All that belongs, or that ever can belong, in matters of small moment, to amazement, is short of what was experienced by Mr. Crisp at this recital: and his astonishment was so prodigious not to have heard of her writing at all, till he heard of it in a printed work that was running all over London, and had been read, and approved of by Dr. Johnson and Edmund Burke; that, with all his powers of speech, his choice of language, and his general variety of expression, he could utter no phrase but “Wonderful!”—which burst forth at once on the discovery; accompanied each of its details; and was still the only vent to the fullness of his surprise when he had heard the whole history.
That she had consulted neither of these parents in this singular undertaking, diverted them both: well they knew that no distrust had caused the concealment, but simply an apprehension of utter insufficiency to merit their suffrages.
What a dream did all this seem to this Memorialist! The fear, however, of a reverse, checked all that might have rendered it too delusive; and she earnestly supplicated that the communication might be spread no further, lest it should precipitate a spirit of criticism, which retirement and mystery kept dormant: and which made all her wishes still unalterable for remaining unknown and unsuspected.
The popularity of this work did not render it very lucrative; ten pounds a volume, by the addition of ten pounds to the original twenty, after the third edition, being all that was ever paid, or ever offered to the author; whose unaffectedly humble idea of its worth had cast her, unconditionally, upon any terms that might be proposed.
Dr. Burney, enchanted at the new scene of life to which he was now carrying his daughter, of an introduction to Streatham, and a presentation to Dr. Johnson, took a most cordial leave of the congratulatory Mr. Crisp; who sighed, nevertheless, in the midst of his satisfaction, from a prophetic anticipation of the probable and sundering calls from his peaceful habitation, of which he thought this new scene likely to be the result. But the object of this kind solicitude, far from participating in these fears, was curbed from the full enjoyment of the honours before her, by a well-grounded apprehension that Dr. Johnson, at least, if not Mrs. Thrale, might expect a more important, and less bashful sort of personage, than she was sure would be found.
Dr. Burney, aware of her dread, because aware of her retired life and habits, and her native taste for personal obscurity, strove to laugh off her apprehensions by disallowing their justice; and was himself all gaiety and spirit.
Mrs. Thrale, who was walking in her paddock, came to the door of the carriage to receive them; and poured forth a vivacity of thanks to the Doctor for bringing his daughter, that filled that daughter with the most agreeable gratitude; and soon made her so easy and comfortable, that she forgot the formidable renown of wit and satire that were coupled with the name of Mrs. Thrale; and the whole weight of her panic, as well as the whole energy of her hopes, devolved upon the approaching interview with Dr. Johnson.
But there, on the contrary, Dr. Burney felt far greater security. Dr. Johnson, however undesignedly, nay, involuntarily, had been the cause of the new author’s invitation to Streatham, from being the first person who there had pronounced the name of Evelina; and that previously to the discovery that its unknown writer was the daughter of a man whose early enthusiasm for Dr. Johnson had merited his warm acknowledgments; and whose character and conversation had since won his esteem and friendship. Dr. Burney therefore prognosticated, that such a circumstance could not but strike the vivid imagination of Dr. Johnson as a romance of real life; and additionally interest him for the unobtrusive author of the little work, which, wholly by chance, he had so singularly helped to bring forward.
The curiosity of Dr. Johnson, however, though certainly excited, was by no means so powerful as to allure him from his chamber one moment before his customary time of descending to dinner; and the new author had three or four hours to pass in constantly augmenting trepidation: for the prospect of seeing him, which so short a time before would have sufficed for her delight, was now chequered by the consciousness that she could not, as heretofore, be in his presence only for her own gratification, without any reciprocity of notice.
She was introduced, meanwhile, to Mr. Thrale, whose reception of her was gentle and gentleman-like; and such as shewed his belief in the verity of her desire to have her authorship unmarked.