Hale: Madame D' Arhlay 



7 



be positively offensive are few. . . . When next Madame D'Arblay 

 appeared before the world as a writer, she was in a very different 

 situation. She would not content herself with the simple English 

 in which Er.elina had been written. . . . The consequence was, that 

 in Camilla every passage which she meant to be fine is detestable. . . . 

 But there was to be a still deeper descent. After the publication of 

 Camilla, Madame D'Arblay had resided ten years at Paris. . . . 

 Madame D'Arblay had carried a bad style to France. She brought 

 back a style which we are really at a loss to describe. It is a sort of 

 broken Johnsonese, a barbarous patois, bearing the same relation to 

 the language of Rasselas which the gibberish of the negroes of 

 Jamaica bears to the English of the House of Lords. ... It matters 

 not what ideas are clothed in such a style. The genius of Shakespeare 

 and Bacon united would not save a work so written from general 

 derision."^ 



Macaulay does not stretch his point. As far as the style is con- 

 cerned, this is a fair and exact criticism, but a restatement must be 

 made in regard to the influence of Dr. Johnson. The imitation of his 

 writings was, without question, the strongest influence in the deterior- 

 ation of Madame D'Arblay's style ;^ but this imitation did not begin, 

 as Macaulay declares, with the composition of Cecilia. There are un- 

 mistakable traces of it thruout Evelina.^ 



The general characteristics of Johnson's style are, first, a pompous 

 diction; second, a turgid, verbose form of expression; third, an 

 antithetic, balanced sentence structure. The following passages from 

 Rasselas and The Rambler illustrate these qualities : 



"I remembered that my father had obliged me to the improvement of 

 my stock, not by a promise, which I ought not to violate, but by a penalty, 

 which I was at a liberty to incur; and therefore determined to • gratify my 

 predominant des're, and, by drinking at the fountain of knowledge, to quench 

 the thirst of curiosity. "« 



The great remedy which heaven has put in our hands is patience, by 

 which though we cannot lessen the torments of the body, we can in great 

 measure preserve the peace of the mind. ^ 



These traits are at once apparent in the later novels. In the first 

 place, there is the pompous diction that characterizes Rasselas and 



3 Select Essays of Macaulay (ed. Thurber), 171 ff. 



4 Other causes assigned are the influence of the French during Madame D'Arblay's 

 ten years in France; imitation of Dr. Burney's writings; pride on account of her 

 former position at court; and the practice of composing blank verse. Cf. Austin 

 Dobson, Frances Burney, 188 fl. 



5 Austin Dobson (op. ext., 82, 127) expresses a similar view. 



6 Rasselas, chap. viii. 



7 The Rambler (Lit. Club edit.), I, 208. 



