The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay, Volume 1 (2 of 220)

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MADAME D'ARBLAY, BY LORD MACAULAY (CONT'D)

The progress of the mind of Frances Burney, from her ninth to her twenty-fifth year, well deserves to be recorded, When her education had proceeded no further than the hornbook, she lost her mother, and thenceforward she educated herself. Her father appears to have been as bad a father as a very honest, affectionate and sweet-tempered man can well be. He loved his daughter dearly ; but it never seems to have occurred to him that a parent has other duties to perform to children than that of fondling them. It would indeed have been impossible for him to superintend their education himself. His professional engagements occupied him all day. At seven in the morning, he began to attend his pupils, and, when London was full, was sometimes employed in teaching

till eleven at night. He was often forced to carry in his pocket a tin box of sandwiches and a bottle of wine and water, on which he dined in a hackney coach while hurrying from one scholar to another. Two of his daughters he sent to a seminary at Paris; but he imagined that Frances would run some risk of being perverted from the Protestant faith if she were educated in a Catholic country, and he therefore kept her at home. No governess, no teacher of any art or of any language was provided for her. But one of her sisters showed her how to write ; and, before she was fourteen, she began to find pleasure in reading.

it was not, however, by reading that her intellect was formed. Indeed, when her best novels were produced, her knowledge of books was very small. When at the height of her fame, she was unacquainted with the most celebrated works of Voltaire and Moli6re ; and, what seems still more extraordinary, had never heard or seen a line of Churchill, who, when she was a girl, was the most popular of living poets. It is particularly deserving of observation that she appears to have been by no means a novel reader. Her father's library was large, and he had admitted into it so many books which rigid moralists generally exclude that he felt uneasy, as he afterwards owned, when Johnson began to examine the shelves. But in the whole collection there was only a single novel, Fielding's "Amelia."(5)

An education, however, which to most girls would have been useless, but which suited Fanny's mind better than elaborate culture, was in constant progress during her passage from childhood to womanhood. The great book of human nature was turned over before her. Her father's social position was very peculiar. He belonged in fortune and station to the middle class. His daughters seemed to have been suffered to mix freely with those whom butlers and waiting-maids call vulgar. We are told that they were in the habit of playing with the children of a wigmaker who lived in the adjoining house. Yet few nobles could assemble in the most stately mansions of Grosvenor-square or St. James's-square a society so various and so brilliant as was sometimes to be found in Dr. Burney's cabin. His mind, though

not very powerful or capacious, was restlessly active ; and, in the intervals of his professional pursuits, he had contrived to lay up much miscellaneous information. His attainments, the suavity of his temper and the general simplicity of his manners had obtained for him ready admission to the first literary circles. While he was still at Lynn, he had won Johnson's heart by sounding with honest zeal the praises of the "English Dictionary." In London, the two friends met frequently and agreed most harmoniously. One tie, indeed, was wanting to their mutual attachment. Burney loved his own art passionately, and Johnson just knew the bell of St. Clement's church from the organ. Theyhad, however, many topics in common; and on winter nights their conversations were sometimes prolonged till the fire had gone out and the candles had burned away to the wicks. Burney'sadmiration of the powers which had produced "Rasselas" and "The Rambler" bordered on idolatry.
He gave a singular proof of this at his first visit to Johnson's ill-furnished garret. The master of the apartment was not at home. The enthusiastic visitor looked about for some relic which he could carry away, but he could see nothing lighter than the chairs and the fireirons. At last he discovered an old broom, tore some bristles from the stump, wrapped them in silver paper, and departed as happy as Louis IX. when the holy nail of St. Denis was found.(6) Johnson, on the other hand, condescended to growl out that Burney was an honest fellow, a man whom it was impossible not to like.

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(5) The "Early Diary of Frances Burney, from 1768 to 1778," recently published, throws some new light upon her education. It is her own statement that her father's library contained but one novel-', Amelia " ; yet as a girl we find her acquainted with the works of Richardson and Sterne, of Marivaux and Pr6vost, with "Rasselas" and the "Vicar of Wakefield." in history and poetry, moreover, she appears to have been fairly well read, and she found constant literary employment as her father's amanuensis. As to Voltaire, she notes, on her twenty-first birthday, that she has just finished the "Heoriade"; but her remarks upon the book prove how little she was acquainted with the author. She thinks he "has made too free with religion in giving words to the Almighty. But M. Voltaire, I understand, is not a man of very rigid principles at least not in religion" (!).-ED.

(6) This is not quite accurate. Burney secured the relic in the manner described, not, however, to gratify his own enthusiasm, but to comply with the request of his friend Mr. Bewley, of Massingham, Norfolk, that he would procure for him some memento of the great Dr. Johnson. The tuft of the Doctor's hearth-broom, which Burney sent him, half in jest, was preserved with the greatest care by its delighted recipient. "He thinks it more precious than pearls," wrote Fanny. ("Early Diary," vol. i, p. 169.) This incident occurred in 1760.-ED.

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