The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney. Frances Burney
conducted was so much crowded we could hardly make our way. Lady Miller came to the door, and, as she had first done to the rest of us, took my hand, and led me up to a most prodigious fat old lady, and introduced me to her. This was Mrs. Riggs, her ladyship’s mother, who seems to have Bath Easton and its owners under her feet.
I was smiled upon with a graciousness designedly marked, and seemed most uncommonly welcome. Mrs. Riggs looked as if she could have shouted for joy at sight of me! She is mighty merry and facetious, Sir John was very quiet, but very civil.
I saw the place appropriated for the vase, but at this time it was removed. As it was hot, Sir John Miller offered us to walk round the house, and see his greenhouse, etc. So away we set off, Harriet Bowdler accompanying me, and some others following.
We had not strolled far ere we were overtaken by another party, and among them I perceived Miss W— my new sceptical friend. She joined me immediately, and I found she was by no means in so sad a humour as when I saw her last, on the contrary, she seemed flightily gay.
“Were you never here before?” she asked me.
“No.”
“No? why what an acquisition you are then! I suppose you will contribute to the vase?”
“No, indeed!”
“No more you ought; you are quite too good for it.”
“No, not that; but I have no great passion for making the trial. You, I suppose, have contributed?”
“No, never—I can’t. I have tried, but I could never write verses in my life—never get beyond Cupid and stupid.”
“Did Cupid, then, always come in your way? what a mischievous urchin!”
“No, he has not been very mischievous to me this year.”
“Not this year? Oh, very well! He has spared you, then, for a whole twelvemonth!”
She laughed, and we were interrupted by more company.
Some time after, while I was talking with Miss W— and Harriet Bowdler, Mrs. Riggs came up to us, and with an expression of comical admiration, fixed her eyes upon me, and for some time amused herself with apparently watching me. Mrs. Lambart, who was at cards, turned round and begged me to give her her cloak, for she felt rheumatic; I could not readily find it, and, after looking some time, I was obliged to give her my own; but while I was hunting, Mrs. Riggs followed me, laughing, nodding, and looking much delighted, and every now and then saying,
“That’s right, Evelina—Ah! look for it, Evelina!—Evelina always did so—she always looked for people’s cloaks, and was obliging and well-bred!”
I grinned a little, to be sure, but tried to escape her, by again getting between Miss W— and Harriet Bowdler; but Mrs. Riggs still kept opposite to me, expressing from time to time, by uplifted hands and eyes, comical applause, Harriet Bowdler modestly mumbled some praise, but addressed it to Miss Thrale. I begged a truce, and retired to a chair in a corner, at the request of Miss W— to have a tête-à-tête, for which, however, her strange levity gave me no great desire. She begged to know if I had written anything else. I assured her never.
“The ‘Sylph,’” said she, “I am told, was yours.”
“I had nothing at all to do with that or anything else that ever was published but ‘Evelina;’ you, I suppose, read the ‘Sylph’ for its name’s sake?”
“No; I never read novels—I hate them; I never read ‘Evelina’ till I was quite persecuted by hearing it talked of. ‘Sir Charles Grandison’ I tried once, but could not bear it; Sir Charles for a lover! no lover for me! for a guardian or the trustee of an estate, he might do very well—but for a lover!”
“What—when he bows upon your hand! would not that do?”
She kept me by her side for a full hour, and we again talked over our former conversation; and I enquired what first led her to seeking infidel books?
“Pope,” she said; he was himself a deist, she believed, and his praise of Bolingbroke made her mad to read his books, and then the rest followed easily. She also gave me an account of her private and domestic life; of her misery at home, her search of dissipation, and her incapability of happiness.
Curiosity about the “Evelina” Set
Our conversation would have lasted till leave-taking, but for our being interrupted by Miss Miller, a most beautiful little girl of ten years old. Miss W— begged her to sing us a French song. She coquetted, but Mrs. Riggs came to us, and said if I wished it I did her grand-daughter great honour, and she insisted upon her obedience. The little girl laughed and complied, and we went into another room to hear her, followed by the Misses Caldwell. She sung in a pretty childish manner enough.
When we became more intimate, she said,
“Ma’am, I have a great favour to request of you, if you please!”
I begged to know what it was, and assured her I would grant it; and to be out of the way of these misses, I led her to the window.
“Ma’am,” said the little girl, “will you then be so good as to tell me where Evelina is now?”
I was a little surprised at the question, and told her I had not heard lately.
“Oh, ma’am, but I am sure you know!” cried she, “for you know you wrote it; and mamma was so good as to let me hear her read it; and pray, ma’am, do tell me where she is? and whether Miss Branghton and Miss Polly went to see her when she was married to Lord Orville?”
I promised her I would inquire, and let her know.
“And pray, ma’am, is Madame Duval with her now?”
And several other questions she asked me, with a childish simplicity that was very diverting. She took the whole for a true story, and was quite eager to know what was become of all the people. And when I said I would inquire, and tell her when we next met.
“Oh, but, ma’am,” she said, “had not you better write it down, because then there would be more of it, you know?”
Alarm at the “No Popery” Riots
(The disgraceful “No Popery” riots, which filled London with terror, and the whole country with alarm, in June, 1780, were occasioned by the recent relaxation of the severe penal laws against the Catholics. The rioters were headed by Lord George Gordon, a crazy enthusiast. Dr. Johnson has given a lively account of the disturbance in his “Letters to Mrs. Thrale,” some excerpts from which will, perhaps, be not unacceptable to the reader.
“9th June, 1780. on Friday (June 2) the good protestants met in Saint George’s Fields, at the summons of Lord George Gordon; and marching to Westminster, insulted the lords and commons, who all bore it with great tameness. At night the outrages began by the demolition of the mass-house by Lincoln’s Inn.
“An exact journal of a week’s defiance of government I cannot give you. On Monday Mr. Strahan, who had been insulted, spoke to Lord Mansfield, who had, I think, been insulted too, of the licentiousness of the populace; and his lordship treated it as a very slight irregularity. On Tuesday night they pulled down Fielding’s99 house, and burnt his goods in the street. They had gutted on Monday Sir George Savile’s house, but the building was saved. On Tuesday evening, leaving Fielding’s ruins, they went to Newgate to demand their companions, who had been seized demolishing the chapel. The keeper could not release them but by the mayor’s permission, which he went to ask; at his return he found all the prisoners released, and Newgate in a blaze. They then went to Bloomsbury, and fastened upon Lord Mansfield’s house, which they pulled down; and as for his goods, they totally burnt them. They have since gone to Caen-wood, but a guard was there before them. They plundered some papists, I think, and burnt a mass-house in Moorfields the