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CECILIA, Volume 1 (of 3)

or

MEMOIRS OF AN HEIRESS



By Frances Burney




PREFACE

"Fanny's Cecilia came out last summer, and is as much liked and read,
I believe, as any book ever was," wrote Charlotte Burney in Jan. 1783.
"She had 250 pounds for it from Payne and Cadell. Most people say she
ought to have had a thousand. It is now going into the third edition,
though Payne owns that they printed two thousand at the first edition,
and Lowndes told me five hundred was the common number for a novel."
[Footnote: _The Early Diary of Frances Burney, with a selection from her
correspondence, and from the journals of her sisters Susan and Charlotte
Burney._ Edited by Annie Raine Ellis. 1889. Vol. II. p. 307.]

The manuscript of _Cecilia_ was submitted to Dr Burney and Mr Crisp
during its composition, and their suggestions were in some cases
adopted, as we learn from the _Diary_. Dr Johnson was not consulted, but
a desire at once to imitate and to please him evidently controlled the
work.

Under these circumstances it is naturally less fresh and spontaneous
than _Evelina_, but it is more mature. The touch is surer and the plot
more elaborate. We cannot to-day fully appreciate the "conflict scene
between mother and son," for which, Miss Burney tells us, the book was
written; but the pictures of eighteenth century affectations are all
alive, and the story is thoroughly absorbing, except, perhaps, in the
last book.

Miss Burney often took the name of her characters from her
acquaintances, and it seems probable that some of the "types" in
_Cecilia_ are also drawn from real life. The title of Miss Austen's
_Pride and Prejudice_ was borrowed from _Cecilia_, and some points of
resemblance may be traced between the two novels.

The present edition is reprinted from:--

CECILIA, or, Memoirs of an Heiress. By the author of Evelina. In five
volumes. London: Printed for T. Payne and Son, at the Newsgate, and T.
Cadell in the Strand. MDCCLXXXII. R. B. J.

THE RIGHT HON. EDMUND BURKE TO MISS F. BURNEY. (AFTER READING CECILIA.)

Madam,--I should feel exceedingly to blame if I could refuse to myself
the natural satisfaction, and to you the just but poor return, of my
best thanks for the very great instruction and entertainment I have
received from the new present you have bestowed on the public. There
are few--I believe I may say fairly there are none at all--that will not
find themselves better informed concerning human nature, and their stock
of observation enriched, by reading your "Cecilia." They certainly will,
let their experience in life and manners be what it may. The arrogance
of age must submit to be taught by youth. You have crowded into a few
small volumes an incredible variety of characters; most of them well
planned, well supported, and well contrasted with each other. If there
be any fault in this respect, it is one in which you are in no great
danger of being imitated. Justly as your characters are drawn, perhaps
they are too numerous. But I beg pardon; I fear it is quite in vain
to preach economy to those who are come young to excessive and sudden
opulence.

I might trespass on your delicacy if I should fill my letter to you with
what I fill my conversation to others. I should be troublesome to you
alone if I should tell you all I feel and think on the natural vein of
humour, the tender pathetic, the comprehensive and noble moral, and the
sagacious observation, that appear quite throughout that extraordinary
performance.

In an age distinguished by producing extraordinary women, I hardly dare
to tell you where my opinion would place you amongst them. I respect
your modesty, that will not endure the commendations which your merit
forces from everybody.

I have the honour to be, with great gratitude, respect, and esteem,
madam, your most obedient and most humble servant,

EDM. BURKE

WHITEHALL, _July 19, 1782_.

My best compliments and congratulations to Dr Burney on the great honour
acquired to his family.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The indulgence shewn by the Public to Evelina, which, unpatronized,
unaided, and unowned, past through Four Editions in one Year, has
encouraged its Author to risk this SECOND attempt. The animation of
success is too universally acknowledged, to make the writer of
the following sheets dread much censure of temerity; though the
precariousness of any power to give pleasure, suppresses all vanity
of confidence, and sends CECILIA into the world with scarce more
hope, though far more encouragement, than attended her highly-honoured
predecessor, Evelina.

July, 1782




CHAPTER i

A JOURNEY.


"Peace to the spirits of my honoured parents, respected be their
remains, and immortalized their virtues! may time, while it moulders
their frail relicks to dust, commit to tradition the record of their
goodness; and Oh, may their orphan-descendant be influenced through life
by the remembrance of their purity, and be solaced in death, that by her
it was unsullied!"

Such was the secret prayer with which the only survivor of the Beverley
family quitted the abode of her youth, and residence of her forefathers;
while tears of recollecting sorrow filled her eyes, and obstructed the
last view of her native town which had excited them.

Cecilia, this fair traveller, had lately entered into the
one-and-twentieth year of her age. Her ancestors had been rich farmers
in the county of Suffolk, though her father, in whom a spirit of
elegance had supplanted the rapacity of wealth, had spent his time as a
private country gentleman, satisfied, without increasing his store, to
live upon what he inherited from the labours of his predecessors. She
had lost him in her early youth, and her mother had not long survived
him. They had bequeathed to her 10,000 pounds, and consigned her to the
care of the Dean of ------, her uncle. With this gentleman, in whom,
by various contingencies, the accumulated possessions of a rising and
prosperous family were centred, she had passed the last four years of
her life; and a few weeks only had yet elapsed since his death, which,
by depriving her of her last relation, made her heiress to an estate of
3000 pounds per annum; with no other restriction than that of annexing
her name, if she married, to the disposal of her hand and her riches.

But though thus largely indebted to fortune, to nature she had yet
greater obligations: her form was elegant, her heart was liberal; her
countenance announced the intelligence of her mind, her complexion
varied with every emotion of her soul, and her eyes, the heralds of
her speech, now beamed with understanding and now glistened with
sensibility.

For the short period of her minority, the management of her fortune
and the care of her person, had by the Dean been entrusted to three
guardians, among whom her own choice was to settle her residence: but
her mind, saddened by the loss of all her natural friends, coveted to
regain its serenity in the quietness of the country, and in the bosom
of an aged and maternal counsellor, whom she loved as her mother, and to
whom she had been known from her childhood.

The Deanery, indeed, she was obliged to relinquish, a long repining
expectant being eager, by entering it, to bequeath to another the
anxiety and suspense he had suffered himself; though probably without
much impatience to shorten their duration in favour of the next
successor; but the house of Mrs Charlton, her benevolent friend,
was open for her reception, and the alleviating tenderness of her
conversation took from her all wish of changing it.

Here she had dwelt since the interment of her uncle; and here, from the
affectionate gratitude of her disposition, she had perhaps been content
to dwell till her own, had not her guardians interfered to remove her.

Reluctantly she complied; she quitted her early companions, the friend
she most revered, and the spot which contained the relicks of all she
had yet lived to lament; and, accompanied by one of her guardians, and
attended by two servants, she began her journey from Bury to London.

Mr Harrel, this gentleman, though in the prime of his life, though gay,
fashionable and splendid, had been appointed by her uncle to be one of
her trustees; a choice which had for object the peculiar gratification
of his niece, whose most favourite young friend Mr Harrel had married,
and in whose house he therefore knew she would most wish to live.

Whatever good-nature could dictate or politeness suggest to dispel
her melancholy, Mr Harrel failed not to urge; and Cecilia, in whose
disposition sweetness was tempered with dignity, and gentleness with
fortitude, suffered not his kind offices to seem ineffectual; she kissed
her hand at the last glimpse a friendly hill afforded of her native
town, and made an effort to forget the regret with which she lost sight
of it