a Gothe, and have not read "Cecilia." Read, read it, for shame!-BARBAULD, ANNA LÆTITIA, 1784, Letter to her Brother, Jan. 2; Memoir by Ellis, vol. I, p, 115.

At last Madame D'Arblay arrived. I was very glad to see her again. She is wonderfully improved in good looks in ten years, which have usually a very different effect at an age when people begin to fall off. Her face has acquired expression and a charm which it never had before. She has gained an embompoint very advantageous to her face. We did not talk much about France; but with her intelligence there was a great deal she could tell, and much she could not, having a husband and a French establishment, to which she was to return after the winter.-BERRY, MARY, 1812, Journals, Nov. 10; Extracts of the Journals and Correspondence, vol. II, p. 508.

Was introduced by Rogers to Mad. D'Arblay, the celebrated authoress of "Evelina" and "Cecilia"-an elderly lady, with no remains of personal beauty, but with a simple and gentle manner, a pleasing expression of countenance, and apparently quick feelings. She told me she had wished to see two persons-myself, of course, being one, the other George Canning. This was really a compliment to be pleased with a nice little handsome pat of butter, made up by a "neat-handed Phillis" of a dairy-maid, instead of the grease, fit only for cart-wheels, which one is dosed with by the pound. Mad. D'Arblay told us that the common story of Dr. Burney, her father, having brought home her own first work, and recommended it to her perusal, was erroneous. Her father was in the secret of "Evelina" being printed. But the following circumstance may have given rise to the story:-Dr. Burney was at Streatham soon after the publication, where he found Mrs. Thrale recovering from her confinement, low at the moment, and out of spirits. While they were talking together, Johnson, who sat beside in a kind of reverie, suddenly broke out, "You should read this new work, madam―you should read 'Evelina;' every one says it is excellent, and they are right." The delighted father obtained a commission from Mrs. Thrale to purchase his daughter's work and retired the happiest of men. Madame D'Arblay said she was wild with joy at this decisive evidence of her literary success, and that she could

only give vent to her rapture by dancing and skipping round a mulberry-tree in the garden. garden. She was very young at this time.

SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 1826, Journal, Nov. 18; Life by Lockhart, ch. lxxii.

The Queen was persuaded to appoint Miss Burney, Mrs. Delany and Mr. Smelt having deceived themselves into believing her capable of adapting herself to her place, and of performing her new duties satisfactorily; their earnest desire to insure Miss Burney a certain salary instead of the precarious income arising from her works, having blinded their better judgment. Miss Burney was elated to such a degree by the appointment that she gradually lost all consciousness of her actual or relative position. She lived in an ideal world of which she was, in her own imagination, the centre. She believed herself possessed of a spell which fascinated all those she approached. She became convinced that all the equerries were in love with her, although she was continually the object of their ridicule, as they discovered her weaknesses and played upon her credulity for their own amusement. Many entertaining anecdotes might be collected of the ludicrous effect produced by Miss Burney's far-fetched expressions when she desired to be especially eloquent, and particularly courtly.-LLANOVER, LADY, 1862, ed., The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs. Delany, Second Series, vol. III, p. 361.

I attended her during the last twenty years of her long life. She lived in almost total seclusion from all but a few members of her own family; changed her lodgings more frequently than her dresses and occupied herself laboriously in composing those later works which retain so little of the charm of her earlier writings. Mr. Rogers was the only literary man who seemed to know of her existence.-HOLLAND, SIR HENRY, 1871, Recollections of Past Life, pp. 204, 205.

For a considerable time the income on which she, her husband, and her child subsisted, did not exceed £125 a year. They were too independent in spirit to accept assistance from friends; too upright to rely on contingencies; and Madame D'Arblay pursued, in all the minutiae of domestic life, a course of self-denial such as she wrote to her Susanna, "would make you laugh to see, though perhaps cry to

hear.' With all this, her mind and thoughts were never shut up in her economy. It was at this period that she originated the invitation sent by her and M. D'Arblay to his friend the Comte de Narbonne, to make their cottage his home; and it was also during these straitened circumstances that she withdrew her comedy of "Love and Fashion" from rehersal, in dutiful compliance with the wishes of her father; although the management of Covent Garden had promised her £400 for the manuscript. Queen Charlotte's expression, that she was "true as gold," was abundantly verified in her friendship. WOOLSEY, SARAH CHAUNCEY, 1880, ed., Diary and Letters of Frances Burney, Mme. D'Arblay.

Consider the brilliant and instantaneous success of Frances Burney. Think of the excitement she aroused, and honors heaped thick and fast upon her. A woman of

twenty-six when she wrote "Evelina" she was able, by dint of short stature and childish ways, to pass for a girl of seventeen, which increased amazingly the popular interest in her novel. Sheridan swore he could not believe so young a thing could manifest such genius, and begged her to write him a comedy on the spot. Sir Joshua Reynolds professed actual fear of such keen wit and relentless observation. Dr. Johnson vowed that Richardson had written nothing finer, and Fielding nothing so fine as "Evelina," and playfully protested he was too proud to eat cold mutton for dinner when he sat by Miss Burney's side. Posterity, it is true, while preserving "Evelina" with great pride, has declined to place it by the side of "Tom Jones" or "Clarissa Harlowe,' but if we had our choice between the praise of posterity which was Miss Austen's portion, and the praise of contemporaries which was Miss Burney's lot, I doubt not we should be wise enough to take our applause off-hand,-“dashed in our faces, sounded in our ears, as Johnson said of Garrick, and leave the future to look after itself.-REPPLIER, AGNES, 1897, Varia, p. 208.

The fame of Miss Burney declined pretty rapidly after the publication of her third novel. This did not appear till fourteen years after "Cecilia"--namely, in 1796. But her publishers, from whom she is said to have received a large sum of money for

"Camilla," on the strength, it is to be supposed, of her previous reputation, must have burnt their fingers by the venture. It failed to hit the public taste- failed as completely as Miss Burney's subsequent memoirs of her father, and, indeed, as everything else that she subsequently wrote. She seems, in fact, to have been the "Miss Betty" of the literary world; and it is as difficult to understand in these days that she could ever have been the admiration of a lettered coterie, as it must have been for the friends of the "Young Roscius'"' later years to realise in the person of that stout, middle-aged, respectable gentleman the juvenile prodigy for whom the playgoing public had for the time deserted all the great actors of their day.—TRAILL, HENRY DUFF, 1898, The New Fiction, p. 154.

EVELINA 1778

This year was ushered in by a grand and most important event! At the latter end of January, the literary world was favored with the first publication of the ingenious, learned, and most profound Fanny Burney!

This admirable authoress has named her most elaborate performance, "Evelina; or, a Young Lady's Entrance into the world." Perhaps this may seem a rather bold attempt and title for a female whose knowledge of the world is very confined, and whose inclinations, as well as situation, incline her to a private and domestic life.

All I can urge is, that I have only presumed to trace the accidents and adventures to which a "young woman" is liable; I have not pretended to shew the world what it actually is, but what it appears to a girl of seventeen: and so far as that, surely, any girl who is past seventeen may safely do?-BURNEY, FANNY, 1778, Early Diary, ed. Ellis, vol. II, p.213..

"Evelina" seems a work that should result from long experience, a deep and intimate knowledge with the world: yet it has been written without either. Miss Burney is a real wonder. What she is, she is intuitively. Dr. Burney told me she had the fewest advantages of any of his daughters, from some peculiar circumstances. And such has been her timidity, that he himself had not any suspicion of her powers. . . . Modesty with her is neither pretense nor decorum; it is an ingredient of her nature; for she who could part with

such a work for twenty pounds, could know so little of its worth or of her own, as to leave no possible doubt of her humility. JOHNSON, SAMUEL, 1778, On Miss Burney's Evelina.

The early works of Madame D'Arblay, in spite of the lapse of years, in spite of the change of manners, in spite of the popularity deservedly obtained by some of her rivals, continued to hold a high place in the public esteem. She lived to be a classic. Time set on her fame, before she went hence, that seal which is seldom set except on the fame of the departed. Like Sir Condy Rackrent in the tale, she survived her own wake, and overheard the judgment of posterity.--MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, 1843, Madame D'Arblay, Edinburgh Review, Critical and Miscellaneous Essays.

Now here was a novel which riveted Burke and Sir Joshua; threw Johnson, old, sad, and hypochondriac as he was, into fits of admiration and laughter; made Sheridan dread a rival in the field; and extorted honest compliments from Gibbon, in the full flush of his own reputation. Its phrases became catchwords among the wits and blues; its characters were accepted as real types, and their names affixed to originals in all sorts of societies. The Miss Palmers told Miss Burney, and Miss Reynolds confirmed the story, how Sir Joshua, who began the book one day when he was too much engaged to go on with it, was so much caught that he could think of nothing else, and was quite absent all the day, not knowing a word that was said to him; and when he took it up again, found himself so much interested in it, that he sat up all night to finish it.-LESLIE, CHARLES ROBERT, AND TAYLOR, TOM, 1865, Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds, vol. II, p. 204.

world. The shops, the amusements and the manners of the middle classes are made familiar to Evelina by her association with the Brangtons, and add greatly to the breadth of this valuable picture of metropolitan life. With a feminine attention to detail, and a quick perception of salient characteristics, Miss Burney described the world about her so faithfully and picturesquely as to deserve the thanks of every student of social history. . . In the painting of manners Miss Burney was eminently successful. But she was hardly less so in a point in which excellence could not have been expected in so youthful a writer. The plot of "Evelina" is constructed with a skill worthy of a veteran. Fielding alone, of the eighteenth century novelists, can be said to surpass Miss Burney in this respect. . In regard to her sketches of character, it may be objected that Miss Burney lacked breadth of treatment, that she dwelt on one distinctive characteristic at the expense of the others. But still, Lord Orville, though somewhat too much of a model, and Mrs. Selwyn, though somewhat too habitually a wit, are vivid and life-like characters. The Brangtons and Sir Clement Willougby are nature itself, and the girlish nature of Evelina is betrayed in her letters with great felicity.-TUCKERMAN, BAYARD, 1882, A History of English Prose Fiction, pp. 251, 252, 253.

She had observed the droll and farcical side of life with great acumen, and the frank laughter which her pages provoked was indescribably welcome after the tearinspiring episodes of the Sensibility school. It is to be desired that Miss Burney had remained the author of one book. Her "Cecilia" is only read because it is by the creator of "Evelina," and her "Camilla" is never read at all.-GOSSE, EDMUND, 1888, A History of Eighteenth Century Literature, p. 361.

Evelina is perhaps rather the principal character of a celebrated story than a great character herself; yet she has in her more of the elements of a great character than her timidity would at first lead us to suppose. She is, when introduced to us, a lovely, but simple and timid girl, well brought up in a retired home; and her good sense and high principle only emerge gradually from a fog of overpowering shyness. The tale is long,

and every incident is most minutely described, but it is well worth reading, and if our readers like to ask for it at old bookstalls, they may perhaps obtain it for a modest sum. The characters are broadly drawn; the extremes of fantastic luxury, and of coarse vulgarity, meet in one picture in a way which seems strange to our more educated age, when good manners are the rule in all but the lowest class. But our Evelina moves among them all, simple, right minded, though unwise sometimes from extreme timidity, but coming out safely from many awkward situations by the protecting force of her own inner purity. That which strikes us most in the book is its vivacious style, and the marked contrast between a few refined and delicate-minded women, and the rough practical jokes which were apparently not out of favour in that day even in the highest circles.-MERCIER, MRS. JEROME, 1893, Great Characters of Fiction, ed. Townsend, pp. 3, 11.

Miss Burney is no less caustic than Miss Austen; the Holborn beau, Mr. Smith, with his "fine varnish of low politeness," and the two giggling Misses Braughton with their innocently gross confidences and grosser reticences, are as vulgar as anything to be found in the pages of her greater successor. But she is less detached and impersonal,-she cannot smile as Miss Austen smiles over the rabbitwarren of human littlenesses; at times she seems on the point of forgetting that there is nothing tragic in offence given to a peer's sense of propriety-so warmly does she espouse Evelina's grievances. Social miseries, in all their intensity and variety-some of them, by an odd repetition, undergone by herself years later at Windsor surely never had a more enthusiastic recorder. The tortures Evelina suffers have the vividness of a nightmare; they are not exaggerated in representation, but they are so completely isolated, kept so far from the wash of the larger passions and interests of life, that what might have becn a dull discomfort becomes a frightful incubus.-RALEIGH, WALTER, 1894, The English Novel, p. 258.

It was the masterly natural freshness of the character-drawing, the clear, unencumbered vivacity of the incidents, the frankness of the humour,-in a word, the originality, the absence of literary

artificiality,-that signalized "Evelina" as a work of genius, and set everybody talking about the new writer. Miss Burney was not the first woman novelist, but she was the first with a distinct vein of her own who wrote with her eyes on the subject, and not on any established model of approved style.-MINTO, WILLIAM, 1894, The Literature of the Georgian Era, ed. Knight, p. 120.

You should read that story-whatever you may do with "Cecilia" and other later ones-if only to see how good and cleanly a piece of work in the way of society novel can come out of those broiling times, when "Humphrey Clinker" and "Tom Jones" and the prurient and sentimental langours of langours of Richardson were on the toilette tables of the clever and the honest. The book of "Evelina" is, all over, Miss Burney; that gives it the rarest and best sort of realism. Through all her work indeed, we have this over-jubilant and gushing, yet timid and diffident young lady, writing her stories-with all her timidities and large, unspoken hopes, tumbling and twittering in the bosoms of her heroines: if my lady has the fidgets, the fidgets come into her books; and you can always chase back the tremors that smite from time to time the fair Evelina, to the kindred tremors that afflict the clever and sensitive daughter of old Dr. Burney.-MITCHELL, DONALD G., 1895, English Lands Letters and Kings, Queen Anne and the Georges, P. 165.

The novel, as we know, was reported, before its author's name was known, to be the work of a girl of seventeen, and perhaps some part of its extraordinary vogue may have been due to this flattering mistake. But the main element in its success must surely, I should think, be sought in the fact that it was the first "novel of manners," in the later sense of the word, that had ever been offered to the public. It was a picture of life in London, life at Bath, life at the Bristol Hot Wells, in the later eighteenth century-principally, indeed, of modish life, but with just so much of a side glance at the gaieties and affectations of the middle class as would give it additional piquancy to the taste of the superiors whom they strove to imitate. ... No tenderness towards this subject of a hundred-years-old nine-days' wonder ought to induce a candid critic of to-day