Her general language was a jargon entirely her own, and so enveloped with strange phrases, ludicrously ungrammatical, that it was hardly intelligible, till an exordium or two gave some insight into its peculiarities: but then it commonly unfolded into sound, and even sagacious panegyric of some favourite; or sharp sarcasm, and extravagant mimicry, upon some one who had incurred her displeasure. Her wrath, however, once promulgated, seemed to operate by its utterance as a vent that disburthened her mind of all its angry workings; and led her cordially to join her laugh with that of her hearers; without either inquiry, or care, whether that laugh were at her sayings or at herself.
She was constantly dressed according to the costume of her early days, in a hoop, with a long pointed stomacher and long pointed ruffles; and a fly cap. She had a manly courage, a manly stamp, and a manly hard-featured face: but her heart was as invariably generous and good, as her manners were original and grotesque.
“EVELINA:
OR,
“A YOUNG LADY’S ENTRANCE INTO THE WORLD.”
A subject now propels itself forward that might better, it is probable, become any pen than that on which it here devolves. It cannot, however, be set aside in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, to whom, and to the end of his life, it proved a permanent source of deep and bosom interest: and the Editor, with less unwillingness, though with conscious awkwardness, approaches this egotistic history, from some recent information that the obscurity in which its origin was encircled, has left, even yet, a spur to curiosity and conjecture.
It seems, therefore, a devoir due to the singleness of truth, to cut short any future vague assertion on this small subject, by an explicit narration of a simple, though rather singular tale; which, little as in itself it can be worthy of public attention, may not wholly, perhaps, be unamusing, from the celebrated characters that must necessarily be involved in its relation; at the head of which, at this present moment, she is tempted to disclose, in self-defence—a proud self-defence!—of this personal obtrusion, the living[21] names of Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Rogers, who, in a visit with which they favoured her in the year 1826, repeated some of the fabrications to which this mystery of her early life still gave rise; and condescended to solicit a recital of the real history of Evelina’s Entrance into the World.
This she instantly communicated; though so incoherently, from the embarrassment of the subject, and its long absence from her thoughts, that, having since collected documents to refresh her memory, she ventures, in gratefully dedicating the little incident to these Illustrious Inquisitors, to insert its details in these memoirs—to which, parentally, it in fact belongs.[22]