"I love Burney!' cried Dr. Johnson, emphatically, my heart, as I told him, goes out to meet Burney!'

"He is not ungrateful, Sir,' cried the Doctor's bairn, for heartily, indeed, does he love you!'

66 6

Does he, Madam?' said the Doctor, looking at her earnestly, I am surprised at that!'

And why, Sir? Why should you have doubted it?

"Because, Madam,' answered he, gravely, Dr. Burney is a man for everybody to love. It is but natural to love him!"-Vol. ii. p. 175.

Boswell himself is new in this book. He has told us a number of strange things of himself, but he has omitted what Madame D'Arblay tells us, that he was a regular pedantic imitation of Johnson in pomposity of speech, restlessness of manner, and laxity of coat!

"He spoke the Scotch accent strongly (says Madam D'Arblay) though by no means so as to affect, even slightly, his intelligibility to an English ear. He had an odd mock solemnity of tone and manner, that he had acquired imperceptibly from constantly thinking of and imitating Dr. Johnson; whose own solemnity, nevertheless, far from mock, was the result of pensive rumination. There was also something slouching in the gait and dress of Mr. Boswell, that wore an air, ridiculously enough, of purporting to personify the same model. His clothes were always too large for him; his hair, or wig, was constantly in a state of negligence; and he never for a moment sat still or upright upon a chair. Every look or movement displayed either intentional or involuntary imitation. Yet certainly it was not meant as caricature; for his heart, almost even to idolatry, was in his reverence of Dr. Johnson.

"Dr. Burney was often surprised that this kind of farcical similitude escaped the notice of the Doctor; but attributed his missing it to a high superiority over any such suspicion, as much as to his nearsightedness; for fully was Dr. Burney persuaded that had any detection of such imitation taken place, Dr. Johnson, who generally treated Mr. Boswell as a schoolboy, whom without the smallest ceremony he pardoned or rebuked alternately, would so indignantly have been provoked, as to have instantaneously inflicted upon him some mark of his displeasure. And equally he was persuaded, that Mr. Boswell, however shocked and inflamed in receiving it, would soon, from his deep veneration, have thought it justly incurred; and after a day or two of pouting and sullenness, would have compromised the matter by one of his customary simple apologies, of Pray, Sir, forgive me!'"-Vol. ii. p. 191.

Dr. Burney, it seems to me, was mistaken in thinking that Johnson would have been provoked at his follower's imitation of him. I have seen instances of the kind in society, and never observed that they were resented. On the contrary, the imitators were the favourites. It is one thing to provoke a man by behaving unlike him, as Boswell did when he was foolish and officious, and another surely to pay him the very highest compliment, by attempting to resemble him, even in his defects. I have no doubt that Johnson's eyes were quite open to the fact, and that he "witnessed it, Sir, with complacency." His nearsightedness was no hindrance to his perception of character and manners. No man, confessedly, saw them more. In fact, he saw whatever he chose to see. The nearer the sight, the closer he looked. That is the only difference between a near-sighted observer, and a far sighted. There are many other curious evidences of character in this delightful book, that of the fair Memorialist among them. When young, she was painfully bashful, and must have disconcerted those who attempted to

bring her out. Perhaps she was not so handsome as her sisters, and had been kept comparatively in the background, and not petted so much. It is remarkable, that while all her sisters were regularly educated, she had no instruction whatsoever, not even from her father. She was literally self-taught. The excess of reserve and diffidence with which she kept her first work secret from her father, -the bantering and undervaluing tone in which he seems to have been accustomed to speak of her during her childhood, his astonishment when he saw the novel, -his exclamation of " My God!" at the dedicatory sonnet,-with the tears that came into his eyes, and a variety of other little circumstances, warrant, I think, a suspicion to that effect. Thus bashful and hanging back, with a secret stock of fun and glee, and the sharpest powers of looking out of her corner and studying others, Fanny Burney must herself have been a character as fit for a novel as almost any she drew, Her reserve, amounting perhaps to stubbornness, seems never to have left her. At least, she could exercise it manfully when she chose. She would not talk upon any subject, of the discussion of which she had not thoroughly digested the proprieties. Witness her inflexibility to all the attempts of Johnson to make her speak of Mrs. Thrale. would not do it for him, even when he was dying. She nevertheless was highly affectionate,-loved her friends,-had a profound admiration for Johnson, and idolized her father to an extent for which we are hardly furnished with warrant. Why do I say "idolized?" She idolizes him now, like a proper, pertinacious, thoroughgoing daughter; and closes her Memoirs with a lapidary inscription to his memory, of the most enthusiastic order, in which she records him as the "unrivalled chief," as well as "historian," of his "tuneful art." "Historian," however, is put by itself in great capitals. The Doctor was manifestly a very pleasing, accomplished, and social man; and he had the power of making his daughter, the author of Evelina and Cecilia, think him one of the most extraordinary of human beings; which, with all due allowance to a little filial egotism, is a credit to both parties.

She

On one account it is to be regretted that Madame D'Arblay became acquainted with Johnson. It spoilt her style.* It has spoilt it up to this moment! Compare the "first sprightly runnings" of her mind in Evelina, and in the charming letters to Mr. Crisp, published in these volumes, with the stilted tone of Cecilia, and the hard words and obscure phrases she is still fond of; and lament that Fanny Burney was not left to her corner, to be sly, and laughing, and natural for ever. is a comic genius, who ought to have had nothing to do with tragedy and tragic tones, except by way of the mock heroical, or in the absurd person of " Mr. Delville, senior." Her Toryism itself is an involuntary

She

* Our esteemed correspondent is lenient on this score. "Style spoilt,"-God wot, is that all! The whole of the book, save only the letters written before Madame D'Arblay's marriage, may perhaps be taken as a specimen of the worst English composition that the age has produced. Nothing but a strong sense of gratitude for the delight we experienced ten years since in reading "Camilla," could possibly counterbalance our desire to give, to the marvel of our readers, a few examples of Madame D'Arblay's English. But the lot of genius would indeed be hard if it did not excite a reverence that forbears somewhat with its faults. Our accomplished correspondent in the text, being himself a man of genius, carries the reverence still farther, and in Madame D'Arblay's book seems not only to forbear the faults, but to love. His praise makes our caveat necessary.-Ep.

burlesque; though there is a pretty redemption of pedantry and goodnatured habit in her bringing it out to the world, after the world has done with it; and talking in reverend terms of George III. and Queen Charlotte, and the Duke of Portland. George III. had, indeed, calamities which were reverend; but out of the pale of those he was as common-place a man, of the stubborn and homely order, as can be conceived; and nobody now thinks the better of his stubbornness for his eating mutton and looking like a farmer. As to the Queen, we cannot help thinking there is a bit of the mischief of Fanny Burney in the accounts of her.

The Queen, who was a selfish woman, and thought herself perfect because she studied the decorums, pounced upon our authoress, poor Fanny, for a Mistress of the Robes; that is to say, for an attendant who was to provide her with daily amusement, by reading, and furnishing her with ideas. Now readers have heavy work of it at court, especially if (as we suppose Miss Burney did) they stand all the while they read, out of "respect." And so poor Fanny Burney, cut off for years from decent society, and from beloved friends and relations, falls into a terrible illness, and gives manifest signs of consumption. She begged to be released from her office; all her friends said she ought to be; but the Queen would not let her go. The attendant grew worse and worse, fairly wasted away before the Queen's eyes, and at length was suffered reluctantly to depart. This she did upon half-pay; and it is not clear that she would have had that, if the better-natured King had not suggested that she would have earned as much by her pen.

This conduct on the part of Queen Charlotte will not surprise those who remember her. But people really pleasant and virtuous, sometimes startle us with betrayals of weakness on the wrong side of human infirmity. In Madame D'Arblay's first volume, she had been making the reader in love with the character of her mother, the doctor's first wife. I thought her an angel upon earth, and perhaps she was so. But she dies;

and just as she is going to heaven, and giving us the last proof of her amiableness, by recommending her husband to marry again, she gives us a most uncelestial dash in the imagination, by choosing for him the ugliest of his acquaintance!

"Her husband," says Madame D'Arblay, with much simplicity, “sacred as he held the opinions and wishes of his Esther, was too ardent an admirer of beauty, to dispense, in totality, with that attractive embellishment of the female frame. He honoured and esteemed, with a brother's affection, the excellent Dorothy Young; but those charms which awaken softer sensations, were utterly and unhappily denied to that estimable woman, through her peculiarly unfortunate personal defects."-Vol. i. p. 193.

Miss Young, we are told in another part of the work, was not only denied beauty, both of face and person, but "in the first she had various unhappy defects, and in the second she was extremely deformed."

The Doctor's second wife was a friend of Miss Young's, and the greatest beauty in Lynn Regis.

A POOR, affrighted Worm,
Where sky and mountain meet,
I stood before the Storm,

And heard his strong heart beat.

He drew his black brows down,
My knees each other smote;
The mountains felt his frown-

His dark, unuttered thought.

The Mountains, at his scowl,
Prayed mutely to the Skies:
He spake, and shook my soul;
He scorched me with his eyes.
Alone, beneath the sky,

I stood, the Storm before:
No!-God, the Storm, and I,
We trod the desert floor.

ASMODEUS AT LARGE.-NO. IX.

The non-necessity of a termination to these Papers-The Expediency of writing one's own Life-A Dinner at a Wit's-The Character of a Man à-la-mode-The Nine-pin Parliament-Gully and CobbettElectioneering Anecdotes-Don Telesforo de Trueba's new Comedy -Incivility progresses with Civilization-Monck Mason-Plutarch's Musical Instruments-Story of the Three Bailiffs-Walk through London at night-An Adventure-Love and its Disadvantages.

SHALL I ever finish these papers? I intended to conclude them with the new year; but wherefore?-they suit one month as well as another— their subjects always vary-nothing can be more dissimilar than two several numbers of the series,-touching on all subjects, exhausting none. These papers fulfil for the "New Monthly" the same object as the "Noctes fulfil for "Blackwood's ;" and like the "Noctes," therefore, may be continued while the world continues to furnish matter for criticism and comment.

How many adventures are yet left for me! Thank heaven, I am always getting into some scrape or another; and even when I do seize an interval of leisure, and become orderly, I am only engaged in writing a history of the pranks I have played. Recent biographies have taught me the necessity of one thing-I shall write my own biography, myself! I do not intend to be made into four volumes, price 27. 2s., with "about this time we may suppose," and "at this event let us pause to imagine his emotions." No! I shall tell my own plain story in my own best plain way. And never, I will venture to say, has any literary man had a more strange and various life than I have! Happily, too, it is not over yet; the best part is, I hope, to come. Patience, and shuffle the cards.

A dinner at Greville's! that is really a treat. There I shall learn all the gossip of the day. Asmodeus

66 At your service."

"Ah, my dear Devil, it is an age since I saw you!

been about?"

66

Playing the devil at elections."

What have you

"Excellent! Have you been standing yourself, or merely exerting your vocation as an agent?"

"Why, as I like making mischief, I went down to a large town in my proper character."

"What! as a devil?"

"No! as a Conservative. It is to the interest of the Infernals to keep things in this world exactly as they are. We could not be better off. Accordingly they have made a subscription to get as many of us in as possible; and I received three thousand pounds from our Committee in Charles Street, in order to contest the borough of

"No sooner did I appear at the balcony than they began to stone I leave that fate for your martyrs (stones don't agree with us), and I retired into the dining-room to harangue my committee. Mean

me.