Austin Dobson - Fanny Burney (Madame D'Arblay)

Catherine Hyde was still living in Fanny Burney’s day; and Fanny saw her at Covent Garden Theatre in January, 1773, when Mason’s Elfrida was being acted. “I had the pleasure to see Prior’s celebrated fair ‘Kitty, beautiful and young,’ now called Kitty, beautiful and old , in the stage box.” ( Early Diary , 1889, i. p. 184.)

“There are now,” said Cunningham, writing as far back as 1849, “at least 2 square miles of brick and mortar between it [Queen Square] and the view.” ( Handbook for London , ii. p. 686.)

See ante , p. 19.

In Recreations and Studies of A Country Clergyman of the Eighteenth Century [Thomas Twining], 1882, there are several letters from Twining to Burney and vice versa , some of which will be hereafter cited.

“So much of his [Garrick’s] drollery belongs to his voice, looks and manner,” says the Diary, “that writing loses it almost all.” Yet more than forty years afterwards, in her Memoirs of her father (1832, i. pp. 352-3), she expanded the above, about seven lines in the original, to a page and three quarters. It is clear that she worked from the Diary , for some of the expressions are identical. But many decorative particulars are added to the record of Garrick’s visit, which are not in the first account. We have preferred the earlier, if less picturesque, narrative. Boswell, of course, has nothing of this anecdote; which was not printed until long after his death.

The fate of Cowper’s “gentle savage” was pathetic. Painted by Reynolds and patronised by Lord Sandwich, – lionised by Lady Townshend and the Duchess of Devonshire, – he was suffered to go back once more to his own people, among whom he had neither status nor importance. He died soon after, having shown himself (says Vancouver) both “vain and silly.” And no wonder!

Agujari, according to Grove’s Dictionary of Music , was the highest and most extended soprano on record. Her voice reached “from the middle of the harpsichord to two notes above it,” says Miss Burney.

He is generally called “Count.” But in her letters, diary, and Memoirs , Fanny styles him “Prince.”

Early Diary , 1889, ii. 121.

Memoirs of the Margravine of Anspach , 1826, ii. 125.

Dr. Burney evidently had mild qualms about these Sunday concerts. When after the first occasion here referred to, Dr. King and Dr. Ogle supped at St. Martin’s Street, he said that he hoped for absolution from them if there was any crime in having music on a Sunday . To which Dr. Ogle replied discreetly that music was an excellent thing any and every day ; and Dr. King evasively – “Have we not music at church?”

The second volume appeared in 1782, and the third and fourth volumes, completing the work, in 1789.

In September, 1785, Miss Sally Payne married Captain James Burney, Fanny’s brother.

Early Diary , 1889, ii. 153; Birkbeck Hill’s Johnson’s Letters , 1892, ii. 5, and note.