The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume Iii Part 14

And so dear Mr. Hastings is honourably acquitted!(120) and I visited him the next morning, and we cordially shook hands. I had luckily left my name at his door as soon as I was able to go out, and before it was generally expected that he would be acquitted.

The young Lady Spencer and I are become very thick , I have dined with her at Lady Lucan's, and met her at the blue parties there.

She has invited me to her box at the opera, to her house in St James's Place, and at the Admiralty, whither the family removed last Sat.u.r.day, and she says I must come to her the 15th, 22nd, and 29th of this month, when I shall see a huge a.s.sembly. Mrs.

Crewe says all London will be there. She is a pleasant, lively, and comical creature, with more talents and discernment than are expected from a character si fol?tre. My lord is not only the handsomest and the best intentioned man in the kingdom, but at present the most useful and truly patriotic. And then, he has written to Vienna for Metastasio's three inedited volumes, which I so much want ere I advance too far in the press for them to be of any use.

I am halooed on prodigiously in my Metastasio mania. All the critics--Warton, Twining, Nares, and Dr. Charles--say that his "Estratto dell' Arte Poetica d'Aristotile," which I am

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now translating, is the best piece of dramatic criticism that has ever been written. "Bless my heart!" says Warton, "I, that have been all my life defending the three unities, am overset." "Ay,"

quoth I, "has not he made you all ashamed of 'em? You learned folks are only theorists in theatrical matters, but Metastasio had sixty years' successful practice. There!--Go to." My dear f.a.n.n.y, before you write another play, you must read Aristotle and Horace, as expounded by my dear Metastasio. But, basta. You know when I take up a favourite author, as a Johnson, a Haydn, or a Metastasio, I do not soon lay him down or let him be run down. .

Here it strikes three o'clock: the post knell, not bell, tolls here, and I must send off my scrib: but I will tell you, though I need not, that, now I have taken up Metastasio again, I work at him in every uninterrupted moment. I have this morning attempted his charming pastoral, in "il Re Pastore." I'll give you the translation, because the last stanza is a portrait:--

To meadows, woods, and fountains Our tender flocks I'll lead; In meads beneath the mountains My love shall see them feed.

Our simple narrow mansion Will suit our station well; There's room for heart expansion And peace and joy to dwell.

BABY D'ARBLAY. THE WITHDRAWN TRAGEDY.

(From Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney) Hermitage, Bookham, May 13, 1795.

As you say, 'tis pity M. d'A. and his rib should have conceived such an antipathy to the pet.i.t monsieur! O if you could see him now! My mother would be satisfied, for his little cheeks are beginning to favour of the trumpeter's, and Esther would be satisfied, for he eats like an embryo alderman. He enters into all we think, say, mean, and wish ! His eyes are sure to sympathise in all our affairs and all our feelings. We find some kind reason for every smile he bestows upon us, and some generous and disinterested Motive for every grave look.

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If he wants to be danced, we see he has discovered that his gaiety is exhilarating to us ; if he refuses to be moved, we take notice that he fears to fatigue us. If he will not be quieted without singing, we delight in his early go?t for les beaux arts.

If he is immovable to all we can devise to divert him, we are edified by the grand sirieux of his dignity and philosophy: if he makes the house ring with loud acclaim because his food, at first call, does not come ready warm into his mouth, we hold up our hands with admiration at his vivacity.

Your conversation with Mr. c.u.mberland astonished me. I certainly think his experience of stage effect, and his interest with players, so important, as almost instantly to wish putting his sincerity to the proof. How has he got these two characters- -one, of Sir Fretful Plagiary, detesting all works but those he owns, and all authors but himself--the other, of a man too perfect even to know or conceive the vices of the world, such as he is painted by Goldsmith in "Retaliation?" And which of these characters is true?(121)

I am not at all without thoughts of a future revise of "Edwy and Elgiva," for which I formed a plan on the first night, from what occurred by the representation. And let me own to you, when you commend my "bearing so well a theatrical drubbing," I am by no means enabled to boast I bear it with conviction of my utter failure. The piece was certainly not

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heard, and therefore not really judged. The audience finished with an unmixed applause on hearing it was withdrawn for alterations, and I have considered myself in the publicly accepted situation of having at my own option to let the piece die, or attempt its resuscitation,-its reform, as Mr. c.u.mberland calls it. However, I have not given one moment to the matter since my return to the Hermitage. F. D'A.

PS-I should he very glad to hear good news of the revival of Mr.

Burke. Have you ever seen him since this fatality in his family?

I am glad, nevertheless with all my heart, of Mr. Hastings's honourable acquittal.

"CAMILLA."

(Madame d'Arblay to Mrs.--.) Bookham, June 15, '95, Let me hasten to tell you something of myself that I shall be very sorry you should hear from any other, as your too susceptible mind would be hurt again, and that would grieve me quite to the heart.

I have a long work, which a long time has been in hand, that I mean to publish soon--in about a year. Should it succeed, like 'Evelina' and 'Cecilia,' it may be a little portion to our Bambino. We wish, therefore, to print it for ourselves in this hope; but the expenses of the press are so enormous, so raised by these late Acts, that it is out of all question for us to afford it. We have, therefore, been led by degrees to listen to counsel of some friends, and to print it by subscription. This is in many--many ways unpleasant and unpalatable to us both; but the real chance of real use and benefit to Our little darling overcomes all scruples, and therefore, to work we go!

You will feel, I dare believe, all I could write on this Subject; I once rejected such a plan, formed for me by Mr. Burke, where books were to be kept by ladies, not booksellers,--the d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re, Mrs. Boscawen, and Mrs. Crewe; but I was an individual then, and had no cares of times to come: now, thank heaven! this is not the case;--and when I look at my little boy's dear, innocent, yet intelligent face, I defy any pursuit to be painful that may lead to his good.

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(Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.) Bookham, June 18, '95.

All our deliberations made, even after your discouraging calculations, we still mean to hazard the publis.h.i.+ng by subscription. And, indeed, I had previously determined, when I.

changed my state, to set aside all my innate and original abhorrences, and to regard and use as resources, myself, what had always been considered as such by others. Without this idea, and this resolution, our hermitage must have been madness. . . .

I like well the idea of giving no name at all,-why should not I have my mystery as well as "Udolpho?"(122)--but, " now, don't fly, Dr. Burney! I own I do not like calling it a novel; it gives so simply the notion of a mere love-story, that I recoil a little from it. I mean this work to be sketches of characters and morals put in action,-not a romance. I remember the word " novel " was long in the way of 'Cecilia,' as I was told at the queen's house; and it was not permitted to be read by the princesses till sanctioned by a bishop's recommendation,--the late Dr. Ross of Exeter.

Will you then suffer mon amour Propre to be saved by the proposals running thus?--Proposals for printing by subscription, in six volumes duodecimo, a new work by the author of "Evelina"

and "Cecilia."

How grieved I am you do not like my heroine's name!(123) the prettiest in nature! I remember how many people did not like that of "Evelina," and called it "affected" and "missish," till they read the book, and then they got accustomed in a few pages, and afterwards it was much approved. I must leave this for the present untouched ; for the force of the name attached by the idea of the character, in the author's mind, is such, that I should not know how to sustain it by any other for a long while.

In "Cecilia" and "Evelina" 'twas the same: the names of all the personages annexed, with me, all the ideas I put in motion with them. The work is so far advanced, that the personages are all, to me, as so many actual acquaintances, whose memoirs and

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opinions I am committing to paper. I will make it the best I can, my dearest father. I will neither be indolent, nor negligent, nor avaricious. I can never half answer the expectations that seem excited. I must try to forget them, or I shall be in a continual quivering.

Mrs. Cooke, my excellent neighbour, came in Just now to read me a paragraph of a letter from Mrs. Leigh, of Oxfords.h.i.+re, her sister. . . . After much of civility about the new work and its author, it finishes thus:--"Mr. Hastings I saw just now: I told him what was going forward; he gave a great jump, and exclaimed, 'Well, then, now I can serve her, thank Heaven, and I will! I will write to Anderson to engage Scotland, and I will attack the East Indies myself!'" F. D'A.

P.S.-The Bambino is half a year old this day.

N.B.-I have not heard the Park or Tower guns. I imagine the wind did not set right.

AN INVITATION TO THE HERMITAGE.

(Madame d"Arblay to the Comte de Narbonne.(124)]

Bookham, 26th December, 1795.

What a letter, to terminate so long and painful a silence! It has penetrated us with sorrowing and indignant feelings. Unknown to M. d'Arblay whose grief and horror are upon point of making him quite ill, I venture this address to his most beloved friend; and before I seal it I will give him the option to burn or underwrite it. I shall be brief in what I have to propose: sincerity need not be loquacious, and M. de Narbonne is too kind to demand phrases for ceremony.

Should your present laudable but melancholy plan fail, and should nothing better offer, or till something can be arranged, will you dear Sir, condescend to share the poverty of our hermitage? Will you take a little cell under our rustic roof, and fare as we fare? What to us two hermits is cheerful and happy, will to you, indeed, be miserable but it will be some solace to the goodness of your heart to witness our contentment;--to dig with M. d'A. in the garden will be of service to

Page 98 your health; to muse sometimes with me in the parlour will be a relaxation to your mind. You will not blush to own your little G.o.dson. Come, then, and give him your blessing; relieve the wounded feelings of his father--oblige his mother--and turn hermit at Bookham, till brighter suns invite you elsewhere. F.

D'ARPLAY.

You will have terrible dinners, alas !--but your G.o.dson comes in for the dessert.(125)

PRESENTATION OF "CAMILLA" AT WINDSOR.

[During the years 1794 and 1795, Madame d'Arblay finished and prepared for the press her third novel, "Camilla," which was published partly by subscription in 1796 the dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Leinster, the Hon. Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Crewe, and Mrs. Locke, kindly keeping lists, and receiving the names of subscribers.

This work having been dedicated by permission to the queen, the auth.o.r.ess was desirous of presenting the first copy to her majesty, and made a journey to Windsor for that honour.)

(Madame d'Arblay to Dr. Burney.) Bookham, July 10, 1796.

If I had as much of time as of matter, my dear father, what an immense letter should I write you ! But I have still so many book oddments of accounts, examinations, directions, and little household affairs to arrange, that, with baby-kissing, included, I expect I can give you to-day only part the first of an excursion which I mean to comprise in four parts: so here begins.

The books were ready at eleven or twelve, but not so the tailor!

The three Miss Thrales came to a short but cordial hand-shaking at the last minute, by appointment; and at about half-past three we set forward. I had written the day before to my worthy old friend Mrs. Agnew, the housekeeper, erst, of my revered Mrs.