The Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney General Editor Lars E. Troide Volume I, 1768–1773, edited by Lars E. Troide Volume II, 1774–1777, edited by Lars E. Troide Volume III, The Streatham Years, Part I, 1778–1779, edited by Lars E. Troide and Stewart J. Cooke Volume IV, The Streatham Years, Part II, 1780–1781, edited by Betty Rizzo Volume V, 1782–1783, edited by Lars E. Troide and Stewart J. Cooke 1. Fanny Burney. From a portrait by Edward Francesco Burney, 1782. THE EARLY JOURNALS AND LETTERS OF F A N N Y B U R N E Y VOLUME V • 1782–1783 Edited by LARS E. TROIDE and STEWART J. COOKE McGILL-QUEEN’S UNIVERSITY PRESS Montreal & Kingston London Ithaca • • 2012 © McGill-Queen’s University Press 2012 isbn 978-0-7735-0542-1 Legal deposit first quarter 2012 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Burney, Fanny, 1752–1840 The early journals and letters of Fanny Burney/edited by Lars E. Troide. Includes indexes. Vol. 5 edited by Lars E. Troide and Stewart J. Cooke. Contents: v 5. 1782–1783. isbn 978-0-7735-0542-1 (v. 5) 1. Burney, Fanny, 1752-1840 – Correspondence. 2. Burney, Fanny, 1752–1840 – Diaries. 3. Novelists, English – 18th century – Correspondence. 4. Novelists, English – 18th century – Diaries. i. Troide, Lars E. (Lars Eleon), 1942- ii. Cooke, Stewart J. (Stewart Jon), 1954– iii. Title. pr3316.a4z48 1988 823'.6 c860-948633– rev Typeset in Baskerville 11/12 by Interscript inc. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We are especially indebted to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, which provided grants supporting the research for this volume, and to the National Endowment for the humanities, Washington, DC, which funded a year’s leave of absence to Professor Troide. Most of the work was carried on in the Burney Centre, McGill University. Permissions to publish the manuscripts in their possession have been provided by the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, the New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; the Osborn Collection, Yale University; the British Library; the John Rylands Library, University of Manchester; Dr Williams’s Library, London, England; the Hyde Collection, Houghton Library, Harvard University; the Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; the late Professor James L. Clifford; and the late Paula F. Peyraud. Illustrations have been obtained from the Burney Centre; Hester Davenport; and the collection at Parham Park, West Sussex, England. We would like to thank Hilary Havens and Sarah Skoronski for helping to polish the fair copy, Ariel Buckley for proof- reading and preparing the index, and Lorna Clark for her brilliant proofreading (once again). CONTENTS list of illustrations viii introduction ix short titles and abbreviations xiii early journals and letters of fanny burney from c.3 January 1782 to late December 1783–early January 1784, Numbers 228–324 1 appendices 1. Undated Items from 1783 471 2. Fanny Burney’s Meeting with Mary Delany 476 3. Elizabeth Meeke’s Letter to Fanny Burney 485 4. Fanny Burney’s Second Letter to Hester Thrale on 20 July 1781 486 5. Evelina in Mr Villars’s Study 488 index 489 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Fanny Burney in her Vandyke gown, 1782. From a portrait by Edward Francesco Burney. Frontispiece From the collection at Parham Park, West Sussex, England 2. Samuel Johnson. From the mezzotint by William Doughty, 1779, after the Reynolds portrait of 1778, reproduced in Diary and Letters of Madame d’Arblay, vol. 1, facing p. 154. 257 3. The Rotunda in Ranelagh Gardens. From an engraving by Thomas Bowles, 1751, print in the Burney Centre, McGill University. 262 4. Evelina in Mr Villars’ Study. From a watercolour drawing by Edward Francesco Burney, 1780. 487 By permission of Hester Davenport INTRODUCTION This fifth volume concludes the Early Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (1768–1783), under the general editorship of Lars Troide. It is succeeded by the Court Journals and Letters (1786–1791), under the general editorship of Peter Sabor, published by Oxford University Press. There will also be an additional volume covering the period 1784–June 1786, when Burney was being considered for her position at Court as Keeper of the Robes to Queen Charlotte, and a supple- mentary volume of hitherto unpublished material. The years 1782 and 1783 were years of significant gains and losses for Frances (‘Fanny’) Burney, both personally and pro- fessionally. The first loss occurred on 10 January 1782, when her favourite sister Susanna (‘Susan’) was given away in mar- riage to Molesworth Phillips, a career officer in the Royal Marines who had become a close friend of her brother James (‘Jem’) Burney when they sailed together on Captain Cook’s last voyage of discovery to the South Seas (see EJL iv). In her very first diary entry (to ‘Miss Nobody’, 27 March 1768) she had alluded to Susan as ‘the only one I could wholly, totally confide in’, the one person in the world who ‘never has’ and ‘never will, leave me one secret to tell her’ (EJL i. 2). Now Susan had left the Burney household, and Burney under- standably felt forsaken, though over the years she would continue to write her and visit her whenever she could. The feeling of separation would gradually grow worse, as Molesworth’s behavior towards Susan became increasingly despotic, culminating in his removal of Susan and their chil- dren to Ireland and her suffering his extramarital affair with Jane Brabazon. Burney’s letters to Susan in this volume show her treading carefully in her new role of sister-in-law to Molesworth, careful to profess her love and esteem for him and to downplay her regret at her sister’s departure. A second loss would be due to Burney’s widowed friend Hester Lynch Thrale’s falling in love with Gabriel Piozzi, her children’s music master. Starved of real affection in her