SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 21992, 16 January 1937, Page 15

SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

l A Life of Fanny Burney

„ rn ov Bv Christopher Lloyd. Lonsmans, Green and Co. 320 pp, Burncy. *>! (10/6 net)

[Reviewed by R. G. C. McNAB.]

Lny Burney died in 1840 at the r f 'B7 She left her best and fetoportant work unpublished, f j tv Few human beings have Kh a range and variety of rlities and incidents to record. rXlard Dr. Johnson lose his r with Sir William Pepys Ke forth, man! Here am I ffZ answer any charge you can K She peered through Halr'iscope; indeed, she walked PTit She saw Captain Cook's ErOmai, sitting at her father's K and managing his cutlery like She listened to Burke's when he inveighed against r r a nd with her sound, infemntng up of rSShffl was being persecuted. r H STo remind M. Talleyve # D S acquaintance when he Klfi wUh the principalities pJ ugg l g She conversed amiably with Mr Bowdler so stiff as his would betoken. She KSSurErf Sir Joshua ReyPTiarden path by George 111., who terrified her Rjff shouts and by his imEs Simacy; but the poor creates evidently anxious only to s*Hki vigilant attendants and 5 with a human being She JK her sister singing for the fifli? Count Orloff. She was KgSb; while the battle of SJS was raging. She embarSherself and Scott by her first S. She wrote a congratulatory 6 Disraeli about "Contarmi Eno''—"The staunchest admirer Se in London," wrote the gratiU novelist. Add to such opporEties her unwearied application U her more than Boswellian thorUness in recording every word Conversation, and there are the Ujties of a notable diary. In two Ects, indeed, she surpassed BosUliiibis own task: Boswell never U Johnson-unbend in female comLy whereas Fanny Burney in her bra 'home and in Mrs Thrale's was U delighted witness and object of to teasing jocosity, and, unlike Soswell, she reported Johnson's retells in full, having no particular &n for throwing them into false relief by emphasis or selection. Diary and Novel

foresting to have a paragraph or two about the heredity of the Burney family, for they were distinguished in more than one sphere. The father probably never did himself justice as a creative musician; he was too busy entertaining or seeking new posts and earning a place in society for his children. But he was one of the first teachers and musical scholars of the age, he had generous gifts of personality, and he was, according to Dr. Johnson, "one of the first writers for travels." His son, Charles, was famous throughout Europe as a classical scholar. He disputed with Porson and accused him of picking his brains. • (The British Museum now contains his strange collection of stage-prints and old newspapers.) Another son, James, died an admiral. He had accompanied Captain Cook to the South Seas and tutored Omai, and he gained Charles Lamb's friendship by his declaration that he liked Shakespeare because he was so much of a gentleman. James hobnobbed with Hazlitt, he could make puns with the best, and his wife still lives as Mrs Battle. Fanny's only child became tenth wrangler and won a fellowship at Christ's.

General D'Arblay

Mr Lloyd's "Fanny Burney" is the first biography, apart from Macaulay's "Essay" and a literary sketch by Austin Dobson. No other will be needed. He has had access to unpublished letters and other material, and he knows the literary and social history of this long and intricate period thoroughly. His bibliography shows the mass of references he has had to pursue; but-all these were digested before he began to write. Anecdotes and quotations are sparingly used, and the whole biography reads as smoothly as if it were written by an understanding and clearsighted acquaintance. Though with such a subject it would be easy to be led into controversy, especially where Mrs Thrale-Piozzi is concerned, these temptations have been avoided.' Nor has Mr Lloyd dealt hastily with the familiar, as with the gloomy boredom of the duties of the Assistant-Keeper of the Robes. It is pleasing to think about Miss Burney's feelings if, instead of serving good Queen Charlotte, she had lived a generation earlier and waited .upon Caroline, who lived in such a bustle that she gave audience, while she was in her bath—the water discreetly thickened with milk—and had her chaplain, as he himself complained, whistle morning players through a keyhole while she dressed. There is, naturally, much about Mrs Thrale in this book; she is represented discreditably, but not unkindly. The two women were for years '.'great friends," though Fanny Burney was gradually sickened by the world of "ton" which took her up, none more vigorously than Mrs Thrale, after the. success of "Evelina." Mr Lloyd concludes that the marriage with Piozzi shocked Fanny Burney by its "matchless impropriety" as much as it shocked John.son by the "disregard of the children." Mr Lloyd very sensibly cannot see in the vexation and disappointment of Johnson any trace of the deceived lover. Fanny Burney was not always, or for long, quite happy. She had months of exciting and years of drudgery; but at last she found a safeguard against the death of her friends and the decay of her talents. This was the emigre, General D'Arblay, a husband who befitted her and who was her consolation in England as she was his consolation during the years of exile. No doubt in her old age, when she was pestered by the attacks of Croker, though she gave little heed to reviewers, when her husband arid son had died and Madsfme D'Arblay was regarded as a remarkable link with the past, no longer as the first woman of her age, her thoughts turned to the cottage at Norbury where she spent the first years of her married life. There was born in 1794 Alexander Charles Louis Piochard, an event more important to Fanny Burney than the publication of "Evelina," ,and an event which is not without importance to her memory, as she seems now to live as a bluestocking and novelist, not as a diarist* and a woman of sense and sensibility.

However, in two respects her fiary is greatly weakened. For a reason to be -shortly considered she note in her diary with the utmost frcumspebtion, not merely to avoid pring offence or pain to those whom jbe mtttioned; she herself made icisions and at one time intended the whole work. The tdt, 'excessive discretion was adopted by those who edited her papers.' Only in recent times have some parts of the journal, harmless isdcedf'been made known. The second defect is the lamentable defeneration •of style which accomjasied, but not as a result, her (sange from Miss Burney to Mme, BArblay. Her style was never foniliar, but it was, in "Evelina," reasonably ■ simple and clear, if aJirays 'dignified and correct. An appalling blight of turgid pomposity' her later writings, even w -journals. True, there are no We of affectation so deep in the toy as in her last two novels: "The w of youthful glee flowed jocund ™n her heart and the transparency Jnerfine'blue veins almost showed B velocity, of its current." It is S a diarist that she will be celeBJted in English literature, not as 'novelist; yet "Evelina" must gays be praised as the first Eng- * novel which made the ordinC J incidents of life seem signifi«t and important and which gave the pleasure of recogniscontemporaries. It seems NaMs? that one of the keenest

fses of her first readers was as some.of them did unJJPW, the* personalities of the that frequented Dr. Burney's 3* The romance of "Evelina" upon the refinance of «»Allen, a stepsister, and her ?■§ the Mr Rishton for whom once bought two *Kt-b3lls. Even in "Evelina" fitters are superficial, defined by 5* qualities like subservience, W. loquacity, or condescension, ™«ere is not enough incident or Sweat to be borne by the ?™r charged language. The especially "The Wan*%m' eXC6pt by the curious '

From Youth to Age jjjer novels there are then evi--52$ "Sk'' of egotism and gWy.; This observation is suptfi'X™. language of the diary Jtoi \m T e lunts 0I some acquaintSteTti ler J ater life - . Jt ma y not to speculate for a about the contrast between *ta?£ Slmple S iri ' at whom tff".roared his compliments and ISX assured woman who was of her own dignity. Her K? ed ?J her Prudishness; her K A£wn the babbling Mr Crisfceinv'i?? f weet voice ba <*e me »wti, v-° the Persistent Mr Bar*raii his "ardorous pen," were by her father kWfe „« (fanny Burney became 6^ 1 D ' Arbla y after womi J n her girlhood and IW3BW*£ he appears , to * frill ,« h £ r fat her excessively. expressed very was law, she ad-'fctt-Sr 1 ?' she was overawed '*anS' She was astonished by b SeM« nt ° f i he S reat > and SfctattSiS modest about her S*fiWL Personalit y in comhom she lov ed and his P ar t, was too ftenffil 1 "? daughter's power L fe tS, g< t her - The incidents ghisE g v he + r about her diary in the dark about derate how little he realWhen greatness feWttSfV."? 8 Burn ey altered % tt&Wuct very little; but have s rown a sM3£. ° f * se lf-importance, S 6 4mSl unf 2 rt unately.in the of >er admirer who fishes talk like i&ss.^"?? Fam|,y §?> Vft&u* • admira ble bioff*«nesi^-" Wltn understanding *!?.«llMl£ V u ry detai l of the life iS;TO3& but would be in : ft'ii'-'ii,!'