(28) The above “flowers of rhetoric” are taken from the “Memoirs of Dr. Burney,” published in 1832; but it is scarcely just--indeed, it is wholly unjust—­to include “Camilla” and “The Wanderer” under the same censure with that book.  The literary style of the “Memoirs” is the more amazing, since we find Madame D’Arblay, in 1815, correcting in her son the very fault which is there indulged to so unfortunate an extent.  She writes to him — “I beg you, when you write to me, to let your pen paint Your thoughts as they rise, not as you seek or labour to embellish them.  I remember you once wrote me a letter so very fine from Cambridge, that, if it had not made me laugh, it would have made me sick."-Ed.

(29) “The Female Quixote” is the title of a novel by Charlotte Lenox, published in 1752.  It was written as a satire upon the Heroic Romances, so popular in England during the seventeenth century, and the early part of the eighteenth; and scarcely claims to be considered as a picture of life and manners.  It is a delightful book however, and the character of the heroine, Arabella, is invested with a charm which never, even in the midst of her wildest extravagancies, fails to make itself felt.-Ed.

(30) Author of the famous “Short View of the Immorality and the Profaneness of the English Stage,” published in 1698; a book which, no doubt, struck at a real evil, but which is written in a spirit of violence and bigotry productive rather of amusement than of conviction.  It caused, however, a tremendous sensation at the time, and its effect upon the English drama was very considerable; not an unmixed blessing either.-Ed.

59

Diaryand letters
of
Madame D’ARBLAY.

Section 1
                                  (1778.)

Miss Burney publishes her first novel and finds herself famous.

[Miss Burney’s first novel, " Evelina,” had been submitted in manuscript to the great publisher, Dodsley, who refused to look at an anonymous work.  It was then offered to Lowndes, who published it.  The negotiations with the publisher were carried on by Fanny’s brother Charles, and her cousin, Edward Burney.  These two, with her sisters, and her aunts Anne and Rebecca (Dr. Burney’s sisters), appear to have been the only persons entrusted with the secret.  It will be most convenient here, at the commencement of — The Diary,” to give a few necessary details respecting the Burney family.  By his first*wife, Esther Sleepe, Dr. Burney became the father of seven children:—­

1.  Esther ("Hetty"), born 1749; married, in 1770, her cousin Charles Rousseau Burney, eldest son of Dr. Burney’s elder brother, Richard Burney, of Worcester.  Hetty’s husband is always called “Mr. Burney” in the “Diary”.  He was a musician.