The Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay, by Frances Burney

     “Oh, Author of my being!—far more dear
     To me than light, than nourishment, or rest,
     Hygeia's blessings, Rapture's burning tear,
     Or the life-blood that mantles in-my breast!
     If in my heart the love of Virtue glows,
     'Twas planted there by an unerring rule
     From thy example the pure flame arose,
     Thy life, my precept,—thy good works, my school.
     Could my weak pow'rs thy num'rous virtues trace,
     By filial love each fear should be repress'd;
     The blush of Incapacity I'd chace,
     And stand, Recorder of thy worth, confess'd
     But since my niggard stars that gift refuse,
     Concealment is the only boon I claim
     Obscure be still the unsuccessful Muse,
     Who cannot raise, but would not sink, thy fame,
     Oh! of my life at once the source and joy!
     If e'er thy eyes these feeble lines survey,
     Let not their folly their intent destroy;
     Accept the tribute-but forget the lay.”]

36 (return)
[ Lady Hales was the mother of Miss Coussmaker, having been twice married, the second time to Sir Thomas Pym Hales, Bart., who died in 1773. They were intimate friends of the Burneys.—ED.]

37 (return)
[ Dr. Burney had brought the work under the notice of Mrs. Thrale. Mrs. Cholmondeley was a sister of the famous actress, Peg Woffington. Her husband, the Hon. and Rev. Robert Cholmondeley, was the second son of the Earl of Cholmondeley, and nephew of Horace Walpole.—ED.]

38 (return)
[ The sum originally paid for “Evelina” was twenty pounds, to which ten Pounds more were added after the third edition. “Evelina” passed through four editions within a year.—ED.]

39 (return)
[ Mrs. Greville, the wife of Dr. Burney's friend and early patron, Fulke Greville, was Fanny's godmother, and the author of a much admired “Ode to Indifference.”—ED.]

41 (return)
[ A French authoress, who wrote about the middle of the eighteenth century. Her novels, according to Dunlop “A History of Fiction,” (chap. xiii.), “are distinguished by their delicacy and spirit.” Her best works ar: “Miss Jenny Salisbury,” “Le Marquis de Cressy,” “Letters of Lady Catesby,” etc.—ED.]

42 (return)
[ Mrs. Williams, the blind poetess, who resided in Dr. Johnson's house. She had written to Dr. Burney, requesting the loan of a copy of “Evelina.”—ED.]

43 (return)
[ William Seward “a great favourite at Streatham,” was the son of an eminent brewer, Mr. Seward, of the firm of Calvert and Seward, and was born in 1747. He was not yet a “literary lion,” but he published some volumes—“Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons”—at a later date. He died in 1799.—ED.]

44 (return)
[ Miss Frances Reynolds—Dr. Johnson's “Renny”—was the sister of the great Sir Joshua, and a miniature painter of some talent.—ED.]

46 (return)
[ Bennet Lampton, of Langton in Lincolnshire, was an old and much loved friend of Dr. Johnson, and is frequently mentioned in Boswell's “Life.” He was born about 1737, was educated at Oxford, was a good Greek scholar, and, says Boswell, “a gentleman eminent not only for worth, and learning but for an inexhaustible fund of entertaining conversation.” He succeeded Johnson, on the death of the latter, as Professor of Ancient History to the Royal Academy, and died in 1801. Boswell has printed a charming letter, written by Johnson, a few months before his death, to Langton's little daughter Jane, then in her seventh year.—ED.]

47 (return)
[ “My master” was a Common appellation for Mr. Thrale,—and one which he seems, in earnest, to have deserved. “I know no man,” said Johnson, “who is more master of his wife and family than Thrale, he but holds up a finger, he is obeyed.” (Boswell.)—ED.]

48 (return)
[ Suspirius the Screech Owl. See “Rambler” for Oct. 9, 1750. (This is unjust to Goldsmith. The general idea of the character of Croaker, no doubt, closely resembles that of Suspirius, and was probably borrowed from Johnson; but the details which make the part so diverting are entirely of Goldsmith's invention, as anyone may see by comparing “The Good-natured Man” with “The Rambler.”)—ED.]]

49 (return)
[ Mrs. Thrale tells a good story of Johnson's irrational antipathy to the Scotch. A Scotch gentleman in London, “at his return from the Hebrides, asked him, with a firm tone of voice, 'what he thought of his country?' 'That it is a very vile country, to be sure, sir,' returned for answer Dr. Johnson. 'Well sir!' replies the other, somewhat mortified, 'God made it!' 'Certainly he did,' answers Mr. Johnson, again, 'but we must always remember that He made it for Scotchmen; and—comparisons are odious.” Mr. S.—“but God made hell!”—(Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson)—ED.]

     “When first I drew my vital breath,
     A little minikin I came upon earth
     And then I came from a dark abode,
     Into this gay and gaudy world,”—ED,]

52 (return)
[ Malone gives some further particulars about Bet Flint in a note to Boswell's “Life of Johnson.” She was tried, and acquitted, at the Old Bailey in September, 1758, the prosecutrix, Mary Walthow, being unable to prove “that the goods charged to have been stolen (a counterpane, a silver spoon, two napkins, etc.) were her property. Bet does not appear to have lived at that time in a very genteel style; for she paid for her ready-furnished room in Meard's-court, Dean-street, Soho, from which these articles were alleged to be stolen, only five shillings a week.”—ED.]

53 (return)
[ Margaret Caroline Rudd was in great notoriety about the year 1776, from the fame of her powers of fascination, which, it was said, had brought a man to the gallows. This man, her lover, was hanged in January, 1776, for forgery, and the fascinating Margaret appeared as evidence against him. Boswell visited her in that year, and to a lady who expressed her disapprobation of such proceedings, Johnson said: “Nay, madam, Boswell is right: I should have visited her myself, were it not that they have got a trick of putting every thing into the newspapers.”—ED.]

54 (return)
[ Kitty Fisher—more correctly, Fischer, her father being a German—an even more famous courtesan, who enjoyed the distinction of having been twice painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds—ED.]

56 (return)
[ Michael Lort, D.D., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and subsequently Greek Professor. He was born in 1725, and died in 1799.—ED.]

58 (return)
[ The Miss Palmers were the nieces of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Mary, the elder, married, in 1792, the Earl of Inchiquin, afterwards created Marquis of Thomond; the younger, Theophila (“Offy”), married Robert Lovell Gwatkin, Esq. One of Sir Joshua's most charming pictures (“Simplicity”) was painted, in 1788, from Offy's little daughter. Lady Ladd was the sister of Mr. Thrale.—ED.]

60 (return)
[ Edmund Burke, our “greatest man since Milton,” as Macaulay called him.—ED.]

61 (return)
[ At Sir Joshua's town house, in Leicester Square. The house is now occupied by Messrs. Puttick and Simpson, the auctioneers.—ED.]

62 (return)
[ “de Mullin” is Mrs. Desmoulins, the daughter of Johnson's godfather, Dr. Swinfen, a physician in Lichfield. Left in extreme indigence by the deaths of her father and husband, she found for many years an asylum in the house of Dr. Johnson, whom she survived.—ED.]

63 (return)
[ Macbean was sometime Johnson's amanuensis. His “Dictionary of Ancient Geography” was published in 1773, with a Preface by Johnson.—ED.]

64 (return)
[ Robert Levett—not Levat, as Fanny writes it—was a Lichfield man, “an obscure practiser in physick amongst the lower people,” and an old acquaintance of Dr. Johnson's, in whose house he was supported for many years, until his death, at a very advanced age, in 1782, “So ended the long life of a very useful and very blameless man,” Johnson wrote, in communicating the intelligence to Dr. Lawrence.—ED.]

65 (return)
[ Boswell tells us nothing of Poll, except that she was a Miss Carmichael. Domestic dissensions seem to have been the rule with this happy family, but Johnson's long-suffering was inexhaustible, On one occasion he writes Mrs. Thrale, “Williams hates everybody; Levett hates Desmoulins, who does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll loves none of them.”—ED.]

66 (return)
[ The lives of Cowley and Waller, from Johnson's “Lives of the Poets.” They were not published till 1781, but were already in print.—ED.]

67 (return)
[ “The Theory and Regulation of Love: A Moral Essay.” By the Rev. John Norris, Oxford, 1688.—ED.]

68 (return)
[ Miss Gregory was the daughter of a Scotch physician. She married the Rev. Archibald Alison, and was the mother of Sir Archibald Alison, the historian.—ED.]

70 (return)
[ No doubt Simon Nicolas Henri Linguet, a French author, who published numerous works, historical and political, both before and after this date.—ED.]

71 (return)
[ In the original edition: perhaps “vexation” was the word intended.—ED.]

72 (return)
[ Sir John Ladd, Mr. Thrale's sister's son, a young profligate who subsequently married, not Miss Burney, but a woman of the town! Dr. Johnson's satirical verses on his coming of age are printed near the end of Boswell's “Life.”—ED.]

73 (return)
[ This was not the famous philosopher and statesman, but the Rev. Thomas Franklin, D.D., who was born in 1721, and died in 1784. He published various translations from the classics, as well as plays and miscellaneous works; but is best known for his translation of Sophocles, published in 1759.—ED.]

74 (return)
[ “Warley: a Satire,” then just published, by a Mr. Huddisford. “Dear little Burney's” name was coupled in it with that of Sir Joshua Reynolds, in a manner which seemed to imply that Sir Joshua had special reasons for desiring her approbation. It will be remembered that, before he knew that Miss Burney was the author of “Evelina,” Sir Joshua had jestingly remarked that if the author proved to be a woman, he should be sure to make love to her. See ante, p. 94.—ED.]

75 (return)
[ Mrs. Horneck and Mrs. Bunbury (her eldest daughter) had declared that they would walk a hundred and sixty miles, to see the author of “Evelina.”—ED.]

77 (return)
[ A kinsman of the great Edmund Burke, and, like him, a politician and member of Parliament. Goldsmith has drawn his character in “Retaliation.”

     “Here lies honest William, whose heart was a mint,
     While the owner ne'er knew half the good that was in 't;
     The pupil of impulse, it forced him along,
     His conduct still right, with his argument wrong
     Still aiming at honour, yet fearing to roam,
     The coachman was tipsy, the chariot drove home;
     Would-you ask for his merits? alas! he had none;
     What was good was spontaneous, his faults were his own.”—ED.]

78 (return)
[ Henry Temple, second Viscount Palmerston, and father of the celebrated Lord Palmerston.—ED.]

79 (return)
[ Mrs. Cholmondeley imitates the language of Madame Duval, the French woman in “Evelina.”—ED.]

81 (return)
[ Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was born at Plympton, in Devonshire, in 1723—ED.]

83 (return)
[ Afterwards Lady Crewe; the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Greville, and a famous Political beauty. At a supper after the Westminster election on the Prince of Wales toasting, “True blue and Mrs. Crewe,” the lady responded, “True blue and all of you.”—ED.]

84 (return)
[ A celebrated Italian singer and intimate friend of the Burneys.—ED.]

85 (return)
[ See note [15: ante, p. xxvi. The intended marriage above referred to above came to nothing, Miss Cumberland, the eldest daughter of the dramatist subsequently marrying Lord Edward Bentinck, son of the Duke of Portland.—ED.]

87 (return)
[ Hannah More gave Dr. Johnson, when she was first introduced to him, such a surfeit of flattery, that at last, losing patience, he turned to her and said, “Madam, before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flattery is worth his having.”—ED.]

88 (return)
[ Mrs. Vesey was the lady at whose house were held the assemblies from which the term “blue-stocking” first came into use. (See ante.) Fanny writes of her in 1779, “She is an exceeding well-bred woman, and of agreeable manners; but all her name in the world must, I think, have been acquired by her dexterity and skill in selecting parties, and by her address in rendering them easy with one another—an art, however, that seems to imply no mean understanding.”—ED.]

89 (return)
[ Joseph Warton, author of the “Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope.”—ED.]

91 (return)
[ Sir P. J. Clerke's bill was moved on the 12th of February. It passed the first and second readings, but was afterwards lost on the motion for going into committee. It was entitled a “Bill for restraining any person, being a member of the House of Commons, from being concerned himself, or any person in trust for him, in any contract made by the commissioners of his Majesty's Treasury, the commissioners of the Navy, the board of Ordnance, or by any other person or persons for the public service, Unless the said contract shall be made at a public bidding.”—ED.]

93 (return)
[ Arthur Murphy, the well-known dramatic author, a very intimate friend of the Thrales. He was born in Ireland in 1727, and died at Knightsbridge in 1805. Among his most successful plays were “The Orphan of China” and “The Way to Keep Him.”—ED.]

95 (return)
[ Sophy Streatfield, a young lady who understood Greek, and was consequently looked upon as a prodigy of learning. Mrs. Thrale appears to have been slightly jealous of her about this time, though without serious cause. In January, 1779, she writes (in “Thraliana”): “Mr. Thrale has fallen in love, really and seriously, with Sophy Streatfield; but there is no wonder in that; she is very pretty, very gentle, soft and insinuating; hangs about him, dances round him, cries when she parts from him, squeezes his hand slily, and with her sweet eyes full of tears looks fondly in his face—and all for love of me, as she pretends, that I can hardly sometimes help laughing in her face. A man must not be a man, but an it, to resist such artillery.”—ED.]

96 (return)
[ Characters in the comedy which Fanny was then engaged upon.—ED.]

98 (return)
[ The Rev. John Delap, D.D., born 1725, died 1812. He was a man “of deep learning, but totally ignorant of life and manners,” and wrote several tragedies, two or three of which were acted, but generally without success,—ED.]

99 (return)
[ Mrs. Piozzi (then Mrs. Thrale) relates this story in her “Anecdotes of Dr. Johnson.” “I came into the room one evening where he [Johnson] and a gentleman [Seward], whose abilities we all respect exceedingly, were sitting. A lady [Miss Streatfield], who walked in two minutes before me, had blown 'em both into a flame by whispering something to Mr. S—d, which he endeavoured to explain away so as not to affront the doctor, whose suspicions were all alive. 'And have a care, sir,' said he, just as I came in, 'the Old Lion will not bear to be tickled.' The other was pale with rage, the lady wept at the confusion she had caused, and I could only say with Lady Macbeth—'Soh! you've displaced the mirth, broke the good meeting with most admired disorder.'”—ED.]

100 (return)
[ The following note is in the hand-writing of Miss Burney, at a subsequent period. The objection of Mr. Crisp to the MS play of 'The Witlings,' was its resemblance to Moliere's 'Femmes Savantes,' and consequent immense inferiority. It is, however, a curious fact, and to the author a consolatory one, that she had literally never read the 'Femmes Savantes' when she composed 'The Witlings.']

102 (return)
[ Anthony Chamier, M.P. for Tamworth, and an intimate friend of Dr. Burney's. He was Under Secretary of State from 1775 till his death in 1780. We find him at one of Dr. Burney's famous music-parties in 1775. Fanny writes of him then as “an extremely agreeable man, and the very pink of gallantry.” (“Early Diary,” vol, ii. p. 106.)—ED.]

103 (return)
[ Afterwards Sir William Weller Pepys, Master in Chancery, and brother of the physician, Sir Lucas Pepys. He was an ardent lover of literature, and gave “blue-stocking” parties, which Dr. Burney frequently attended. Fanny extols his urbanity and benevolence. See “Memoirs of Dr. Burney,” vol. ii. p. 285.—ED.]

105 (return)
[ Mrs. Pleydell was a friend of Dr. Burney's, and greatly admired for her beauty and the sweetness of her disposition. She was the daughter of Governor Holwell, one of the survivors from the Black Hole of Calcutta.—ED.]

108 (return)
[ Lady Diana Spencer, eldest daughter of Charles, second Duke of Marlborough. She was born in 1734, married in 1760 to Viscount Bolingbroke, divorced from him in 1768, and married soon after to Dr. Johnson's friend, Topham Beauclerk. Lady Di was an amateur artist, and the productions of her pencil were much admired by Horace Walpole and other persons of fashion. Elizabeth, Countess of Pembroke, was the sister of Lady Di Beauclerk, being the second daughter of the Duke of Marlborough.—ED.]

112 (return)
[ A character in Fanny's suppressed comedy, “The Witlings.”—ED.]

113 (return)
[ Not the celebrated George Selwyn, but a wealthy banker of that name.—ED.]

114 (return)
[ Lucrezia Agujari was one of the most admired Italian singers of the day. She died at Parma in 1783.—ED.]

115 (return)
[ The Rev. Henry Bate, afterwards Sir Henry Bate Dudley, editor of the “Morning Post” from its establishment in 1772 till 1780, in which year his connection with that paper came to an end in consequence of a quarrel with his coadjutors. On the 1st of November, 1780, he brought out the “Morning Herald” in opposition to his old paper, the “Post.” He assumed the name of Dudley in 1784, was created a baronet in 1813, and died in 1824. Gainsborough has painted the portrait of this ornament of the Church, who was notorious, in his younger days, for his physical strength, and not less so for the very unclerical use which he made of it. He was popularly known as the “Fighting Parson.”—ED.]

116 (return)
[ Mr. Smelt was a friend of Dr. Burney's, and highly esteemed by Fanny both for his character and talents. He had been tutor to the Prince of Wales (afterwards George IV.). We shall meet with him later.—ED.]

117 (return)
[ This boy was afterwards the celebrated painter, Sir Thomas Lawrence, President of the Royal Academy.—ED.]

118 (return)
[ Constantine John Phipps, second Baron Mulgrave in the Irish peerage. He was born in 1744; served with distinction in the navy, and made a voyage of discovery towards the North Pole in 1773. His account of this voyage was published in the following year. He became Baron Mulgrave on the death of his father, the first Baron, in 1775; was raised to the English peerage under the title of Lord Mulgrave in 1790, and died in 1792.—ED.]

119 (return)
[ Mrs. Byron was the wife of Admiral the Hon. John Byron (“Foul-weather Jack”), and grandmother of the poet. Her daughter Augusta subsequently married Vice-Admiral Parker, and died in 1824.—ED.]

120 (return)
[ Mrs. Dobson was authoress of an abridged translation of “Petrarch's Life,” and of the “History of the Troubadours.”—ED.]

121 (return)
[ Dr. Harrington was a physician, and a friend of Dr. Burney. His son, “Mr. Henry”—the Rev. Henry Harrington—was the editor of “Nugaae Antiquae.”—ED.]

123 (return)
[ Lady Miller, of Bath Easton—the lady of the Vase. Horace Walpole gives an amusing description of the flummery which was indulged in every week at Bath Easton under her presidency. “You must know, that near Bath is erected a new Parnassus, composed of three laurels, a myrtle-tree, a weeping-willow, and a view of the Avon, which has now been christened Helicon. Ten years ago there lived a Madam [Briggs], an old rough humourist, who passed for a wit; her daughter, who passed for nothing, married to a captain [Miller], full of good-natured officiousness. These good folks were friends of Miss Rich, who carried me to dine with them at Bath Easton, now Pindus. They caught a little of what was then called taste, built, and planted, and begot children, till the whole caravan were forced to go abroad to retrieve. Alas! Mrs. Miller is returned a beauty, a genius, a Sappho, a tenth muse, as romantic as Mademoiselle Scuderi, and as sophisticated as Mrs. Vesey. The captain's fingers are loaded with cameos, his tongue runs over with virtu; and that both may contribute to the improvement of their own country, they have introduced bouts-rimes as a new discovery. They hold a Parnassus-fair every Thursday, give out rhymes and themes, and all the flux of quality at Bath contend for the prizes. A Roman vase, dressed with pink ribands and myrtles, receives the poetry, which is drawn out every festival: six judges of these Olympic games retire and select the brightest compositions, which the respective successful acknowledge, kneel to Mrs. Calliope (Miller), kiss her fair hand, and are crowned by it with myrtle.” Works, vol. v. P. 183—ED.]

124 (return)
[ Not our old acquaintance, Mrs. Cholmondeley, but a lady whom Fanny met for the first time during this season at Bath.—ED.]

126 (return)
[ Beattie's “Essay on Truth,” published in 1770, and containing a feeble attack on Hume. Commonplace as the book is, it was received with rapture by the Orthodox, and Reynolds painted a fine picture of Beattie, standing with the “Essay” under his arm, while the angel of Truth beside him, drives away three demonic figures, in whose faces we trace a resemblance to the portraits of Hume, Voltaire, and Gibbon. For this piece of flattery the painter was justly rebuked by Goldsmith, whose sympathies were certainly not on the side of infidelity. “It very ill becomes a mann of your eminence and character,” said the poet, “to debase so high a genius as Voltaire before so mean a writer as Beattie. Beattie and his book will be forgotten in ten years, while Voltaire's fame will last for ever. Take care it does not perpetuate this picture, to the shame of such a man as you.”—ED.]

128 (return)
[ Sir Clement Willoughby, a rakish baronet in “Evelina.”—ED.]

129 (return)
[ This flirtation came to nothing, as Captain Brisbane proved himself a jilt. The following month Miss Burney wrote to Mrs. Thrale as follows:—“Your account of Miss M—'s being taken in, and taken in by Captain Brisbane, astonishes me! surely not half we have heard either of her adorers, or her talents, can have been true. Mrs. Byron has lost too little to have anything to lament, except, indeed, the time she sacrificed to foolish conversation, and the civilities she threw away upon so worthless a subject. Augusta has nothing to reproach herself with, and riches and wisdom must be rare indeed, if she fares not as well with respect to both, as she would have done with an adventurer whose pocket, it seems, was as empty as his head.”—ED.]

130 (return)
[ Sir John Fielding, the magistrate; brother of the novelist.—ED.]

131 (return)
[ Mr. Thrale's brewery in Southwark. His town house in Grosvenor Square was threatened by the mob, but escaped destruction.—ED.]

133 (return)
[ James Harris, of Salisbury, and his family. Mr. Harris was the author of “Hermes, an Enquiry concerning Universal Grammar,” and was characterised by Dr. Johnson as a “sound, solid scholar.” He was an enthusiast on the subject of music, and had made Dr. Burney's acquaintance at the opera in 1773.—ED.]

134 (return)
[ Fanny's younger sister, some of whose lively and amusing letters and fragments of journal are printed in the “Early Diary.” Unlike Fanny, she was a bit of a flirt, and she seems to have been altogether a very charming young woman, who fully sustained the Burney reputation for sprightliness and good humour.—ED.]

135 (return)
[ This letter was written in reply to a few words from Mrs. Thrale, in which, alluding to her husband's sudden death, she begs Miss Burney to “write to me—pray for me!” The hurried note from Mrs. Thrale is thus endorsed by Miss Burney:—“Written a few hours after the death of Mr. Thrale, which happened by a sudden stroke of apoplexy, on the morning of a day on which half the fashion of London had been invited to an intended assembly at his house in Grosvenor Square.” [Mr. Thrale, who had long suffered from ill health, had been contemplating a journey to Spa, and thence to Italy. His physicians, however, were strongly opposed to the scheme, and Fanny writes, just before his death, that it was settled that a great meeting of hi friends should take place, and that they should endeavour to prevail with him to give it up; in which she has little doubt of their succeeding.]—ED.]

137 (return)
[ Mauritius Lowe, a natural son of Lord Southwell. He sent a large picture of the Deluge to the Royal Academy in 1783, and was so distressed at its rejection, that Johnson compassionately wrote to Sirjoshua Reynolds in his behalf, entreating that the verdict might be re-considered. His intercession was successful, and the picture was admitted. We know nothing of Mr. Lowe's work.—ED.]

138 (return)
[ Afterwards Sir William P. Weller Pepys. See note 103, ante.—ED.]

139 (return)
[ “The moment he was gone, 'Now,' says Dr. Johnson, 'is Pepys gone home hating me, who love him better than I did before. He spoke in defence of his dead friend; but though I hope I spoke better, who spoke against him, yet all my eloquence will gain me nothing but an honest man for my enemy!'” (Mrs. Piozzi's “Anecdotes of Johnson.”)—ED.]

140 (return)
[ The celebrated Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, equally famous for her personal attractions and her political enthusiasm in the Whig interest. Her canvassing, and, it is said, her kisses, largely contributed to the return of Charles james Fox for Westminster in the election of 1784. She was the daughter of John, first Earl Spencer; was born 1757; married, 1774, to William, fifth Duke of Devonshire; and died, 1806. Her portrait was painted by both Reynolds and Gainsborough. Mary Isabella, Duchess of Rutland, was the youngest daughter of the Duke of Beaufort, and was married, in 1775, to Charles Mariners, fourth Duke of Rutland. She died, 1831.—ED.]

144 (return)
[ Of Bath Easton: husband of the lady of the “Vase.” See note [123], ante, P. 174.—ED.]

145 (return)
[ Captain Molesworth Phillips, who had recently married Susan Burney.—ED.]

146 (return)
[ Gasparo Pacchierotti, a celebrated Italian singer, and a very intimate friend of the Burney family.—ED.]

147 (return)
[ “Variety,” a comedy, was produced at Drury Lane, Feb. 25, 1782, and ran nine nights. Genest calls it a dull play, with little or no plot. The author is unknown.—ED.]

150 (return)
[ Poor Lady Di was throughout unfortunate in her marriages. Her first husband, Lord Bolingbroke, to whom she was married in 1757, brutally used her, and drove her to seek elsewhere the affection which he failed to bestow. She was divorced from him in 1768, and married, immediately afterwards, to Topham Beauclerk, who, in his turn, ill-treated her. Mr. Beauclerk died in March, 1780. He was greatly esteemed by Johnson, but his good qualities appear to have been rather of the head than of the heart.—ED.]

151 (return)
[ Her cousin Edward Burney, the painter. A reproduction of his portrait of Fanny forms the frontispiece to the present volume.—ED.]

152 (return)
[ Pasquale Paoli, the famous Corsican general and patriot. He maintained the independence of his country against the Genoese for nearly ten years. In 1769, upon the submission of Corsica to France, to which the Genoese had ceded it, Paoli settled in England, where he enjoyed a pension of 1200 pounds a year from the English Government. More details respecting this delightful interview between Fanny and the General are given in the “Memoirs of Dr. Burney” (vol. ii. p. 255), from which we select the following extracts:—

“He is a very pleasing man; tall and genteel in his person, remarkably attentive, obliging, and polite; and as soft and mild in his speech, as if he came from feeding sheep in Corsica, like a shepherd; rather than as if he had left the warlike field where he had led his armies to battle.

“When Mrs. Thrale named me, he started back, though smilingly, and said; 'I am very glad enough to see you in the face, Miss Evelina, which I have wished for long enough. O charming book! I give it you my word I have read it often enough. It is my favourite studioso for apprehending the English language; which is difficult often. I pray you, Miss Evelina, write some more little volumes of the quickest.'

“I disclaimed the name, and was walking away; but he followed me with an apology. 'I pray your pardon, Mademoiselle. My ideas got in a blunder often. It is Miss Borni what name I meant to accentuate, I pray your pardon, Miss Evelina.'”—ED.]

157 (return)
[ Philip Metcalf, elected member of Parliament for Horsham, together with Mr. Crutchley, in 1784.—ED.]

158 (return)
[ Miss Burney had seen this gentleman a few days previously and thus speaks of him in her “Diary.”—“Mr. Kaye of the Dragoons,—a baronet's son, and a very tall, handsome, and agreeable-looking young man; and, is the folks say, it is he for whom all the belles here are sighing. I was glad to see he seemed quite free from the nonchalance, impertinence of the times.”—ED.]

160 (return)
[ The Thrales and Fanny were now again in London, whither they returned from Brighton, November 20. Mrs. Thrale had taken a house in Argyle-street,—ED.]

161 (return)
[ Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley, daughter of Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford; married, in 1734, to the second Duke of Portland, She inherited from her father a taste for literature. She was the constant associate of Mrs. Delaney, and an old friend of Mr. Crisp. Of Mrs. Delany we shall give some account hereafter—ED.]

163 (return)
[ The miserly guardian of Cecilia, in Fanny's novel. Among the “Fragments of the journal of Charlotte Anne Burney,” appended to the “Early Diary,” occurs the following passage, written at the end of 1782. “Fanny's Cecilia came out last summer, and is as much liked and read I believe as any book ever was. She had 250 pounds for it from Payne and Cadell. Most people say she ought to have had a thousand. It is now going into the third edition, though Payne owns that they printed 2,000 at the first edition, and Lowndes told me five hundred was the common number for a novel.” (“Early Diary,” vol. ii. P. 307.)—ED.]

164 (return)
[ Richard Burke, the only son of the great Edmund. He died in 1794, before his father.—ED.]

165 (return)
[ Sir Joshua Reynolds was then in his sixtieth year; he was born in 1723.—ED.]

167 (return)
[ Probably the Hon. Thomas Erskine, afterwards Lord Chancellor.—ED.]

168 (return)
[ Richard Owen Cambridge, a gentleman admired for his wit in conversation, and esteemed as an author. “He wrote a burlesque poem called 'The Scribleriad,' and was a principal contributor to the periodical paper called 'The World.'” He died in 1802, at his villa on the banks of the Thames, near Twickenham, aged eighty-five years.—ED.]

169 (return)
[ Mrs. Ord was a famous blue-stocking and giver of literary parties, and a constant friend of Fanny's—ED.]

170 (return)
[ The Rev. George Owen Cambridge, second son of Richard Owen Cambridge, whose works he edited, and whose memoir he wrote. He died at Twickenham in 1841.—ED.]

172 (return)
[ Frances Reynolds, the miniature painter—Sir Joshua's sister—ED.]

173 (return)
[ Soame Jenyns was one of the most celebrated of the “old wits.” He was born in 1704; was for twenty-five years member of Parliament for Cambridgeshire; died in 1787. His principal works were “A Free Enquiry into the Origin of Evil,” and “A View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion.” Boswell writes of him: “Jenyns was possessed of lively talents, and a style eminently pure and 'easy', and could very happily play with a light subject, either in prose or verse; but when he speculated on that most difficult and excruciating question, 'The Origin of Evil,' he ventured far beyond his depth, and, accordingly, was exposed by Johnson [in the 'Literary Magazine'], both with acute argument and brilliant wit.”—ED.]

175 (return)
[ Hester Mulso was born in 1727; she married, in 1760, an attorney named Chapone, who died within a year of the marriage. Among the many young ladies who surrounded and corresponded with Samuel Richardson, Hester was a first favourite. The great novelist's letters to his “dear Miss Mulso” are very pleasant to read. Mrs. Chapone enjoyed considerable esteem as an authoress. Her “Letters on the Improvement of the Mind,” dedicated to Mrs. Montagu, went through several editions. We should like to praise them, but the truth must be owned—they are decidedly commonplace and “goody-goody.” Still, they are written in a spirit of tender earnestness, which raises our esteem for the writer, though it fails to reconcile us to the book. Mrs. Chapone died on Christmas-day, 1801.—ED.]

176 (return)
[ Truly said, “my dear Miss Mulso,” but if they cannot feel the wonderful charm and reality of “Clarissa” in the very first volume, they may as well leave it alone.—ED.]

177 (return)
[ In a corner of the nave of the quaint little church at Chesington is a large white marble tablet, marking the spot where Mr. Crisp lies buried. The following lines from the pen of Fanny's father inscribed on it do not, it must be confessed, exhibit the doctor's poetical talents by any means in a favourable light.