United States or Saint Martin ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He swept down the cobwebs from windows and ceiling; turned out of doors a lot of miscellaneous lumber that had insensibly collected there during the last half century; lugged in a few comfortable broad-bottomed chairs and stanch old tables; set up a bookshelf containing Walton's "Complete Angler," "Dialogues of Devils," "Arabian Nights," Miss Burney's "Evelina," and other equally fashionable and ingenious works; kindled a great fire on the broad hearth; and, upon the whole, rendered the aspect of things more comfortable than would have been anticipated.
Unfortunately for her art, she was married at nineteen to John Darner, eldest son of Lord Milton, a fop and spendthrift, who had run through a large fortune. He committed suicide nine years after his marriage. It is said that Harrington, in Miss Burney's novel of "Cecilia," was drawn from John Damer, and that his wardrobe was sold for $75,000 about half its original cost! Mrs.
Captain James Burney's Chronological History of the Voyages and Discoveries in the South Seas. 5 vols. 4to. 1803-16. Both these works are by men well qualified by science, learning, research, and devotedness to their object, to perform well what they undertook on any subject connected with geography and discovery. Keate's Account of the Pelew Islands. 1788. 4to.
In the management of the difficulties of the epistolary form of novel-writing, she surpassed Richardson in verisimilitude and concentration. Some readers of the present day object to Miss Burney's novels that they contain so many references to "delicacy" and "propriety" that an air of affectation is produced.
Burney, because she chose to differ from him respecting a vast and most complicated question, which he had studied deeply during many years, and which she had never studied at all? It is clear, from Miss Burney's own narrative, that when she behaved so unkindly to Mr. Burke, she did not even know of what Hastings was accused.
Burney inclines to the belief that the land visited by De Gonneville could be no other than Madagascar. After him, Major, than whom no higher or more respected authority exists in geographical matters of this kind, seems to have too readily accepted Burney's opinion.
We have nothing notable in this manner, before the arrival of Mr. Pickwick. An exception will scarcely be made in the interest of Richard Cumberland, who, as Scott says, "has occasionally . . . become disgusting, when he meant to be humorous." Already Walpole had begun the new "Gothic romance," and the "Castle of Otranto," with Miss Burney's novels, was to lead up to Mrs.
Burney's admiration of the powers which had produced Rasselas and The Rambler bordered on idolatry. Johnson, on the other hand, condescended to growl out that Burney was an honest fellow, a man whom it was impossible not to like. Garrick, too, was a frequent visitor in Poland Street and Saint Martin's Street.
It is a little remarkable that Captain Furneaux had been several times up Grass Cove with Captain Cook, where they saw no inhabitants, and no other signs of any but a few deserted villages, which appeared as if they had not been occupied for many years, and yet, in Mr. Burney's opinion, when he entered the same cove, there could not be less than fifteen hundred or two thousand people.
The latter lay still enough so still that at first Ken thought he was dead. But presently he saw that the man was still breathing. 'A hospital case, muttered Ken in puzzled tones. 'What the mischief am I to do with him? 'Ken Ken, where are you? The anxious question came from overhead, and glancing up Ken saw Dave Burney's head appearing over the edge of the bluff. 'I'm all right, he answered.
Word Of The Day