It is to be remembered by those who study Miss Burney’s career that the appearance of Evelina, in 1778, marks a definite period in the history of woman’s contribution to English literature. Johnson’s estimate of the book was of course ludicrously wrong, and it is well to assume that his chivalry (for once) got the better of his judgment; yet it is impossible to deny the superlative significance of the book. It was the greatest creative work that had yet been produced by an Englishwoman. It is still read with delight by people who never heard of Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko, Miss Fielding’s Peter Simple, or Charlotte Lennox’s Female Quixote. The bluestockings were right in feeling that the author had forced a new estimate of the sex. The respect for her work was universal: extravagant things—impossibilities—were expected of her.
It was now that Miss Burney’s modesty (so carefully nurtured) was felt to be but an added grace. The most vicious satirist could discover in ‘little Burney’ nothing of the arrogance of a femme savante. She gave the impression of hating her talents and the fame which had been thrust upon her. Her unassuming demeanour and her youthful sweetness (for she was still girlish at twenty-six) made her the delight of every drawing-room she would consent to enter, and not unfrequently brought down upon her admiration and social attentions which she would have been happier without. At last, in an unhappy hour, they brought her to the attention of Queen Charlotte. But for the moment, all was sweetness and triumph and popularity. Her position among the bluestockings is noticeable; she was beloved of them all. She was loyal to Mrs. Thrale without sacrificing the regard of Mrs. Montagu or in any way offending her beloved Mrs. Ord. She almost reconciled stiff old Mrs. Delany and the dear Duchess of Portland to literary eminence in a woman. Outside this circle she was no less esteemed. Johnson loved her as a daughter, and professed himself glad to ‘send his name down to posterity’ linked with hers. Burke, who read Evelina repeatedly, distinguished her by a special greeting when she appeared at the trial of Warren Hastings, as, indeed, did the prisoner himself. Wyndham delighted to converse with her by the hour. Walpole received her at Strawberry Hill, and was no less pleased with her unpretentious manner than with the fact that Mrs. Montagu now had a superior. Had Miss Burney cared to open a salon, she might have reigned over these men like a more rational Lespinasse. The more her fortune is dwelt upon, the more obvious it becomes. As a child she had had David Garrick for a grown-up playmate; as a young woman she had the privilege of welcoming Sarah Siddons to the court; later in life, she conversed on terms of intimacy with Madame de Stael. She had passed the day in Reynolds’s studio, and had looked at the stars through the glass of Herschel. She was visited at Windsor by Boswell, proof-sheets in hand; and Sheridan, at the height of his reputation, repeatedly invited her to write a comedy. She described her acquaintance to Queen Charlotte as being ‘not only very numerous, but very mixed, taking in not only most stations in life, but also most parties.’[432] We may marvel at the fact that the shy Fanny Burney became a novelist; but she could hardly help becoming a diarist.
Even the great misfortune of her life really contributed to her greatness. Her life at Court, which half killed her, a life which she repeatedly calls ‘monastic’ and describes as ‘dead and tame’—strong words from one who thought she adored the Queen—enabled her to depict a kind of life which, dull as it was, can never lack significance. If for no more important reason, her account of it will always be read as one of the great dramas of disillusion. It furnished Macaulay with material for one of his most brilliant extravaganzas. Like him, we read the third and fourth volume of the Diary, which detail that life, with feelings of rage at the royal gaolers and at the Hanoverian ideals of conduct that they almost succeeded in imposing upon her. The Queen’s obvious delight in checking Miss Burney’s literary activity and in stiffening her sense of propriety (which needed no stiffening) makes it difficult to control the judgment; and yet, upon reflection, it will be seen that the reader’s rage is but a tribute to one of the most effective pieces of realism in the language. It is true that it is often dull, but so is realism. It is true that Miss Burney’s adulation of the Royal Family is at times painfully fulsome; but even this only heightens the description of that life which, despite all adulation, she found unendurable. The story of her captivity is no less thrilling than that of Pamela in the clutches of Mrs. Jewkes.
As a delineation of an ogress, Mrs. Schwellenberg is at once more horrible and more lifelike than Mrs. Jewkes; beside her, all the ‘weatherbeaten old she-dragons’ of eighteenth century fiction and drama pale into insignificance. Miss Burney has often been praised for creating the character of Madame Duval, but that lady is a mere commonplace when compared with the spiteful old crone who had no interest above piquet and who divided the slight remnant of affection of which her withered nature was capable between her royal owner and her tame frogs. Her ambitions for Fanny Burney, the idol of the blues, was that she should learn piquet, give up writing, and become like unto herself, a spaniel of the backstairs. Few characters in literature are at once so comic and so loathsome.
It might be assumed that the depiction of Mrs. Schwellenberg were the result of mere dislike, if Miss Burney had not, at the same moment, been proving by her portrayal of Queen Charlotte that her vision was never more keen and her judgment of character never more unbiassed. She had no intention whatever of analyzing her mistress. As a lover of royal families, she was far more prone to idealize her; but for all that she had a genius for truthfulness, and could not help mirroring the royal nature with a fatal accuracy. It is the revelation of such royalty as can conceive no happiness apart from its own presence, of a queenly etiquette in which a native sweetness is lost in acquired selfishness. For subtlety and moderation this characterization is unsurpassed in its own century, and not often equalled in the century that followed it, for all its psychology and realism.
The triumph of Miss Burney’s realism over her personal inclination may be illustrated by setting side by side two sentences drawn from the same entry in the Diary for December 1790: ‘Her Majesty was very kind during this time, and the Princesses interested themselves about me with a sweetness very grateful to me.’ This is the expression of what is proper from the Keeper of the Robes; but on the next page it shrivels away before her sense of actuality: ‘Though I was frequently so ill in her presence that I could scarcely stand, I saw she concluded me, while life remained, inevitably hers.’
These court-episodes in the Diary of Miss Burney are of special use in showing her powers of characterization. The earlier sections of the book deal with people no less interesting, but so familiar to us from other sources that Miss Burney’s skill in depicting them is not so readily perceived. No particular surprise mingles with our pleasure as we read of Johnson and of Mrs. Thrale, of Reynolds and of Mrs. Montagu, because the author’s art seems but to reflect, at most to amplify, what we have seen elsewhere. It is when she has occasion to make us acquainted with persons whom we have not met elsewhere, with ‘Mr. Turbulent’ and Mrs. Schwellenberg, that we begin to perceive the extent of her powers. Her five years’ imprisonment in no way impairs her observation of human nature. The sudden apparition of James Boswell upon the scene is as captivating a piece of writing as anything in the whole Diary; the contrast between his cheerful officiousness and the blundering officiousness of Mr. Turbulent is a sufficient proof of the fact that Miss Burney has retained all her old skill in characterization. Nor has the sense for a boisterous scene departed from the author of Evelina. The quiet little lady with prim demeanour still had a love of broad comedy, as the following pages may show. The scene is Mrs. Schwellenberg’s table, the occasion a dinner of the royal attendants in honour of the King’s birthday, the chief actor the Duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV), the Royal Sailor, who is shown, to use Miss Burney’s words—and they are significant of her conscious art—‘in genuine colours.’
Champagne being now brought for the Duke, he ordered it all round. When it came to me, I whispered to Westerhaults [the footman] to carry it on: the Duke slapped his hand violently on the table, and called out, ‘Oh ——, you shall drink it!’
There was no resisting this. We all stood up, and the Duke sonorously gave the Royal toast.
‘And now,’ cried he, making us all sit down again, ‘where are my rascals of servants? I sha’n’t be in time for the ball; besides, I’ve got a —— tailor waiting to fix on my epaulette! Here, you, go and see for my servants! d’ye hear? Scamper off!’