BOOKS.
MISS BURNEY'S " EVELINA." * Wu hear much talk about "annuals " and " perennials " nowa- days. The interest taken in old-fashioned flowering plants and shrubs is a very marked feature of present-day gardening. Every one starts a herbaceous border, and every one exults over half-forgotten flowers—peonies, lupins, and sweet ber- gamot—transplanted from cottage-gardens. In like manner, the works of authors are either annual, springing up like the grass of the field one day, dead and forgotten the next, or perennial, starting up in unexpected places, returning in new editions to delight successive generations of readers.
Among these evergreens is a new edition of Evelina ; or, a Young Lady's Entrance into the World, in two small volumes, "The antique spelling and punctuation are retained," according to the introduction, "as well as the incorrect French and English attributed to some of the characters ; reprinted from the second edition, printed for T. Lowndes in 1779." The very name of Lowndes, the publisher in Fleet Street to whom Fanny Burney anonymously disposed of the manuscript of Evelina for the " magnificent " sum of twenty pounds, recalls her "odd inclination to see it in print," her astonish- ment at the success it almost immediately attained, and her embarrassment at the publicity which followed that suc- * Balina. Edited by R. Brinley Johnson. Illustrated by W. Cubitt Cooke. 2 vols. London : J. H. Dent and Co. cess. "Indeed," she writes to her father, "I only proposed, like my friends the Miss Branghtons, a little 'private fun,' and never once dreamt of extending my confidence beyond my sisters." She fears that Mrs. Thrale will "conclude I must have an innate vulgarity of ideas," and will suppose that she has kept company with such folk as the Branghtons, Mr.. Brown, and Mr. Smith. Then Dr. Johnson's approbation nearly "crazed her with surprise ; " and we remember her introduction to him at Streatham, and his speech at dinner : "Sitting by Miss Burney makes me very proud to-day." The great Doctor vows Evelina is a charming creature ; that he cannot "get rid of the rogue ; " and suddenly laughing to himself, quotes : "Only think, Polly I Miss has danced with a lord! " When he is indignant with somebody's handwriting, he says : "Mr. Branghton would have written his name with just such beastly flourishes." And again, later on in their friendship, Fanny records in her Journal : "Dr. Johnson has sent a bitter reproach to Mrs. Thrale of my not writing to him,. for he has not yet received a scrawl I have sent him. He says Dr. Barnard, the provost of Eton, has read it (Evelina) through three times within the last month I I am afraid he will pass for being superannuated for his pains !" "But don't tell Burney this," adds Dr. Johnson, "because she will not write to me, and. values me no more than if I were a Branghton!" Mrs. Thrale tells every one that Sir Joshua Reynolds had declared he would give 250 to know the author of Evelina, that Mr. Burke dotes on it, and sat up all night to read it, and that Dr. Johnson says Fielding never wrote so well. One by one the great men and women of the day —authors, wits, and blue-stockings, statesmen, painters, musicians, and actors—do homage to the quiet, shrinking girl ; she is adored, caressed, feted. Wisely does her dearly. loved "Daddy Crisp" write in 1780 :—" They tell me of a delightful tour you are to make this autumn on the other side of the water, with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, Dr. Johnson, Mr.. Murphy, &c. Where will you find such another set ? 0, Fanny, set this down as the happiest period of your life; and. when you come to be old and sick, and health and spirits are fled (for the time may come), then live upon remembrance, and think that you have had your share of the good things of this world, and say,—For what I have received, the Lord make me thankful I" Croker, with his wonted sarcasm, says, though Mr. R. Brimley Johnson in his introduction puts it down to Macaulay, that Madame D'Arblay's two first novels owed a great deal of their extraordinary success to the strange mis- representation that had been somehow made of the author's being ten years younger than she really was. But if that had. been the case, after the first astonishment had subsided, the books would soon have been forgotten if they possessed no other merit than the youth of their author. Miss Barney stands absolutely first in order of time on the list of female novelists. As Macaulay says :—" She first showed that a tale might be written in which both the fashionable and the vulgar life of London might be exhibited with great force, and with broad comic humour, and which yet should not contain a single line inconsistent with rigid morality, or even with virgin deli- cacy. She took away the reproach which lay on a most useful and delightful species of composition. She vindicated the right of her sex to an equal share in the fair and noble pro- vince of letters." The novelists who preceded her were men, and they wrote chiefly for men. Fielding, Smollett, and Sterne. smacked of the coarse flavour of the time ; Richardson was more respectable, but lengthy and a trifle ponderous. Frances Burney's step-mother inveighed against the evil of a girl wasting her time in scribbling romances ; novel-writing and. novel-reading were thought discreditable pursuits for young ladies. In spite of every discouragement, a star rose in this empty horizon that at once attracted attention. A novel by; an unknown author was passed from band to hand ; the three volumes were full of strong contrasts and mirthful and romantic situations. The comical characters amused the men,. the sentimental characters appealed to the women. Evelina at her first ball, her absurd shyness, her lordly admirers, Evelina and the Branghtons, Mr. Smith, Madame Duval and her "Ma foil" became household words. London society of those days was small enough to be sociable ; the chief lions roared together in public, they read the same books, and discussed them at the same houses. Where Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Cholmondeley led, others meekly followed. A great statesman, a great painter, and a great philosopher spoke in favour of the new novel ; their opinions were passed on from one to another, and the reputation of the book and its modest author was made. Johnson's favourite character was the Holborn beau. "Oh, Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith is the mat!" cried he, laughing violently. "Harry Fielding never drew so good a character, —such a fine varnish of low politeness ! such a struggle to appear a gentleman Madam, there is no character better drawn anywhere,—in any book or by any author." After such praise from the greatest luminary of the day, we cannot wonder that " little " Burney, as he called her, almost "poked herself under the table." Mrs. Thrale preferred Lady Louisa ; she "thinks her as well drawn as any character in the book, —so fine, so affected, so languishing, and, at the same time, so insolent " There is broad farcical humour in the scenes in which the Branghtons and their friends figure, the shop on Snow Hill, the " Marybone " Gardens, and the Hampstead Assembly. The sentimental parts will less readily commend themselves to modern readers. They will hardly weep as copiously as did Fanny Burney's contemporaries over the meeting between Evelina, and her long-lost father. It is for a faithful picture of the time that we are so indebted to the author. Where now are the powdered and " frizled heads," surmounted with caps or calashes, the wigs, the fine gentlemen and ladies who rode in hackney-coaches and swore strange oaths P Who goes to George's at Hampstead, Don Saltero's at Chelsea, Sadler's Wells, Vauxhall, Ranelagh, Marybone P Who frequents Bagnigge Wells or the Pantheon, and dances at ridottos Evelina, most lovely of mortals," and Lord Orville, "most noble-minded of men," the languishing Lady Louisa, that " strange creature," Sir Clement Willoughby, the sarcastic Mrs. Selwyn, are all types of that bygone generation ; their successors are less ceremonious, possibly less polite, certainly less picturesque. About thirty years after Evelina shone with unrivalled brilliancy, another modest star stole into existence. Miss Austen was a still worthier descendant of the eighteenth- century novelists, though, unlike Madame D'Arblay, she was always hidden from the world at large. She had no sudden, meteor-like success, her works were little praised or known during her lifetime. She also was a great admirer of Dr. Johnson, but, fortunately for her style, she did not catch " Johnsonese," as Madame D'Arblay caught it, in its worst form. Jane Austen's productions, to revert to our original simile, are more pruned and more cultivated than those of her predecessor, whose last and forgotten novel, The Wanderer, came out the same year as Pride and Prejudice. She is less inclined to broad farce ; we laugh with her, but not at her creations. Her characters are whimsical, odd, silly, but never brutal and detestable like Captain Mirvan or Madame Duval. Her colours are purer, and are laid on her "little bit (two inches wide) of ivory" with more delicacy, more discrimina- tion of light and shade ; but there is the same ease and facility, the same buoyant spirits, that delight us in Evelina. In her turn, though unknown to her, she had her circle of admirers—Southey, Sir Walter Scott, Macaulay—and the number of reprints in the present day testify to her continued popularity. We do not hear of any meeting ever having taken place between the sister-authoresses. But evidently Jane Austen could imagine no higher praise than to be ranked with Madame D'Arblay. She wrote to a friend:—" Poor Dr. Isham is obliged to admire Pride and Prejudice, and to send me word that he is sure he shall not like Madame D'Arblay's new novel half so well." The new novel was The Wanderer, and the verdict of posterity is on Dr. Isham's side.
Madame D'Arblay never wrote anything so good as Evelina again. Her journals and letters are delightful reading, but their humour is spontaneous and fragmentary ; she wrote them for herself or for her most intimate friends and relations. When she grew more circumspect and more under the influence of fine writing, she became more didactic and less amusing. Cecilia has fewer readers than Evelina ; Oanrilla and The Wanderer, we venture to say, have none at all.
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