“I received from Charlotte a letter, the most interesting that could be written to me, for it acquainted me that my dear father was at length reading my book, which has now been published six months. How this has come to pass, I am yet in the dark; but it seems ... he desired Charlotte to bring him the Monthly Review; she contrived to look over his shoulder as he opened it, which he did at the account of ‘Evelina; or, A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World.’ He read it with great earnestness, then put it down; and presently after snatched it up, and read it again. Doubtless his paternal heart felt some agitation for his girl in reading a review of her publication!—how he got at the name I cannot imagine. Soon after, he turned to Charlotte, and bidding her come close to him, he put his finger on the word ‘Evelina,’ and saying she knew what it was, bade her write down the name, and send the man to Lowndes’, as if for herself. This she did, and away went William. When William returned, he took the book from him, and the moment he was gone, opened the first volume—and opened it upon the Ode!”
Prefixed to Evelina was an inscription in verse to the writer’s father, much more remarkable for tenderness of feeling than for poetical merit.
“How great must have been his astonishment at seeing himself so addressed! Indeed, Charlotte says he looked all amazement, read a line or two with great eagerness, and then, stopping short, he seemed quite affected, and the tears started into his eyes. Dear soul! I am sure they did into mine; nay, I even sobbed as I read the account.
I believe he was obliged to go out before he advanced much further. But the next day I had a letter from Susan, in which I heard that he had begun reading it with Lady Hales and Miss Coussmaker, and that they liked it vastly! Lady Hales spoke of it very innocently, in the highest terms, declaring she was sure it was written by somebody in high life, and that it had all the marks of real genius! She added, ‘He must be a man of great abilities.’”
Dr. Burney’s opinion was expressed with even greater simplicity than this. From an unbeliever he had been suddenly changed into a worshipper, and in the first glow of his conversion, he pronounced the new novel to be the best he had met with, excepting Fielding’s, and in some respects better than his! A proselyte himself, he was at once full of schemes for spreading the knowledge of the true faith. He would begin by telling Mrs. Thrale, as the centre of a large literary circle. Before he could broach the subject, he heard his daughter’s book celebrated at the Streatham tea-table. “Madam,” cried Dr. Johnson, see-sawing on his chair, “Mrs. Cholmondeley was talking to me last night of a new novel, which, she says, has a very uncommon share of merit—‘Evelina.’ She says that she has not been so entertained this great while as in reading it, and that she shall go all over London to discover the author.” Mrs. Cholmondeley was a sister of Peg Woffington, the actress, and had married Captain Cholmondeley, second son of the Earl of Cholmondeley, and a nephew of Horace Walpole. Her husband afterwards quitted the army, and took orders; and at this time the salon of the witty and eccentric Mrs. Cholmondeley was in high repute. Besides recommending Evelina to Johnson, she had engaged Burke and Reynolds to get it, and announced her intention of keeping it on her table the whole summer to make it as widely known as possible. All this made it necessary for her friend and rival, Mrs. Thrale, not to be left in the background. There was but one thing to be done: the lady of Streatham lost no time in procuring and reading this new success; fell into a rapture over it; bepraised it with her usual vivacity, and passed it on to Johnson. The great man took to it immensely. When he had finished one volume, he was as impatient as Crisp had been for the next, protesting that he could not get rid of the rogue; and his judgment was that there were passages in the book that might do honour to Richardson. The packet of letters in which this compliment was transmitted to Fanny reported also that Sir Joshua Reynolds had forgotten his dinner while engrossed with her story, and that Burke had sat up all night to finish it; and Dr. Burney added an enclosure, in which he said: ‘Thou hast made thy old father laugh and cry at thy pleasure.’
If Mrs. Cholmondeley could claim to have introduced Evelina to the polite world, to Mrs. Thrale fell the distinction of making known its author. After ratifying the general opinion of the work, Mrs. Thrale asked, in Burney’s presence, whether Mrs. Cholmondeley had yet found out the writer, ‘because,’ said the speaker, ‘I long to know him of all things.’ This inquiry produced an avowal, which the Doctor had obtained his daughter’s permission to make; and shortly afterwards he appeared at Chesington to carry her to Streatham, and present her, by appointment, to the Thrales—and to Dr. Johnson.
Many surprising successes are recorded in the annals of literature; but there have been few quite like this. Lately the least noticed member of her father’s household, Frances Burney was now elevated far above its head. Other writers before their rise have been insignificant; the author of Evelina was despised. Proud and happy man though he was, Dr. Burney could not at once break off the habit of calling her poor Fanny. “Do you breathe, my dear Fanny?” asks Susan in a letter, after recounting part of the wonders above mentioned. “It took away my breath,” adds the writer, “and then made me skip about like a mad creature.” “My dearest Susy,” responds Fanny, “don’t you think there must be some wager depending among the little curled imps who hover over us mortals, of how much flummery goes to turn the head of an authoress? Your last communication very near did my business, for, meeting Mr. Crisp ere I had composed myself, I ‘tipt him such a touch of the heroics’ as he has not seen since the time when I was so much celebrated for dancing ‘Nancy Dawson.’[[33]] I absolutely longed to treat him with one of Captain Mirvan’s[[34]] frolics, and to fling his wig out of the window. I restrained myself, however, from the apprehension that they would imagine I had a universal spite to that harmless piece of goods, which I have already been known to treat with no little indignity. He would fain have discovered the reason of my skittishness; but as I could not tell it him, I was obliged to assure him it would be lost time to inquire further into my flights.” Refraining from the wig, Fanny darted out of the room, and, as she tells us elsewhere,[[35]] performed a sort of jig round an old mulberry-tree that stood on the lawn before the house. She related this incident many years afterwards to Sir Walter Scott, who has recorded it in his journal.[[36]]
It will be gathered from our last extract that Mr. Crisp was not yet in possession of the great secret. Fanny dreaded the edge of his criticism, even more than she had dreaded the chill of her father’s contempt. Dr. Burney arrived at the Hall to fetch away his daughter on the first Saturday in August, and it was agreed between them that a disclosure could no longer be deferred. “My dear father,” says the Diary, “desired to take upon himself the communication to my Daddy Crisp, and as it is now in so many hands that it is possible accident might discover it to him, I readily consented. Sunday evening, as I was going into my father’s room, I heard him say, ‘The variety of characters, the variety of scenes, and the language—why, she has had very little education but what she has given herself—less than any of the others!’ and Mr. Crisp exclaimed, ‘Wonderful! it’s wonderful!’ I now found what was going forward, and therefore deemed it most fitting to decamp. About an hour after, as I was passing through the hall, I met my Daddy Crisp. His face was all animation and archness; he doubled his fist at me, and would have stopped me, but I ran past him into the parlour. Before supper, however, I again met him, and he would not suffer me to escape; he caught both my hands, and looked as if he would have looked me through, and then exclaimed, ‘Why, you little hussy, ain’t you ashamed to look me in the face, you ‘Evelina,’ you! Why, what a dance have you led me about it! Young friend, indeed! Oh, you little hussy, what tricks have you served me!’ I was obliged to allow of his running on with these gentle appellations for I know not how long, ere he could sufficiently compose himself, after his great surprise, to ask or hear any particulars; and then he broke out every three instants with exclamations of astonishment at how I had found time to write so much unsuspected, and how and where I had picked up such various materials; and not a few times did he, with me, as he had with my father, exclaim, ‘Wonderful!’ He has since made me read him all my letters upon this subject. He said Lowndes would have made an estate, had he given me £1,000 for it, and that he ought not to have given less. ‘You have nothing to do now,’ continued he, ‘but to take your pen in hand, for your fame and reputation are made, and any bookseller will snap at what you write.’”
A day or two after this conversation, Fanny and her father left Liberty Hall, as Mr. Crisp was pleased to designate his retreat. Arrived at the verge of our own heroine’s entrance into the world, we shall not stop to discuss the question how far she was entitled to the fame she had so rapidly won, nor shall we engage in any criticism of the work by which she had acquired it. We may assent to the admission of an admirer that the society depicted in Evelina is made up of unreal beings. What else could be expected from a fiction designed in immature youth, executed, like patchwork, at intervals, and put together, at last, without advice from any experienced person? Real or unreal, however, the characters in the novel were vivid enough to interest strongly those of the writer’s contemporaries who were most familiar with the world and human nature.
In the conversations which we are about to extract will be found numerous allusions to personages who, though fictitious, are, at any rate, as substantial for us as most of the talkers, who have long since passed into the region of shadows. We may leave to Miss Burney the task of introducing her friends; she mentions the creations of her brain without a word of explanation, because she knew that the few eyes and ears for which her Diary was intended were as well acquainted with them as herself.[herself.] It therefore devolves on us to indicate the chief actors in Evelina to our readers. We have the honour to present: Madame Duval, Evelina’s low-bred grandmother from Paris, interlarding her illiterate English with an incessant Ma foi! and other French interjections; Captain Mirvan, a fair specimen of the coarse naval officer of that time;[[37]] the Branghtons, a vulgar family living on Snow Hill; Mr. Smith, a Holborn beau, lodging with the Branghtons. Add to these, Lord Orville, the hero, and Sir Clement Willoughby, the villain of the piece; Mr. Lovel, a fop; Lady Louisa, a languishing dame of quality; Sir John Belmont, the heroine’s father; M. Du Bois, a Frenchman in attendance on Madame Duval; and Mr. Macartney, a starving Scotch poet. Of the last two, the author conferred on the former the maiden name of her grandmother; on the latter, the maiden-name of her god-mother, Mrs. Greville.