoming well the circumstances of your case.

  For the matter in the Charges is most momentous, and the dates are remote since the occurences in those charges alleged against you are said to have been committed.

  These advantages you must understand, while you feel. – You are to deem them not as an indulgence of this House – but the fair claim of right – a concession of nothing, but what you have in common with all around you – what every British subject may ask, and every British tribunal must allow.

  Conduct your Defence, therefore, in a manner that may befit your station, and the magnitude of the charges against you. – Estimate rightly the high character of those you have to answer – the Commons of Great Britain! – who, at once, perhaps, attach likelihood to doubt – and enforce authority, certainly, on accusation.’2

  The order of the material varies, and the style of Fanny’s version is more grandiloquent than the transcription, but the only difference in substance is her reference to ‘remote distances’, where Lord Thurlow spoke of remote dates. The two accounts are almost exactly the same length. As Fanny was not, presumably, trying consciously to memorise the speech at the time of hearing it (she could not have seen the unsatisfactory newspaper account until the next day), her reconstruction of it seems to have been remarkably good.

  Appendix B

  Additions to O.E.D. from the writings of Fanny Burney

  The following list was compiled by J.N. Waddell, to whom and to the publishers of Notes and Queries, where it first appeared in February 1980, I am indebted. References are to first editions of the novels.

  absorbment, sb. [not in O.E.D.] 1795 Journals, III, 99 my illness & weakness & constant absorbment in the time of its preparation.

  acquaintance, v. [not in O.E.D.] 1799 Journals, IV, 339 Mrs Milner, of Micldeham, who has a son, by a former husb
and, now Colonel FitzGerald, & aid de Camp to the Duke of York (& probably of the staff you met at Walmer Castle) has sent me, lately, a message to desire we should acquaintance.

  alphabetize, v. [O.E.D. Alphabetize, v., 2., 1880–] 1796 Journals, III, 171 I have now 6 proofs to correct just arrived – & all my list to alphabetize.

  anecdote, sb. [O.E.D. Anecdote, 2.b.: only example of anecdote as a collective noun, 1826] 1794 Journals, III, 50 Why what an exquisite Letter, my dearest Father! – how full of interesting anecdote, & enlivening detail!

  applause, sb. [O.E.D. Applause, sb. 1.: last example of applause in the plural, 1725] 1791 Journals 1, 30 That great old City is too narrow, too populous, too dirty, & too ill paved, to meet with my sublime applauses.

  bavardage, sb. [O.E.D. Bavardage, 1835–] 1801 Journals, V, 73 ‘I suppose, Mama, if the ladies rule every body in France, even if there is a man of quality, that meets with a lady, that happens to be a beggar, he must let her govern him?’ Shall I ask your pardon for all this bavardage?

  betake, v. [O.E.D. Betake, v., 4. b., –1641] 1797 Journals, IV, 50 Muff betook to the Coal hole, & there seemed to repose with native ease.

  bluism, sb. [O.E.D. Bluism, 1822–] 1795 Journak, III, 101 I am quite delighted at your progress in this bluism; it was always to your taste.

  bob-jerom, sb. [O.E.D. Bob, sb.1 10, 1782 only] 1796 Camilla, II, 261 The effect of this full buckled bob-jerom, which stuck hollow from the young face and powdered locks of the Ensign, was irresistably ludicrous.

  break down, v. [O.E.D. 1st Suppl., Break, v., 50, d., 1837–] 1778 Evelina, I, 101 we had not proceeded thirty yards, ere every voice was heard at once, – for the coach broke down!

  break-up, sb. [O.E.D. Break-up, sb., 1795–] 1794 Journals, III, 79 Sometimes the aspect is that of a terrible break up, at others the wilfulness of a restless mind that loves to spread confusion, cause wonder, & displace tranquillity.

  briefly, adv. [O.E.D. Briefly, adv. 2, –1611] 1801 Journals, IV, 488 we take in stores for nearly a year at a time, from the difficulty of procuring any thing briefly, & as wanted.

  canter, v. [O.E.D. Canter, v.2, 4., 1845–] 1796 Camilla, III, 135 Sir Sedley Clarendel drove his own phaeton; but instead of joining them, according to the condition which occasioned the treaty, cantered away his ponies from the very first stage.

  chaoticism, sb. [not in O.E.D.] 1795 Journals, III, 114 M. d’A. has arranged himself a Study in our little Parlour, that would be after your Heart’s content, for literary chaoticism.

  coach-party, sb. [O.E.D. 2nd Suppl., coach, sb. 6., 1957–] 1778 Evelina, II, 140 The coach-party fixed upon consisted of Madame Duval, M. Du Bois, Miss Branghton, and myself.

  coque-sash, sb. [not in O.E.D.] 1802 Journals, v, 366. The young ladies were all dressed alike, very simply, & very elegantly in white muslin, with white shoes, coque-sashes, & their hair in ringlets.

  cuisiniere, sb. [O.E.D. Cuisinier, 1859–] 1802 Journals, V, 251 the Maid whom M. D’Arblay had engaged for me, as ‘femme de chambre, to coiffer, dress, work &c, & as cuisiniere.

  cultivate with, v. [O.E.D. Cultivate, v. 5. d., 1772 only] 1799 Journab, IV, 368 How I wish you may cultivate with him! – what you give of his debate with M. de Calonne concerning the abominable Sieyes (for abominable I hold him to be) is very interesting.

  dabble, sb. [O.E.D. Dabble, sb., 1871–] 1800 Journals, IV, 402 should it happen I should be able to fix a time for this Honour which her very sweet Royal Highness does the little dabble when you should be at liberty to shake hands with me.

  damper, sb. [O.E.D. Damper, 1, b., 1804–] 1782 Cecilia, V, 57 ‘a few oysters, fresh opened, by way of a damper before dinner’.

  destinationing, vbl. sb. [not in O.E.D.] 1814 Journals, VII, 350 I grieve not to put this in the hands of my dear Brother, for his own use, or at least, destinationing, & decision.

  detail, v. [O.E.D. Detail, v., 1., 1841–] 1799 Journals, IV, 283 I think you would not disapprove were we to commune upon it together; but I cannot detail longer, from uncertainty what may strike you.

  diarize, v. [O.E.D. Diarize, v., 1827–] 1793 Journals, II, 100 I will now regularly Diarize to my beloved Susan from the moment of our parting.

  diminisher, sb. [O.E.D. Diminisher, –1637] 1799 Journals, IV, 297 Resentment is a powerful diminisher of sorrow, in diminishing the feelings that first excited it.

  diminuendoing, vbl. sb. [O.E.D. 1st Suppl., Diminuendo, v., 1901–] 1797 Journals, III, 343 How I should like to see your beautiful Quarry – I think your monumental diminuendoing very exactly exemplary.

  dine out, v. [O.E.D. 2nd Suppl., Dine, v. 1. b., 1816–] 1796 Camilla, I, 250 ‘Miss Camilla! you won’t think of dining out unknown to Sir Hugh?’

  disciplinarianism, sb. [O.E.D. Disciplinarianism, 1872–] 1832 Memoirs, III, 60 These were circumstances to exile common form and royal disciplinarianism from those great personages.

  distance, v. [O.E.D. Distance, v., 4. c., 1786 only] 1796 Camilla, IV, 270 Miss Margland, seeing nothing in him that marked fashion, strove to distance him by a high demeanour.

  dizzying [O.E.D. Dizzying, ppl. a., 1804–] 1796 Camilla, III, 90 ‘You waft me from extreme to extreme, with a rapidity absolutely dizzying.’

  do spite [O.E.D. Spite, sb., 1. a., –1658] 1778 Evelina, II, 71 ‘he’s always been doing me one spite or other, ever since I knew him’.

  duberous, a. [O.E.D. Duberous, a., 1818–] 1791 Journals, I, 20 My dearest Fredy, I think, has full as strong a propensity to the antique as myself; but I am a little duberous as to my Susanne.

  dutify, v. [not in O.E.D.] 1797 Journals, IV, 30 I come frm her wth the most dutiful duty that ever was dutified.

  egotism, sb. [O.E.D. Egotism, 2., 1800–] 1796 Camilla, I, 183 the egotism which urged him to make his own amusement his first pursuit.

  elbow, v. [O.E.D. Elbow, v., 4. b., 1833–] 1796 Camilla, V, 17 Clermont, now, elbowing his way into a group of gentlemen.

  Englishism, sb. [O.E.D. Englishism, 1855–] 1802 Journab, V, 217 that Englishism of reserve for which I am so noted in the Circles in which I am known.

  Englishize, v. [O.E.D. 2nd Suppl., Englishize, v., 1858–] 1799 Journals, IV, 344 How happy should we be if the whole party were to come, & Englishize again the Major.

  enrage, v. [O.E.D. Enrage, v., 2., –1782] 1795 Journals, III, 125 I entreat you, my dear Carlos, not to enrage, – 1 could not withstand the united voices that chorussed against your counsel.

  far from it [O.E.D. Far, adv., 1. d., 1882–] 1796 Camilla, I, 157 ‘Yes; you hold it in antipathy, don’t you?’ ‘No, indeed! far from it.’

  fascinately, adv. [not in O.E.D.] 1832 Memoirs, II, 30 Then, how fascinately she condescended to indulge us with a rondeau!

  follow up, v. [O.E.D. Follow, v., 21. b., 1794–] 1792 Journals I, 251 He meant to follow this up with some daring effort to serve the King – but he had soon intimation that his own doom was fixed.

  formalize, v. [O.E.D. Formalize, v., 5. b., 1856–] 1791 Journals, I, 103 a little chat with them was all my entertainment; for though Mrs Boscawen & Dr Russel were also there, the circle was formalized by Lady Amherst.

  French grey [O.E.D. French, A. 3., 1862–] 1798 Journals, IV, 232 The dear Princess was seated on a sofa, in a French Grey riding Dress, with pink lapels.

  fudge, sb. [O.E.D. Fudge, B. 2., 1797–] 1796 Camilla, II, 89 ‘How did you like my sending the Major to you? was not that good fudge?’

  gay-looking [O.E.D. Gay, A. 9., 1897–] 1778 Evelina, I, 46 Presently, after, a very gay-looking man, stepping hastily up to him.

  gentilize, v. [O.E.D. Gentilize, v.,1 2, 1679 only] 1796 Journals, III, 214 the Horses being sufficiently gentleized by 18 miles at a stretch not to be alarmingly frisky.

  gipsy-looking [O.E.D. Gipsy, sb., 4., 1824–] 1802 Journals, V, 231 old women selling fruit or other eatables; Gipsey-looking Creatures with Children tied to their backs.

  gladify, v. [not in O.E.D.] 1798 Journals, IV, 146 O that he would come & mortify upon
our bread & cheese, while he would gladify upon our pleasure in his sight!

  glass, v. [O.E.D. 2nd Suppl., Glass, v., 4. c., 1935–] 1791 Journals, I, 43 their names were all mentioned by Mrs Pointz, but I did not choose to Glass them, & without, could not distinguish them.

  grand-dad, sb. [O.E.D. Grand-dad, 1819–] 1782 Cecilia, V, 71 ‘Must, must!’ cried Briggs, ‘tell all his old grand-dads else.’

  hob-nob, v. [O.E.D. Hob-nob, v., 1., 1828–] 1814 Journals, VII, 361–2 Rain, or Illness, shall alone, then, prevent my hob nobing in a dish of tea with my dear Brother.

  inappeasahle, a. [O.E.D. Inappeasable, a., 1840–] 1803 Journals, VI, 469 the consideration I meet with in this Country, from my evident & inappeasable distress upon this subject.

  inarticulated [O.E.D. Inarticulated, ppl. a, 2., 1824–] 1796 Camilla, II, 348 The if almost dropt inarticulated: but he added – ‘I shall make some further enquiries before I venture to say any more.’

  inquire out, v. [O.E.D. Inquire, v., 6., –1790] 1814 The Wanderer, V, 233 ‘Rawlins, order Hilson to enquire out the magistrate of the village’.

  intercourse, v. [O.E.D. Intercourse, v., 2., –1571] 1799 Journals, IV, 289 I hope to receive one, & to be again upon terms of affection & intercoursing, – though, alas, no more of faith or approbation.