Royal Visit to Weymouth—Lyndhurst—Village Loyalty—Arrival at Weymouth—Bathing to Music—Mrs. Gwynn—Mrs. Siddons—The Royal Party at the Rooms—First Sight of Mr. Pitt—The Marquis of Salisbury—Royal Tour—Visit to Longleat—Mrs. Delany—Bishop Ken—Tottenham Park—Return to Windsor—Progress of the French Revolution—Colonel Digby’s Marriage—Miss Burney’s Situation—A Senator—Tax on Bachelors—Reading to the Queen—Miss Burney’s Melancholy—Proposal for her Retirement—Her Tedious Solitude—Her Literary Inactivity—Her Declining Health—A Friendly Cabal—Windham and the Literary Club—James Boswell—Miss Burney’s Memorial to the Queen—Leave of Absence Proposed—The Queen and Mrs. Schwellenberg—Serious Illness of Miss Burney—Discussions on her Retirement—A Day at the Hastings Trial—The Defence—A Lively Scene—The Duke of Clarence—Parting with the Royal Family—Miss Burney receives a Pension—Her Final Retirement.
On the 25th of June the Court set out on a progress from Windsor to Weymouth. Miss Burney and Miss Planta, as was usual on these occasions, were of the suite; the Schwellenberg, as usual, remained behind. ‘The crowds increased as we advanced, and at Winchester the town was one head.’ At Romsey, on the steps of the Town Hall, a band of musicians, some in coarse brown coats and red neckcloths, some even in smock-frocks, made a chorus of ‘God save the King,’ in which a throng of spectators joined with shouts that rent the air. ‘Carriages of all sorts lined the roadside—chariots, chaises, landaus, carts, waggons, whiskies, gigs, phaetons—mixed and intermixed, filled within and surrounded without by faces all glee and delight.’ On the verge of the New Forest the King was met by a party of foresters, habited in green, with bows and bugles, who, according to ancient custom, 252presented him with a pair of milk-white greyhounds, wearing silver collars, and led by silken cords.
Arrived at Lyndhurst, he drove to the old hunting-seat of Charles II., then tenanted by the Duke of Gloucester. “It is a straggling, inconvenient old house,” writes Fanny, “but delightfully situated in a village—looking, indeed, at present, like a populous town, from the amazing concourse of people that have crowded into it.... During the King’s dinner, which was in a parlour looking into the garden, he permitted the people to come to the window; and their delight and rapture in seeing their monarch at table, with the evident hungry feeling it occasioned, made a contrast of admiration and deprivation truly comic. They crowded, however, so excessively, that this can be permitted no more. They broke down all the paling, and much of the hedges, and some of the windows, and all by eagerness and multitude, for they were perfectly civil and well-behaved.... We continued at Lyndhurst five days.... On the Sunday we all went to the parish church; and after the service, instead of a psalm, imagine our surprise to hear the whole congregation join in ‘God save the King!’ Misplaced as this was in a church, its intent was so kind, loyal, and affectionate, that I believe there was not a dry eye amongst either singers or hearers.”
On the 30th of June the royal party quitted Lyndhurst, and arrived at Weymouth in the course of the evening. ‘The journey was one scene of festivity and rejoicing.’ The change of air, the bustle of travelling, the beauty of the summer landscapes, the loyalty of the population, had restored Fanny’s tone, and brought back the glow she had experienced at the time of the King’s convalescence. Her enthusiasm lent a touch of enchantment to everything she saw. Salisbury and Blandford welcomed their sovereign with displays and acclamations that fairly carried her away. At Dorchester the windows and roofs of the 253quaint old houses seemed packed with eager faces. ‘Girls, with chaplets, beautiful young creatures, strewed the entrance of various villages with flowers.’
Nor were the good people of Weymouth and Melcomb Regis a whit behind in loyalty, though greatly at a loss how to vary the expression of their feelings. “Not a child could we meet that had not a bandeau round its head, cap or hat, of ‘God save the King’; all the bargemen wore it in cockades; and even the bathing-women had it in large coarse girdles round their waists. It is printed in golden letters upon most of the bathing-machines, and in various scrolls and devices it adorns every shop, and almost every house, in the two towns.... Nor is this all. Think but of the surprise of his Majesty when, the first time of his bathing, he had no sooner popped his royal head under water than a band of music, concealed in a neighbouring machine, struck up, ‘God save great George our King’! One thing, however, was a little unlucky:—When the mayor and burgesses came with the address, they requested leave to kiss hands. This was graciously accorded; but the mayor advancing in a common way, to take the Queen’s hand, as he might that of any lady mayoress, Colonel Gwynn, who stood by, whispered:
“‘You must kneel, sir.’
“He found, however, that he took no notice of this hint, but kissed the Queen’s hand erect. As he passed him, in his way back, the Colonel said:
“‘You should have knelt, sir!’
“‘Sir,’ answered the poor Mayor, ‘I cannot.’
“‘Everybody does, sir.’
“‘Sir,—I have a wooden leg!’
“But the absurdity of the matter followed—all the rest did the same; taking the same privilege, by the example, without the same or any cause!”
254Miss Burney’s way of life at Weymouth seems to have been much the same as if she had belonged to a private party. “I have here a very good parlour, but dull from its aspect. Nothing but the sea at Weymouth affords any life or spirit. My bedroom is in the attics. Nothing like living at a Court for exaltation. Yet even with this gratification, which extends to Miss Planta, the house will only hold the females of the party.... It is my intention to cast away all superfluous complaints into the main ocean, which I think quite sufficiently capacious to hold them; and really my little frame will find enough to carry and manage without them.... His Majesty is in delightful health, and much improved in spirits. All agree he never looked better.... The Queen is reading Mrs. Piozzi’s ‘Tour’ to me, instead of my reading it to her. She loves reading aloud, and in this work finds me an able commentator. How like herself, how characteristic is every line!—Wild, entertaining, flighty, inconsistent, and clever!” As at Cheltenham, much of the stiffness of Windsor etiquette was thrown aside. The King and his family spent most of their time in walking or riding, and the Queen required but little attendance. Now and again the royal party varied the usual amusements of a watering-place by a visit to the Magnificent line-of-battle ship, stationed at the entrance of the bay, by a cruise in the Southampton frigate, which lay further in, or by an excursion to Dorchester, Lulworth Castle, or Sherborne Castle. During these intervals, the Robe-Keeper was left to her own occupations. She passed much of her leisure with the wife of the equerry, Mrs. Gwynn, Goldsmith’s ‘Jessamy Bride,’ who had many stories to tell of her old admirer,[102] and could exchange anecdotes with Fanny of 255Johnson, Baretti, the Thrales, Sir Joshua and his nieces. Strolling with this acquaintance one morning on the sands, Miss Burney “overtook a lady of very majestic port and demeanour, who solemnly returned Mrs. Gwynn’s salutation, and then addressed herself to me with similar gravity. I saw a face I knew, and of very uncommon beauty, but did not immediately recollect it was Mrs. Siddons. Her husband was with her, and a sweet child. I wished to have tried if her solemnity would have worn away by length of conversation: but I was obliged to hasten home.”
The great actress, as she told Fanny, had come to Weymouth solely for her health; but she could not resist the royal command to appear at the little theatre, where Mrs. Wells and Quick were already performing. “The King,” says the Diary, “has taken the centre front box for himself, and family, and attendants. The side boxes are too small. The Queen ordered places for Miss Planta and me, which are in the front row of a box next but one to the royals. Thus, in this case, our want of rank to be in their public suite gives us better seats than those high enough to stand behind them!
“July 29th.—We went to the play, and saw Mrs. Siddons in Rosalind. She looked beautifully, but too large for that shepherd’s dress; and her gaiety sits not naturally upon her—it seems more like disguised gravity. I must own my admiration for her confined to her tragic powers; and there it is raised so high that I feel mortified, in a degree, to see her so much fainter attempts and success in comedy.”
A few days later we read that Mrs. Siddons, as Lady Townly, in her looks and the tragic part was exquisite; and again: “Mrs. Siddons performed Mrs. Oakley. What pity thus to throw away her talents! But the 256Queen dislikes tragedy; and the honour to play before the Royal Family binds her to the little credit acquired by playing comedy.
“Sunday, August 9th.—The King had a council yesterday, which brought most of the great officers of State to Weymouth. This evening her Majesty desired Miss Planta and me to go to the rooms, whither they commonly go themselves on Sunday evenings; and after looking round them, and speaking where they choose, they retire to tea in an inner apartment with their own party, but leave the door open, both to see and be seen. The rooms are convenient and spacious: we found them very full. As soon as the royal party came, a circle was formed, and they moved round it, just as before the ball at St. James’s, the King one way, with his Chamberlain, the new-made Marquis of Salisbury,[103] and the Queen the other, with the Princesses, Lady Courtown, etc. The rest of the attendants planted themselves round in the circle. I had now the pleasure, for the first time, to see Mr. Pitt; but his appearance is his least recommendation; it is neither noble nor expressive.”
Three days later occurs a significant entry:
“Wednesday, August 12th.—This is the Prince of Wales’s birthday; but it has not been kept.”
On the 13th the royal party left Weymouth for Exeter, where they arrived to a late dinner. Two days afterwards they proceeded through a fertile and varied country to Saltram, the seat of Earl Morley, a minor. All along the route, the enthusiasm of loyalty which had accompanied the King from Windsor continued undiminished. Arches of flowers were erected at every town, with such devices as rustic ingenuity could imagine, to express the welcome 257of the inhabitants. Everywhere there were crowds, cheers, singing, peals of bells, rejoicings, garlands, and decorations. The view from Saltram commanded Plymouth Sound, Mount Edgecombe, and a wide stretch of the fine adjacent country. Visits were made from this noble house to the great naval port, to the beauties of the famous Mount, to the woods and steeps of Maristow, and the antique curiosities of Cothele on the banks of the Tamar. On the 27th the Court quitted Saltram for Weymouth, and in the middle of September finally departed from Weymouth on its return to Windsor. Two nights and the intervening day were spent at Longleat, the seat of the Marquis of Bath. “Longleat,” writes Miss Burney, “was formerly the dwelling of Lord Lansdowne, uncle to Mrs. Delany; and here, at this seat, that heartless uncle, to promote some political views, sacrificed his incomparable niece, at the age of seventeen, marrying her to an unwieldy, uncultivated country esquire, near sixty years of age, and scarce ever sober—his name Pendarves. With how sad an awe, in recollecting her submissive unhappiness, did I enter these doors!—and with what indignant hatred did I look at the portrait of the unfeeling Earl, to whom her gentle repugnance, shown by almost incessant tears, was thrown away, as if she, her person, and her existence, were nothing in the scale, where the disposition of a few boroughs opposed them! Yet was this the famous Granville—the poet, the fine gentleman, the statesman, the friend and patron of Pope, of whom he wrote:
‘What Muse for Granville can refuse to sing?’
Mine, I am sure, for one.”
The house, at the time of this visit, though magnificent, and of an immense magnitude, was very much out of repair, and by no means cheerful or comfortable. 258Gloomy grandeur, Fanny thought, was the character of the building and its fitting-up. “My bedroom,” she says, “was furnished with crimson velvet, bed included, yet so high, though only the second story, that it made me giddy to look into the park, and tired to wind up the flight of stairs. It was formerly the favourite room, the housekeeper told me, of Bishop Ken, who put on his shroud in it before he died. Had I fancied I had seen his ghost, I might have screamed my voice away, unheard by any assistant to lay it; for so far was I from the rest of the mansion, that not the lungs of Mr. Bruce could have availed me.” The last place at which the King stopped on his homeward journey was Tottenham Park, the seat of the Earl of Ailesbury. Here occurred an instance of the enormous expense to which the great nobles sometimes went in entertaining their sovereign. ‘The good lord of the mansion put up a new bed for the King and Queen that cost him ￡900.’
On September 18 the Court arrived at Windsor. ‘Deadly dead sank my heart’ is our traveller’s record of her sensation on re-entering the detested dining-room. Nothing happened during the remainder of the year to raise her spirits. In October, the days began to remind her of the terrible miseries of the preceding autumn. She found ‘a sort of recollective melancholy always ready to mix’ with her thankfulness for the King’s continued good health. And about the same time disquieting news came from over the water of the march to Versailles, the return to Paris, and the shouts of the hungry and furious poissardes proclaiming the arrival of ‘the baker, his wife, and the little apprentice.’ Events of this kind could not but excite uneasiness at any Court, however popular for the time. These shadows were presently succeeded by another, equally undefined, but of 259a more personal character. In the middle of November, Fanny was told by Miss Planta, in confidence, that Mr. Digby had written to acquaint his royal patrons with his approaching marriage. ‘I believed not a syllable of the matter,’ says the Diary; ‘but I would not tell her that.’ Only a few days later, however, the same kind friend informed Miss Burney that ‘it was all declared, and that the Princesses had wished Miss Gunning joy at the Drawing-Room.’ ‘Now first,’ says Fanny, ‘my belief followed assertion;—but it was only because it was inevitable, since the Princesses could not have proceeded so far without certainty.’ The wedding took place early in January; and from this time the bridegroom appeared no more at Court, which became to one of the attendants an abode of unrelieved gloom.
Some of her friends were frank enough in their comments on her situation. There was something, no doubt, in Miss Burney’s aspect which drew such remarks as these from the wife of an Irish bishop: “Well; the Queen, to be sure, is a great deal better dressed than she used to be; but for all that, I really think it is but an odd thing for you!—Dear, I think it’s something so out of the way for you!—I can’t think how you set about it. It must have been very droll to you at first. A great deal of honour, to be sure, to serve a Queen, and all that; but, I dare say a lady’s-maid could do it better.... It must be a mighty hurry-scurry life! You don’t look at all fit for it, to judge by appearances, for all its great honour, and all that.” Colonel Digby had previously accused her of being absent in her official occupation, and she had owned that she had at first found attention unattainable. “She had even,” she added, “and not seldom, handed the Queen her fan before her gown, and her gloves before her cap!” The Vice-Chamberlain thought this very likely, 260and observed that such matters did not seem trifles to her Majesty.
The Diary for the earlier months of 1790 contains little more than what the writer calls ‘loose scraps of anecdotes,’ of which we can find room for only one or two specimens. Here is an account of a conversation with Colonel Manners, who, besides being an equerry, was also a Member of Parliament:
“I had been informed he had once made an attempt to speak, during the Regency business, last winter; I begged to know how the matter stood, and he made a most frank display of its whole circumstances.
“‘Why, they were speaking away,’ he cried, ‘upon the Regency, and so—and they were saying the King could not reign, and recover; and Burke was making some of his eloquence, and talking; and, says he, ‘hurled from his throne’—and so I put out my finger in this manner, as if I was in a great passion, for I felt myself very red, and I was in a monstrous passion I suppose, but I was only going to say ‘Hear! Hear!’ but I happened to lean one hand down upon my knee, in this way, just as Mr. Pitt does when he wants to speak; and I stooped forward, just as if I was going to rise up and begin; but just then I caught Mr. Pitt’s eye, looking at me so pitifully; he thought I was going to speak, and he was frightened to death, for he thought—for the thing was, he got up himself, and he said over all I wanted to say; and the thing is, he almost always does; for just as I have something particular to say, Mr. Pitt begins, and goes through it all, so that he don’t leave anything more to be said about it; and so I suppose, as he looked at me so pitifully, he thought I should say it first, or else that I should get into some scrape, because I was so warm and looking so red.’
261“Any comment would disgrace this; I will therefore only tell you his opinion, in his own words, of one of our late taxes.[104]
“‘There’s only one tax, ma’am, that ever I voted for against my conscience, for I’ve always been very particular about that; but that is the bacheldor’s tax, and that I hold to be very unconstitutional, and I am very sorry I voted for it, because it’s very unfair; for how can a man help being a bacheldor, if nobody will have him? and, besides, it’s not any fault to be taxed for, because we did not make ourselves bacheldors, for we were made so by God, for nobody was born married, and so I think it’s a very unconstitutional tax.’”
Miss Burney’s desultory journals for this year contain few notices of her life at Court. We hear, indeed, in the spring, of her being summoned to a new employment, and called upon four or five times to read a play before the Queen and Princesses. But this proved a very occasional break in the routine of drudgery which she could no longer support with cheerfulness. Henceforth she seems to avoid all mention of other engagements and incidents at Windsor or Kew as matters too wearisome to think of or write about. We have, instead, accounts of days spent at the Hastings trial, where, as before, she spent much time in conversing with Windham. The charges were now being investigated in detail, and it was often difficult to make up an interesting report for her mistress. Sometimes, however, when evidence weighed the proceedings down, Burke would speak from time to time, and lift them up; or Windham himself, much to Fanny’s satisfaction, would take part in the arguments. 262But Westminster Hall was attractive mainly by contrast to the palace; in the Great Chamberlain’s Box there was no danger of receiving a summons to the Queen, no fear of being late for an attendance in the royal dressing-room. During the recess, when there was no trial to attend, Miss Burney’s thoughts were a good deal occupied by the illness and death of a faithful man-servant, and with the subsequent disposal of his savings, which caused her some trouble.
Once, at the end of May, she had an opportunity of unburdening her mind to her father. They met in Westminster Abbey at one of the many commemorations of Handel which occurred about this time; and, neither of them caring very much for the great master’s music, they spent three hours chiefly in conversation. For four years they had not been so long alone together. Dr. Burney happened to mention that some of the French exiles wished him to make them acquainted with the author of ‘Cecilia,’ and repeated the astonished speech of the Comtesse de Boufflers on learning that this was out of his power: ‘Mais, monsieur, est-ce possible! Mademoiselle votre fille n’a-t-elle point de vacances?’ Such an opening was just what Fanny wanted, and she availed herself of it to pour out her whole heart. With many expressions of gratitude for the Queen’s goodness, she owned that her way of life was distasteful to her; she was lost to all private comfort, dead to all domestic endearment, worn with want of rest and laborious attendance. Separated from her relations, her friends, and the society she loved, she brooded over the past with hopeless regret, and lived like one who had no natural connections. “Melancholy was the existence, where happiness was excluded, though not a complaint could be made! where the illustrious personages who were 263served possessed almost all human excellence—yet where those who were their servants, though treated with the most benevolent condescension, could never in any part of the live-long day, command liberty, or social intercourse, or repose!” “The silence of my dearest father,” she adds, “now silencing myself, I turned to look at him; but how was I struck to see his honoured head bowed down almost into his bosom with dejection and discomfort! We were both perfectly still a few moments; but when he raised his head I could hardly keep my seat to see his eyes filled with tears! ‘I have long,’ he cried, ‘been uneasy, though I have not spoken; ... but ... if you wish to resign—my house, my purse, my arms, shall be open to receive you back!’”
It cannot fairly be said that, during the preceding four years, Miss Burney had been debarred from literary work. The conditions of her lot were hard, and it may have been one of them that she should publish nothing while in the Queen’s service; but she certainly had enjoyed considerable leisure for composition. Witness the full and carefully-written journal which she had kept during the greater part of her tenure of office. Perhaps the frequent interruptions to which she was liable hindered her from concentrating her thoughts on the production of a regular narrative. Indefatigable as she was with her pen, we can see that she was far less strenuous when much intellectual exertion was required. When she was offered her post, her Muse was at a standstill, as she told the King; and since she entered the household, she had written nothing capable of being printed, except two or three small copies of verses not worth printing, and the rough draft of a tragedy. She had begun this tragedy during the King’s illness, in order to distract her attention; and after laying it aside for sixteen months, she 264resumed her task in the spring of 1790, and completed the play in August. Well or ill done, she was pleased, she told her sisters, to have done something ‘at last—she............