The Diary and Collected Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Frances Burney. Frances Burney
is so delighted, and so sensibly, so rationally, that I only wish you could have heard her. And old Mrs. Delany had been forced to begin it, though she had said she should never read any more; however, when we met, she was reading it already for the third time.”
After this Mrs. Burke saw me, and with much civility and softness of manner, came and talked with me, while her husband without seeing me, went behind my chair to speak to Mrs Hampden.
Miss Monckton, returning to me, then said—
“Miss Burney, I had the pleasure yesterday of seeing Mrs. Greville.”131
I suppose she concluded I was very intimate with her.
“I have not seen her,” said I, “in many years.”
“I know, however,” cried she, looking surprised, “she is your godmother.”
“But she does not do her duty and answer for me, for I never see her.”
“Oh, you have answered very well for yourself! But I know by that your name is Fanny.”
She then tripped to somebody else, and Mr. Burke very quietly came from Mrs. Hampden, and sat down in the vacant place at my side. I could then wait no longer, for I found he was more near-sighted than myself; I, therefore, turned towards him and bowed: he seemed quite amazed, and really made me ashamed, however delighted, by the expressive civility and distinction with which he instantly rose to return my bow, and stood the whole time he was making his compliments upon seeing me, and calling himself the blindest of men for not finding me out sooner. And Mrs. Burke, who was seated near me, said, loud enough for me to hear her—
“See, see what a flirtation Mr. Burke is beginning with Miss Burney and before my face too!”
These ceremonies over, he sat down by me, and began a conversation which you, my dearest Susy, would be glad to hear, for my sake, word for word; but which I really could not listen to with sufficient ease, from shame at his warm eulogiums, to remember with any accuracy. The general substance, however, take as I recollect it.
After many most eloquent compliments upon the book, too delicate either to shock or sicken the nicest ear, he very emphatically congratulated me upon its most universal success, said, “he was now too late to speak of it, since he could only echo the voice of the whole nation” and added, with a laugh, “I had hoped to have made some merit of my enthusiasm; but the moment I went about to hear what others say, I found myself merely one in a multitude.”
He then told me that, notwithstanding his admiration, he was the man who had dared to find some faults with so favourite and fashionable a work. I entreated him to tell me what they were, and assured him nothing would make me so happy as to correct them under his direction. He then enumerated them: and I will tell you what they are, that you may not conclude I write nothing but the fairer part of my adventures, which I really always relate very honestly, though so fair they are at this time, that it hardly seems possible they should not be dressed up.
The masquerade he thought too long, and that something might be spared from Harrel’s grand assembly; he did not like Morrice’s part of the pantheon; and he wished the conclusion either more happy or more miserable “for in a work of imagination,” said he, “there is no medium.”
I was not easy enough to answer him, or I have much, though perhaps not good for much, to say in defence of following life and nature as much in the conclusion as in the progress of a tale; and when is life and nature completely happy or miserable?
Looking very archly at me, and around him, he said,—
“Are you sitting here for characters? Nothing, by the way, struck me more in reading your book than the admirable skill with which your ingenious characters make themselves known by their own words.”
He then went on to tell me that I had done the most wonderful of wonders in pleasing the old wits, particularly the Duchess of Portland and Mrs. Delany, who resisted reading the book till they were teased into it, and, since they began, could do nothing else—and he failed not to point out, with his utmost eloquence, the difficulty of giving satisfaction to those who piqued themselves upon being past receiving it.
“But,” said he, “I have one other fault to find, and a more material one than any I have mentioned.”
“I am the more obliged to you. What is it?”
“The disposal of this book. I have much advice to offer to you upon that subject. Why did not you send for your own friend out of the city? he would have taken care you should not part with it so much below par.”
He meant Mr. Briggs.132
Sir Joshua Reynolds now joined us.
“Are you telling her,” said he, “of our conversation with the old wits? I am glad you hear it from Mr. Burke, Miss Burney, for he can tell it so much better than I can, and remember their very words.”
“Nothing else would they talk of for three whole hours,” said he, “and we were there at the third reading of the bill.”
“I believe I was in good hands,” said I, “if they talked of it to you?”
“Why, yes,” answered Sir Joshua, laughing, “we joined in from time to time. Gibbon says he read the whole five volumes in a day.”
“’Tis impossible,” cried Mr. Burke, “it cost me three days and you know I never parted with it from the time I first opened it.”
A Writer of Romances
Soon after the parties changed again and young Mr. Burke133 came and sat by me. He is a very civil and obliging, and a sensible and agreeable young man. Old Lady Galway trotted from her corner, in the middle of the evening, and leaning her hands upon the backs of two chairs, put her little round head through two fine high dressed ladies on purpose to peep at me, and then trotted back to her place! Ha, ha!
Miss Monckton now came to us again, and I congratulated her upon her power in making Dr. Johnson sit in a group upon which she immediately said to him,—
“Sir, Miss Burney says you like best to sit in a circle.”
“Does she?” said he, laughing; “Ay, never mind what she says. Don’t you know she is a writer of romances?”
“Yes, that I do, indeed,” said Miss Monckton, and every one joined in a laugh that put me horribly out of countenance.
“She may write romances and speak truth,” said my dear Sir Joshua, who, as well as young Burke, and Mr. Metcalf, and two strangers, joined now in our little party.
“But, indeed, Dr. Johnson,” said Miss Monckton, “you must see Mrs. Siddons. Won’t you see her in some fine part?”
“Why, if I must, madam, I’ve no choice.”
“She says, sir, she shall be very much afraid of you.”
“Madam, that cannot be true.”
“Not true,” cried Miss Monckton, staring, “yes it is.”
“It cannot be, madam.”
“But she said so to me; I heard her say it myself.”
“Madam, it is not possible! remember, therefore, in future, that even fiction should be supported by probability.”
Miss Monckton looked all amazement, but insisted upon the—truth of what she had said.
“I do not believe, madam,” said he, warmly, “she knows my name.”
“Oh, that is rating her too low,” said a gentleman stranger.
“By not knowing my name,” continued he, “I do not mean so literally; but that, when she sees it abused in a newspaper, she may possibly recollect that she has seen it abused in a newspaper before.”