INTRODUCTION

EVELINA; or, A Young Lady’s Entrance into the World.1—was first published at the end of January, 1778, by Thomas Lowndes of 77 Fleet Street, who, fourteen years earlier, had issued another popular and anonymous work, Horace Walpole’s Castle of Otranto. Evelina was certainly fortunate in the moment of its birth. At the date of its appearance, the literary horizon was as bare of rivals as it had been when, in November, 1740, Richardson burst upon a public exhausted by French romances with his real-life story of a virtuous servant-girl. viii Between Pamela and Evelina an entire generation of novelists had arisen and disappeared,—like the stars of Béranger. Following the printer of Salisbury Court had come Fielding and Smollett and Sterne and Goldsmith, extending, developing, and completing, in its full compass, the new form of fiction. But in 1778 all these were dead, and their mantles had fallen upon no worthy successors, unless, indeed, we are to account that amiable and tearful simulacrum of Sterne, Henry Mackenzie, a legitimate descendant of the inventor of Mr. Shandy and “my uncle Toby.” It is true that with the story which was afterwards to be known as The Old English Baron, Miss Clara Reeve was, very tardily, continuing in a modified form the Gothic Romance of Walpole; but its full expansion, under Mrs. Radcliffe, was still to come. When Evelina “entered the world,” Maria Edgeworth was a school-girl of eleven, learning embroidery at Mrs. Lattifière’s at Derby; and Jane Austen was playing in the nursery at Steventon. Meanwhile the market was filled with the fatuous and dreary productions which represented the degradation of the great masters,—flimsy tales and histories in which, without any of the qualities of their models, the writers strove to copy Fielding and Smollett; or, as “corresponding Misses,”

“filled their reams” with far-off imitations of Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison. What was present in the majority of these worshipful performances, was a certain jaded dexterity in the manipulation of commonplaces,—a certain easily-reached level of mawkish mediocrity: what they lacked was genius, humour, insight into character, constructive ability of every kind. The verdict of Cowper in the entire passage from the Progress of Error, of which a couplet has been quoted, was confirmed seven years later by Canning in No. 26 of the Microcosm. The fiction of the day, he epigrammatically declared, was composed exclusively of “stories without invention, anecdotes without novelty, observations without aptness, ix and reflections without morality.” Its effect had been to bring novel-writing into undeserved contempt—especially for women; and to banish it almost entirely to the baleful shadow of those “evergreen trees of diabolical knowledge”—the circulating libraries. Into this environment and condition of things Evelina was born.

Strangely enough, its author, Frances or Fanny Burney, had, at first, no higher ambition than to cater for the above-named institutions. “I thought,” she told a friend, “Evelina’s only admirers would be school-girls, and destined her to no nobler inhabitation than a circulating library.” But she had builded better than she knew. A reserved, delicate, emotional young woman of five-and-twenty, long backward both mentally and physically, and almost entirely self-educated, she had been wont, from a very early age, to amuse herself by composing, without thought of publication, an endless series of sketches, tales, and dramatic scenes, all of which, prepared in the strictest secrecy, were confided only to the discreet ears of her admiring sisters. Her father, an energetic musician and music-master, left her much to herself, save when he required her services as an amanuensis; and no small amount of manuscript had been gradually accumulated when her stepmother, whose literary leanings stopped short at composition, discovered that a great deal of “scribbling” was going on in the establishment, much to the prejudice of the stitching and sewing which then constituted the chief occupation of middle-class households. Thereupon came a friendly but firm monition to Fanny and her sister Susan not to waste time in idle crude inventions. As a consequence, the young author, as docile as she was diffident, made dutiful bonfire of her filed-up papers in the paved play-court of her father’s house at Poland Street; and, with dry eyes, proceeded to devote herself without remission to “flourishing upon catgut” and the contriving of fresh costumes in lilac tabby or silver-light lutestring.

Not even with fire, however, is nature expelled: and the proscribed habit of the pen found speedy relief in diary-keeping, x very much to the profit and development of a native sense of the ridiculous, and a perceptive faculty preternaturally acute. The result of all this was that the pages of Fanny’s journal soon passed from jejune records of sentiment and reflection to long reports of interesting conversations, and detailed portraits of the personages, notable or otherwise, who frequented her father’s house. Given but some superficial difference of disposition or demeanour,—some well-marked twist or ply of character,—and it forthwith found a place in this young lady’s gallery of oddities. Presently the practice of what she calls “dramatising” her chronicle, revived the old desire to embody her impressions in a fitting atmosphere of fiction. Among the stories she had burned had been a so-called History of Caroline Evelyn,—a girlish effort probably very much upon the model of the works which issued from Mr. Bell’s library in the Strand, subject of course to the reservation that its writer was a refined young lady of punctilious and even prudish disposition. It contained the regulation wicked baronet; there was also in it a secret marriage and a burnt marriage certificate. But there was, besides,—and this must have distinguished it from the “half-bound volumes, with marble covers,” so dear to Lydia Languish and my Lady Slattern Lounger,—a real conflict of character. Caroline Evelyn’s mother had been a barmaid who had married a gentleman; and the result of this “fair conjunction” (upon which “Heaven did not smile”) was to leave Caroline Evelyn’s daughter, who had been brought up as a lady, with a good many undesirable relatives on the maternal side. This, the only novelty in what was, no doubt, an extremely juvenile and immature production, continued to linger in the author’s mind. She found herself unable to desist from speculating on the singular situation in which the child of Caroline Evelyn would find herself between the elegant connections of her mother and the vulgar ones of her grandmother. As time went on, the story grew and expanded in her mind; and in spite of the discredit attaching to feminine authorship, she felt constrained to write it down.

When she actually began her necessarily furtive and intermittent task, is difficult to say. But it is probable that it progressed by fits and starts, making its greatest advance when her father did not require her secretarial services; or when, as happened not unfrequently, she went to stay with one of his friends—Mr. Samuel Crisp—at a rambling old country house called Chessington Hall, in a secluded part of Surrey. When it was written in London, it was generally written in what was known to the Burney household as Sir Isaac Newton’s Observatory, a tiny rough-glazed turret with a leaden roof, which surmounted No. 1 St. Martin’s Street, where Fanny’s father then lived,—a house which many years before had been Newton’s residence.2 But wherever it was composed, it was composed with the greatest secrecy. No one save the writer’s sisters seems to have had the slightest inkling that the shy, retiring, short-sighted little person, whose gravity in her childhood had gained her the nickname of the “old lady,” was silently constructing a story which enthusiasts were to liken to the works of Richardson and Fielding. For this extreme reticence there were several reasons. Besides doubt of herself, and the stigma of novel-spinning, there was the warning of her stepmother. But what probably she feared most was the criticism of her father, himself an eager student of literature, and a practised writer of books.

Towards 1776 Miss Burney’s task had taken sufficient shape to make its author think vaguely of type. Her hand-writing at this date, from long transcribing for her father’s History of Music and other works, had, she fancied, grown familiar to the printers; and she was apprehensive that it might be detected at press—a terrible thought in such a deed of darkness as she designed. She consequently began to transcribe as much as xii she had completed “in a feigned hand.” Most of this laborious repetition was accomplished in the night-watches; and before it was finished, she had become so tired of her task that she grew anxious to know whether it was in the least likely that she would be able to obtain a publisher. She accordingly wrote an unsigned letter to Robert Dodsley of Pall Mall, offering him what she had already prepared; and undertaking to complete the whole in due course. Dodsley replied curtly that he could not consider an anonymous production. After consulting with her sisters, she resolved to try a less prominent bookseller, and fixed upon Thomas Lowndes of Fleet Street, who, as already stated, had issued Walpole’s Gothic Romance. Mr. Lowndes’s reply was to be addressed to an imaginary “Mr. Grafton,” at the Orange Coffee House in the Haymarket, which, of course, was close to St. Martin’s Street. It proved more encouraging than that of Dodsley. He asked to see the manuscript; and it was accordingly conveyed to him by night, with all fitting mystery, by Miss Burney’s younger brother. But though Mr. Lowndes allowed the ability shewn in the specimen submitted, he was naturally not prepared to go to press with an uncompleted effort. He contented himself with praising the cleverness of the sample, suggested certain modifications, and added that if a third volume were prepared “replete with Modern Characters,” he should be glad to look into the matter again.

This disappointment, which might have been anticipated, caused a momentary check in the progress of affairs. But, by and by, the writer set to work upon the concluding volume, which was duly completed and dispatched to the publisher, who immediately tendered for it the munificent sum of twenty pounds,—a sum the delighted author received rapturously “with boundless surprise at its magnificence.”3 Meanwhile, in much trepidation, she confessed to her father what she had done. He apparently, if surprised, was not greatly impressed by the xiii intelligence,—a circumstance in which he did not differ materially from other parents with children of unrevealed accomplishment. He laughed a little; professed no inconvenient curiosity; and left his daughter to her own devices, not even inquiring the name of her book. Lowndes proceeded to print an edition of five hundred copies,4—the usual number for a novel,—and at the end of January, 1778, the newspapers announced that Evelina was on sale, in three volumes, 12mo, the price being 7s. 6d. sewed, and 9s. bound. Miss Burney seems to have received no proofs; but shortly before publication, had been asked to supply a List of Errata for a printed copy, which was sent to her in sheets. Her next intelligence of her work was derived from hearing her stepmother read out the advertisement, probably from the St. James’s Chronicle, at the breakfast table. But as the good lady was absolutely without previous information or suspicion upon the subject, she made no remark, nor did her daughters.

For some time Fanny Burney heard no more of Miss Anville and her history. In February the London Review, then managed by the writer whom Macaulay styles the “envious Kenrick,” gave it a good notice of three lines; and in March the Monthly Review, of which the proprietor and editor was Goldsmith’s old master Mr. Ralph Griffiths, “at the Sign of the Dunciad,” devoted a brief but entirely favourable paragraph to its merits. Then, making inquiry at Bell’s Library, the Burney sisters found that Evelina was in circulation, and that—to use the author’s own words—“every butcher and baker, cobbler and tinker, throughout the three kingdoms, might now see it for the small tribute of threepence.” After this, in May, having helped to nurse her father through a fever, and having herself suffered from inflammation of the lungs, Fanny went off to Chessington xiv Hall to recruit. Whether she had seen the above-mentioned reviews is not clear, though she had probably heard of the second. But the book was manifestly making slow way; and while in Surrey, she eventually, in response to repeated requests, received an elegantly bound copy, which was subsequently followed by others. Then, at last, her father’s attention was somehow drawn to Evelina; and Fanny’s sister Susan writes off exclamatory accounts of his views and opinions, his emotion over the speedily discovered Dedication to himself, and his attitude generally. He thought the Preface to the Reviewers “vastly strong and well written.” As he progressed, his admiration increased; and we have the comments of the ladies to whom he was reading the book. Finally he finishes it in a burst of enthusiasm. He does not think improvement possible; delights in Mr. Villars and Lord Orville; “blubbers” over Sir John Belmont; and declares that, Fielding excepted, Evelina is the best novel in the language, new in style, and “for a young woman quite wonderful!” After this Mrs. Thrale of Streatham, with whom Dr. Johnson is staying, and to whose daughter Queenie Dr. Burney gives lessons, gets hold of it upon the recommendation of Mrs. Cholmondeley, Peg Woffington’s clever sister, who is trumpeting it everywhere. Then Mrs. Thrale recommends and lends it to—of all persons—the unsuspecting Mrs. Burney, and long letters go off to Fanny describing how her honoured parents are studying Evelina in bed in the morning. Finally Dr. Burney obtains his daughter’s leave to tell Mrs. Thrale, which involves telling Mrs. Burney. Forthwith arrives a highly complimentary letter from Mrs. Thrale, conveying, in addition to her own opinion of Evelina’s “probability of story, elegance of sentiment, and general power over the mind,” the astounding intelligence that Dr. Johnson is not only reading the book, but is eager for the denoûment, and, in fact, is hard at work on volume three. Moreover, that he has positively been understood to say that there are passages in Evelina which might do honour to his old friend Richardson. When this last information reaches the author at Chessington, xv it almost “crazes her with agreeable surprise,” producing “such a flight of spirits” that she then and there, to the no small amazement and diversion of Mr. Crisp, “without any preparation, music, or explanation,” dances a jubilant jig on the lawn.5

From this point the literary success of Evelina was assured. How Reynolds left his painting to read it, declared he would give fifty pounds to know who wrote it, and finally sat up all night to finish it; how Burke did the same—as far as sitting up was concerned; how it was read by Gibbon in one day; how Johnson quoted it on all occasions, and protested that it rivalled not only Richardson but Fielding; how Mrs. Thrale, in a transport of enthusiasm, annexed and exhibited the author,—has all been told before. But what is not so well known is, that a great literary coup may co-exist with a very gradual commercial success. In spite of the popularity of Evelina during the latter half of 1778, it does not appear that a second edition was reached until the following year, when the sale grew more rapid. In May, 1779, Miss Burney speaks of a fourth edition as in preparation, which, of course, supposes the expected exhaustion of a third edition before that date. After the third edition, Mr. Lowndes paid the author ten pounds, making a total of thirty pounds, and apparently thought himself exceptionally liberal. The price, of course, was miserable enough; but the absence of definite information as to the methods of the market makes it difficult to speak precisely on the subject of the sales. It seems, however, that the first three editions amounted in all to no more than from two thousand to two thousand three hundred copies, which, in these days, would scarcely be regarded as an extraordinary circulation for a popular novel. And in 1778 Evelina was the most popular novel which had appeared for a considerable time, having probably a larger number of educated readers than Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield.

To-day Miss Burney’s book is more than a century old, and any detailed examination of it would be superfluous,—particularly xvi in the present case, where it makes its re-appearance with all the prestige of a specially sympathetic pictorial interpreter. But it may, for a moment, be interesting to revive some of the criticisms of contemporary readers, who, after all, must be regarded as the most competent judges of a novel of manners. As far as one can gather, it was the characters of Madame Duval and Captain Mirvan, and the picture of the Branghton group (including the Holborn beau, Mr. Smith), which attracted most attention with the readers of 1778. We hear of Mrs. Cholmondeley and others interlarding their talk with Duval Ma Fois and superlatives; and we hear of Johnson quoting “Only think, Polly! Miss has danced with a Lord!” Mr. Villars and Lord Orville had also their adherents; but we must assume them to have been chiefly favourites with the old votaries of the Richardson school. As to Captain Mirvan’s fidelity to life, there was evidently considerable difference of opinion. The Monthly Review, in fact, declared that the manners of this particular “son of Neptune” were “rather those of a rough uneducated country squire, than those of a genuine sea captain”; and this was naturally the view of the navy gentlemen themselves. Captain Cotton, Mrs. Thrale’s cousin, good-humouredly told Miss Burney at Bath that all his colleagues resented her portrait as that of a typical sea officer, and Admiral Byron (of the Narrative), though he admired the book, “was not half pleased with the Captain’s being such a brute.” Even Dr. Burney admitted that his behaviour to Lovel went too far. Nevertheless the author, who had a brother in the service, was not convinced; and, in her journal, testifies impenitently to the absolute veracity of the portrait. All the captains she knew, she declares, were given “to roasting beaux, and detesting old women.” As to the accuracy of Evelina’s social sketches, which has sometimes been questioned, we have the testimony of Mrs. Thrale, given before she had made the author’s acquaintance. “There’s a great deal of human life in this book, and of the manners of the present time,” she said; and she further affirmed that it was written “by somebody who knew the top xvii and the bottom, the highest and lowest of mankind.” Upon a question of this sort, at all events, Mrs. Thrale must be held to be an unimpeachable authority.

As regards the excellence of the accounts of public places, we have Dr. Burney’s own verdict, and he, again, as a musician and professional man, was speaking of what he knew thoroughly. They were “very animated and natural,” he said, “and not common.” This is undoubtedly true; and Miss Burney reproduces, we may be sure, pretty much the talk that went on at Marylebone Gardens and the Pantheon,—at Vauxhall and Ranelagh. Yet it is observable that she gives very little actual description of these resorts,—less, indeed, than we find in Fielding and Smollett. Nay, sometimes, she does not give us the details which are needful. In that description of Mr. Smith at Vauxhall in chapter xlvi., which Johnson so much enjoyed, we have no hint of the painting at which the company were looking, although a reference to any old Vauxhall guide shows at once that it must have been Hayman’s allegorical representation of Admiral Hawke’s defeat of the French at Quiberon Bay. It may of course be objected that this is a refinement of narrative art, which does not concern itself with non-essentials, and that it was no more necessary for Miss Burney to describe the new room at Vauxhall or the little theatre in the Haymarket, than it would be for a contemporary Trollope to give an account of Rotten Row or Hurlingham, supposing his characters happened to be in those neighbourhoods. But the fact remains, that Miss Burney, who copies people and their talk so vividly, does not describe places or buildings as much as many of the writers of her time; and that consequently, there is a certain lack of topographical background in her story. We have seen this peculiarity attributed, in respect to her Diary, to the short sight from which she suffered, and it is just possible that defective vision may have had something to do with the matter.

Costume and local colouring enter so largely into the novel of manners, that some notice of its contemporary illustrators xviii is generally of interest. From this point of view, Evelina was unfortunate. Stothard’s career had not yet begun; and the earliest designs supplied to Evelina were by John Hamilton Mortimer, by whom they were prepared just before his death in February, 1779. Why this artist—whose gifts, according to the dictionaries, lay chiefly in the presentment of “banditti and monsters”—should have been selected for such a task, is difficult to comprehend, especially as his three frontispieces to Evelina’s three volumes, when engraved by Hall, Walker and Bartolozzi, cost Mr. Lowndes seventy-three pounds, or just forty-three more than he had given for the copyright of the novel. Mortimer’s original drawings are still in existence. The first is allegorical; the others depict the Lovel episode, and Mme. Duval helped out of the ditch by the heroine. But although the designer had been enjoined to “make Evelina as elegant as his mind could conceive,” it must be admitted that, upon this occasion, Mr. Lowndes was not well advised in his venture. In 1780, Miss Burney’s cousin, Edward Francis Burney, prepared three “stained drawings” for the same purpose, which were exhibited at the Royal Academy in that year. One of these, a most delicate little picture intended for volume three, and depicting Evelina and her father, we have seen. Edward Burney’s designs, however, do not appear to have been used. In 1787 there was a report that Angelica Kauffmann had been commissioned by Catherine II. of Russia to execute a series of compositions from Evelina. This piece of information the author declined to credit,—not without reason. For although “Miss Angel” certainly did some pictures for the famous Hermitage on the Neva, we have found no trace of any scenes from Fanny Burney’s novel.

Austin Dobson.

Ealing, October, 1903.