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 ILLUSTRATIONS
 
 LIPRARY I 
 
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 FANNY BURNEY 
 
 AND HER FRIENDS
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 HORACE WALPOLE AND HIS WORLD. 
 
 Select Passages from his Letters. With Eight Copper- 
 plates after Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Thomas 
 Lawrence. Second Edition. Price 7s. 6d., cloth. 
 
 "A compact representative selection with just enough con- 
 necting text to make it read consecutively, with a pleasantly 
 written introduction." — Athenceiiiii. 
 
 "Taking it altogether, we do not often meet with a more 
 entertaining volume." — Pall Mall Gazette. 
 
 " A volume which well deserves the thanks of the reading 
 public." — Daily News.
 
 C--j/C^u^n^. 
 
 ^^^jjaifsifn a/'n.jc 
 
 TTx^vce^ ^.J^H-c^^^n^e 
 
 J.
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 L. B. SEELEY, M.A. 
 
 Late Fi'Hoiii of Trinity College, Cambridge 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 " HOKACE V^ALPOLE AND HIS WOKLD" 
 
 with nine illustrations after 
 Reynolds, Gainsborough, Copley, and West 
 
 THIRD EDITION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 SCRIBNER AND W EL FORD 
 
 1890 
 
 / 
 
 FANNY BURNEY 
 
 (MADAME ^D'ARBLAY) , /- ,y , 
 
 AND HER FRIENDS ^ 
 
 SELECT PASSAGES FROM HER DIARY AND 
 OTHER WRITINGS
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IV.nh — Parentage — The Macburneys — Early Life of Dr. Burney— Fulk 
 Greville — Esther Sleepe — Lynn — Poland Street — Frances Burney's 
 Brothers and Sisters — Her Backwardness in Childhood — Her Mother's 
 Death — David Garrick — The Old Lady — The Wig-maker — Neglect of 
 Fanny's Education^Her Taste for Scribbling — Samuel Crisp — His 
 Early Life — His Tragedy — Its Failure — His Chagrin — His Life at 
 Hampton — His Retirement from the World — Crisp renews his Acquaint- 
 ance with Burney — Becomes the Adviser of the Family — Burney's Ami- 
 able Temper — Chesington Hall — Its Quaint Interior — Contrast between 
 Fanny and her Elder Sister— Burney's Second Marriage — Change of 
 Plans — Mrs. Burney lectures Fanny — An ^lUo da FJ — Origin of 
 * Evelina ' — Burney takes his Doctor's Degree — His Essay on Comets — 
 Preparations for the ' History of Music' — Musical Tour in France and 
 Italy — House in Queen Square — German Tour — Fanny's Occupation 
 during his Absence — Removal to St. Martin's Street — Newton's House 
 — The Observatory — Fanny's Arrival at Womanhood - - I-jl 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 Life in St. Martin's Street — Increase of Fame and Friends — Garrick's 
 First Call — Confusion — The Hairdresser — 'Tag-rag and Bobtail' — The 
 History of Histories — Imitation of Dr. Johnson — The Great Roscius — 
 Mr. Crisp's Gout — Correspondence between him and Fanny — Dr. 
 Burney's Concerts — Abyssinian Bruce — Supper in St. Martin's Street — 
 Italian Singers — A Musical Evening — Visit of Count Orloff — His Stature 
 and Jewels — Condescension — A Matrimonial Duct — The Empress's
 
 vi Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Miniature — ^Jemmy Twitcher — Present State of St. Martin's Street — Mr. 
 and Mrs. Thrale— Dr. Johnson — Visit of the Thrales and Johnson — 
 Appearance of Dr. Johnson — His Conversation— His Contempt for 
 Music — Meeting of Dr. Johnson and Mr. Greville — Mrs. Thrale Defiant 
 — Signor Piozzi ..,..,. 32-59 
 
 CHAPTER HI, 
 
 ' Evelina ' — Date of its Composition — Negotiations with Publishers — Dr. 
 Barney's Consent — Publication — Illness of the Author — Visit to Chesing- 
 ton — Her Father reads the Book — Mrs. Thrale and Mrs. Cholmondeley 
 — Exciting News — Fanny's Success — Nancy Dawson — The Secret told 
 to Mr. Crisp — Characters in ' Evelina ' — Dinner at Streatham — Dr. 
 Johnson — David Garrick — The Unclubbable Man — Curiosity as to 
 Authorship of ' Evelina ' — The Bookseller in the Dark — Visits to the 
 Thrales — Table Talk — Mr. Smith — Goldsmith — Johnson and the 
 Scotch- — Civil for Four — Sir Joshua Reynolds — Mrs. Montagu — Boswcll 
 — The Branghtons— Mrs. Cholmondeley — Talk with Sir Joshua — Is it 
 True ? — Mrs. Cholmondeley's Whimsical Manner — Visit to her House 
 — Mr. Cumberland — A Hint for a Comedy — A Charmed Circle — 
 Sheridan — Not a Fair Question — Pressed to Write for the Stage — 
 Flattered by Compliments -....- 60-99 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Return to Streatham— Murphy the Dramatist — A Proposed Comedy — 
 ' The Witlings'— Adverse Judgment of Mr. Crisp and Dr. Burney — 
 Fanny to ]Mr. Crisp — Dr. Johnson on Miss Burney— A Visit to Brighton 
 — Cumberland — An Eccentric Character — Sir Joshua's Prices — 
 Tragedies — Actors and Singers — Regrets for the Comedy — Crisp's 
 Reply — The Lawrence Family at Devizes — Lady Miller's Vase — The 
 Gordon Riots — Precipitate Retreat— Grub Street — Sudden Death of 
 Mr. Thrale — Idleness and Work — A Sister of the Craft — The Mauso- 
 leum of Julia — Progress of ' Cecilia ' through the Press— Crisp's Judg- 
 ment on ' Cecilia ' — Johnson and ' Cecilia ' — Publication of ' Cecdia ' 
 — Burke — His Letter to Miss Burney — Assembly at Miss Monckton's 
 — New Acquaintances — Soame Jenyns — Illness and Death of Crisp — 
 Mrs. Thrale's Struggles — Ill-health of Johnson— Mr. Burney Organist of 
 Chelsea Hospital — Mrs. Thrale marries Piozzi — Last Interview with 
 Johnson — His Death ...... 100-13 1
 
 Contents. vii 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Mrs. Delany — Her Childhood — Her First Marriage — Swift — Dr, Delany 
 — The Dowager Duchess of Portland — Mrs. Delany a Favourite at 
 Court — Her Flower-Work — Miss Burney's First Visit to Mrs. Delany — 
 Meets the Duchess of Portland — Mrs. Sleepe — Crisp — Growth of 
 Friendship with Mrs. Delany — Society at her Flouse — Mrs. Delany's 
 Reminiscences — The Lockes of Norbury Park — Mr. Smelt — Dr. Burney 
 has an Audience of the King and Queen — The King's Bounty to Mrs. 
 Delany — Miss Buiney Visits Windsor — Meets the King and Queen — 
 ' Evelina ' — Invention Exhausted — The King's Opinion of Voltaire, 
 Rousseau, and Shakespeare — The Queen and Bookstalls — Expectation — 
 Journey to Windsor — The Terrace — Dr. Burney's Disappointment — 
 Proposal of the Queen to Miss Burney — Doubts and Fears — An Inter- 
 view — The Decision — Mistaken Criticism — -Burke's Opinion— A Mis- 
 conception — Horace Walpole's Regret— Miss Burney's Journals of her 
 Life at Court — Sketches of Character — -The King and Queen — Mrs. 
 Schwellenberg — The Queen's Lodge — Miss Burney's Apartments — .V 
 Day's Duties — Royal Snuff — Fictitious Names in the Diary — The Prin- 
 cesses — A Royal Birthday — A Walk on the Terrace — -The Infant Prin- 
 cess Amelia ...... 132-166 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 Royal Visit to Nuneham — A Present from the Queen — Official Exhorta- 
 tions — Embarrassments at Nuneham — A Laborious Sunday — Hair- 
 dressing — The Court visits Oxford — Journey thither — Reception by tho 
 University — Address and Reply — Kissing Hands — Christchurch — 
 Fatigues of the Suite — Refreshment under Difficulties — A Surprise— 
 The Routine of Court Life — The Equerries — Draughts in the Palace — 
 Early Prayers — Barley-water — The London Season — Mrs. Siddons — 
 Mrs. Schwellenberg's Apartments — Her Tame P'rogs — Her Behaviour 
 to Miss Burney — Cruel Treatment — A Change for the Better — News- 
 paper Reports — Conversation with the Queen — Miss Burney as Reader 
 — Her Attainments, Tastes, and Power . - . . 167-1SS 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 The Trial of Warren Hastings — Westminster Hall — Description of it on 
 the Opening Day of the Trial — Edmund Burke— The other Managers 
 — Procession of the Peers — Entrance of the Defendant — The Arraign- 
 ment—Speech of Lord Chancellor Thurlow — Reply of Warren Hastings
 
 vlii Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 — Opening of the Trial— Mr. Windham— His Admiration of Dr. 
 Johnson— His Reflections on the Spectacle— Bearing of the Lord Chan- 
 cellor — Windham on Hastings — William Pitt — Major Scott — Conversa- 
 tion with Windham — Partisanship — Close of the First Day's Proceedings 
 — Conference on it with the Queen — Another Day at the Trial — Burke's 
 Great Speech — Resemblance between Hastings and Windham — Fox's 
 Eloquence — Death of Mrs. Delany .... 189-200 
 
 CHAPTER Vni. 
 
 The King's Health — Royal Visit to Cheltenham — Excursions — Robert 
 Raikes — Colonel Digby — The Duke of York — The Court attends the 
 Musical Festival at Worcester — Return to Windsor — M. de Lalande, 
 the Astronomer — His Compliments— His Volubility — Illness of the 
 King — The King grows worse — 'The Queen is my Physician' — Alarm 
 and Agitation — Grief of the Queen— The King Insane — Arrival of the 
 Prince of Wales— Paroxysm of the King at Dinner — The Queen 111 — 
 The Physicians — The Royal Pair separated — The Prince takes the 
 Government of the Palace — Prayers for the King's Recovery — The 
 King and his Equerries — Sir Lucas Pepys — A Privy Council — Prepara- 
 tions for leaving Windsor — Departure for Kevv — Mournful Spectacle — 
 Mrs. Schwellenberg arrives ..... 201-229 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 State of Kew Palace— Dr. Willis and his Son called in — Progress under 
 the New Doctors — Party Spirit — The Regency Question — Attacks on 
 the Queen — Fluctuations in the King's State — Violence of Burke — Ex- 
 traordinary Scene between the King and Miss Burney in Kew Gardens 
 — Marked Improvement of the King — The Regency Bill postponed — 
 The King informs Miss Burney of his Recovery — The Restoration — 
 Demonstrations of Joy — Return to Windsor — Old Routine resumed — 
 Reaction ........ 230-250 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Royal Visit to Weymouth — Lyndhurst — Village Loyalty — Arrival at Wey- 
 mouth — Bathing to Music— IMrs. Gwynn — Mrs. Siddons — The Royal 
 Party at the Rooms — First Sight of Mr. Pitt — The Marquis of Salisbury 
 • — Royal Tour — Visit to Longleat — Mrs. Delany — Bishop Ken — Tot- 
 tenham Park — Return to Windsor — Progress of the French Revolution 
 — Colonel Digby's Marriage — Miss Burney's Situation — A Senator — Tax 
 on Bachelors — Reading to the Queen — Miss Burney's Melancholy —
 
 Contents. ix 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 Proposal for her Retirement — Her Tedious Solitude— Her Literary In- 
 activity—Her Declining Health— A Friendly Cabal — Windham and the 
 Literary Club— James Boswell — Miss Burney's Memorial to the Queen 
 —Leave of Absence proposed— The Queen and Mrs. Schvvellenberg — 
 Serious Illness of Miss Burney — Discussions on her Retirement — A Day 
 at the Hastings Trial — The Defence— A Lively Scene — The Duke of 
 Clarence— Parting with the Royal Family — Miss Burney receives a 
 Pension — Pier Final Retirement ----- 251-277 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Chelsea Hospital — Tour to Devonshire — Visit to Bath — Reminiscences — 
 The Duchess of Devonshire— Return Home — Literary Pursuits resumed 
 — Attempts at Tragedy — Social Engagements — Death of Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds— A Public Breakfast at Mrs. Montagu's— Mrs. Hastings- 
 Mr. Boswell — Visit to Mrs. Crewe— The Burke Family— Meeting with 
 Edmund Burke — Burke and the French Revolution — Charles Fox — 
 Lord Loughborough — Mr. Erskine — His Egotism — The French Refugees 
 in England — Bury St. Edmunds — Madame de Genlis — The Duke de 
 Liancourt — The Settlement at Mickleham — Count de Narbonne — The 
 Chevalier d'Arblay— Visit of Miss Burney to Norfolk— Death of Mr. 
 Francis — Return to London . . - . . 278-292 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 Miss Burney at Norbury Park — Execution of the French King — Madame 
 de Stael and Talleyrand at Mickleham — Miss Burney's Impressions of 
 M. d'Arblay — Proposed Marriage — Visit to Chesington — The Marriage 
 takes place — A Happy Match — The General as Gardener — Madame 
 d'Arblay resumes her Pen — Birth of a Son — ' Edvvy and Elgiva ' — 
 Acquittal of Warren Hastings — Publishing Plans — The Subscription 
 List — Publication of ' Camilla ' — Visit of the Author to Windsor — Inter- 
 view vith the King and Queen — A Compliment from their Majesties — 
 The Royal Family on the Terrace — Princess Elizabeth — Great Sale of 
 ' Camilla ' — Criticisms on the Work — Declension of Madame d'Arblay 's 
 Style — Camilla Cottage — Wedded Happiness — Madame d'Arblay's 
 Comedy of ' Love and Fashion ' withdrawn — Death of Mrs. Phillips — 
 Straitened Circumstances — The d'Arblays go to France — Popularity of 
 Bonaparte — Reception at the Tuileries and Review — War between 
 England and France— Disappointments — Life at Passy— Difliculty of 
 Correspondence^Madame d'Arblay's Desire to return to England — 
 .Sails from Dunkirk --.... 293-314
 
 Cojitents. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Madame d'Arblay's Plans for her Son — Landing in England — Arrival at 
 Chelsea — Saddening Change in Dr. Burney — Alexander d'Arblay at 
 Cambridge— Publication of the 'Wanderer' — Death of Dr. Burney — 
 Madame d'Arblay presented to Louis XVIII. — M. d'Arblay appointed 
 to the Corps de Gardes du Roi — Arrives in England and carries 
 Madame back to France — Madame d'Arblay presented to the Duchesse 
 d'Angouleme — The Hundred Days — Panic at Brussels — M. d'Arblay 
 invalided — Settles in England — His Death — Remaming Days of 
 Madame d'Arblay— Visit from Sir Walter Scott — The Memoirs of Dr. 
 Burney — Tributes to their value— Death of Alexander d'Arblay — Death 
 of Madame d'Arblay — Conclusion- .... 315-331
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Fanny Burney, after E. Burney Frontispiece. 
 
 Dr. Johnson, after Reynolds 52 
 
 Theophila Palmer, a/Zd"/- Reynolds 110 
 
 Queen Charlotte and the Princess Royal, Ay^t";- West . . 146 
 The Dukes of Cumberland, Sussex, and Cambridge, and the 
 
 Princesses Augusta, Elizabeth AND Mary, c/?£.v- West . . 150 
 
 The Princesses Mary, Sophia, and Amelia, after Copley . . 164 
 
 Warren Hastings, fl/?^r Reynolds 192 
 
 Mrs. Siddons, after Gainsborough ....... 180 
 
 Edmund Burke, after Reynolds . . ..... 284
 
 Fanny Burney and her Friends. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Eirth — Parentage — The Machurneys — Early Life of Dr. Burney — Fulk Greville 
 — Esther Sleepe — Lynn — Poland Street — Frances Eurney's Brothers and 
 Sisters — Her Backwardness in Childhood — Her Mother's Death — David 
 Garrick — The Old Lady — The ^Yig-maker — Neglect of Fanny's Education 
 — Her Taste for Scribbling — Samuel Crisp — His Early Life — His Tragedy 
 — Its Failure — His Chagrin — His Life at Hampton — His Retirement from 
 the World — Crisp renews his Acquaintance with Burney — Becomes the 
 Adviser of the Family — Burney's Amiable Temper — Chesington Hall — 
 Its Quaint Interior — Contrast between I'^mny and her Elder Sister — Burney's 
 Second Marriage — Change of Plans — Mrs. Burney lectures Fanny — An Atito 
 da Fc — Origin of ' Evelina ' — Burney takes his Doctor's Degree — His Essay 
 on Comets — Preparations for the 'History of Music' — Musical Tour in 
 France and Italy — House in Queen Square — German Tour — Fanny's Occu- 
 pation during his Absence — Removal to St. i\Lartin's Street — Newton's 
 House — The Observatory — Fanny's Arrival at Womanhood. 
 
 Frances Burney was born at King's Lynn on the 13th 
 of June, 1752. She was the second daughter, and third 
 child, of Dr. Charles Burney, author of the well-known 
 * History of Music,' by Esther Sleepe, his first wife. 
 
 It has been stated, ^^- we know not on what authority, 
 that Dr. Burney was a descendant in the fifth degree of 
 James IMacburney, a native of Scotland, who attended 
 King James L when he left that country to take posses- 
 sion of the English throne. The doctor himself was 
 ■certainly unacquainted with this fact, if fact it be. His 
 grandfather and father were each named James Macburney, 
 
 * Owen and Ulakeway's ' History of Shrewsbury,' vol. ii., p. 38S. 
 
 /'6
 
 2 The MacbtLrncys. 
 
 but they were both born at the village of Great Hanwood, 
 in Shropshire, where the former inherited a considerable 
 estate ; there was no trace in their connections of Celtic 
 extraction ; and Charles has recorded that he could never 
 find at what period any of his ancestors lived in Scotland 
 or Ireland. Doubtless it was the adventures of the two 
 historical James Macburneys which led Macaulay to- 
 conclude that the family was of Irish origin. James 
 the younger offended his father by eloping with an actress 
 from the Goodman's Fields Theatre. 'The old gentle- 
 man could devise no more judicious mode of wreaking 
 vengeance on his undutiful boy than by marrying the 
 cook.' He married some sort of domestic, at any rate,, 
 who brought him a son, named Joseph, to whom he 
 left ail his property. Joseph, however, soon ran through 
 his fortune, and was reduced to earn his bread as a 
 dancing-master in Norfolk. His elder brother James 
 survived the actress, and though a poor widower with a 
 swarm of children, gained the hand of Miss Ann Cooper, 
 an heiress and beauty, who had refused the addresses of 
 the celebrated Wycherley. After his second marriage, 
 James followed the profession of a portrait-painter, first 
 at Shrewsbury, and later at Chester. The number of his 
 children rose to twenty-two ; the youngest being Charles, 
 afterwards Dr. Burney, and a twin sister, Susannah, who 
 were born and baptized at Shrewsbury on the 12th of 
 April, 1726; at which date their father still retained the 
 name of Macburney. When and why the ]\Iac was 
 dropped we are not informed, but by the time Charles 
 attained to manhood, the familv in all its branches — 
 uncles and cousins, as well as brothers and sisters — had 
 concurred in adopting the more compact form of Burney. 
 The musical talents of Charles Burney showed them- 
 selves at an early age. In his eighteenth year, the pro-
 
 Early Life of Dr. Burncy. , 3 
 
 ficiency he had acquired under his eldest half-brother, 
 James Burney, organist of St. Mary's, Shrewsbury, recom- 
 mended him to the notice of Dr. Arne, the composer of 
 'Rule, Britannia,' who offered to take him as a pupil. In 
 1744, accordingly, Charles was articled to the most famous 
 English musician of that day, and went to live in London. 
 At the house of the no less famous Mrs. Gibber,* who was 
 sister of Dr. Arne, he had opportunities of mixing with 
 most of the persons then distinguished by their writings 
 or their performances in connection with the orchestra 
 and the stage. At the end of his third year with Arne, 
 Burney acquired a still more useful patron. Among the 
 leaders of ton in the middle of last century was Fulk 
 Greville, a descendant of the favourite of Queen Elizabeth 
 and friend of Sir Philip Sidney. To a passion for field 
 sports, horse-racing, and gaming, this fine gentleman 
 united an equally strong taste for more refined pleasures, 
 and his ample possessions enabled him to gratify every 
 inclination to the utmost. Greville met Burney at the 
 shop of Kirkman, the harpsichord-maker, and was so 
 captivated with his playing and lively conversation, that he 
 paid Arne ^^300 to cancel the young man's articles, and 
 took him to live with himself as a sort of musical com- 
 panion. The high-bred society to which he was now 
 introduced prepared Burney to take rank in later years as 
 the most fashionable professor of music, and one of the 
 most polished wits of his time. In Greville's town circle, 
 and at his country seat, Wilbury House, near Andover, 
 his dependent constantly encountered peers, statesmen, 
 diplomatists, macaronis, to whose various humours this 
 son of a provincial portrait-painter seems to have adapted 
 
 * Actress and singer ; married Thcoijhiliis Gibber, son of Colky Gibber. 
 She was a special favourite with Handel, who wrote much of his contralto 
 music for her. In the latter part of her career she ^Yas associated with Garrick 
 at Drury Lane. Born, 1714 ; died, 1766. 
 
 I — 2
 
 4 Esther Slecpc. 
 
 himself as readily as if he had been to the manner born. 
 So firm a hold did he gain on his protector, that neither 
 the marriage of the latter, nor his own, appears in any 
 degree to have weakened his favour. When Greville 
 chose to make a stolen match with jMiss Frances Mac- 
 artney,* or, as the lady's father expressed it, ' to take a 
 wife out of the window whom he might just as well have 
 taken out of the door,' Burney was employed to give the 
 bride away. When Burney himself became a benedict, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Greville cordially approved both the act and 
 his choice, and Mrs. Greville subsequently stood as god- 
 mother to Frances Burney. 
 
 It was in 1749 that Charles Burney took to wife the 
 lady before mentioned, w^ho, on her mother's side, was 
 of French origin, and grandchild of a Huguenot refugee 
 named Dubois. Esther Sleepe herself was bred in the 
 City of London, and her future husband first saw her at 
 the house of his elder brother, Richard Burney, in Hatton 
 Garden, To his fashionable friends the marriage must 
 have seemed an imprudent one, for Miss Sleepe had no 
 fortune to compensate for her obscure parentage. From 
 the ' Memoirs of Dr. Burney,"t we learn that her father 
 was a man of ill conduct ; but Fann}^ ever3^where speaks 
 with enthusiasm of her mother's mother. Somewhat 
 strangely, this lady herself adhered to the Roman Catholic 
 creed, though she was the child of a man exiled by the 
 revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and though she suffered 
 her own daughter Esther to be brought up in the Anglican 
 Communion. In view of the union which Frances Burney 
 afterwards contracted, it is as well to bear in mind that 
 one of her parents was partly of French extraction. In 
 
 *Thi'; lady wrote verses, and acquired some repute by a poem entitled ' A 
 Prayer for Indifference.' 
 
 t 'iSlemoirs of Dr. ]3uvney, by his Daughter, Tvladame d'Arblay,' 1S32.
 
 Ivi/^o's Lypji. 5 
 
 consequence of his wife's connections, Charles Burney on 
 his marriage hired a house in the City. He was presently 
 elected organist of St. Dionis Backchurch, produced 
 several pieces of music, and laid himself out to obtain 
 pupils. These flocked to him from all sides. The 
 Grevilles had gone abroad shortly after he left them, but 
 he could still count on their influence, and that of the 
 friends they had procured him, while he found new sup- 
 porters daily among the merchants and bankers east of 
 Temple Bar. His wife bore him a first-born son, who 
 was baptized James, according to the immemorial usage 
 of the Burney race, and then a daughter, who received 
 her mother's name of Esther. But when all things looked 
 fair and promising, the sky suddenly became overcast. 
 The young father's health broke down : a violent attack 
 of fever was succeeded by a train of symptoms threaten- 
 ing consumption ; and, as a last resource, he was ordered 
 by his medical adviser, the poet-ph3'sician Armstrong,* to 
 throw up his em^ployments in London and go to live in 
 the country. 
 
 In this emergency, Burney was offered and accepted the 
 place of organist at Lynn, whither he removed in 175 1, 
 and where he spent the nine following years. His stipend 
 was fixed at ;^ioo a year, a handsome sum for those days, 
 and he largely added to it by giving music lessons in the 
 town, and in many of the great houses of Norfolk. The 
 qualities which had stood him in good stead in London 
 proved equally acceptable to the country gentlemen of 
 East Anglia. ' He scarcely ever entered one of their 
 houses upon terms of business without leaving it on terms 
 of intimacy.' His journeys to Houghton, Holkham, 
 Kimberley, Rainham and Felbrig were performed on the 
 back of his mare Peggy, who leisurely padded along the 
 
 ^ Amhor of a didactic poem, 'The Art of Treserving Ilcaltii.'
 
 6 Poland Shxct. 
 
 sandy cross-roads, while the rider studied a volui:ie of 
 ItaUan poetry with the aid of a dictionary which he carried 
 in his pocket. As Burney's income grew, his family also 
 increased. After his third child, Frances, came another 
 daughter, Susanna ; next a second son, who was called 
 Charles, and then a fourth daughter, Charlotte. The 
 keen breezes from the Wash helped to brace his spare 
 person, and though constant riding about the country in 
 winter was not desirable exercise, Burney gradually recon- 
 ciled himself to his provincial lot, which he enlivened by 
 laying plans for his ' History of Music,' corresponding with 
 the Grevilles and other old friends, and commencing an 
 acquaintance by letter with Dr. Johnson. In 1759, how- 
 ever, he gained some general reputation by his musical 
 setting of an ode for St. Cecilia's Day, which was performed 
 with much applause at Ranelagh Gardens ; and, stimulated 
 by the exhortations which reached him from various 
 quarters, he prepared to resume his career in the capital. 
 Foremost in urging the step was Samuel Crisp, whom he 
 had met and taken for his mentor at Wilbury House, 
 and of whom we shall have more to say presently. To 
 settle for life among the foggy aldermen of Lynn, wrote 
 Crisp, would be to plant his 3'outh, genius, hopes and 
 fortune against a north wall. Burney took the warning, 
 and in 1760, having sufficiently recruited his constitution, 
 he returned to London with his wife and family. 
 
 He established himself in Poland Street, which, from 
 having been in high fashion, was then lapsing by degrees 
 to the professional and the less wealthy mercantile classes, 
 though it still boasted among its inhabitants the Duke of 
 Chandos, besides several lesser personages whose names 
 were written in the peerage. This was the very situation 
 for an ambitious music-master of slender means but good 
 connections. In a very short time, we are told, Burney
 
 Fanny s Brothers and Sisters. 7 
 
 ■* had hardly an hour that was not appropriated to some 
 fair disciple.' He began his round of lessons as early as 
 seven o'clock in the morning, and sometimes did not 
 finish it till eleven at night. He often dined in a hackney 
 coach on the contents of a sandwich-box and a flask of 
 sherry and water, which he carried in his pocket. The 
 care of his six little ones of necessity devolved wholly on 
 their mother, who was well worthy of the charge. In 
 talents and accomplishments Mrs. Burney appears to 
 have been at least the equal of her husband. While she 
 lived, a certain touch of Huguenot decision in her added 
 ■strength to his less strenuous nature ; and her French 
 blood undoubtedly contributed its full share to the quick 
 and lively parts that in different degrees distinguished 
 their children. These, as they grew out of infancy, com- 
 posed a group which, on every view that we get of it, 
 presents an extremely pleasant picture. In most cases, 
 their minds blossomed at an early period. The eldest 
 •daughter, Esther, inherited her father's musical genius ; 
 ■when only eight years of age she performed with sur- 
 prising skill on the harpsichord. James, the eldest son, 
 appears to have been a lad ot spirit and vivacity. Begin- 
 ning as ' a nominal midshipman ' at the age of ten, he 
 chose the navy for his profession, sailed twice round the 
 world with Captain Cook, rose to the rank of rear-admiral, 
 and lived to have his ' flashes of wild wit ' celebrated by 
 Charles Lamb in one of the essays of ' Elia,' Susanna, the 
 favourite and special friend of our Fanny, has left letters 
 worthy of being printed on the same page with those of 
 her famous sister, and her power of writing showed itself 
 sooner than did Fanny's. Finally, Charles,* the second 
 .son, though for some reason he quitted Cambridge with- 
 
 * Eorn at Lynn, December 4, 1756; LL.D. Aberdeen, 1792; vicar of 
 iDeptford, prebendary of Lincoln, chaplain to the King ; died 1S17.
 
 8 Fanny s Backivardncss in CJiildhood. 
 
 out taking a degree, made his mark in Greek criticisnT 
 before completing his twenty-fifth year ; in that depart- 
 ment of study, so speedy a harvest affords sufficient proof 
 of a forward spring. The fame of the younger Dr. 
 Charles Burney is now somewhat faded : in his prime, he 
 was classed with Porson and Parr as one of the three 
 chief representatives of English scholarship ; and on his 
 death his library was purchased by the nation and placed 
 in the British Museum. 
 
 The one marked exception to the rule of early develop- 
 ment in the Burney family was noted in the case of the 
 daughter who w-as destined to be its principal ornament. 
 We are told that the most remarkable features of Frances 
 Burney's childhood were her extreme shyness and her 
 backwardness at learning. At eight years of age, she did 
 not even know her letters ; and her elder brother, who 
 had a sailor's love of practical jokes, used to pretend to 
 teach her to read, and give her the book upside down,, 
 which, he said, she never found out. An officious ac- 
 quaintance of her mother suggested that the application 
 of the little dunce might be quickened by the rod, but the 
 wiser parent replied that 'she had no fear about Fanny.' 
 Mrs. Burney, it is clear, favoured no forcing methods in 
 education. She was laid aside by illness shortly after the 
 family's return to London, and, so long as her health 
 lasted, seems to have given regular teaching to the eldest 
 of her daughters only, whose taste for reading she very 
 early began to form. " I perfectly recollect," wrote Fanny 
 to Esther many years later, " child as I was, and never 
 of the party, this part of 3-our education. At that very 
 juvenile period, the difference even of months makes a 
 marked distinction in bestowing and receiving instruction. 
 I, also, was so peculiarly backward that even our Susan 
 stood before me ; she could read when I knew not my
 
 David Carrick. 9 
 
 letters. But, though so shigglsh to learn, I was always 
 observant. Do you remember Mr. Seaton denominating 
 me at fifteen, the silent, observant Miss Fanny ? Well I 
 recollect your reading with our dear mother all Pope's 
 works and Pitt's ' /Eneid.' I recollect, also, your spout- 
 ing passages from Pope, that I learned from hearing you 
 recite them, before — many years before — I read them 
 myself.'' 
 
 Mrs. Burncy died at the end of September, 1761. To- 
 wards the close of her illness, Fanny and Susan, with 
 their brother Charles, had been sent to board with a 
 Mrs. Sheeles, who kept a school in Queen Square, that 
 they might be out of the way ; and this experienced judge 
 of children was greatly struck b}' the intensity of I"ann}-'s 
 grief at a loss which girls of nine are apt to realize very 
 imperfectly. 
 
 The truth seems to be that Fanny's backwardness and ap- 
 parent dulness were simply due to the numbing" influence of 
 nervousness and extreme diffidence. Her father, the less 
 indulgent to shyness in others because he had experienced 
 it in himself, for a long time did her very imperfect 
 justice. Looking back in later years, he could remember 
 that her talent for observing and representing points of 
 character, her lively in\'ention, even her turn for composi- 
 tion, had shown themselves before she had learnt to spell 
 her way through the pages of a fairy tale. A magician 
 more potent than any books helped to call forth the 
 germs of her latent powers. Among the friends most in- 
 timate in Poland Street during the months following Mrs. 
 Burney's death were David Garrick and his engaging wifc^ 
 La Violetta. \Vhile exerting themselves to console the 
 widower, this brilliant and kindly couple did not neglect 
 his motherless family. ' Garrick, who was passionately 
 fond of children, never withheld his visits on account of
 
 lo The Old Lady. 
 
 the absence of the master of the house.' If Mr. Burney 
 was not at home, the great actor, keenly ahve to his own 
 gift of bestowing pleasure, would devote himself to enter- 
 taining the little ones. The rapture with which his entrance 
 was greeted by that small audience charmed him as much 
 as the familiar applause of Drury Lane. The prince of 
 comedians and mimics was content to lavish all the re- 
 sources of his art on a handful of girls and boys. When 
 he left them, they spent the rest of the day in recalling the 
 sallies of his humour, and the irresistible gestures which 
 had set them off. So Fanny tells us, the least noticed, 
 probably, yet the most attentive and observant member 
 of the whole group. On many a happy night, the elder 
 ones, in charge of some suitable guardian, were permitted 
 to occupy IMrs. Garrick's private box at the theatre. 
 There they beheld * the incomparable Roscius ' take the 
 stage, and followed him with eyes of such eager admira- 
 tion, that it seemed — so their amused father told his 
 friend — 
 
 ' They did, as was their duty, 
 Worship the shadow of his shoe-tie !' 
 
 Burney relates of Fanny that * she used, after having seen 
 a play in Mrs. Garrick's box, to take the actors off, and 
 compose speeches for their characters, for she could not 
 read them.' But, he continues, in company or before 
 strangers, she was silent, backward, and timid, even to 
 sheepishness ; and, from her shyness, had such profound 
 gravity and composure of features, that those of Dr. 
 Burney 's friends who went often to his home, and en- 
 tered into the different humours of the children, never 
 called Fanny by any other name, from the time she had 
 reached her eleventh year, than ' the old lady.' 
 
 Yet the shyest children will now and then forget their 
 shyness. This seems to be the moral of a story which
 
 The JViQ--I\fakcr, 
 
 II 
 
 the worthy doctor goes on to tell in his rather proHx and 
 pompous style. " There hved next door to me, at that 
 time, in Poland Street, and in a private house, a capital 
 hair-merchant, who furnished perukes to the judges and 
 gentlemen of the law. The hair-merchant's female chil- 
 dren and mine used to play together in the little garden 
 behind the house ; and, unfortunately, one day, the door 
 of the wig-magazine being left open, they each of them 
 put on one of those dignified ornaments of the head, and 
 danced and jumped about in a thousand antics, laughing 
 till they screamed at their own ridiculous figures. Un- 
 fortunate!}', in their vagaries, one of the flaxen wigs, said 
 by the proprietor to be worth upwards of ten guineas — in 
 those days an enormous price — fell into a tub of water, 
 placed for shrubs in the little garden, and lost all its 
 gorgon buckle,* and was declared by the owner to be 
 totally spoilt. He was extremely angry, and chid very 
 severely his own children, when my little daughter, ' the 
 old lady,' then ten years of age, advancing to him, as I 
 was informed, with great gravity and composure, sedately 
 said, ' What signifies talking so much about an accident ? 
 The wig is wet, to be sure ; and the wig was a good wig, 
 to be sure : but 'tis of no use to speak of it any more, 
 because whafs done can't he undone.' " 
 
 Meanwhile, little was done on any regular plan for 
 Fanny's education. She had not been suffered to remain 
 at the school in which she was temporarily placed during 
 her mother's last illness, nor was she sent to any other. 
 When, after the lapse of two or three years, Burney found 
 himself in a position to put two of his girls to school at 
 
 * The writer seems to have had in view the lines of Pope : 
 
 'That live-long wig, which Gorgon's self might own, 
 Eternal buckle takes in Parian stone.' 
 
 By the buckle of a wig was meant its stiff curl when in trim conditio:!.
 
 12 Neo-Iect of Fanny s Education.. 
 
 Paris, he selected the third, Susanna, rather than Fanny, 
 to accompany the eldest sister, proposing to send Fanny 
 and Charlotte together at a future time. Two reasons 
 were assigned for this arrangement. One was the notion 
 that Susanna, who inherited her father's consumptive 
 habit, required change of climate more than the second 
 daughter. The other was a fear lest Fanny's deep rever- 
 ence for her Roman Catholic grandmother might incline 
 her to adopt the same form of faith, and thus render her 
 perversion eas}-, if, when so young, she fell within the 
 influence of some enterprising French chaplain. We can- 
 not help suspecting, however, that the true cause of Fanny 
 being passed over on this occasion was an impression 
 that Susanna was a girl of brighter parts, and better 
 fitted to benefit by the teaching of a Paris pension. 
 
 From whatever motive, Fanny was left behind, nor was 
 any instructor provided for her at home. The widower 
 disliked the idea of introducing a governess into his 
 house, though he had no time to spare even for directing 
 his daughter's studies. She was thus entirely self- 
 educated, and had no other spur to exertion than her 
 unbounded affection for her father, who excused himself 
 for his neglect of her training by the reflection that ' she 
 had a natural simplicity and probityabout her which wanted 
 no teaching.' In her eleventh year she had learned to 
 read, and began to scribble little poems and works of 
 invention, though in a character that was illegible to 
 everyone but herself. ' Her love of reading,' we are told, 
 * did not display itself till two or three years later.' Her 
 father had a good library, over which she was allowed to 
 range at will ; and in course of time she became ac- 
 quainted with a fair portion of its lighter contents. The 
 solitary child kept a careful account of the authors she 
 studied, making extracts from them, and adding remarks
 
 Her Taste for Scribbling. i 
 
 o 
 
 which, we are assured, showed that her mind was riper 
 than her knowledge. Yet she never developed any strong 
 or decided taste for literature. She never became even a 
 devourer of books. Indeed, it may be doubted whether 
 she did not always derive more pleasure from her ov/n 
 compositions than from those of the greatest writers. 
 Plying her pen without an effort, the leisure which most 
 intellectual persons give to reading, Fanny devoted in 
 great part to producing manuscripts of her own. Childish 
 epics, dramas, and romances, were not the only ventures 
 of her youth : she began keeping a diary at the age of 
 fifteen, and, in addition to her published novels and sundry 
 plays which have perished, journals, memoirs, and letters, 
 of which a small proportion only have seen the light, occu- 
 pied most of the vacant hours in her active womanhood. 
 
 During this period of self-education, the person from 
 whom Fann}^ received most notice and attention appears 
 to have been her father's old friend, Samuel Crisp. This 
 gentleman had gone abroad while the Burne3's were in 
 Norfolk, and had taken up his abode at Rome, v/here he 
 passed several jears, improving his taste in music, paint- 
 ing, and sculpture, and forgetting for a while the young 
 English professor who had interested him under Greville's 
 roof. Having at length returned to England, he, some 
 time after Mrs. Burney's death, met Burney by accident 
 at the house of a common acquaintance. The casual 
 encounter immediately revived the old intimacy. Crisp at 
 once found his way to the house in Poland Street, and, 
 like Garrick, was attracted by the group of children 
 there. As the two eldest of these and the lively Susanna 
 were soon afterwards removed to a distance, the chief 
 share in his regard naturally fell to the lot of Fanny. 
 Hence, while all the children came to look upon him with 
 a sort of filial feeling, he was in a special manner appro-
 
 14 Sain2icl Crisp. 
 
 priated by Fanny as ' her dearest daddy.' And there 
 were points in Crisp's temperament which harmonized well 
 with the girl's shy yet aspiring character. Both, in their 
 turn, set their hearts on the attainment of literary renown ; 
 both had the same tendency to shrink into themselves. 
 Success changed Fanny from a silent domestic drudge 
 into a social celebrity; failure helped to change Crisp 
 from a shining man of fashion into a moody recluse. 
 
 The story of this strange man has been sketched by 
 Macaulay, but it has so close a bearing on our heroine's 
 life, that we cannot avoid shortly retracing it here. A 
 handsome person, dignified manners, excellent talents, 
 and an accomplished taste procured for Crisp, in his prime, 
 acceptance and favour, not only with Fulk Greville and 
 his set, but also with a large number of other persons 
 distinguished in the great world. Thus, he was admitted 
 to the acquaintance of the highly descended and wealthy 
 Margaret Cavendish Harley, then Duchess Dowager of 
 Portland, whom we mention here because through her 
 Crisp became known to Mrs. Delany, by whom Fanny 
 was afterwards introduced to the Royal Family. Another 
 of his friends was Mrs. Montagu, who then, as he used to 
 say, was ' peering at fame,' and gradually rising to the 
 rank of a lady patroness of letters. And among the most 
 intimate of his associates was the Earl of Coventry, at the 
 time when that ' grave young lord,' as Walpole calls him, 
 after long dangling, married the most beautiful of the beauti- 
 ful Gunnings. Now, about the date when our Fanny first 
 saw the light, it was buzzed abroad in the coterie of Crisp's 
 admirers that their hero had finished a tragedy on the 
 story of Virginia. A lively expectation was at once 
 awakened. But Garrick, though a personal friend of the 
 author, hesitated and delayed to gratify the public with 
 the rich feast which was beheved to be in store for it.
 
 His Tragedy and its Failure. 15 
 
 The utmost efforts were employed to overcome his reluc- 
 tance. The great Mr. Pitt was prevailed on to read the 
 play, and to pronounce in its favour. Lord Coventry 
 exerted all his influence v/ith the coy manager. Yet not 
 until Lady Coventry herself had joined her solicitations 
 to those of her husband was 'Virginia' put in rehearsal at 
 Drury Lane. The piece was produced in February, 1754, 
 and ran several nights, buoyed up by the acting and 
 popularity of Garrick, who contributed a remarkably good 
 epilogue.* But no patronage or support could keep alive 
 a drama which, in truth, had neither poetical merit nor 
 the qualities of a good acting play to recommend it. 
 * Virginia ' was very soon withdrawn, and, as usual, the 
 writer, while cruelly mortified by his failure, attributed it 
 to every cause but the right one. Lord Coventry advised 
 alterations, which Crisp hastened to execute, but Garrick, 
 though civil, was determined that so ineffective a muse 
 should not again cumber his stage. His firmness, of 
 course, cost him the friendship of the ungrateful Crisp, 
 who, conscious of considerable pov/ers, and unable to 
 perceive that he had mistaken their proper application, 
 inveighed with equal bitterness against manager, per- 
 formers, and the public, and in sore dudgeon betook 
 himself across the sea to Italy. l^.Iacaulay, indeed, will 
 have it that his disappointment ruined his temper and 
 spirits, and turned him into ' a cynic, and a hater of man- 
 kind.' But in this, as in too many of the essayist's 
 trenchant statements, something of accuracy is sacrificed 
 for the sake of effect. Crisp appears to have enjoyed 
 himself not a little in Italy, and on his return, though he 
 did not again settle in London, he fixed his first abode as 
 near to it as the courtly village of Hampton, where he 
 furnished a small house, filling it with pictures, statuary, 
 
 * Walpole to Bentley, March 6, 1754.
 
 1 6 CJicsiiic'ton. 
 
 ■«i>' 
 
 and musical instruments, as became a man of taste. 
 Far from shunning society in this luxurious retreat, he 
 entertained so many guests there that his hospitality in a 
 short time made a serious inroad on his small fortune. 
 Chagrin at his imprudence brought on a severe attack of 
 gout ; and then it was that, broken alike in health and 
 linances, he resolved on secluding himself from the world. 
 Having sold his villa and its contents, he removed a few 
 miles off to a solitary mansion belonging to an old friend, 
 Christopher Hamilton, who, like himself, had lost the 
 battle of life, and desired to be considered as dead to 
 mankind. 
 
 Chesington Hall, which thenceforth became the joint 
 residence of this pair of hermits, stood on an eminence 
 rising from a wide and nearly desolate common, about 
 midway between the towns of Epsom and Kingston ; the 
 neglected buildings were crumbling to pieces from age, 
 having been begun in the same year in which Wolsey laid 
 the lirst stone of Hampton Court ; and the homestead 
 was surrounded by fields, that for a long period had 
 been so ploughed up as to leave no road or even regular 
 footpath open across them. In this hiding-place Crisp 
 fixed his abode for the rest of his life. So isolated was 
 the spot that strangers could not reach it without a guide. 
 But the inhabitants desired to have as few visitors as 
 possible. Only as the spring of each j-ear came round 
 would Crisp, while his strength allowed, quit his refuge 
 for a few weeks, to amuse himself with the picture-shows 
 and concerts of the London season. 
 
 It seems to have been during one of these excursions 
 that Burney met Crisp again after their long separation. 
 The revival of their friendship gave the solitary man one 
 more connecting link with the outside world. Down to that 
 time Crisp's only visitor in his retreat seems to have been
 
 The Fainily Adviser. 17 
 
 his sister, Mrs, Sophia Gast, of Burford, in Oxfordshire. 
 Now to Burney also was entrusted the clue for a safe 
 route across the wild common to Chesington Hall, while 
 from all others, including Mr. Greville, it was still stead- 
 fastly withheld. There is no reason to suppose that the 
 acquaintances whom Crisp thus relinquished were more 
 faithless than a poor man's great friends usually are. He 
 had been flattered with hopes of obtaining some public 
 appointment through their interest ; but his health had 
 failed before the value of the promises made to him could 
 be fairly tested. When restored strength might have 
 rendered seclusion irksome, and employment acceptable, 
 his pride rebelled against further solicitation, and fixed 
 him in the solitude where his poverty and lack of energy 
 alike escaped reproach. Charles Burney alone, from whom 
 he had nothing to expect, and who had always looked up 
 to him, was admitted where others were excluded. 
 
 The modern village of Chesington lies about two m.iles 
 to the north-west of the railway-station at Ewell. Some 
 patches of heathy common still remain. Though not so 
 solitary a place as in the days of which we write, Chesing- 
 ton has still a lonely look.'-" 
 
 Crisp, in his sanctuary, and his occasional secret journeys 
 to London, resumed his office of mentor to Burney, and 
 became also the confidential adviser of Burney's daughters. 
 For such trust he was eminently qualified; since, to borrow 
 the words of Macaulay, though he was a bad poet, he was 
 a scholar, a thinker, and an excellent counsellor. He sur- 
 passed his younger friend, Charles, in general knowledge 
 and force of mind, as much as he was surpassed by Charles 
 in social tact and pliability of temper. And Burney was 
 
 * Thome's 'Environs of London.' The name is now written Chcssington, 
 Init we retain the spelling which was always used Ijy Fanny Ijiirney and her 
 friends.
 
 '1 8 Burncys AiJiiable Temper'. 
 
 far from resenting or grudging the influence which Crisp 
 acquired in his family ; for Burney was a sweet-natured 
 as well as a sensible man. No pitiful vanity or treacherous 
 jealousy lay hid under his genial and gracious exterior. 
 Conscious, apparently, that both from too great easiness 
 of disposition, and from his manifold engagements, he was 
 ill-fitted to discharge all the duties devolving on him as 
 sole surviving parent, he cordially welcomed the assistance 
 of his old and valued friend. Mrs. Thrale afterwards 
 complained that Dr. Burney liked to keep his hold on 
 his children ; but the engrossing lady patroness seems to 
 have meant only that he objected, as well he might, to 
 have Fanny disposed of for months or years at a time 
 without regard to his wishes or convenience. He was 
 never disturbed by unworthy alarms lest some interloping 
 well-wisher should steal away the hearts of his children 
 from himself. He stooped to no paltry manoeuvres to 
 prevent them from becoming too much attached to this or 
 that friend. He certainly did not interfere to check the 
 warmth of his daughters' regard for the rugged old cynic 
 of Chesington, nor put any restraint on the correspond- 
 ence which grew up between Fanny and her ' dearest 
 daddy.' And he reaped the full reward of his unselfish- 
 ness, or, we should rather say, of his straightforward 
 good sense. No son or daughter was ever estranged 
 from him by the feeling that his jealousy had robbed 
 them of a useful connection or appreciative ally. Fanny's 
 fondness for her adopted father, as might have been ex- 
 pected, did not in the least diminish her love for her 
 natural parent. 'She had always a great affection for 
 me,' wrote Dr. Burney at the close of his life. The latter 
 was, indeed, the standard by which she generally tried the 
 claims of any other person to be considered admirable or 
 -charming. In her twenty-sixth year she expressed her
 
 Chesingtoii Hall. 19 
 
 enthusiasm for her newly-made friend, Mrs, Thrale, by 
 saying : ' I never before saw a person who so strongly 
 resembles my dear father.' At forty-one, she described 
 her husband as being ' so very like my beloved father in 
 disposition, humour, and taste, that the day never passes 
 in which I do not exclaim : " How you remind me of my 
 father !' " 
 
 Crisp himself, at the time when Fanny made his ac- 
 quaintance, had no pretension to gentle manners or a 
 graceful address ; but, like many other disappointed men 
 who assume the character of misanthropes, he possessed 
 at bottom a warm, and even tender, heart, and was par- 
 ticularly fond of young persons. In his intimate inter- 
 course with the Burney family, all ceremony was dis- 
 carded ; towards the junior members he adopted a plain, 
 rough style of speech, which, being unmistakably playful, 
 left them always quite at home with him. Very soon the 
 death of Crisp's companion in retirement rendered the 
 society of the Burneys more indispensable to the survivor, 
 while it placed him in a better position for receiving 
 these visits. The male line of the Hamiltons ended in 
 Christopher, and his dilapidated estate descended to a 
 maiden sister, Mrs. Sarah Hamilton. Rather than sell the 
 property, this ancient lady, under Crisp's advice, divided 
 the capacious old Hall between herself and Farmer Wood- 
 hatch, who rented and cultivated what remained of the 
 lands. To assist her in keeping up the residence she still 
 retained, Mrs. Hamilton called in as ' lady help * a rustic 
 niece, named Kitty Cooke, and Crisp became her lodger, 
 securing to his own use ' a favourite apartment, with a 
 light and pleasant closet at the end of a long corridor.' 
 In this closet a great part of Burney's ' History of Music' 
 was written. There was a larger scheme, also, at this 
 time, for turning the whole suite of rooms into a boarding
 
 20 A Qtiaint Interior. 
 
 establishment, but applicants for accommodation in so 
 remote and obscure an abode were likely to be few in 
 number. Mrs. Gast, however, came thither from time to 
 time, and Frances Burney and her sisters were often there. 
 "We shall see, in due course, how the animated scenes of 
 the famous novel, ' Cecilia,' or most of them, were elabo- 
 rated within those mouldering walls. To the end of her life 
 the author's thoughts wandered back with delight to the 
 quaint old place. Her memory let nothing slip : " not a. 
 nook or corner; nor a dark passage 'leading to nothing'; 
 nor a hanging tapestry of prim demoiselles and grim 
 cavaliers ; nor a tall canopied bed tied up to the ceiling ; 
 nor japan cabinets of two or three hundred drawers of 
 different dimensions ; nor an oaken corner -cupboard,, 
 carved with heads, thrown in every direction, save such 
 as might let them fall on men's shoulders ; nor a window 
 stuck in some angle close to the ceiling of a lofty slip 
 of a room ; nor a quarter of a staircase, leading to some 
 quaint unfrequented apartment ; nor a wooden chimney- 
 piece, cut in diamonds, squares, and round knobs, sur- 
 mounting another of blue and white tiles, representing, 
 vis-a-vis, a dog and a cat, as symbols of married life and 
 harmonv."* 
 
 The time arrived when, in accordance with their father's 
 original design, Frances and Charlotte Burney should 
 have been placed at school in Paris in succession to 
 Esther and Susanna. Burney presently made another 
 journey to the French capital to bring back the pair of 
 sisters who had completed the term of two years assigned 
 for their education there, but he was not accompanied by 
 either of his other daughters. He was not deterred from 
 taking them by any misgiving as to the results of his first 
 experiment, which, we are assured, had fully answered 
 
 * ' Memoirs of Dr. Burney,' vol. ii., p. 1S5.
 
 BiLvneys Second jMarriage. 21 
 
 iiis expectations, but rather by some uncertainty of means 
 and plans, connected, perhaps, in part with his approaching 
 second marriage. Some hues from the pen of Susanna 
 have been preserved, which are said to have been written 
 shortly after her return, and which, if the date ascribed 
 to them be correct, would show that the writer, who was 
 then barely fourteen, was a remarkably forward girl of 
 her age. As this short composition sketches in contrast 
 Susanna's two elder sisters, we give it entire : 
 
 " Hetty seems a good deal more lively than she used to 
 •appear at Paris ; whether it is that her spirits are better, 
 or that the great liveliness of the inhabitants made her 
 appear grave there by comparison, I know not : but she 
 was there remarkable for being scriciisc, and is here for 
 being gay and lively. She is a most sweet girl. My 
 sister Fanny is unlike her in almost everything, yet both 
 are very amiable, and love each other as sincerely as ever 
 sisters did. The characteristics of Hetty seem to be wit, 
 generosity and openness of heart : Fanny's — sense, sensi- 
 bility, and bashfulness, and even a degree of prudery. 
 Her understanding is superior, but her diffidence gives 
 her a bashfulness before company with whom she is not 
 intimate, which is a disadvantage to her. My eldest sister 
 shines in conversation, because, though very modest, she 
 is totally free from d.ny uianvaisc Jwntc: were Fanny equally 
 so, I am persuaded she would shine no less. I am afraid 
 that my eldest sister is too communicative, and that my 
 sister Fanny is too reserved. They are both charming 
 girls — des filles commc il y en a peuJ^ 
 
 Burney's second marriage took place not long after the 
 return of Esther and Susanna from Paris, His choice on 
 this occasion was an intimate friend of the first Mrs. 
 Burney, whom she succeeded after an interval of six years. 
 This lady was the widow of Mr. Stephen Allen, a merchant
 
 2 2 Change of Plans. 
 
 of Lynn, and by him the parent of several children. The 
 young Aliens had been playmates of the young Burneys. 
 If not equal in mind or person to the adored Esther 
 Sleepe, Mrs. Allen was a handsome and well-instructed 
 woman, and proved an excellent stepmother to Fanny 
 and her sisters, as well as an admirable wife to their 
 father. For some reason or other, the nature of which 
 does not very clearly appear, it was judged desirable that 
 not only the engagement between the widow and widower 
 should be kept secret, but that their wedding should be 
 celebrated in private. They were married some time ia 
 the spring of 1768, at St. James's, Piccadilly, by the curate^ 
 an old acquaintance of the bridegroom, their intention 
 being confided to three other friends only. Crisp, who 
 was one of these, had clearly no mind that Burney's new 
 connection should put an end to their alliance, or deprive 
 himself of the relief which the visits of the widower and 
 his children had afforded to the monotony of his retire- 
 ment. The freshly married couple carried their secret 
 and their happiness ' to the obscure skirts of the then, 
 pathless, and nearly uninhabited Chesington Common, 
 where Mr. Crisp had engaged for them a rural and fragrant 
 retreat, at a small farm-house in a little hamlet a mile or 
 two from Chesington Hall.' 
 
 The secret, we are further told, as usual in matrimonial 
 concealments, was faithfully preserved for a time by care- 
 ful vigilance, and then escaped through accident. Be- 
 trayed by the loss of a letter, Mrs. Burney came openly to 
 town to be introduced to her husband's circle, and 
 presently took her place at the head of his household in 
 Poland Street. The young people on both sides accepted 
 their new relationships with pleasure. The long-deferred 
 scheme of sending Fanny and her youngest sister to Paris 
 was now finally abandoned. Susanna undertook to in-
 
 Mrs. Buniey Lectures Fanny. 7 
 
 v")- 
 
 struct Fanny in French, and Charlotte was put to school 
 in Norfolk. For some years the united families spent 
 their summer holidays at Lynn, where Mrs. Burney had. 
 a dower-house. But, whether in town or country, Frances 
 and Susanna were specially devoted to each other. Susan 
 alone was Fanny's confidante in her literary attempts. 
 
 As the latter's age increased, her passion for writing 
 became more confirmed. Every scrap of white paper that 
 could be seized upon without question or notice was at once 
 covered with her manuscript. She was not long in finding 
 out that her turn was mainly for story-telling and humorous 
 description. The two girls laughed and cried together 
 over the creations of the elder's fancy, but the native 
 timidity of the young author, and still more, perhaps, her 
 father's low estimate of her capacity, made her apprehend 
 nothing but ridicule if what she scribbled were disclosed 
 to others. She worked then under the rose, imposing the 
 strictest silence on her faithful accomplice. When in 
 London, she plied her pen in a closet up two pair of stairs, 
 that was appropriated to the younger children as a play- 
 room. At Lynn, she would shut herself up to write in a 
 summer-house, which went by the name of ' The Cabin.' 
 Yet all her simple precautions could not long elude the 
 suspicion of her sharp-sighted stepmother. The second 
 Mrs. Burney was a bustling, sociable person, who did not 
 approve of young ladies creeping out of sight to stud}'; 
 though herself fond of books, and, as we learn, a particular 
 admirer of Sterne's ' Sentimental Journey,' then recently 
 published, she was a matron of the period, and could not 
 tolerate the idea of a young woman under her control 
 venturing on the disesteemed career of literature. The 
 culprit, therefore, was seriously and frequently admonished 
 to check her scribbling propensity. Some morsels of her 
 compositions, falling into the hands of Mrs. Burney, appear
 
 24 An Atito da Fd. 
 
 to have added point to the censors remarks. Fanny was 
 warned not to waste time and thought over idle inventions ; 
 and she was further cautioned, and not unreasonably, 
 according to the prevailing notions of the day, as to the 
 discredit she would incur if she came before the public as 
 a female novelist. The future author of ' Cecilia ' was only 
 too ready to assent to this view, and to cry peccavi. She 
 bowed before her stepmother's rebukes, and prepared 
 herself inwardly for a great act of sacrifice. Seizing an 
 opportunity when her father was at Chesington, and Mrs. 
 Burney was in Norfolk, ' she made over to a bonfire, in a 
 paved play-court, her whole stock ' of prose manuscripts. 
 
 The fact of the aiito da fc rests on the authority of the 
 penitent herself: her niece ar.d biographer, Mrs. Barrett, 
 adds that Susanna stood by, weeping at the pathetic 
 spectacle ; but this is perhaps only a legendary accretion 
 to the tale. It seems certain that Fanny fell into error, 
 when, long years afterwards, she wrote of the incident as 
 having occurred on her fifteenth birthday.* Fanny was 
 never very careful about her dates, and she was unquestion- 
 ably more than fifteen when her father's second marriage 
 took place. In spite of this, we are not warranted in ques- 
 tioning Mrs. Barrett's express statement that her aunt's 
 famous Diary was commenced at the age of fifteen. 
 Though of that portion of the Diary which belongs to 
 the years preceding the publication of ' Evelina,' only the 
 opening passages have been printed, and though the style 
 of these may seem to betoken a more advanced age than 
 that mentioned, the whole was before the biographer w^hen 
 she wrote, and the contents must have spoken for them- 
 selves. 
 
 Frances Burney had burned her papers with the full 
 intention of breaking off altogether the baneful habit of 
 
 * Preface to the ' Wanderer.'
 
 Origin of Evelina. 25 
 
 authorship. Doubtless, however, she did not consider 
 that her resolution of total abstinence debarred her from 
 keeping a journal ; and she was not long in discovering 
 that, however steadfastly she might resist the impulses of 
 her fancy, its wings were always pluming themselves for 
 a flight. The latest-born of her literary bantlings com- 
 mitted to the flames had been a tale setting forth the 
 fortunes and fate of Caroline Evelyn, who was feigned to 
 be the daughter of a gentleman by a low-bred wife, and, 
 after the death of her father, to contract a clandestine 
 marriage with a faithless baronet, and then to survive 
 her husband's desertion of her just long enough to give 
 birth to a female child. The closing incident of this 
 tragic and tragically-destroyed production left a lively 
 impression on the mind of the writer. Her imagi- 
 nation dwelt on the singular situations to which the 
 infant, as she grew up, would be exposed by the lot that 
 placed her between the rival claims of her vulgar grand- 
 mother and her mother's more refined connections, and 
 on the social contrasts and collisions, at once unusual and 
 natural, which the supposed circumstances might be ex- 
 pected to occasion. In this way, from the ashes of the 
 ' History of Caroline Evelyn ' sprang Frances Burney's 
 first published work, ' Evelina ; or, A Young Lady's En- 
 trance into the World.' We do not know how long a 
 time expired from the burning of her manuscripts before 
 Eann}^ relapsed into the sin of fiction-scribbling ; but the 
 flood of her invention probably rose the faster for being 
 pent up. Irresistibly and almost unconsciously, she tells 
 us, the whole story of ' Evelina ' was laid up in her memory 
 before a paragraph had been committed to paper. Even 
 when her conscience had ceased to struggle, her oppor- 
 tunities for jotting down the ideas which haunted her 
 were few and far between. She had to write in stolen
 
 26 Bttrney Takes his Doctor s Degree. 
 
 moments, for she was under the eye of her stepmother. 
 The demands on her time, too, became greater than they 
 had been when CaroHne Evelyn was her heroine. Her 
 Diary occupied a large part of her leisure, and her hours 
 of regular employment were presently lengthened by the 
 work of transcribing for her father. 
 
 Charles Burney was now rising to eminence in his pro- 
 fession. To be Master of the King's Band was the highest 
 honour then within the reach of a musician, and Burney 
 had been promised this appointment, though the promise 
 was broken in favour of a candidate supported by the 
 Duke of York.* In the summer of 176c, the Duke of 
 Grafton was to be installed as Chancellor of the Univer- 
 sity of Cambridge. The poet Gray wrote the Installation 
 Ode. Burney proposed to set it to music, and to conduct 
 the performance at the ceremony, intending, at the same 
 time, to take the degree of Doctor of Music at Cambridge. 
 The Chancellor Elect accepted his offer as one which 
 the composer's rank well entitled him to make ; but it 
 soon appeared that the ideas of the two men as to the 
 relative value of money and music were widely different. 
 His Grace would consent to allow for the expense of 
 singers and orchestra only one-half the amount which the 
 conductor considered due to the occasion and his own 
 importance. Burney in disgust threw up his commission, 
 and, without loss of time, repaired to the sister University 
 for his doctorate, which was conferred on him in June, 
 1769 ; the exercise produced by him as his qualification 
 was so highly thought of that it was repeated three years 
 successively at choral meetings in Oxford, and was after- 
 wards performed at Hamburg under C. P. E. Bach. 
 
 Dr. Burney's new title did not appear on his door-plate 
 till a facetious friend exhorted him to brazen it. But, 
 
 * Edward, brother of Iving George III.
 
 His Essay on Comets. 27 
 
 retiring as he was, the constitutional diffidence which his 
 second daughter inherited was now giving way in him 
 before the consciousness of abihty and attainments, and 
 the irresistible desire to estabhsh a lasting reputation. 
 In the latter part of the same year, he ventured anony- 
 mously into print with his first literary production. Ten 
 years earlier, the return of H alley's Comet at the time 
 predicted seems to have given him an interest in as- 
 tronomy, which he retained through life. There was again 
 a comet visible in 1769, and this drew from him an Essay 
 on Comets, to which he prefixed a translation from the 
 pen of his first wife, Esther, of a letter by Maupertuis.* 
 But this pamphlet was only an experiment, and being 
 obviously the work of an amateur, attracted little notice. 
 Having once tried his 'prentice hand at authorship, he 
 fixed his attention on his proper subject, and devoted 
 himself to his long-projected ' History of Music' 
 
 He had for many years kept a commonplace book, in 
 which he laid up notes, extracts, abridgments, criticisms, 
 as the matter presented itself. So large was the col- 
 lection thus accumulated that it seemed to his family ' as 
 if he had merely to methodize his manuscripts, and en- 
 trust them to a copyist, for completing his purpose.' 
 The copyist was at hand in his daughter Frances, vv'ho 
 became his principal secretary and librarian. But, as the 
 enterprise proceeded, the views of the historian expanded. 
 Much information that would now be readily supplied by 
 public journals or correspondence was then only to be 
 
 '•'The title-page nins : 'An Essay towards the history of the principal 
 Comets that have appeared since 1742 ; with remarks and reflections upon the 
 present Comet; to which is prefixed a Letter,' etc. London, 1709. It is a 
 curious instance of Madame d'Arblay's inaccuracy in the matter of dates, that 
 she writes in detail of this little tract, the title of which she misquotes, as having; 
 been produced when 'the comet of the immortal llalley ' was being awaited. 
 ('Memoirs of Dr. Burney,' vol. i., pp. 214-217.) I!ut it was in 1759, not 1769, 
 that Halley's Comet returned. Lor notices of the comet of 1769, see the 
 Gentleman s Magazine of that year.
 
 2'8 House iu Queen Square. 
 
 obtained by personal investigation on the spot. Early in 
 1770, Dr. Burney had determined that it would be needful 
 for him to undertake a musical tour through France and 
 Ital}^ He started on this expedition in June of that year, 
 and did not return until the following January. His 
 absence gave Fanny a considerable increase of leisure 
 and opportunity for indulging her own literary dreams 
 and occupations. Her stepmother, as well as her father, 
 seems to have left her at liberty, for during part of 
 this interval, at least, the attention of Mrs. Burney was 
 engaged in providing a better habitation for her husband. 
 The house in Poland Street had been found too small 
 to accommodate the combined families. In addition to the 
 children of their former marriages, there had been born to 
 the parents a son, who was baptized Richard Thomas, and 
 a daughter to whom they gave the name of Sarah Harriet. 
 Mrs. Burney now found, and having found, proceeded to 
 purchase and furnish, a large house in the upper part of 
 Queen Square, Bloomsbury, which then enjoyed an unin- 
 terrupted view of the Hampstead and Highgate Hills. 
 The new abode had once belonged to Alderman Barber, 
 the friend of Dean Swift ; and the Burneys pleased them- 
 selves with the thought that there the great saturnine 
 humourist had been wont sometimes to set the table in a 
 roar. The removal was effected while the Doctor was still 
 on the Continent. On his arrival in London, he was 
 welcomed to the new home by his wife and children, and 
 by the never-failing Mr. Crisp. We hear, however, but 
 little of this house in Queen Square, and even less of 
 Fanny's doings there. Her father had scarcely time to 
 become acquainted with it before he was off to Chesington, 
 where he occupied himself for several weeks in preparing 
 the journal of his tour for the press. All his daughters 
 were pressed into the service of copying and recopying
 
 JMiisical Tours. 29 
 
 his manuscript, but the chief share of this labour fell upon 
 the scribbling Fanny. The book, which was called ' The 
 Present State of Music in France and Italy,' appeared in 
 the season of 1771. Thenceforth his friend Crisp's retreat 
 became Burney's constant resort when he had literary 
 work in hand. A further production of his pen, dealing 
 with a matter of musical technique, came forth before the 
 close of the same year. At the beginning of July, 1772, 
 he set out on another tour, with the same object of 
 collecting materials for his history, his route being now 
 through Germany and the Netherlands. During this 
 second pilgrimage, his family spent their time partly at 
 Lynn, partly at Chesington ; and Fanny, as we are told, 
 ■ — apparently on the authority of her unpublished Diaries 
 — profiting by the opportunities which these visits 
 afforded, then " gradually arranged and connected the 
 disjointed scraps and fragments in which ' Evelina ' had 
 been originally written." But, careful to avoid offence, 
 " she never indulged herself with reading or writing except 
 in the afternoon ; always scrupulously devoting her time 
 to needlework till after dinner." 
 
 The traveller's absence lasted five months : he reached 
 Calais on his return in a December so boisterous that for 
 nine days no vessel could cross the Channel ; and Fanny 
 relates that, when at length the passage w^as effected, ho 
 was too much exhausted by sea-sickness to quit his berth, 
 and, falling asleep, was carried back to France to encounter 
 another stormy voyage, and a repetition of his sea-sickness, 
 before he finally landed at Dover. The fatigues and 
 hardships of his homeward journey brought on a severe 
 attack of rheumatism, to which he was subject. Fanny 
 and her sisters nursed him, sitting by his bedside, pen in 
 hand, to set down the narrative of his German tour as 
 his sufferings allowed of his dictating it. As soon as he
 
 30 Newtons House. 
 
 was sufficiently recovered, he went down to Chesington 
 not forgetting to carry his secretaries with him. 
 
 • During this illness, or a relapse which followed it, the 
 house in Queen Square had to be relinquished from 
 difficulties respecting the title ; and Mrs. Burney pur- 
 chased and fitted up another in a central situation, which 
 was at once more convenient for her husband's teaching 
 engagements, and more agreeable to him as being nearer 
 to the opera, the theatres, and the clubs. St. Martin's 
 Street, Leicester Fields, to which the family removed, is 
 now among the most dingy, not to say the most squalid, 
 of London streets ; even in 1773, ' its unpleasant site, its 
 confined air, and its shabby immediate neighbourhood,' 
 are spoken of as drawbacks requiring compensation on 
 an exchange from the fair and open view of the northern 
 heights, crowned with Caen Woods, which had faced 
 the windows in Bloomsbury. But, apart from the prac- 
 tical advantages before mentioned, the new home was 
 invested with a strong attraction for the incomers in 
 having been once inhabited by a personage whom our 
 astronomical Doctor revered, and taught his children to 
 revere, as ' the pride of human nature.' The belief that 
 the house in Queen Square had occasionally been visited 
 by Dean Swift was nothing compared with the certain 
 knowledge that No. i, St. Martin's Street, had been the 
 dwelling of Sir Isaac Newton.* The topmost story was 
 surmounted by an ' observatory,' having a leaden roof, 
 and sides composed entirely of small panes of glass, except 
 such parts as were taken up by a cupboard, fireplace and 
 
 * The house is now No. 35. It was occupied by Newton from the time 
 ■when he became President of the Royal Society down to his death in 1727. 
 He did not actually die there, as has been sometimes stated, but at Orbell's 
 Buildings, Kensington, whither he used to resort for change of air. See Notes 
 and Qi/L-ries, Third Series, i. 29. F"or tlie number of the house during Dr. 
 IJurney's occupation, see a letter from him to Fanny in her Diary, New 
 Edilion, vol, i., 297.
 
 Fanny Ar^'ivcs at IVomanhood. 3 r 
 
 chimney. This structure being much dilapidated when 
 Dr. Burney entered into possession, his first act was to 
 put what he looked on as a special relic of his great 
 predecessor into complete repair. The house itself was 
 sufficiently large for the new tenant's family, as w^ell as 
 for his books, ' which now began to demand nearly equal 
 accommodation.' Having recovered his health, and set 
 his affairs in order, the Doctor next resumed his daily 
 round of lessons, and applied himself to remedy any 
 injury which his professional connection had sustained 
 from his two prolonged absences on the Continent. His 
 pen was laid aside for a time, but the German Tour was 
 published before the end of this year, and proved very 
 successful. About the same time, its author was elected 
 a fellow of the Royal Society. The first volume of his 
 * History of Music ' — in which work the main part of both 
 his Tours was incorporated — did not appear till 1776. We 
 are now arrived at the time when our heroine has attained 
 majority. Her womanhood may be said to have com- 
 menced with the removal to St. Martin's Street. In our 
 next chapter we shall see hov/ the first portion of it was 
 spent.
 
 Life in St. HI a)' tins Streei, 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Life in St. Martin's Street — Increase of Fame and Friends — Garrick's First 
 Call — Confusion — The Hairdresser — 'Tag-rag and Bobtail' — The History of 
 Histories — Imitation of Dr. Johnson — The Great Rosciiis — Mr. Crisp's Gout 
 — Correspondence between him and Fanny — Dr. Burney's Concerts — Abys- 
 sinian Bruce — Supper in St. Martin's Street — Italian Singers — A Musical 
 Evening — Visit of Count Orloff — His Stature and Jewels — Condescension— 
 A Matrimonial Duet — The Empress's Miniature —Jemmy Twitcher — Present 
 State of St. Martin's Street— Mr. and Mrs. Thra"le— Dr. Johnson— Visit of 
 the Thrales and Johnson — Appearance of Dr. Johnson — His Conversation 
 — His Contempt for INIusic — Meeting of Dr. Johnson and Mr. GreviUe — 
 Mrs. Thrale Defiant — Signor Piozzi. 
 
 Frances Burney's Memoirs of her father, her letters 
 to Daddy Crisp, and her Diary, together, give us a pretty 
 distinct idea of her hfe in the httle street south of Leices- 
 ter Square. From the time ^vhen Dr. Burney became 
 estabhshed in that quarter, the circle of his friends and 
 his reputation steadily widened. In no long time he 
 made acquaintance with his neighbours, Sir Joshua Rey- 
 nolds, Miss Reynolds, and their nieces, the Misses 
 Palmer ; with another neighbour, the sculptor Nollekens ; 
 with the painter Barry, Harris of Salisbury,* Mrs. Ord, 
 Sir Joseph Banks, and Abyssinian Bruce, then just re- 
 turned from his travels. All these and others were, from 
 time to time, to be found in the Doctor's modest drawing- 
 room, together with many old friends, such as the 
 
 * James Harris, author of ' Hermes ; or a Philosophical Inquiry into 
 Universal Grammar,' and several other works. Entering Parliament in 1761, 
 he became a Lord of the Admiralty, and subsequently a Lord of the Treasury, 
 etc. He died in 1786.
 
 Garric/cs First Call. 33 
 
 Stranges, Garrick, Colman, Mason, the Hooles, father 
 and son, Twining, and Baretti. 
 
 We have, in the * Memoirs,' an account of David Gar- 
 rick's first call at the house in St. Martin's Street, which, 
 though written in the author's later style, was no doubt 
 derived from contemporary notes or journals : — It was 
 early morning, and the doorsteps were being washed by a 
 new housemaid, who, not recognising the actor, demurred 
 to his entering unannounced. He brushed past her, ran 
 upstairs, and burst into the Doctor's study. Here he 
 found the master of the house under the hands of his 
 hairdresser; while Susanna was reading a newspaper to 
 him, Charlotte making his tea, and Fanny arranging his 
 Looks. There was a litter of papers everywhere. Burney 
 would have cleared a chair, but the visitor plumped down 
 into one that was well cushioned with pamphlets, crying : 
 ' Ay, do now. Doctor, be in a little confusion 1 Whisk 
 your matters all out of their places, and don't know 
 where to find a thing that you want for the rest of the 
 day, and that will make us all comfortable.' The Doctor 
 then, laughing, returned to his place on the stool, that his 
 wig — or, as Madame d'Arblay calls it, the furniture of 
 his head — might go through its proper repairs. David, 
 assuming a solemn air of profound attention, fastened his 
 ■eyes upon the hairdresser, as if wonderstruck at his 
 amazing skill. The man, highly gratified by such notice 
 from the celebrated Garrick, briskly worked on, frizzing, 
 curling, powdering, and pasting, after the mode of the 
 day, with the utmost importance and self-complacency. 
 Garrick himself had on what he called his scratch wig, 
 which was so uncommonly ill-arranged and frightful that 
 the whole family agreed no one else could have appeared 
 in such a state in the public streets without risk of 
 being hooted at. He dropped now all talk with the 
 
 3
 
 34 The Hairdresser, 
 
 o 
 
 Doctor, not even answering what he said, and seemed 
 wholly absorbed in watching what was going on ; putting 
 on, by degrees, with a power like transformation, a little 
 mean face of envy and sadness, such as he wore in repre- 
 senting Abel Drugger, till at length, in the eyes of the 
 spectators, he passed out of himself altogether, and, with 
 his mouth hanging stupidly open, and his features vacant 
 of all expression, he became the likeness of some daubed 
 wooden block in a barber's shop window. The friseur, 
 who at the beginning had felt flattered on seeing his opera- 
 tions so curiously observed, was put out of countenance by 
 this incomprehensible change, became presently so embar- 
 rassed that he hardly knew what he was about, and at last 
 fell into utter consternation. Scared and confounded, he 
 hastily rolled up the last two curls, and prepared to make 
 his retreat ; but before he could escape, Garrick, lifting 
 his own miserable scratch from his head, and holding it 
 out on his finger and thumb, squeaked out in a whining 
 voice, ' Pray now, sir, do you think, sir, you could touch 
 me up this here old bob a little bit, sir ?' 
 
 The hairdresser dismissed, the actor, who could not 
 help acting, proceeded to give further proofs of his versa- 
 tility. ' And so. Doctor,' he began, ' you, with your tag- 
 rag and bobtail there ' Here he pointed to some 
 
 shelves of shabby books and tracts, which he started up 
 to examine ; the next moment, becoming an auctioneer, 
 he offered for sale these valuable works, each worth a 
 hundred pounds, and proclaimed that they were 'going, 
 , going, going, at a penny apiece.' Then, quietly reseat- 
 ing himself: 'And so. Doctor,' he continued, ' 3'ou, and 
 'tag-rag and bobtail there, shut yourselves up in this snug 
 little bookstall, with all your bright elves around you, to 
 rest your understanding !' There were loud cries of mock 
 indignation from the young people at the idea of papa
 
 Iniilaiion of Dr. JoJuison. 35 
 
 resting his understanding. Garrick apologized in his best 
 stage manner, and after some further talk, inquired, ' But 
 when, Doctor, shall we have out the History of His- 
 tories ? Do let me know in time, that I may prepare to 
 blow the trumpet of fame.' Of course, this was a prelude 
 to his appearing in the character of a cheap-jack, adver- 
 tising ' the only true History.' Invited to the parlour to 
 breakfast, he excused himself on the plea of being engaged 
 at home to Twiss* and Boswell, whom immediately he 
 took off to the life. Encouraged by the laughter of his 
 audience, this most reprehensible person, who set no 
 bounds to his levity, proceeded to offer an imitation 
 of Dr. Johnson himself. He sincerely honoured and 
 loved Dr. Johnson, he said, but that great man had 
 eccentricities which his most attached admirers were 
 irresistibly impelled to mimic. Arranging, therefore, his 
 dress so as to enlarge his person, in some strange way, 
 several inches beyond its natural size, assuming the voice 
 and authoritative port of the lexicographer, and giving a 
 thundering stamp on the carpet, the devout worshipper of 
 Dr. Johnson delivered, with sundry extraordinary attitudes 
 and gestures, a short dialogue that had passed between 
 them during the preceding week : 
 
 " David 1 Will you lend me your ' Petrarca ' ?" 
 
 "Y— e— s, sir!" 
 
 " David, you sigh ?" 
 
 " Sir, you shall have it, certainly." 
 
 " Accordingly," Garrick continued, " the book — stu- 
 pendously bound — I sent to him that very evening. But 
 scarcely had he taken the noble quarto in his hands, 
 when, as Boswell tells mc, he poured forth a Greek 
 ejaculation, and a couplet or two from Horace ; and 
 then, in one of those fits of enthusiasm which always 
 
 * Author of ' Travels in Spciin.' 
 
 3—2
 
 o 
 
 6 The Great Roscius. 
 
 seem to require that he should spread his arms aloft in 
 the air, his haste was so great to debarrass them for that 
 purpose, that he suddenly pounces my poor ' Petrarca ' 
 over his head upon the floor — Russia leather, gold border, 
 and all ! And then, standing for several minutes erect, 
 lost in abstraction, he forgot, probably, that he had ever 
 seen it, and left my poor dislocated Beauty to the mercy 
 of the housemaid's morning mop !" 
 
 This concluded the performance, and the performer 
 presently took his leave. After he had said good-bye, and 
 left the room, he hastily came back, whimsically laughing, 
 and said : ' Here's one of your maids downstairs that I 
 love prodigiously to talk to, because she is so cross ! 
 She was washing, and rubbing, and scrubbing, and whiten- 
 ing and brightening your steps this morning, and would 
 hardly let me pass. Egad, sir, she did not know the 
 great Roscius! But I frightened her a little just now: 
 "Child," says I, "you don't guess whom you have the 
 happiness to see ! Do you know that I am one of the 
 lirst geniuses of the age ? You would faint away upon 
 the spot if you could only imagine who I am !" ' 
 
 One familiar face was no longer seen at Burney's house. 
 Mr. Crisp had become subject to such frequent fits of 
 gout that his visits to London were almost given up, and 
 he rarely slept even a single night away from Chesington. 
 But his interest in musical and literary news, and in all 
 that concerned the Burney family, continued unabated. 
 What he could no more take part in himself was duly 
 communicated to him by letter. 
 
 How early the correspondence between Frances and 
 the family friend began we are not informed. But it 
 must have commenced long before she was old enough to 
 be admitted to parties such as she had now to describe to 
 her ' daddy.' In a passage written at seventy-two, she has
 
 Dr. Bunieys Concerts. 37 
 
 set down " a charge delivered to me by our dear vehement 
 Mr. Crisp at the opening of my juvenile correspondence 
 with him : ' Harkee, you little monkey ! dash away what- 
 ever comes uppermost ; if you stop to consider either 
 what you say, or what may be said of you, I would not 
 give one fig for 3-our letters.' " So rough a speech could 
 not have been addressed, even by a professed cynic, to 
 any young lady very far advanced in her teens. In the 
 letters from which we are about to quote, Miss Fanny 
 prattles to the old man with perfect case and confidence, 
 showing that she felt herself on terms of established 
 familiarity, and was quite free from the shyness and 
 embarrassment that would attend a timid girl's first efforts 
 to entertain him. 
 
 For many years Dr. Burney had given informal evening 
 concerts at his house. These entertainments, to which 
 he had been prompted by Crisp, began in Poland Street, 
 were continued in Queen Square, and attained their 
 highest distinction in St. Martin's Street. There was no 
 band, no hired singer, no programme, no admission by 
 ticket. A word from the courteous host was the only 
 invitation needed or expected. But the company, as well 
 as the music, was attractive even to guests accustomed 
 to fashionable society. Before his writings made him 
 famous, Burney's extensive acquaintance brought him 
 visitors whom the curious were anxious to meet. Some 
 came to see Sir Constantine Phipps, afterwards Lord 
 Mulgrave, on his return from his Arctic voyage. Others 
 came for a view of Omai, whom Captain Cook had im- 
 ported from the South Seas. On one occasion the gentle 
 savage obliged the musical audience with a Tahitian love- 
 song, which proved to be a mere confused rumbling of 
 uncouth sounds. Whatever the incident of the evening. 
 Crisp looked for a full report of it from ' his Fannikin.'
 
 -^S Abyssinian Bruce. 
 
 o 
 
 The sense of humour which we may still see brimming 
 over in her portrait was greatly provoked by Bruce, the 
 particular lion of that day. The explorer was reported to 
 have brought home with him drawings of a Theban harp 
 at least three thousand years old, and of an Abyssinian 
 lyre in present use, about which Fanny was evidently 
 more sceptical than her father, who was always ready to 
 welcome materials for his ' History.' ' The Abyssinians have 
 lyres, have they?' said George Selwyn; 'well, they have 
 one less since he left their country.' Bruce was a person- 
 age of stupendous height and breadth, whose pompous 
 manners were proportioned to his size and fame. * He is 
 the tallest man you ever saw in your life — at least gratis,' 
 wrote the observer. Nevertheless ' the man-mountain ' 
 condescended to the Burneys. In the season of his 
 greatest glory, he figured several times at the Doctor's 
 concerts, of which visits faithful accounts were duly 
 despatched to Chesington. On one of these evenings 
 Mr. Bruce even consented to stay supper, " which, you 
 know," says Fanny, "with us is nothing but a permission 
 to sit over a table for chat, and roast potatoes or apples. 
 But now," she continues, "to perfect your acquaint- 
 ance with this towering Ethiopian, where do you think 
 he will take you during supper ? To the source, or 
 sources, you cry, of the Nile ? to Thebes ? to its temple ? 
 to an arietta on the Theban harp ? or perhaps to banquet- 
 ing on hot raw beef in Abyssinia ? No such thing, my 
 dear Mr. Crisp — no such thing. Travellers who mean to 
 write their travels are fit for nothing but to represent the 
 .gap at your whist-table at Chesington, when you have 
 only three players ; for the}^ are dummies. Mr. Bruce 
 left all his exploits, his wanderings, his vanishings, his 
 reappearances, his harps so celestial, and his bullocks so 
 terrestrial, to plant all our entertainment within a hundred
 
 Italian Sinccj'S, 
 
 <b' 
 
 yards of our own coterie ; namely, at the masquerades at 
 the Haymarket." Then follows a story of a practical jest 
 not worth copying. "To have looked at Mr. Bruce in his 
 glee at this buffooner}-, you must really have been amused; 
 though methinks I see, supposing you had been with us, 
 the picturesque rising of your brow, and all the dignity of 
 vour Roman nose, while you would have stared at such 
 familiar delight in an active joke as to transport into so 
 merry an cspicglc the seven-footed loftiness of the haughty 
 ■and impetuous tourist from the sands of Ethiopia, and the 
 waters of Abyssinia ; whom, nevertheless, I have now the 
 honour to portray in his robe de chauihrc, that is, in private 
 society^ to my dear Chesington daddy." 
 
 But far greater things were to follow this stalking of 
 the African lion. The Continental reputation which Dr. 
 Burney acquired by his tours, and which was extended 
 by the first instalment of his ' Histor}^' 'attracted to his 
 house,' as I^Iacaulay points out, * the most eminent 
 musical performers of that age. The greatest Italian 
 singers who visited England regarded him as the dispenser 
 of fame in their art, and exerted themselves to obtain his 
 suffrage. Pacchierotti* became his intimate friend. The 
 rapacious Agujari,t who sang for nobody else under fifty 
 pounds an air, sang her best for Dr. Burney without a 
 fee ; and in the company of Dr. Burney even the haughty 
 and eccentric Gabrielli| constrained herself to behave 
 with civility. It was thus in his power to give, with 
 scarcely any expense, concerts equal to those of the 
 
 * 'Nothing is fit to be heard but Pacchierotti,' was the general verdict, 
 according to Walpole. 
 
 t A celebrated Italian singer, wife of Colla, an Italian composer. She was 
 engaged at the I'antheon to sing two songs nightly, for which she received^ioo. 
 
 X A performer of great Continental reputation, whose merits were much con- 
 trover;e I in England. ' Is, or has the Gabrielli been, a great -singer ?' asks 
 Walp,)le of his Florence correspondent. 'She has, at least, not honoured us 
 but With a most slender low voice.'
 
 40 A Musical Evening. 
 
 aristocracy. On such occasions the quiet street in which 
 he hved was blocked up by coroneted chariots, and his 
 httle drawing-room was crowded with peers, peeresses, 
 ministers, and ambassadors.' 
 
 The following extract from one of Fanny's letters con- 
 tains a full description of the most memorable of these 
 musical evenings, though it was one on which no foreign 
 artist performed : 
 
 " You reproach me, my dear Mr. Crisp, for not sending 
 you an account of our last two concerts. But the fact is, 
 I have not anything new to tell you. The music has 
 always been the same : the matrimonial duets* are so 
 much a la mode, that no other thing in our house is now 
 demanded. But if I can write you nothing new about 
 music, you want, I well know you will say, to hear some 
 conversations. 
 
 My dear Mr. Crisp, there is, at this moment, no such 
 thing as conversation. There is only one question asked> 
 meet whom you may, namely : ' How do you like Gabri- 
 elli ?' and only two modes, contradictory, to be sure, 
 but very steady, of reply : either, ' Of all things upon 
 earth !' or, ' Not the least bit in the whole world !' 
 
 Well, now I will present you with a specimen, begin- 
 ning with our last concert but one, and arranging the 
 persons of the drama in the order of their actual appear- 
 ance. 
 
 But, imprimis, I should tell you that the motive to 
 this concert was a particular request to my father from 
 Dr. King, our old friend, and the chaplain to the British — 
 something — at St. Petersburg, that he would give a little 
 music to a certain mighty personage, who, somehow or 
 
 * Duets between Esther Burney, now married, and her husband, who was 
 also her cousin and a Burney. Esther was the beauty of the family, andi 
 became a wife early.
 
 Visit of Count Orloff. 41 
 
 other how, must needs take, transiently at least, a front 
 place in future history, namely, the famed favourite of the 
 Empress Catherine of Russia — Prince* Orloff. 
 
 There, my dear Mr. Crisp ! what say you to seeing 
 such a doughty personage as that in a private house, at a 
 private party, of a private individual — fresh imported from 
 the Czarina of all the Russias, to sip a cup of tea in St. 
 Martin's Street ? I wonder whether future historians 
 will happen to mention this circumstance ? I am think- 
 ing of sending it to all the keepers of records. But I see 
 your rising eyebrows at this name — your start — your dis- 
 gust — yet big curiosity. 
 
 Well, suppose the family assem.bled, its honoured chief 
 in the midst — and Tat, tat, tat, tat, at the door. 
 
 Enter Dr. Ogle, Dean of Wiucliestcr. 
 
 Dr. Biirncy, after the usual ceremonies : — ' Did you 
 hear the Gabrielli last night, Mr. Dean ?' 
 
 The Dean : ' No, Doctor, I made the attempt, but 
 soon retreated, for I hate a crowd — as much as the ladies 
 love it ! I beg pardon !' bowing with a sort of civil sneer 
 at us fair sex. 
 
 My mother was entering upon a spirited defence, when 
 — Tat, tat, tat. 
 
 Enter Dr. King. 
 
 He brought the compliments of Prince Orloff, with 
 his Highness's apologies for being so late ; but he was 
 obliged to dine at Lord Buckingham's, and thence to 
 show himself at Lady Harrington's. 
 
 As nobody thought of inquiring into Dr. King's 
 opinion of La Gabrielli, conversation was at a stand, 
 till — Tat, tat, tat, tat, too, and 
 
 * Fanny should rather have written, Coiiiil OrlofT.
 
 42 Visit of Count Orloff. 
 
 Enter Lady Edgcumbc. 
 
 We were all introduced to her, and she was very 
 chatty, courteous, and entertaining. [Lady Edgcumbe is 
 asked the usual question about Gabrielli, as also are the 
 Honourable Mr. and Mrs. Brudenel, who appear next. 
 Then we are introduced in succession to the Baron Demi- 
 doff, Harris of Salisbury, and Lord Bruce.] At length 
 — Tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, tat, too ! 
 
 Enter his Highness Prince Orloff. 
 
 Have 5'ou heard the dreadful story of the thumb, b}'' 
 which this terrible Prince is said to have throttled the 
 late Emperor of Russia, Peter, by suddenly pressing his 
 wandpipe while he was drinking ? I hope it is not true ; 
 and Dr. King, of whom, while he resided in Russia, 
 Prince Orloff was the patron, denies the charge. Never- 
 theless, it is so currently reported, that neither Susan nor 
 I could keep it one moment from our thoughts ; and w^e 
 both shrank from him with secret horror, heartily wishing 
 him in his own Black Sea. 
 
 His sight, however, produced a strong sensation, both 
 in those who believed, and those who discredited this dis- 
 gusting barbarity ; for another story, not perhaps of less 
 real, though of less sanguinary guilt, is not a tale of 
 rumour, but a crime of certainty ; namely, that he is the 
 lirst favourite of the cruel, inhuman Empress — if it be 
 true that she connived at this horrible murder. 
 
 His Highness was immediately preceded by another 
 Russian nobleman, whose name I have forgot ; and fol- 
 lowed by a noble Hessian, General Bawr. 
 
 Prince Orloff is of stupendous stature, something re- 
 sembling Mr. Bruce. He is handsome, tall, fat, upright, 
 magnificent. His dress was superb. Besides the blue 
 garter, he had a star of diamonds of prodigious brilliancy.
 
 The CoituVs Stature and Jeiucls. 43 
 
 a shoulder-knot of the same lustre and value, and a 
 picture of the Empress hun^ about his neck, set round 
 with diamonds of such brightness and magnitude that, 
 when near the light, they were too dazzling for the eye. 
 His jewels, Dr. King says, are estimated at one hundred 
 thousand pounds sterling. 
 
 His air and address are showy, striking, and assidu- 
 ously courteous. He had a look that frequently seemed 
 to say, * I hope you observe that I come from a polished 
 Court ? I hope you take note that I am no Cossack ?' 
 Yet, with all this display of commanding affability, he 
 .seems, from his native taste and humour, * agreeably 
 addicted to pleasantry.' He speaks very little English, 
 but knows French perfectly. 
 
 His introduction to my father, in which Dr. King 
 pompousl}' figured, passed in the drawing-room. The 
 library was so crowded that he could only show himself 
 at the door, which was barely high enough not to discom- 
 pose his prodigious toupee. He bowed to Mr. Chamier,* 
 then my next neighbour, whom he had somewhere met ; 
 but I was so impressed by the shocking rumours of his 
 horrible actions, that involuntarily I drew back even from 
 a bow of vicinity ; murmuring to Mr, Chamier, ' He looks 
 so potent and mighty, I do not like to be near him!' 
 
 * He has been less unfortunate,' answered Mr. Chamier 
 archly, * elsewhere ; such objection has not been made 
 to him by all ladies.' 
 
 Lord Bruce, who knew, immediately rose to make way 
 for him, and moved to another end of the room. The 
 Prince instantly held out his vast hand, in which, if he had 
 also held a cambric handkerchief, it must have looked like a 
 white flagon the top of a mast — so much higher than the 
 
 * Anthony Chamier w.ts member of Parliament for Tam worth, and Under- 
 Secretary of .State from 1 775 till his death in i7c:o. He was an original 
 member of the celebrated Literary Club.
 
 44 His Condescension. 
 
 most tip-top height of every head in the room was his 
 spread-out arm, as he exclaimed, 'Ah! milord inc 
 fuit r 
 
 His Honour,* then, rising also, with a profound re- 
 verence, offered his seat to his Highness ; but he posi- 
 tively refused to accept it, and declared that if Mr. 
 Brudenel would not be seated, he would himself retire ; 
 and seeing Mr. Brudenel demur, still begging his 
 Highness to take the chair, he cried, with a laugh, but 
 very peremptorily, ' Non, non, monsieur! Je ne le vcux 
 pas ! Jc suis opinidtrc, iiioi ; tin pen conime Messieurs les 
 Anglais /' 
 
 Mr. Brudenel then reseated himself; and the corner 
 of a form appearing to be vacant, from the pains taken by 
 poor Susan to shrink away from Mr. Orloff, his Highness 
 suddenly dropped down upon it his immense weight, with 
 a force — notwithstanding a palpable and studied en- 
 deavour to avoid doing mischief — that threatened his 
 gigantic person with plumping upon the floor, and terrified 
 all on the opposite side of the form with the danger of 
 visiting the ceiling. 
 
 Perceiving Susan strive, though vainly, from want of 
 space, to glide further off from him, and struck, perhaps, 
 by her sweet countenance, ' Ah, ha !' he cried, 'je tiens ici, 
 je vois, une petite prisonniere /' 
 
 Charlotte, blooming like a budding little Hebe, actu- 
 ally stole into a corner from affright at the whispered 
 history of his thumb ferocity. 
 
 Mr. Chamier, who now probably had developed what 
 passed in my mind, contrived, very comically, to disclose 
 his similar sentiment ; for, making a quiet way to my ear, 
 he said in a low voice, ' I wish Dr. Burney had invited 
 Omiah hereto-night instead of Prince Orloff!' — micaning, 
 
 * A name by which Mr. Brudenel, afterwards Earl of Cardii^an, was known.
 
 A Alati'imonial Duct. 4.5 
 
 no doubt, of the two exotics, he should have preferred the 
 most innocent ! 
 
 The grand duet of Miithel was now called for, and 
 played ; but I can tell you nothing extra of the admira- 
 tion it excited. Your Hettina looked remarkably pretty ; 
 and, added to the applause given to the music, everybody 
 had something to observe upon the singularity of the 
 performers being husband and wife. Prince Orloff was 
 witty quite to facetiousness ; sarcastically marking some- 
 thing beyond what he said, by a certain ogling, half- 
 cynical, half-amorous cast of his eyes ; and declaring he 
 should take care to initiate all the foreign academies of 
 natural philosophy in the secret of the harmony that 
 might be produced by such nuptial concord. 
 
 The Russian nobleman who accompanied Prince Orloff, 
 and who knew English, they told us, so well that he was 
 the best interpreter for his Highness in his visits, gave us 
 now a specimen of his proficiency ; for, clapping his fore- 
 finger upon a superfine snuff-box, he exclaimed, when the 
 duet was finished, * Ma foi, dis is so pretty as never I hear 
 in my life !' 
 
 General Bawr also, to whom Mr. Harris directed my 
 attention, was greatly charmed. He is tall, and of stern 
 and martial aspect. ' He is a man,' said Mr. Harris, 
 * to be looked at, from his courage, conduct, and success 
 during the last Russian war ; when, though a Hessian by 
 birth, he was a lieutenant-general in the service of the 
 Empress of Russia, and obtained the two military stars, 
 which you now see him wear on each side, by his 
 valour!' 
 
 Then followed, to vary the entertainment, singing by 
 Mrs. Brudenel. 
 
 Prince Orloff inquired very particularly of Dr. King 
 who we four young female Burneys were ; for wc were all
 
 46 The Empress s Uliniaitire. 
 
 dressed alike, on account of our mourning ; and when 
 Dr. King answered, ' Dr. Burney's daughters,' he was 
 quite astonished, for he had not thought our dear father, 
 he said, more than thirty years of age, if so much. 
 
 Mr. Harris, in a whisper, told me he wished some of 
 the ladies would desire to see the miniature of the 
 Empress a little nearer ; the monstrous height of the 
 Prince putting it quite out of view to his old eyes and 
 short figure ; and being a man, he could not, he said, 
 presume to ask such an indulgence as that of holding it 
 in his own hands. Delighted to do anything for this 
 excellent Mr. Harris, and quite at my ease with poor 
 prosing Dr. King, I told him the ^^'ish of Mr. Harris. 
 Dr. King whispered the desire to M. de Demidoff ; M. de 
 Demidoff did the same to General de Bawr ; and General 
 de Bawr dauntlessly made the petition to the Prince, in 
 the name of The Ladies. 
 
 The Prince laughed, rather sardonically ; yet with 
 ready good humour complied, telling the General, pretty 
 much sans cereinonic, to untie the ribbon round his neck, 
 and give the picture into the possession of The Ladies. 
 
 He was very gallant and debonnaire upon the occa- 
 sion, entreating they would by no means hurry themselves ; 
 yet his smile, as his eye sharply followed the progress 
 from hand to hand of the miniature, had a suspicious cast 
 of investigating whether it would be worth his while to 
 ask any favour of them in return! and through all the 
 superb magnificence of his display of courtly manners, a 
 little bit of the Cossack, methought, broke out, when he 
 desired to know whether The Ladies wished for anything 
 else — declaring, with a smiling bow, and rolling, languish- 
 ing, yet half-contemptuous eyes, that, if The Ladies would 
 issue their commands, they should strip him entirely ! 
 
 You may suppose, after that, nobody asked for a closer
 
 The Empress s ATinialure. 47 
 
 view of any more of his ornaments ! The good, yet 
 unaffectedly humorous philosopher of Sahsbury could not 
 help laughing, even while actually blushing at it, that his 
 own curiosity should have involved The Ladies in this 
 supercilious sort of sarcastic homage. 
 
 There was hardly any looking at the picture of the 
 Empress for the glare of the diamonds. One of them, I 
 really believe, was as big as a nutmeg ; though I am 
 somewhat ashamed to undignify my subject b}' so culinar}- 
 a comparison. 
 
 When we were all satisfied, the miniature was restored 
 by General Bawr to the Prince, who took it with stately 
 complacency ; condescendingly making a smiling bow to 
 each fair female who had had possession of it, and receiv- 
 ing from her in return a lowly courtesy. 
 
 j\Ir. Harris, who was the most curious to see the 
 Empress, because his son. Sir James,* was, or is intended 
 to be, Minister at her Court, had slyly looked over every 
 shoulder that held her ; but v/ould not venture, he archly 
 whispered, to take the picture in his own hands, lest he 
 should be included by the Prince amongst The Ladies, as 
 an old woman ! 
 
 Have you had enough of this concert, my dear Mr. 
 Crisp ? I have given it in detail, for the humour of 
 letting you see hovv^ absorbing of the public voice is La 
 Gabrielli ; and also for describing to you Prince Orloff, a 
 man who, when time lets out facts, and drives in mys- 
 teries, must necessarily make a considerable figure, good 
 or bad — but certainly not indifferent — in European history. 
 Besides, I want your opinion whether there is not an odd 
 and striking resemblance in general manners, as well as 
 in herculean strength and height, in this Siberian Prince 
 and his Abyssinian Majesty?" 
 
 * Afterwards Lord Malniesburv.
 
 4S Jc:niuy Twite her. 
 
 On another musical evening, of which Fanny wrote an 
 account, there were present : the French Ambassador, the 
 Count de Guignes, at whose request the concert was 
 given ; the Danish Ambassador, Baron Deiden, and his 
 wife ; the Groom of the Stole, Lord Ashburnham, * with 
 his gold key dangling from his pocket ;' Lord Barrington 
 from the War Office, and Lord Sandwich, First Lord of 
 the Admiralty. Of this last, the boon-companion and 
 denouncer* of Wilkes, Miss Fanny naively asks, " I want 
 to know why he is called Jemmy Twitcher in the news- 
 papers ? Do pray tell me that." 
 
 Very seldom, in these latter days, does any private 
 carriage, with or without a coronet on its panels, turn 
 into the decayed thoroughfare running down from the 
 bottom of Leicester Square. ' Vulgarly-peopled,' accord- 
 ing to Madame d'Arblay, even in her father's time, St. 
 Martin's Street has since fallen many degrees lower yet. 
 The house to which the fashionable world was drawn by 
 the charms of Burney's music stands on the east side, 
 immediately above the chapel at the corner of Orange 
 Street. The glass observatory which Dr. Burney re- 
 paired, and which he subsequently rebuilt when it was 
 blown away by a gale of wind, has long since disappeared. 
 It was replaced by a wooden-f- erection, or what Macaulay 
 
 * We need scarcely remintl our readers that, in 1763, Sandwich had dc- 
 niumced Wilkes in the House of Lords for having composed and printed the 
 ' Essay on Woman,' an indecent parody on Pope's ' Essay on Man.' Society 
 resented the attack, placing the accuser and accused on a par in point of morals. 
 'The public indignation went so far, that the Begt^ars Opera being performed 
 at Covent Garden Theatre soon after this event, the whole audience, when 
 Macheath says, "That Jemmy Twitcher should peach, I own surprises me," 
 burst out into an applause of application, and the nickname of "Jemmy 
 Twitcher" stuck by the Earl so as almost to occasion the disuse of his title.' — 
 Wali^ole's ' Memoirs of George III.,' vol. i., p. 313. 
 
 f The observatory in its later form is stated to have been put up in the early 
 years of the present century, by a Frencliman, then tenant of the house, who 
 placed in it some mathematical instruments, which he exhibited as the identical 
 instruments with which the great Newton made his discoveries; and we are told 
 that this ingenious person realized a considerable sum before his imposture was 
 exposed. See 'The Streets of London,' by J. T. Smith, edited by Charles 
 Mackay, 1849, p. 76. 
 
 I
 
 Present State of St. Martins Street. 49 
 
 calls * a square turret,' which, when the essayist wrote, 
 distinguished the house from all the surrounding buildings. 
 This erection also has been removed, but the house itself 
 cannot be mistaken by any passer-by who cares to see it. 
 A tablet on the front bears the inscription : ' Sir Isaac 
 Newton, philosopher, lived here.' The house is at 
 present the quarters of the United Service Warrant 
 Officers' Club. No great effort is required to imagine the 
 plain, silent Newton passing in and out of that slender 
 doorway. The movements of the man qui gcnits Jiuuiaiiuin 
 ingenio siipcravit were without noise and ostentation. Wc 
 may let half a century go by in thought, and with equal 
 ease picture to ourselves David Garrick tripping up the 
 steps before breakfast ; Samuel Johnson rolling up them for 
 a call, on his way to dine with Mrs. Montagu ; pleasant 
 Dr. Burney briskly setting out on his daily round of lessons ; 
 and demure Miss Fanny sallying forth to seek an inter- 
 view incognita with her publisher. But how call up the 
 scene, when the lacqueys of Count Orloff — Orloff the Big, 
 Walpole calls him — thundered at the knocker, or when 
 officers of the Household, displaying the ensigns of their 
 rank, peers with stars and orders, and great ladies arrayed 
 in brocaded silks and immense head-dresses, followed one 
 another up a confined staircase* into a couple of small 
 and crowded reception-rooms ? Standing opposite to the 
 club where our gallant petty officers of to-day congregate, 
 and noticing that to the left of it, on the other side of 
 Long's Court, there is now a cheap lodging-house for 
 working men, and that a little further to the left, at the 
 entrance from the Square, the roadway narrows, as we 
 
 * There is some account botli of the inside and outside of Newton's house 
 in the Gentleman s Mai^azinc for 1S14. At that date, we learn among other 
 things, the original chimney-piece in the observatory remained, though the room 
 itself had undergone a change. Tlie house appears to have been built about 
 1692.
 
 50 Mi\ and Airs. Thrale. 
 
 learn from the " Memoirs " that it did in Burney's time, till 
 there is barely room for a single vehicle of moderate size 
 to pass, we recognise the limitations of the human fancy. 
 It is difficult to conceive of a great aristocratic crowd 
 assembling in such a place. We can understand the 
 pride with which Fanny set down the prolonged rat-tat- 
 iat-tat-too that announced the arrival of each titled and 
 decorated visitor. We may observe the pains she took 
 to draw and colour for her country correspondent groups 
 of dazzling figures such as had never been seen in the 
 more spacious area of Queen Square. But they are 
 gone, and in presence of the dirt and squalor which have 
 made St. Martin's Street little better than an East-End 
 slum, their shadows will not revisit the glimpses of the 
 moon. Sic tram.it gloria mundi. 
 
 Somewhat later. Dr. Burney formed a new connection 
 which had an important influence on the life of his second 
 daughter. He was invited to Streatham by Mr. and Mrs. 
 Thrale to give lessons in music to their eldest daughter, 
 familiarly called Queeny, who afterwards became Vis- 
 countess Keith, There, besides winning the regard of the 
 Thrales, he renewed his acquaintance with Dr. Johnson, 
 to whom he had made himself known by letter twenty-two 
 years before. Johnson, who had no ear, despised music, 
 and was wont to speak slightingly of its professors, but he 
 conceived a strong liking for Burney. In bringing out 
 the ' Tour to the Hebrides,' the author confessed that 
 he had kept his frieud's Musical Tours in view. At this 
 time, Richard, the j-oungest son of Dr. Burney, born of 
 his second marriage, was preparing for Winchester 
 School, whither his father proposed conve3ang him in 
 person. Johnson, who was a friend of Dr. Warton, the 
 headmaster, volunteered to accompany them, and intro- 
 duce the new pupil. This joint expedition of Johnson and
 
 Visii of the T/irales and Johnson. 51 
 
 Burney was followed by a similar one to Oxford, and 
 their intercourse became so cordial that Mrs. Thrale and 
 Johnson arranged to meet in St. Martin's Street, there to 
 make acquaintance with Burney's family, to look over his 
 library, and to see Newton's house. Fann}', who had just 
 come up from Chesington, wrote an account of this visit 
 to her daddy : 
 
 " My dearest Mr. Crisp, 
 
 My father seemed well pleased at my returning to 
 Y:\y time ; so that is no small consolation and pleasure to 
 me for the pain of quitting you. So now to our Thursday 
 morning and Dr. Johnson, according to my promise. 
 
 We were all — by we, I mean Suzette, Charlotte, and I 
 — for my mother had seen him before, as had my sister 
 Burney ; but we three were all in a twitter from violent 
 expectation and curiosity for the sight of this monarch of 
 books and authors. 
 
 Mrs. and Miss Thrale, Miss Owen, and Mr. Seward,* 
 came long before Lexiphanes. Mrs. Thrale is a pretty 
 woman still, though she has some defect in the mouth 
 that looks like a cut or scar ; but her nose is very hand 
 some, her complexion very fair ; she has the cvibonpoini 
 charmant, and her eyes are blue and lustrous. She is 
 extremely lively and chatty, and showed none of the 
 supercilious or pedantic airs so freely, or rather so 
 scoffingly, attributed by you envious lords of the creation 
 to women of learning or celebrity ; on the contrary, sht 
 is full of sport, remarkably gay, and excessively agree- 
 able. I liked her in everything except her entrance into 
 the room, which was rather florid and flourishing, as who 
 should say, ' It's I ! — no less a person than Mrs. Thrale !' 
 However, all that ostentation wore out in the course of 
 
 •'■ William Seward, afterwards author of ' Anecdotes of Distinguished 
 Persons,' and ' Biographiana,' a sequel to the same. 
 
 4—2
 
 52 Visit of the Thralcs and JoJiuson. 
 
 the visit, which lasted the whole morning ; and you could 
 not have helped liking her, she is so very entertaining — 
 though not simple enough, I believe, for quite winning 
 your heart .... 
 
 The conversation was supported with a great deal of 
 vivacity, as usual when il Signer Padrone is at home ; 
 but I can write you none of it, as I was still in the same 
 twitter, twitter, twitter, I have acknowledged, to see Dr. 
 Johnson. Nothing could have heightened my impatience 
 — unless Pope could have been brought to life again — or,, 
 perhaps, Shakespeare ! 
 
 This confab was broken up by a duet between your 
 Hettina and, for the first time to company-listeners, 
 Suzette ; who, however, escaped much fright, for she soon 
 found she had no musical critics to encounter in Mrs. 
 Thrale and Mr. Seward, or Miss Owen, who know not a 
 flat from a sharp, nor a crotchet from a quaver. But 
 every knowledge is not given to everybody — except to two 
 gentle wights of my acquaintance : the one commonly 
 hight il Padre, and the other il Dadda. Do you know 
 any such sort of people, sir ? Well, in the midst of this 
 performance, and before the second movement was come 
 to a close. Dr. Johnson was announced ! 
 
 Now, my dear Mr. Crisp, if you like a description of 
 emotions and sensations — but I know you treat them all 
 as burlesque ; so let's proceed. 
 
 Everybody rose to do him honour, and he returned 
 the attention with the most formal courtes}'. My father 
 then, having welcomed him with the warmest respect, 
 whispered to him that music was going forward, which 
 he would not, my father thinks, have found out ; and, 
 placing him on the best seat vacant, told his daughters 
 to go on with the duet ; while Dr. Johnson, intently 
 rolling towards them one eye — for they say he does. 
 
 fl
 
 7^-Cu ?hty 
 
 'Dr Joh 
 
 nson .
 
 Appearance of Dr. Johnson. . 53 
 
 not see with the other — made a grave nod, and gave a 
 dignified motion with one hand, in silent approvance cf 
 the proceeding. 
 
 But now, my dear ]\Ir. Crisp, I am mortified to own 
 — what you, who always smile at my enthusiasm, will hear 
 without caring a straw for — that he is, indeed, very ill- 
 favoured. Yet he has naturally a noble figure; tall, stout, 
 grand, and authoritative : but he stoops horribly ; his 
 back is quite round : his mouth is continually opening 
 and shutting, as if he were chewing something ; he has a 
 singular method of twirling his fingers, and twisting his 
 hands : his vast body is in constant agitation, see-sawing 
 backwards and forv/ards : his feet are never a moment 
 quiet; and his whole person looked often as if it were going 
 to roll itself, quite voluntarily, from his chair to the floor. 
 
 Since such is his appearance to a person so prejudiced 
 in his favour as I am, how I must more than ever 
 reverence his abilities, when I tell you that, upon asking 
 my father why he had not prepared us for such uncouth, 
 untoward strangeness, he laughed heartily, and said he 
 had entirely forgotten that the same impression had been, 
 at first, made upon himself, but had been lost even on 
 the second interview — how I long to see him again, to 
 lose it, too ! — for knowing the value of what would come 
 out when he spoke, he ceased to observe the defects that 
 were out while he was silent. 
 
 But you always charge me to write without reserve or 
 reservation, and so I obey, as usual. Else, I should be 
 ashamed to acknowledge having remarked such exterior 
 blemishes in so exalted a character. 
 
 His dress, considering the times, and that he had 
 meant to put on all his best becomes. — for he was engager 
 to dine with a very fine party at Mrs. Montagu's — was as 
 much out of the common road as his figure. He had a
 
 54 Appearance of Dr. Johnsoii. 
 
 large, full, bushy wig, a snuff-colour coat, with gold 
 buttons (or, peradventure, brass), but no ruffles to his 
 doughty fists ; and not, I suppose, to be taken for a Blue, 
 though going to the Blue Queen, he had on very coarse 
 black worsted stockings. 
 
 He is shockingly near-sighted ; a thousand times more 
 so than either my Padre or myself. He did not even 
 know Mrs. Thrale, till she held out her hand to him, which 
 she did very engagingly. After the first few minutes, he 
 drew his chair close to the pianoforte, and then bent down 
 his nose quite over the keys, to examine them, and the 
 four hands at \vork upon them ; till poor Hetty and Susan 
 hardly knew how to play on, for fear of touching his phiz ; 
 or, which was harder still, how to keep their countenances; 
 and the less, as Mr. Seward, who seems to be very droll and 
 shrewd, and was much diverted, ogled them slyly, with a 
 provoking expression of arch enjoyment of their appre- 
 hensions. 
 
 When the duet was finished, my father introduced 
 your Hettina to him, as an old acquaintance, to whom, 
 when she was a little girl, he had presented his Idler. 
 
 His answer to this was imprinting on her pretty face — 
 not a half touch of a courtly salute — but a good, real, sub- 
 stantial, and ver}^ loud kiss. 
 
 Everybody was obliged to stroke their chins, that they 
 might hide their mouths. 
 
 Beyond this chaste embrace, his attention was not to 
 be drawn off two minutes longer from the books, to which 
 he now strided his way ; for we had left the drawing- 
 room for the library, on account of the pianoforte. He 
 pored over them, shelf by shelf, almost brushing them 
 with his eyelashes from near examination. At last, fixing 
 upon something that happened to hit his fancy, he took it 
 down ; and, standing aloof from the company, which he
 
 Johnsons Conversation. 55 
 
 seemed clean and clear to forget, he began, without further 
 ceremony, and very composedly, to read to himself; and 
 as intently as if he had been alone in his own study. 
 
 We were all excessively provoked : for we were lan- 
 guishing, fretting, expiring to hear him talk — not to sec 
 him read 1 What could that do for us ? 
 
 My sister then played another duet, accompanied by 
 my father, to which Miss Thrale seemed very attentive ; and 
 all the rest quietly resigned. But Dr. Johnson had opened 
 a volume of the British Encyclopaedia, and was so deeply 
 engaged, that the music, probably, never reached his ears. 
 
 When it v.'as over, Mrs. Thrale, in a laughing manner, 
 said : * Pray, Dr. Burney, will you be so good as to tell me 
 what that song was, and whose, which Savoi sang last 
 night at Bach's* concert, and which you did not hear?' 
 
 My father confessed himself by no means so able a 
 diviner, not having had time to consult the stars, though 
 he lived in the house of Sir Isaac Newton. But, anxious 
 to draw Dr. Johnson into conversation, he ventured to 
 interrupt him with Mrs. Thrale's conjuring request rela- 
 tive to Bach's concert. 
 
 The Doctor, comprehending his drift, good-naturedly 
 put away his book, and, see-sawing, with a very humorous 
 smile, drolly repeated: 'Bach, sir? — Bach's concert? 
 And pray, sir, who is Bach ? Is he a piper ?' 
 
 You may imagine what exclamations followed such a 
 question. 
 
 Mrs. Thrale gave a detailed account of the nature of 
 the concert, and the fame of Mr. Bach, and the many 
 charming performances she had heard, with all their 
 varieties, in his rooms. 
 
 When there was a pause, ' Pray, madam,' said he, with 
 the calmest gravity, ' what is the expense for all this ?' 
 
 •'■ John Christian Bach, sometimes called Bach of Berlin, who for many 
 years was established in England.
 
 56 His Contempt for Music . 
 
 ' Oh,' answered she, * the expense is much trouble and 
 soHcitation to obtain a subscriber's ticket — or else, half a 
 guinea !' 
 
 ' Trouble and solicitation,' he replied, ' I will have 
 nothing to do with ; but, if it be so fine, I would be 
 willing to give ' — he hesitated, and then finished with — 
 ' eighteen-pence.' 
 
 Ha ! ha ! Chocolate being then brought, we returned 
 io the drawing-room ; and Dr. Johnson, when drawn 
 away from the books, freely, and with social good-humour, 
 gave himself up to conversation. 
 
 The intended dinner of Mrs. Montagu being men- 
 tioned, Dr. Johnson laughingly told us that he had 
 received the most flattering note that he had ever read, 
 or that anybody else had ever read, of invitation from 
 that lady. 
 
 'So have I, too!' cried Mrs. Thrale. 'So, if a note 
 from Mrs. Montagu is to be boasted of, I beg mine may 
 not be forgotten.' 
 
 'Your note, madam,' cried Dr. Johnson, smiling, 'can 
 bear no comparison with mine ; for I am at the head 
 of all the philosophers — she says.' 
 
 'And I,' returned Mrs. Thrale, 'have all the Muses in 
 my train.' 
 
 'A fair battle!' cried my father. 'Come, compliment 
 for compliment, and see who will hold out longest !' 
 
 ' I am afraid for Mrs. Thrale,' said Mr. Seward ; 
 * for I know that Mrs. Montagu exerts all her forces 
 when she sings the praises of Dr. Johnson.' 
 
 ' Oh yes,' cried Mrs. Thrale, ' she has often praised 
 him till he has been ready to faint.' 
 
 ' Well,' said my father, ' you two ladies must get him 
 fairly between you to-day, and see which can lay on the 
 paint the thickest — Mrs. Montagu or Mrs. Thrale.'
 
 Meeting of Dr. Johnson and Mr. Greville. 57 
 
 ' I had rather,' said the Doctor very composedly, ' go 
 to Bach's concert !' " 
 
 Not long after the morning call described in our last 
 extract, Johnson spent an evening in St, Martin's Street, 
 for the purpose of being introduced to Mr. and Mrs. 
 Greville. The Doctor came with Wx. and Mrs, Thrale. 
 Signer Piozzi was there, invited to amuse the compan}^ 
 by his musical skill. But the account of the second visit 
 reads much less pleasantly than that of the first. This is 
 due in great part to the different behaviour of the prin- 
 cipal guests. Burney's old patron, Greville, had for years 
 been going steadily down hill, through indulgence in play 
 and other extravagances. The loss of his fortune, per- 
 haps, inclined him to assert more stiffly the claims of his 
 rank. At any rate, in presence of the Thralcs and John- 
 son, he thought it necessary to appear superior to the 
 brewer's wealth and the author's fame. Johnson seems 
 to have only half perceived his disdain ; but the Doctor 
 was not in a mood for talking, and Greville made no at- 
 tempt to draw him out. Nor arc the actors only changed 
 on this subsequent occasion ; the narrator is changed 
 also. Instead of a letter by Fanny Burney, dashed off in 
 the hey-day of youth and spirits, we have a formal ac- 
 count by her later self, Madame d'Arblay, composed in 
 the peculiar style which makes a great part of the ' Me- 
 moirs ' such difficult reading. However, as this account 
 records Mrs, Thrale's first meeting with the man who 
 was destined to exercise a fatal influence on her after-life, 
 we give a portion of it here : 
 
 " Mrs. Thrale, of the whole coterie, was alone at her 
 ease. She feared not Dr. Johnson ; for fear made no part 
 of her composition; and N\ith Mrs. Greville, as a fair
 
 58 Mrs. Thrale Dejianf. 
 
 rival genius, she would have been glad, from curiosity, to 
 have had the honour of a little tilt, in full carelessness of 
 its event ; for though triumphant when victorious, she 
 had spirits so volatile, and such utter exemption from 
 envy or spleen, that she was gaily free from mortification 
 when vanquished. But she knew the meeting to have 
 been fabricated for Dr. Johnson, and, therefore, though 
 not without difficult}', constrained herself to be passive. 
 
 " When, however, she observed the sardonic disposition 
 of Mr. Greville to stare around him at the whole company 
 in curious silence, she felt a defiance against his aristoc- 
 racy beat in every pulse ; for, however grandly he might 
 look back to the long ancestry of the Brookes and the 
 Grevilles, she had a glowing consciousness that her own 
 blood, rapid and fluent, flowed in her veins from Adam of 
 Saltsburg ;* and, at length, provoked by the dulness of a 
 taciturnity that, in the midst of such renowned inter- 
 locutors, produced as narcotic a torpor as could have 
 been caused by a dearth the most barren of human 
 faculties, she grew tired of the music, and yet more 
 tired of remaining, what as little suited her inclinations 
 as her abilities, a mere cipher in the company ; and, 
 holding such a position, and all its concomitants, to be 
 ridiculous, her spirits rose rebelliously above her control, 
 and, in a fit of utter recklessness of what might be thought 
 of her by her fine new acquaintance, she suddenly but 
 softly arose, and stealing on tip-toe behind Signor Piozzi, 
 who was accompanying himself on the pianoforte to an 
 animated aria parlantc, with his back to the company, 
 and his face to the wall, she ludicrously began imitating 
 him by squaring her elbows, elevating them with ecstatic 
 shrugs of the shoulders, and casting up her eyes, while 
 
 * Hester Lynch Salusbury (Mrs. Thrale) claimed to be lineally descended 
 from Adam of ijaltsbur^, who came over to Eni^land with the Conqueror.
 
 Signor Piozzi. 59 
 
 languishingly reclining her head, as if she were not less 
 enthusiastically, though somewhat more suddenly, struck 
 with the transports of harmony than himself. 
 
 "This grotesque ebullition of ungovernable gaiety was 
 not perceived by Dr. Johnson, who faced the fire, with 
 his back to the performer and the instrument. But the 
 amusement which such an unlooked-for exhibition caused 
 to the party was momentary ; for Dr. Burney, shocked 
 lest the poor Signor should observe, and be hurt by this 
 mimicry, glided gently round to Mrs. Thrale, and, with 
 something between pleasantry and severity, whispered to 
 her, ' Because, madam, you have no ear yourself for 
 music, will you destroy the attention of all who, in that 
 one point, are otherwise gifted ?' 
 
 " It was now that shone the brightest attribute of Mrs. 
 Thrale, sweetness of temper. She took this rebuke with a 
 candour, and a sense of its justice the most amiable; she 
 nodded her approbation of the admonition; and, return- 
 ing to her chair, quietly sat down, as she afterwards said, 
 like a pretty little miss, for the remainder of one of the 
 most humdrum evenings that she had ever passed. 
 
 " Strange, indeed, strange and most strange, the event 
 considered, was this opening intercourse between Mrs. 
 Thrale and Signor Piozzi. Little could she imagine that 
 the person she was thus called away from holding up to 
 ridicule, would become, but a few years afterwards, the 
 idol of her fancy, and the lord of her destiny ! And little 
 did the company present imagine, that this burlesque 
 scene was but the first of a drama the most extraordinary 
 of real life, of which these two persons were to be the 
 hero and heroine ; though, when the catastrophe was 
 known, this incident, witnessed by so many, was recol- 
 lected and repeated from coterie to coterie throughout 
 London, with comments and sarcasms of endless variet\-."
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ■' Evelina ' — Date of its Coni]iositinn — Negotiations with Publishers — Dr. 
 Burney's Consent — Puhlication — Ilhiess of the Author— Visit to Chesington 
 —Her Father reads the Book — Mrs. Thrale and ]\Irs. Cholmondeley — 
 Exciting News — Fanny's Success — Nancy Dawson — The Secret told to Mr. 
 Crisp — Characters in ' Evelina ' — Dinner at Streatham — Dr. Johnson — David 
 (Warrick — The Unclubhaule Man — Curiositv as to Aulhorshipof ' Evelina ' — 
 The Bookseller in the Dark— Visits to the thrales— Table Talk— Mr. Smitli 
 — Goldsmith— Johnson and the Scotch — Civil for Four — Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 — Mrs. Montagu — Boswell — The Branghtons — Mrs. Cholmondeley — Talk 
 with Sir Joshua— Is it True ? — Mrs. Cholmondeley's Whimsical Manner — 
 Visit to her House — Mr. Cumberland — A Hint for a Comedy — A Charmed 
 Circle — Sheridan — Not a Fair Question — Tressed to Write for the Stage- 
 Flattered by Compliments. 
 
 We now approach the time when the ' History of Evehna ' 
 was given to the world. There has been much futile con- 
 troversy as to the date at which this novel was composed. 
 As the author was unquestionably half-way between twenty- 
 live and twenty-six when her first book was published, it 
 has been inferred that she was not much below that age 
 when she began the story. This inference was put in sharp 
 contrast with a current report — which cannot be traced 
 to Frances Burney or her family — that she wrote 
 ' Evelina ' at seventeen. Her enemy Croker went so 
 far as to suggest that she represented herself to have 
 been ten years younger than she really was at the period 
 of the publication.* But if we may trust Mrs. Barrett, 
 
 * ' There was no want of low minds and bad hearts in the generation which 
 witnessed her lust appearance. There was the envious Kenrick and the savage 
 Wolcot, the asp George Steevens and the polecat John Williams. It did not, 
 however, occur to them to search the parish register of Lynn, in order that they 
 might be able to twit a lady with having concealed her age. That truly chival- 
 rous exploit was reseived for a bad writer of our own time, whose spite she
 
 Date of tJic Composition of ' Eveliuai 6 r 
 
 who had not only the 'Memoirs,' but Fanny's early and 
 still unpublished journals to guide her, the author herself 
 would have been puzzled to say exactly when her tale 
 was written. It was planned in girlhood, worked at by 
 snatches, and occupied long years in growing up. The 
 idea of seeing it in print seems to have been conceived in 
 1776, shortly after the appearance of the first volume of 
 her father's History, and we are distinctly told by Madame 
 d'Arblay and her biographer, that there was already a 
 manuscript in existence. We gather, however, that this 
 manuscript was imperfect ; and it would manifestly be 
 presuming too much to suppose that its contents remained 
 unaltered, and unimproved, in the transcript which the 
 writer proceeded to make before taking any other step. 
 
 Though stimulated by her father's success, and en- 
 couraged by her sisters, whom she took into her con- 
 fidence, Fanny was, nevertheless, determined that, in 
 bringing forward her work, she would keep its authorship 
 unknown. She therefore copied out her manuscript in 
 a feigned upright hand, in order to guard against the 
 possibility of her ordinary writing being recognised by 
 some one who had seen the numerous pages of the 
 paternal books which she had transcribed for the printer. 
 Tiring of her irksome task when she had accomplished 
 enough to fill two volumes, she wrote a letter, without 
 signature, to be sent to some bookseller, offering the 
 fairly-copied portion for immediate publication, and pro- 
 had provoked by not furnishing him with materials for a worthless edition of 
 Boswell's Life of Johnson, some sliects of which our readers have doubtless 
 seen round parcels of better hook^.'—A/dc-an/ay's Essay. This passage has 
 oeen often quoted and admired. Yet is not such writing rather too much in 
 :he style of Mr. Bludyer, who, the reader will remember, was reproached with 
 wangling his victims? Compare Macaulay's swashing blow wuh the deadly 
 :hrust of a true master of sarcasm. ' Nobody was stronger in dates than Mr. 
 Rigby ; . . . detail was Mr. Righy's forte ; ... it -.vas thought no one could 
 lash a '.voman like J^igl>y. Rigby's statements were arranged with a formidable 
 array of dates— rarely accurate.' — Conin^sliy.
 
 62 Neo-otiations with Publishers. 
 
 cb 
 
 mising to forward the rest in the following year. This 
 proposal was first directed to Dodsley, who, in answer, 
 declined to look at anything without being previously 
 informed of the author's name. Fanny and her sisters, 
 *' after sitting in committee on this lofty reply," addressed 
 another offer, in like terms, to Lowndes, a publisher in 
 Fleet Street, The latter, less exacting than his brother 
 at the West-End, desired to see the manuscript, which — 
 there being no Parcels Delivery Company in those days 
 — was conve3-ed to him by young Charles Burney, muffled 
 up by his sisters to make him look older than he was. 
 Lowndes read, was pleased, and declared himself willing 
 to purchase and print the work when finished, but he 
 naturally would not hear of publishing an unfinished 
 novel. Disappointed at this second rebuff, the impatient 
 aspirant gave up hope ; but, her spirits reviving, after a 
 time, her third volume was completed and copied before 
 the end of the twelvemonth. jMeanwhile, a scruple had 
 arisen in her mind. Her correspondence with Lowndes 
 had been carried on without her father's knowledge ; the 
 publisher's letters to her being addressed to Mr. Grafton, 
 and sent to the Orange Coffee House, in Orange Street. 
 But she now saw it to be her duty not to rush into print 
 Vv'ithout Dr. Burney's consent. Availing herself of a pro- 
 pitious moment, when he was bidding her good-bye before 
 setting out on a visit to Chesington, she confessed to 
 him, with many blushes, that she had written a " little 
 book, and hoped that he would allow her to publish it on 
 condition of not disclosing her name. She assured him 
 that he should not be troubled in the business, which her 
 brother Charles would manage for her, and only begged 
 further that he would not himself ask to see the manuscript. 
 The Doctor was first amazed, then amused, and finally 
 bursting into a laugh, kissed her, and bade her see that
 
 Ptidh'cation of ' Evelina^ 63 
 
 Charles was discreet, thus tacitly granting her petition. 
 The completed work was now forwarded to Lowndes, 
 who without much delay accepted it, and paid the author 
 what seemed to her the magnificent sum of twenty pounds 
 for the copyright. 
 
 Much censure has been thrown on Dr. Burney for his 
 •conduct in this transaction. He ought, we are told, to 
 have given his daughter serious counsel as to the perils of 
 authorship, to have inquired into the merits of her pro- 
 duction, and to have seen that she made the best possible 
 term.s with the bookseller. ' Happil}',' says Macaulay, 
 ' his inexcusable neglect of duty caused her no worse evil 
 than the loss of twelve or fifteen hundred pounds.' We 
 doubt if it cost her the twelfth part of the smaller sum. 
 It is most unlikely, we think, that an untried and anony- 
 mous writer could, with the best assistance, have com- 
 manded a hundred pounds for a first attempt at fiction. 
 We are not concerned to defend Dr. Burney, but to us 
 he seems to have failed less in carefulness than in discern- 
 ment. He could not believe his ears when Frances spoke 
 of having a book ready for the press. He looked on her 
 scheme of publication as an idle fancy, and doubtless was 
 convinced that nothing would come of it. Her motive 
 for concealing her project from him had been merely 
 dread of his ridicule. Until ' Evelina' became an assured 
 success, he had no faith in the ability of his second 
 daughter. ' Poor Fanny ' — so he used to call her — was, 
 in his eyes, a dutiful and affectionate child, and a useful 
 amanuensis, and nothing more. So little did he expect 
 ever to hear again of her embryo work, that he did not 
 even ask its title. 
 
 At length, in January, 1778, 'Evelina' was published. 
 The author was informed of the event through hearing an 
 advertisement announcing it read aloud by her step-mother
 
 64 TJie Author visits Chesitigion. 
 
 at breakfast-time. Those of the party who were in 
 the secret smiled, or blushed ; those who were not 
 suspected nothing. Several weeks elapsed before the new 
 novel attracted much attention. Meanwhile the writer 
 was laid up with inflammation of the lungs. On quitting 
 her bedroom, she found that, in the circles known to her, 
 her book was being widel}'' read, with speculations as to 
 its authorship. One acquaintance attributed it to Anstey, 
 then famous for his ' New Bath Guide ;' most voices 
 agreed that it could not have proceeded from a woman's 
 pen — a conclusion which, with the usual perversity of her 
 sex. Miss Burney regarded as a high compliment. Then 
 the magazines commenced to speak in its praise. The 
 London Review and the Monthly Review both gave favour- 
 able notices. Thus stimulated, the sale increased, till at 
 the end of the fifth month two editions had been exhausted, 
 and a third was fast being disposed of.* By May, Fanny 
 was sufficiently recovered to leave town, and went on a long 
 visit to Chesington, where, as she 'could hardly walk three 
 yards in a da}- at first,' she amused herself with reading 
 ' Evelina ' to Daddy Crisp, and goading his curiosity by 
 allusions to dark reports about its origin. Crisp, who, of 
 course, suspected some mystery, was guarded in his praise, 
 but gratified his young favourite by betraying a most un- 
 cynical eagerness for the third volume as soon as the first 
 twohad been despatched. Beforelong, exciting letters from 
 home began to pour in on the convalescent at the Hall. 
 She gives the substance of some of them in her Diary : 
 
 " I received from Charlotte a letter, the most interesting 
 that could be written to me, for it acquainted me that my 
 
 * The first edition consisted of 800 copies, tiie second of 500, the third of 
 1,000. A fourth edition, the extent of vvhich was not divulged, followed in the 
 autumn. After the third edition, Lowndes paid the autiior a further sum of 
 ten pounds in full satisfaction of any claim or expectation which she or her 
 friends mi"ht found on the continued success of the book.
 
 Her Father reads Eveline. d^ 
 
 dear father was at length reading my book, which has now- 
 been pubhshed six months. How this has come to pass, 
 I am yet in the dark; but it seems .... he desired 
 Charlotte to bring him the Monthly Review ; she contrived 
 to look over his shoulder as he opened it, which he did at 
 the account of ' Evelina ; or, A Young Lady's Entrance 
 into the World.' He read it with great earnestness, then 
 put it down ; and presently after snatched it up, and read 
 it again. Doubtless his paternal heart felt some agitation 
 for his girl in reading a review of her publication ! — how 
 he got at the name I cannot imagine. Soon after, he 
 turned to Charlotte, and bidding her come close to him, 
 he put his finger on the word ' Evelina,' and saying sJic 
 knew what it icas, bade her write down the name, and send 
 the man to Lowndes', as if for herself. This she did, and 
 awa}^ went William. When William returned, he took 
 the book from him, and the moment he was gone, opened 
 the first volume — and opened it upon the Ode /" 
 
 Prefixed to Evelina was an inscription in verse to the 
 writer's father, much more remarkable for tenderness of 
 feeling than for poetical merit. 
 
 " How great must have been his astonishment at seeing 
 himself so addressed ! Indeed, Charlotte says he looked 
 all amazement, read a line or two with great eagerness, 
 and then, stopping short, he seemed quite affected, and 
 the tears started into his eyes. Dear soul ! I am sure 
 they did into mine ; nay, I even sobbed as I read the 
 account. 
 
 I believe he was obliged to go out before he advanced 
 much further. But the next day I had a letter from 
 Susan, in which I heard that he had begun reading it with 
 Lady Hales and Miss Coussmaker, and that they liked it 
 vastly ! Lady Hales spoke of it very innocently, in the 
 
 5
 
 66 Mrs. Thrale and Mrs. Cholmondeley. 
 
 highest terms, declaring she was sure it was written by 
 somebody in high Hfe, and that it had all the marks of real 
 genius ! She added, ' He must be a man of great abilities.' " 
 
 Dr. Burney's opinion was expressed with even greater 
 simplicity than this. From an unbeliever he had been 
 suddenly changed into a worshipper, and in the first glow 
 of his conversion, he pronounced the new novel to be the 
 best he had met with, excepting Fielding's, and in some 
 respects better than his ! A proselyte himself, he was at 
 once full of schemes for spreading the knowledge of the 
 true faith. He would begin by telling Mrs. Thrale, as the 
 centre of a large literary circle. Before he could broach 
 the subject, he heard his daughter's book celebrated at the 
 Streatham tea-table. " Madam," cried Dr. Johnson, see- 
 sawing on his chair, " Mrs. Cholmondeley was talking to 
 me last night of a new novel, which, she sa3-s, has a very 
 uncommon share of merit — ' Evelina.' She says that she 
 has not been so entertained this great while as in reading 
 it, and that she shall go all over London to discover the 
 author." Mrs. Cholmondeley was a sister of Peg Woffing- 
 ton, the actress, and had married Captain Cholmondeley, 
 second son of the Earl of Cholmondeley, and a nephew of 
 Horace Walpole. Her husband afterwards quitted the 
 army, and took orders ; and at this time the mlon of the 
 witty and eccentric Mrs. Cholmondeley was in high repute. 
 Besides recommending Evelina to Johnson, she had 
 engaged Burke and Reynolds to get it, and announced 
 her intention of keeping it on her table the whole summer 
 to make it as widely known as possible. All this made it 
 necessary for her friend and rival, Mrs. Thrale, not to be 
 left in the background. There was but one thing to be 
 done : the lady of Streatham lost no time in procuring 
 and reading this new success ; fell into a rapture over it ;
 
 Sncc'css of 'Evelina.' 67 
 
 tepraised it with her usual vivacity, and passed it on to 
 Johnson, The great man took to it immensely. When 
 he had finished one volume, he was as impatient as Crisp 
 had been for the next, protesting that he could not get rid of 
 the rogue ; and his judgment was that there were passages 
 in the book that might do honour to Richardson. The 
 packet of letters in which this compliment was transmitted 
 to Fanny reported also that Sir Joshua Reynolds had 
 forgotten his dinner while engrossed with her story, and 
 that Burke had sat up all night to finish it ; and Dr. 
 Burney added an enclosure, in which he said : ' Thou hast 
 made thy old father laugh and cry at thy pleasure.' 
 
 If Mrs. Cholmondeley could claim to have introduced 
 Evelina to the polite world, to Mrs. Thrale fell the 
 distinction of making known its author. After ratifying 
 the general opinion of the work, I\'Irs. Thrale asked, in 
 Burney's presence, whether Mrs. Cholmondeley had yet 
 found out the writer, 'because,' said the speaker, * I long 
 to know him of all things.' This inquiry produced an 
 avowal, which the Doctor had obtained his daughter's 
 permission to make ; and shortly afterwards he appeared 
 at Chesington to carry hento Streatham, and present her, 
 by appointment, to the Thrales — and to Dr. Johnson. 
 
 Many surprising successes are recorded in the annals of 
 literature ; but there have been few quite like this. Lately 
 the least noticed member of her father's household, 
 Frances Burney was now elevated far above its head. 
 Other writers before their rise have been insignificant ; 
 the author of Evelina was despised. Proud and happy 
 man though he was, Dr. Burney could not at once break 
 ■off the habit of calling her poor Fanny. " Do you breathe, 
 my dear Fanny ?" asks Susan in a letter, after recounting 
 part of the wonders above mentioned. *' It took away my 
 breath," adds the writer, " and then made me skip about 
 
 5—2
 
 6S Nancy Dazusoii. 
 
 like a mad creature." " My dearest Susy," responds 
 Fann}', " don't you think there must be some wager 
 depending among the httle curled imps who hover over 
 us mortals, of how much flummery goes to turn the head 
 of an authoress ? Your last communication very near did 
 my business, for, meeting Islx. Crisp ere I had composed 
 myself, I ' tipt him such a touch of the heroics ' as he 
 has not seen since the time when I was so much celebrated 
 for dancing ' Nancy Dawson.'* I absolutely longed to 
 treat him with one of Captain Alirvan'st frolics, and to 
 fling his wig out of the window. I restrained myself,, 
 however, from the apprehension that they would imagine I 
 had a universal spite to that harmless piece of goods, which 
 I have already been knov»'n to treat with no little indignity- 
 He would fain have discovered the reason of my skittish- 
 ness ; but as I could not tell it him, I was obliged to 
 assure him it would be lost time to inquire further into 
 m}' flights." Refraining from the wig, Fanny darted out 
 of the room, and, as she tells us elsewhere,^, performed a 
 sort of jig round an old mulberry-tree that stood ori the 
 lawn before the house. She related this incident many 
 years afterwards to Sir Walter Scott, who has recorded 
 it in his journal. § 
 
 It will be gathered from our last extract that Mr. Crisp 
 was not yet in possession of the great secret. Fanny 
 dreaded the edge of his criticism, even more than she had 
 dreaded the chill of her father's contempt. Dr. Burney 
 
 * Mr. Crisp to Miss Burney, January, 1779 : "Do you rcmcmlier, about a 
 dozen years ago, how you used to tlance ' Iv'ancy Dawson' on the grass-plot, 
 with your cap on the ground, and your long hair streaming down your back, 
 one shoe off, and throwing about your head like a mad thing !" 
 
 f The sea-captain in 'Evelina.' 
 
 J Diary, i., p. 18 ; Memoirs, ii., p. 149. 
 
 § Lockharl's ' Life of Scott,' vi., p. 3S8. There seems to be some triflinf^ 
 discrepancy between the different account.^;, both ^3 to the date and the exact 
 occasion of this incident.
 
 The Secret told to Air. Crisp. 69 
 
 arrived at the Hall to fetch away his daughter on the first 
 Saturday in August, and it was agreed between them that 
 a disclosure could no longer be deferred. *' My dear 
 father," says the Diary, *' desired to take upon himself the 
 communication to my Daddy Crisp, and as it is now in so 
 many hands that it is possible accident might discover it 
 to him, I readily consented. Sunday evening, as I war; 
 going into my father's room, I heard him say, * The 
 variety of characters, the variety of scenes, and the 
 language — why, she has had very little education but what 
 she has given herself — less than any of the others !' and 
 ]\Ir. Crisp exclaimed, ' Wonderful ! it's wonderful !' I 
 now found what was going forward, and therefore deemed 
 it most fitting to decamp. About an hour after, as I was 
 passing through the hall, I met my Daddy Crisp. His 
 face was all animation and archness ; he doubled his fist 
 at me, and would have stopped me, but I ran past him 
 into the parlour. Before supper, however, I again met 
 him, and he would not suffer me to escape ; he caught 
 both my hands, and looked as if he would have looked me 
 through, and then exclamied, ' Why, you little hussy, 
 ain't you ashamed to look me in the face, you ' Evelina,' 
 you ! Why, what a dance have you led me about it ! 
 Young friend, indeed ! Oh, you little hussy, what tricks 
 have you served me!' I was obliged to allow of his 
 running on with these gentle appellations for I know not 
 how long, ere he could sufficiently compose himself, after 
 his great surprise, to ask or hear any particulars; and 
 then he broke out every three instants with exclamations 
 of astonishment at how I had found time to write so 
 much unsuspected, and how and where I had picked up 
 such various materials ; and not a few times did he, with 
 me, as he had with my father, exclaim, *' Wonderful !' 
 He has since made me read him all my letters upon this
 
 70 Charactei's in Evelina. 
 
 subject. He said Lowndes would have made an estate^ 
 had he given me ;£'t,ooo for it, and that he ought not to 
 have given less. ' You have nothing to do now,' con- 
 tinued he, ' but to take your pen in hand, for your fame 
 and reputation are made, and any bookseller will snap at 
 what you write,' " 
 
 A day or two after this conversation, Fanny and her 
 father left Liberty Hall, as Mr. Crisp was pleased to 
 designate his retreat. Arrived at the verge of our own 
 heroine's entrance into the world, we shall not stop to 
 discuss the question how far she was entitled to the fame 
 she had so rapidly won, nor shall we engage in any 
 criticism of the work by which she had acquired it. We 
 may assent to the admission of an admirer that the society 
 depicted in Evelina is made up of unreal beings. What 
 else could be expected from a fiction designed in immature 
 youth, executed, like patchwork, at intervals, and put 
 together, at last, without advice from any experienced 
 person ? Real or unreal, however, the characters in the 
 novel were vivid enough to interest strongly those of the 
 writer's contemporaries who were most familiar with the 
 world and human nature. 
 
 In the conversations which we are about to extract will 
 be found numerous allusions to personages who, though 
 fictitious, are, at any rate, as substantial for us as most 
 of the talkers, who have long since passed into the region 
 of shadows. We may leave to Miss Burney the task of 
 introducing her friends; she mentions the creations of 
 her brain without a word of explanation, because she 
 knew that the few eyes and ears for which her Diary was 
 intended were as well acquainted with them as herself 
 It therefore devolves on us to indicate the chief actors in 
 Evelina to our readers. We have the honour to pre- 
 sent : Madame Duval, Evelina's low-bred grandmother
 
 Dinner at Strcatham. 71 
 
 from Paris, interiarding her illiterate Enf^lish with an 
 incessant Mafui ! and other French interjections ; Captain 
 Mirvan, a fair specimen of the coarse naval officer of that 
 time;* the Branghtons, a vulgar family living on Snow 
 Hill ; Mr. Smith, a Holborn beau, lodging with the 
 Branghtons. Add to these, Lord Orville, the hero, and 
 Sir Clement Willoughby, the villain of the piece ; Mr. 
 Lovel, a fop ; Lady Louisa, a languishing dame of quality ; 
 Sir John Belmont, the heroine's father; W. Du Bois, a 
 Frenchman in attendance on Madame Duval ; and Mr, 
 ]\Iacartney, a starving Scotch poet. Of the last two, the 
 author conferred on the former the maiden name of her 
 grandmother ; on the latter, the maiden-name of her god- 
 mother, Mrs. Greville. 
 
 We will give Fanny's account of her first dinner at 
 Streatham in the words of her Diary : 
 
 *' When we were summoned to dinner, Mrs. Thrale 
 made my father and me sit on each side of her. I said 
 that I hoped I did not take Dr. Johnson's place ; — for he 
 had not yet appeared. 
 
 * No,' answered Mrs. Thrale, ' he will sit by you, which 
 I am sure will give him great pleasure.' 
 
 Soon after we were seated, this great man entered. I 
 have so true a veneration for him, that the very sight of 
 him inspires me with delight and reverence, notwithstand- 
 ing the cruel infirmities to which he is subject ; for he 
 has almost perpetual convulsive movements, either of 
 his hands, lips, feet, or knees, and sometimes of all 
 together. 
 
 * ' I have this to comfort me : tliat, the more I see of sea-captains, the Ies=; 
 reason I have to l)e ashamed of Captain Miivan ; for they have all so irresistible 
 a propensity to Vv'antoii mischief, to roasting beaux and detesting old women, 
 that I quite rejoice I showed the book to no one ere printed, lest I should have 
 been prevailetl upon to soften his character.' — Diary, May aS, 17S0.
 
 72 Dr. Johnson. 
 
 Mrs. Thrale introduced me to him, and he took his 
 place. We had a noble dinner, and a most elegant 
 dessert. Dr. Johnson, in the middle of dinner, asked 
 jNIrs. Thrale what was in some little pies that were near 
 him. 
 
 ' Mutton,' answ^ered she ; * so I don't ask you to eat 
 any, because I know you despise it.' 
 
 ' No, madam, no,' cried he ; ' I despise nothing that 
 is good of its sort ; but I am too proud now to eat of it. 
 Sitting by Miss Burney makes me very proud to-day !' 
 
 * Miss Burney,' said Mrs. Thrale, laughing, ' you must 
 take great care of your heart if Dr. Johnson attacks it ; 
 for I assure you he is not often successless.' 
 
 ' What's that you sa}-, madam ?' cried he ; ' are you 
 making mischief between the young lady and me already ?' 
 
 A little while after he drank Miss Thrale's health and 
 mine, and then added : 
 
 ' 'Tis a terrible thing that we cannot wish young ladies 
 well without wishing them to become old women !' 
 
 ' But some people,' said Mr. Seward, ' are old and 
 young at the same time, for they wear so well that they 
 never look old.' 
 
 'No, sir, no,' cried the doctor, laughing ; 'that never 
 yet was ; you might as well say they are at the same time 
 tall and short. I remember an epitaph to that purpose, 
 which is in ' 
 
 (I have quite forgot what, — and also the name it was 
 made upon, but the rest I recollect exactly:) 
 
 lies buried here ; 
 
 So early wise, so lasting fair, 
 
 That none, unk-ss her years you tokl, 
 
 Thought her a child, or thought her old.' 
 
 Mrs. Thrale then repeated some lines in French, and 
 Dr. Johnson some more in Latin. An epilogue of Mr.
 
 David Garrick. 
 
 / o 
 
 Garrick's to ' Bonduca ' was then mentioned, and Dr. 
 Johnson said it was a miserable performance, and every- 
 body agreed it was the worst he had ever made. 
 
 ' And yet,' said Mr. Seward, ' it has been very much 
 admired : but it is in praise of En,^hsh valour, and so I 
 suppose the subject made it popular.' 
 
 ' I don't know, sir,' said Dr. Johnson, ' anything about 
 the subject, for I could not read on till I came to it ; 
 I got through half a dozen lines, but I could observe 
 no other subject than eternal dulness. I don't know what 
 is the matter with David ; I am afraid he is grown super- 
 annuated, for his prologues and epilogues used to be in- 
 comparable.' 
 
 ' Nothing is so fatiguing,' said Mrs. Thrale, ' as the 
 life of a wit ; he and Wilkes are the two oldest men of 
 their ages I know, for they have both worn themselves 
 out by being eternally on the rack to give entertainment 
 to others.' 
 
 ' David, madam,' said the doctor, ' looks much older 
 than he is ; for his face has had double the business of 
 any other man's ; it is never at rest ; when he speaks one 
 minute, he has quite a different countenance to what he 
 assumes the next. I don't believe he ever kept the same 
 look for half an hour together in the whole course of his 
 life ; and such an eternal, restless, fatiguing play of the 
 muscles must certainly wear out a man's face before its 
 real time.' 
 
 ' O yes,' cried Mrs. Thrale ; ' we must certainly 
 make some allowance for such wear and tear of a man's 
 face.' 
 
 The next name that was started was that of Sir John 
 Hawkins, and Mrs. Thrale said : 
 
 ' Why now, Dr. Johnson, he is another of those whom 
 30U suffer nobody to abuse but yourself; Garrick is one,
 
 74 The Unclitbbable Man. 
 
 too ; for if any other person speaks against him, you 
 browbeat him in a minute !' 
 
 ' Why, madam,' answered he, ' they don't know when 
 to abuse him, and when to praise him ; I will allow no 
 man to speak ill of David that he does not deserve ; 
 and as to Sir John, w-hy really I believe him to be an 
 honest man at the bottom: but to be sure he is penurious, 
 and he is mean, and it must be owned he has a degree of 
 brutality, and a tendency to savageness, that cannot easily 
 be defended.' 
 
 We all laughed, as he meant we should, at this curious 
 manner of speaking in his favour, and he then related an 
 anecdote that he said he knew to be true in regard to his 
 meanness. He said that Sir John and he once belonged 
 to the same club, but that as he ate no supper after the 
 first night of his admission, he desired to be excused pay- 
 ing his share. 
 
 ' And was he excused ?' 
 
 ' O yes ; for no man is angry at another for being 
 inferior to himself ! we ell scorned him, and admitted his 
 plea. For my part, I was such a fool as to pay my share 
 for wine, though I never tasted any. But Sir John was a 
 most iinclnhhahh man !' 
 
 ' And this,' continued he, ' reminds me of a gentle- 
 man and lady with whom I travelled once ; I suppose I 
 must call them gentleman and lady, according to form, 
 because they travelled in their own coach and four horses. 
 But at the first inn where we stopped, the lady called for 
 — a pint of ale ! and when it came, quarrelled with the 
 waiter for not giving full measure. Now, Madame Duval 
 could not have done a grosser thing.' 
 
 Oh, how everybody laughed ! and to be sure I did not 
 glow at all, nor munch fast, nor look on my plate, nor 
 lose any part of my usual composure ! But how grateful
 
 CiLviosily as to Aiithorship of Evelina. 75 
 
 do I feel to this dear Dr. Johnson, for never naming^ me 
 and the book as belonging one to the other, and yet 
 making an allusion that showed his thoughts led to it, 
 and, at the same time, that seemed to justify the character 
 as being natural ! But, indeed, the delicacy I met with 
 from him, and from all the Thrales, was yet more flatter- 
 ing to me than the praise with which I have heard they 
 have honoured my book. 
 
 After dinner, when Mrs. Thrale and I left the gentle- 
 men, we had a conversation that to me could not but be 
 delightful, as she was all good-humour, spirits, sense, and 
 agreeability . Surely I may make words, when at a loss, if 
 Dr. Johnson does. 
 
 We left Streatham at about eight o'clock, and Mr. 
 Seward, who handed me into the chaise, added his in- 
 terest to the rest, that my father would not fail to bring 
 me again next week to stay with them for some time. In 
 short, I was loaded with civilities from them all. And 
 my ride home was equally happy with the rest of the 
 day, for my kind and most beloved father was so happy 
 in my happiness, and congratulated me so sweetl}^ that 
 he could, like myself, think on no other subject. 
 
 Yet my honours stopped not here ; for Hetty, who, 
 with her sposo, was here to receive us, told me she had 
 lately met Mrs. Reynolds, sister of Sir Joshua ; and that 
 she talked very much and very highl}^ of a new novel 
 called ' Evelina ;' though without a shadow of suspicion 
 as to the scribbler. . . . 
 
 Sir Joshua, it seems, vows he would give fifty pounds 
 to know the author ! I have also heard, by the means of 
 Charles, that other persons have declared they will find 
 him out ! 
 
 This intelligence determined me upon going myself 
 to Mr. Lowndes, and discovering what sort of answers
 
 76 The Bookscllcj- in the Dark. 
 
 he made to such curious inquirers as I found were hkely 
 to address him. But as I did not dare trust myself to 
 speak, for I felt that I should not be able to act my part 
 well, I asked my mother to accompany me. 
 
 We introduced ourselves by buying the book, for 
 
 which I had a commission from Mrs. G . Fortunately 
 
 Mr. Lowndes himself was in the shop ; as we found by 
 his air of consequence and authority, as well as his age ; 
 for I never saw him before. 
 
 The moment he had given my mother the book, she 
 asked if he could tell her who wrote it. 
 
 ' No,' he answered : ' I don't know myself.' 
 
 ' Pho, pho,' said she ; ' you mayn't choose to tell, but 
 you must know.' 
 
 ' I don't, indeed, ma'am,* answered he ; 'I have no 
 honour in keeping the secret, for I have never been 
 trusted. All I know of the matter is, that it is a gentle- 
 man of the other end of the town.' 
 
 My mother made a thousand other inquiries, to which 
 his answers were to the following effect : that for a great 
 while, he did not know if it was a man or a woman ; but 
 now, he knew that much, and that he was a master of 
 his subject, and well versed in the manners of the 
 times." 
 
 A few days after this, Mrs. Thrale called in St. Martin's 
 Street, and carried her new acquaintance down to 
 Streatham : 
 
 '■' At night, Mrs. Thrale asked if I would have anything? 
 I answered, ' No ;' but Dr. Johnson said, — 
 
 ' Ves : she is used, madam, to suppers ; she would like 
 an e.^'g or two, and a few slices of ham, or a rasher — a 
 rasher, I believe, would please her better.' 
 
 How ridiculous ! However, nothing could persuade
 
 Visits to tJic Thralcs. 
 
 / / 
 
 Mrs. Thrale not to have the cloth laid ; and Dr. Johnson 
 was so facetious, that he challenged Mr. Thrale to get 
 drunk ! 
 
 *I wish,' said he, 'my master would say to mc. 
 Johnson, if you will oblige me, you will call for a bottle of 
 Toulon, and then we will set to it, glass for glass, till it is 
 done ; and after that I will say, Thrale, if you will oblige 
 me, you will call for another bottle of Toulon, and then 
 we will set to it, glass for glass, till that is done : and by 
 the time we should have drunk the two bottles we should 
 be so happy, and such good friends, that we should ily 
 into each other's arms, and both together call for the 
 third !' 
 
 I ate nothing, that the}^ might not again use such a 
 ceremony with me. Indeed, their late dinners forbid 
 suppers, especially as Dr. Johnson made me eat cake at 
 tea ; for he held it till I took it, with an odd or absent 
 complaisance. 
 
 He was extremely comical after supper, and would not 
 suffer Mrs. Thrale and me to go to bed for near an hour 
 after we made the motion. . . . 
 
 Now for this morning's breakfast. 
 
 Dr. Johnson, as usual, came last mto the library ; he 
 V\^as in high spirits, and full of mirth and sport. I had 
 the honour of sitting next to him : and now, all at once, 
 he flung aside his reserve, thinking, perhaps, that it was 
 time I should fling aside mine. 
 
 Mrs. Thrale told him that she intended taking me to 
 Mr. T 's. 
 
 ' So you ought, madam,' cried he ; ' 'tis your business 
 to be cicerone to her.' 
 
 Then suddenly he snatched my hand, and kissing it, 
 
 ' Ah !' he added, ' they will little think what a tartar 
 you carry to them !'
 
 yS Table-Talk. 
 
 ' No, that they won't!' cried Mrs. Thrale; * Miss Burney 
 looks so meek and so quiet, nobody would suspect what a 
 comical girl she is ; but I believe she has a great deal of 
 malice at heart,' 
 
 ' Oh, she's a toad !' cried the doctor, laughing — ' a sly 
 young rogue ! with her Smiths and her Branghtons !" 
 
 ' Why, Dr. Johnson,' said J\Irs. Thrale, ' I hope you 
 are very well this morning ! If one may judge by your 
 spirits and good-humour, the fever you threatened us with 
 is gone off.' 
 
 He had complained that he was going to be ill last 
 night. 
 
 'Why, no, madam, no,' answered he, 'I am not 5^et 
 well ; I could not sleep at all ; there I lay, restless and 
 uneasy, and thinking all the time of Miss Burney. Perhaps 
 I have offended her, thought I ; perhaps she is angry ; I 
 have seen her but once, and I talked to her of a rasher ! 
 — Were you angry?' 
 
 I think I need not tell you my answer. 
 
 ' I have been endeavouring to find some excuse," con- 
 tinued he, ' and, as I could not sleep, I got up, and looked 
 for some authority for the word ; and I find, madam, it is 
 used b}^ Dryden : in one of his prologues he says — " And 
 snatch a homely rasher from the coals." So you must not 
 mind me, madam ; I say strange things, but I mean no 
 harm.' 
 
 I was almost afraid he thought I was really idiot 
 enough to have taken him seriously ; but, a few minutes 
 after, he put his hand on my arm, and shaking his head, 
 exclaimed : 
 
 ' Oh, you are a sly little rogue ! — what a Holborn beau 
 have you drawn !' 
 
 ' Ay, Miss Burney,' said Mrs. Thrale, ' the Holborn 
 beau is Dr. Johnson's favourite ; and we have all your
 
 Mr. Smith. 79 
 
 characters by heart, from Mr. Smith up to Lady- 
 Louisa.' 
 
 ' Oh, Mr. Smith, Mr. Smith is the man !' cried he, 
 laughing violently. ' Harry Fielding never drew so good 
 a character ! — such a fine varnish of low politeness ! — such 
 a struggle to appear a gentleman ! Madam, there is no 
 character better drawn anywhere — in any book, or by any 
 author.' 
 
 I almost poked myself under the table. Never did I 
 feel so delicious a confusion since I was born ! But he 
 added a great deal more, only I cannot recollect his exact 
 words, and I do not choose to give him mine. 
 
 * Come, come,' cried Mrs. Thrale, ' we'll torm.ent her 
 no more about her book, for I see it really plagues 
 her. I own I thought for awhile it was only affectation, 
 for I'm sure if the book were mine I should wish to hear 
 of nothing else. But we shall teach her in time how 
 proud she ought to be of such a performance.' 
 
 ' Ah, madam,' cried the Doctor, ' be in no haste to 
 teach her that ; she'll speak no more to us when she 
 knows her own weight.' .... 
 
 Some time after the Doctor began laughing to himself, 
 and then, suddenly turning to me, he called out, ' Only 
 think, Polly ! Miss has danced with a lord !' 
 
 ' Ah, poor Evelina 1' cried Mrs. Thrale, ' I see her 
 now in Kensington Gardens. What she must have 
 suffered ! Poor girl ! what fidgets she must have been in! 
 And I know Mr. Smith, too, very well ; I always have 
 him before me at the Hampstead Ball, dressed in a white 
 coat, and a tambour waistcoat, worked in green silk. 
 Poor Mr. Seward ! Mr. Johnson made him so mad 
 t'other day ! " Why, Se\\ard," said he, " how smart you 
 are dressed ! Wh}' you only want a tambour waistcoat, 
 to look like Mr. Smith!" But I am very fond of Lady
 
 So JoJuison and GoldsinitJi. 
 
 Louisa. I think her as well drawn as an}- character in 
 the book — so fine, so affected, so languishing, and, at the 
 same time, so insolent !' .... 
 
 As I have always heard from my father that every 
 individual at Streatham spends the morning alone, I took 
 the first opportunity of absconding to my own room, and 
 amused myself in writing till I tired. About noon, when 
 I went into the library, book-hunting, Mrs. Thrale came 
 to me. 
 
 We had a very nice confab about various books, and 
 exchanged opinions and imitations of Baretti ; she told me 
 many excellent tales of him, and I, in return, related m\- 
 stories. 
 
 She gave me a long and very interesting account of 
 Dr. Goldsmith, who was intimately known here ; but in 
 speaking of ' The Good-natured Man,' when I extolled 
 my favourite Croaker, I found that admirable character 
 was a downright theft from Dr. Johnson. Look at the 
 * Rambler,' and you will find Suspirius is the man, and 
 that not merely the idea, but the particulars of the 
 character are all stolen thence I"^' 
 
 While we were yet reading this ' Rambler,' Dr. Johnson 
 came in : we told him what we were about. 
 
 ' Ah, madam !' cried he, ' Goldsmith was not scrupu- 
 lous ; but he would have been a great man had he known 
 the real value of his own internal resources.' 
 
 ' Miss Burney,' said Mrs. Thrale, ' is fond of his 
 *' Vicar of Wakefield," and so am I ; don't you like it, 
 sir?' 
 
 * No, madam : it is very fault}". There is nothing of 
 real life in it, and very little of nature. It is a mere 
 fanciful performance.' 
 
 * Suspirius ihe Screech Owl. Sec ' Rambler' for Tuesday, October 9, 1750.
 
 Johnson and the Scotch. 8i 
 
 He then seated himself upon a sofa, and calHnf^ to mc, 
 said : ' Come, EveHna — come, and sit by me.' 
 
 I obeyed, and he took me almost in his arms — that is, 
 one of his arms, for one would ^o three times, at least, 
 round me — and, half-laughing, half-serious, he charged me 
 to ' be a good girl.' 
 
 ' But, my dear,' continued he with a very droll look, 
 ^ what makes you so fond of the Scotch ? I don't like you 
 for that ; I hate these Scotch, and so must you. I wish 
 Branghton had sent the dog to jail — that Scotch dog. 
 Macartney !' 
 
 ' Why, sir,' said Mrs. Thrale, ' don't you remember he 
 says he would, but that he should get nothing by it ?' 
 
 ' Why, ay, true,' cried the Doctor, see-sawing very 
 solemnly, ' that, indeed, is some palliation for his for- 
 bearance. But I must not have you so fond of the Scotch, 
 my little Burney ; make your hero what you will but a 
 Scotchman. Besides, j^ou write Scotch — you say, " the 
 •one." My dear, that's not English — never use that phrase 
 again.' 
 
 ' Perhaps,' said Mrs. Thrale, ' it may be used in 
 Macartney's letter, and then it will be a propriet}-.' 
 
 * No, madam, no !' cried he ; ' you can't make a 
 beauty of it ; it is in the third volume ; put it in Macart- 
 ney's letter, and welcome! — that, or anything that is 
 nonsense.' 
 
 * Why, surely,' cried I, ' the poor man is used ill 
 enough by the Branghtons !' 
 
 ' But Branghton,' said he, ' only hates him because of 
 his wretchedness, poor fellow ! But, my dear love, how 
 should he ever have eaten a good dinner before he came 
 to England ?' 
 
 And then he laughed violently at young Branghton's 
 idea. 
 
 6
 
 82 Civil for Four. 
 
 ' Well,' said Mrs. Thrale, * I always liked Macartney ; 
 he is a very pretty character, and I took to him, as the 
 folks say.' 
 
 'Why, madam,' answered he, ' I liked Macartney myself. 
 Yes, poor fellow, I liked the man, but I love not the nation.' " 
 
 Miss Burney's visit on this occasion lasted several days, 
 and it was speedily followed by another and another. 
 Mrs. Thrale, having discovered a fresh attraction for her 
 country house, hastened to turn it to the best account. 
 The friendship between her and the new authoress 
 developed with the rapid growth peculiar to feminine 
 attachments. And Fanny enjoyed her life at Streatham. 
 Dr. Johnson was nearly always there ; she liked the 
 family ; and the opulent establishment, with its well-kept 
 gardens, hot-houses, shrubberies, and paddock, had all 
 the charm of novelty to a young woman, whose time had 
 long been divided between the smoky atmosphere of 
 Leicester Fields and the desolation of Liberty Hall. The 
 great Doctor, \vhose affection for her increased daily, took 
 an early opportunitj^ of saying to her : ' These are as good 
 people as you can be with ; you can go to no better house ; 
 they are all good -nature; nothing makes them angry.' 
 She found no cause to complain of Mr. Thrale's curt 
 speech, or the eldest daughter's cold manner, or the 
 roughness of Ursa Major, though she has reported Mrs. 
 Thrale's quick answer to Johnson when he asked the 
 motive of his hostess's excessive complaisance : ' Why, 
 I'll tell you, sir ; when I am with you, and Mr. Thrale, 
 and Queeny, I am obliged to be civil for four.' 
 
 If Mrs. Thrale engrossed a large share of her novice's 
 time this autumn, she took pains to make her talk a little in 
 company, and prepared her, in some degree, for the ordeal 
 that awaited her during the ensuing winter in London.
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds. 8 
 
 J- 
 
 Numerous visitors were invited to Streatham to become 
 acquainted with the timid young writer, who, though 
 accustomed to society, had never yet learned to make her 
 voice heard in a circle of listeners. One afternoon Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds and his nieces came down, and on their 
 arrival, the conversation being turned to the subject of 
 Evelina, they were informed that they should meet the 
 author at dinner. After a good deal of guessing, the 
 suspicions of the guests settled on the lady of the house^ 
 who sportively assumed a conscious air, but before the 
 close of the day, the secret was allowed to transpire, and 
 when the party broke up, Sir Joshua, approaching Miss 
 Burney, with his most courtl}^ bow, hoped that as soon as- 
 she left Streatham he should have the honour of seeing- 
 her in Leicester Square. 
 
 " The joke is," writes Fanny, " the people speak as 
 if they were afraid of me, instead of my being afraid 
 
 of them Next morning, Mrs. Thrale asked me 
 
 if I did not want to see Mrs. Montagu ? I truly saidy. 
 I should be the most insensible of animals not to like to 
 see our sex's glory." A note was despatched accord- 
 ingly, and the glory of her sex graciously accepted. On 
 hearing of this, " Dr. Johnson began to see-saw, with a. 
 countenance strongly expressive of inward fun, and after 
 enjoying it some time in silence, he suddenly, and witb 
 great animation, turned to me, and cried : ' Down with_ 
 her, Burney ! — down with her ! — spare her not ! — attack 
 her, fight her, and down with her at once ! You are a 
 rising wit, and she is at the top ; and when I was 
 beginning the world, and was nothing and nobody, the. 
 joy of my life was to fire at all the established wits ! and 
 then everybody loved to halloo me on. But there is no 
 game now; everybody would be glad to see me conquered: 
 but then, when I was new, to vanquish the great ones was- 
 
 6—2
 
 84 Mrs. Montagu. 
 
 ?.ll the delight of my poor httle dear soul ! So at her, 
 Burney — at her, and down with her.'" The Queen of the 
 Blue Stockings arrived, attended by her companion, a 
 Miss Gregory ; and the usual presentation and disclosure 
 took place. Fanny, of course, had not much to say for 
 herself, but the observant eyes were busy as usual. This 
 is their report of Mrs. Montagu ; " She is middle-sized, 
 very thin, and looks infirm ; she has a sensible and pene- 
 trating countenance, and the air and manner of a woman 
 accustomed to being distinguished, and of great parts. 
 Dr. Johnson, who agrees in this, told us that Mrs. 
 Hervey, of his acquaintance, says she can remember Mrs. 
 Montagu trying for this same air and manner. Mr. Crisp 
 has said the same : however, nobody can now impartially 
 see her, and not confess that she has extremely well 
 succeeded." When dinner v.-as upon table, the observer 
 followed the procession, in a tragedy step, as Mr. Thrale 
 would have it, into the dining-room. The conversation 
 was not brilliant, nor is much of it recorded. When Mrs. 
 Montagu's new house* was talked of. Dr. Johnson, in a 
 jocose manner, desired to know if he should be invited 
 to see it. ' Ay, sure,' cried Mrs. Montagu, looking well 
 pleased ; ' or else I shan't like it : but I invite you all to a 
 house-warming ; I shall hope for the honour of seeing all 
 this company at my new house next Easter-day : I fix 
 the day now that it may be remembered.' " Dr. Johnson," 
 adds Fanny, "who sat next to me, was determined I should 
 be of the party, for he suddenly clapped his hand on my 
 shoulder, and called out aloud : ' Little Burney, you and I 
 will go together.' ' Yes, surely,' cried Mrs. Montagu, ' I 
 shall hope for the pleasure of seeing Evelina.'" 
 
 It was at Streatham shortly afterwards that Miss 
 Burney made her first acquaintance with James Boswell. 
 
 * She was then building her famous house in Poitman Square.
 
 BosicclL 85 
 
 We do not get our account of this meeting direct from 
 the Diary, and have to take it as it stands in the 
 Memoirs, dressed up by the pen of the aged Madame 
 d'Arblay. Boswell, we are told, had a strong Scotch 
 accent, though by no means strong enough to make him 
 unintelHgible to an Enghsh ear. He had an odd mock 
 solemnity of tone and manner that he had acquired un- 
 consciously from constantly thinking of, and imitating, 
 Johnson. There was also something slouching in the 
 gait and dress of Mr. Boswell that ridiculously caricatured 
 the same model. His clothes were always too large for 
 him ; his hair, or wig, was constantly in a state of negli- 
 gence ; and he never for a moment sat still or upright in 
 his chair. Every look and movement betrayed either in- 
 tentional or involuntary imitation ; 
 
 *' As Mr. Boswell was at Streatham only upon a morn- 
 ing visit, a collation was ordered, to which all were as- 
 sembled. Mr. Boswell was preparing to take a seat that 
 he seemed, by prescription, to consider as his own, next 
 to Dr. Johnson ; but Mr. Seward, who was present, 
 waved his hand for Mr. Boswell to move farther on, sa}^- 
 ing with a smile : 
 
 " ' Mr. Boswell, that seat is Miss Burney's.' 
 " He stared, amazed : the asserted claimant was new 
 and unknown to him, and he appeared by no means 
 pleased to resign his prior rights. But after looking 
 round for a minute or two, with an important air of 
 demanding the meaning of the innovation, and receiving 
 no satisfaction, he reluctantly, almost resentfully, got 
 another chair, and placed it at the back of the shoulder 
 of Dr. Johnson ; while this new and unheard-of rival 
 quietly seated herself as if not hearing what was passing, 
 for she shrank from the explanation that she feared might
 
 'S6 BosiuclL 
 
 -ensue, as she saw a smile stealing over every countenance, 
 that of Dr. Johnson himself not excepted, at the discom- 
 fiture and surprise of Mr. Boswell. 
 
 " Mr. Boswell, however, was so situated as not to 
 Temark it in the Doctor ; and of everyone else, when in 
 that presence, he was unobservant, if not contemptuous. 
 In truth, when he met with Dr. Johnson, he commonly 
 forbore even answering anything that went forward, lest 
 he should miss the smallest sound from that voice to 
 Avhich he paid such exclusive, though merited, homage. 
 But the moment that voice burst forth, the attention 
 which it excited in Mr. Boswell amounted almost to pain. 
 His eyes goggled with eagerness ; he leant his ear almost 
 on the shoulder of the Doctor ; and his mouth dropped 
 ■ open to catch every syllable that might be uttered : nay, 
 he seemed not only to dread losing a word, but to be 
 anxious not to miss a breathing ; as if hoping from it, 
 latently or mystically, some information. 
 
 " But when, in a few minutes, Dr. Johnson, whose eye 
 •did not follow him, and who had concluded him to be at 
 the other end of the table, said something gaily and 
 good-humouredly, b}^ the appellation of Bozzy, and dis- 
 covered, by the sound of the reply, that Bozzy had planted 
 himself, as closely as he could, behind and between 
 the elbows of the new usurper and his own, the Doctor 
 turned angrily round upon him, and, clapping his hand 
 rather loudly upon his knee, said, in a tone of displeasure : 
 '^ What do you do there, sir ? — Go to the table, sir !' 
 
 " Mr. Boswell instantly, and with an air of affright, 
 obeyed ; and there was something so unusual in such 
 humble submission to so imperious a command, that 
 another smile gleamed its way across every mouth, except 
 that of the Doctor and of Mr. Boswell, who now, very 
 lui willingly, took a distant seat.
 
 The Braiightons. '^^ 
 
 " But, ever restless when not at the side of Dr. Johnson, 
 he presently recollected something that he wished to 
 exhibit; and, hastily rising, was running away in its search, 
 when the Doctor, calling after him, authoritatively said : 
 ' What are you thinking of, sir ? Why do you get up before 
 the cloth is removed ? — Come back to your place, sir !' 
 
 " Again, and with equal obsequiousness, Mr. Boswell 
 did as he was bid ; when the Doctor, pursing his lips not 
 to betray rising risibility, muttered half to himself: ' Run- 
 ning about in the middle of meals ! One would take you 
 for a Branghton !' 
 
 " ' A Branghton, sir ?' repeated Mr. Boswell, with 
 earnestness ; ' what is a Branghton, sir ?' 
 
 " ' Where have you lived, sir?' cried the Doctor, laugh- 
 ing; 'and what company have you kept, not to know that ?' 
 
 " Mr. Boswell now, doubly curious, yet always appre- 
 hensive of falling into some disgrace with Dr. Johnson, 
 said, in a low tone, which he knew the Doctor could 
 not hear, to Mrs. Thrale : * Pray, ma'am, what's a 
 Branghton ? Do me the favour to tell me ! Is it some 
 animal hereabouts ?' 
 
 ** Mrs. Thrale only heartily laughed, but without answer- 
 ing, as she saw one of her guests uneasily fearful of an 
 explanation. But Mr. Seward cried : * I'll tell you, 
 Boswell — I'll tell you ! — if you will walk with me into 
 the paddock ; only let us wait till the table is cleared, or 
 I shall be taken for a Branghton, too !' 
 
 "They soon went off together; and Mr. Boswell, no 
 doubt, was fully informed of the road that had led to the 
 usurpation by which he had thus been annoyed. But the 
 Branghton fabricator took care to mount to her chamber 
 ere they returned, and did not come down till Mr. Boswell 
 was gone." 
 
 The following December and January Miss Burney
 
 88 Mrs. Cholinondeley. 
 
 spent at home. She paid her promised visit to Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds : 
 
 " We found the Miss Palmers alone. We were, for near 
 an hour, quite easy, chatty, and comfortable ; no pointed 
 speech was made, and no starer entered. 
 
 " Just then, Mrs. and Miss Horncck were an- 
 nounced .... 
 
 " Mrs. Horneck, as I found in the course of the evening, 
 is an exceeding sensible, well-bred woman.* Her daughter 
 is very beautiful ; but was low-spirited and silent during 
 the whole visit. She was, indeed, very unhappy, as Miss 
 Palmer informed me, upon account of some ill news she 
 had lately heard of the affairs of a gentleman to whom 
 she is shortly to be married. 
 
 " Not long after came a whole troop, consisting of Mr. 
 Cholmondeley ! — O perilous name ! — Miss Cholmondele}-, 
 and Miss Fanny Cholmondeley, his daughters, and Miss 
 Forrest. Mrs. Cholmondeley, I found, was engaged else- 
 where, but soon expected. 
 
 " Now here was a trick of Sir Joshua, to make me meet 
 all these people ! 
 
 " Mr. Cholmondeley is a clergyman ; nothing shining 
 either in person or manners, but rather somewhat grim 
 in the first, and glum in the last. Yet he appears to have 
 humour himself, and to enjoy it much in others .... 
 
 " Next came my father, all gaiety and spirits. Then 
 Mr. William Burke. Soon after. Sir Joshua returned 
 home. He paid his compliments to everybody, and then 
 brought a chair next mine, and said : 
 
 * Mrs. Horneck vas the wife of General Horncck. Her two daughters 
 INIrs. Bunbury and Miss Horneck (afterwards Mrs. Gwynn), were celebrated 
 lieauties, and their portraits rank among the best productions of Sir Joshua 
 Keynokls's pencil Mary Horneck was Goldsmith's Jessamy Bride, and became 
 the wife of one of George HI.'s equerries ; her sister married Harry Bunljury, 
 'the graceful and humorous amateur artist,' as Thackeray calls him, ' of thoac 
 days, when Gilray had but just begun to try his powers.'
 
 Talk ivith Sir Joshua. S9 
 
 *'' * So you were afraid to come arnoi^:; us ?' 
 
 " I don't know if I wrote to you a speech to that pur- 
 pose, which I made to the Miss Palmers ? and which, I 
 suppose, they had repeated to him. He went on, saying 
 I might as well fear hobgoblins, and that I had only to 
 hold up my head to be above them alL 
 
 " After this address, his behaviour was exactly what my 
 wishes would have dictated to him, for my own ease and 
 quietness ; for he never once even alluded to my book, 
 but conversed rationally, gaily, and serenel}- : and so I 
 became more comfortable than I had been ever since the 
 first entrance of company .... 
 
 " Our confab was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. 
 King; a gentleman who is, it seems, for ever with the 
 Burkes ; and presently Lord Palmerston-^ was announced. 
 
 " Well, while this was going forward, a violent rapping 
 bespoke, I was sure, Mrs. Cholmondeley, and I ran froni 
 the standers, and turning my back against the door, looked 
 over Miss Palmer's cards ; for you may well imagine I 
 was really in a tremor at a meeting which so long has 
 been in agitation, and with the person who, of all persons, 
 has been most warm and enthusiastic for my book. 
 
 " She had not, however, been in the room half an 
 instant, ere my father came up to mc, and tapping me on 
 the shoulder, said, ' Fanny, here's a lad}' who wishes to 
 speak to you.' 
 
 " I curtseyed in silence ; she too curtseyed, and fixed 
 her eyes full on my face, and then tapping mc v/ith her 
 fan, she cried : 
 
 *" Come, come, you must not look grave upon mc.' 
 
 *' Upon this, I te-he'd ; she now looked at me yet more 
 earnestly, and, after an odd silence, said, abruptly : 
 
 * Henry Temple, second Visccunt raIincr-.lon, father of the Trhiic Muilster.
 
 90 
 
 * Is it True ?' 
 
 "'But is it true?' 
 
 " ' What, ma'am ?' 
 
 " ' It can't be ! — tell me, though, is it true ?' 
 
 " I could only simper. 
 
 " ' Why don't you tell me ? — but it can't be — I don't 
 believe it ! — no, you are an impostor !' 
 
 *' Sir Joshua and Lord Palmerston were both at her 
 side — oh, how notably silly must I look ! She again 
 repeated her question of ' Is it true ?' and I again 
 affected not to understand her ; and then Sir Joshua, 
 taking hold of her arm, attempted to pull her away, 
 saying : 
 
 "■ ' Come, come, Mrs. Cholmondeley, I won't have her 
 overpowered here !' 
 
 " I love Sir Joshua much for this. But Mrs. Chol- 
 mondeley, turning to him, said, with quickness and 
 vehemence : 
 
 "'Why, I ain't going to' kill her! don't be afraid, I 
 shan't compliment her ! — I can't, indeed !' " 
 
 Then came a scene in which Mrs. Cholmondeley pur- 
 sued Fanny across the room, hunted her round the card- 
 table, and finally drove her to take refuge behind a sofa, 
 continually plying her with questions, and receiving her 
 confused replies with exclamations of Mafoi ! pardic ! and 
 other phrases borrowed from Madame Duval. At length : 
 
 " Mrs. Choi. : My Lord Palmerston, I was told to-night 
 that nobody could see your lordship for me, for that you 
 supped at my house every night ! Dear, bless me, no ! 
 cried I, not every night ! and I looked as confused as I 
 was able ; but I am afraid I did not blush, though I tried 
 hard for it ! 
 
 " Then again turning to me : 
 
 *' * That Mr. What-d'ye-call-him, in Fleet Street, is a
 
 Mrs. CJiobiiondelcys Whiinsical JManncr. qi 
 
 mighty silly fellow ; — perhaps you don't know who I 
 mean ? — one T. Lowndes, — but maybe you don't know 
 such a person ?' 
 
 " F . B. : No, indeed, I do not ! — that I can safely say. 
 
 " Mrs. Choi. : I could get nothing from him : but I told 
 him I hoped he gave a good price : and he answered me, 
 that he always did things genteel. What trouble and 
 
 tagging we had ! Mr. laid a wager the writer was 
 
 a man : — I said I was sure it was a woman : but now we 
 are both out ; for it's a girl ! 
 
 " In this comical, queer, flighty, whimsical manner she 
 ran on, till we were summoned to supper 
 
 " When we broke up to depart, which was not till near 
 two in the morning, Mrs. Cholmondeley went up to my 
 mother, and begged her permission to visit in St. Martin's 
 Street. Then, as she left the room, she said to me, with 
 a droll sort of threatening look : 
 
 " ' You have not got rid of me yet : I have been forcing 
 myself into your house.' 
 
 " I must own I was not at all displeased at this, as I 
 had very much and very reasonably feared that she would 
 have been by then as sick of me from disappointment, as 
 she was before eager for me from curiosity. 
 
 *' When we came away, Offy Palmer, laughing, said to me : 
 
 *' ' I think this will be a breaking-in to you !' " 
 
 We have next a visit to the house of the persecutor : 
 
 " On Monday last, my father sent a note to Mrs. Chol- 
 mondeley, to propose our waiting on her the Wednesday 
 followi-ng : she accepted the proposal, and accordingly, on 
 Wednesday evening, my father, mother, and self went to 
 Hertford Street. 
 
 " I should have told you that Mrs. Cholmondeley, when 
 my father some time ago called on licr, sent me a message.
 
 92 Visit to Airs. Cholinondeley. 
 
 that if I would go to see her, I should not again be stared 
 at or worried ; and she acknowledged that my visit at Sir 
 Joshua's was a formidable one, and that I was watched 
 the whole evening ; but that upon the whole, the company 
 behaved extremely well, for they only ogled ! 
 
 "Well, we were received by Mrs. Cholmondeley with 
 great politeness, and in a manner that showed she in- 
 tended to entirely throw aside Madame Duval, and to 
 conduct herself towards me in a new style. 
 
 " Mr. and the Misses Cholmondeley and Miss Forrest 
 were with her ; but who else think you ? — why, Mrs. 
 Sheridan ! I was absolutely charmed at the sight of her. 
 I think her quite as beautiful as ever, and even more 
 captivating ; for she has now a look of ease and happiness 
 that animates her whole face. 
 
 " Miss Linley was with her ; she is very handsome, but 
 nothing near her sister : the elegance of Mrs. Sheridan's 
 beauty is unequalled by any I ever saw, except Mrs. 
 Crewe.* I was pleased with her in all respects. She is 
 much more lively and agreeable than I had an}- idea of 
 finding her : she was very gay, and very unaffected, and 
 totally free from airs of any kind. 
 
 " Miss Linley was very much out of spirits ; she did not 
 speak three words the whole evening, and looked wholly 
 unmoved at all that passed. Indeed, she appeared to be 
 heavy and inanimate. 
 
 " Mrs. Cholmondeley sat next me. She is determined, I 
 believe, to make me like her : and she will, I believe, have 
 full success ; for she is very clever, \'ery entertaining, and 
 very much unlike anybody else. 
 
 " The first subject started was the Opera, and all joined 
 in the praise of Pacchierotti. Mrs. Sheridan declared 
 she could not hear him without tears, and that he was 
 * Daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Grcville ; afterw.inls Lady Crewe.
 
 ]\lr. Cumberland. 93 
 
 the first Italian singer who ever affected her to such a 
 degree. 
 
 "They then talked of the intended marriage of the 
 Duke of Dorset with Miss Cumberland, and many ridicu- 
 lous anecdotes were related. The conversation naturally 
 fell upon Mr. Cumberland, and he was finely cut up ! 
 
 '''What a man is that !' said Mrs. Cholmondeley ; 'I 
 cannot bear him — so querulous, so dissatisfied, so deter- 
 mined to like nobody and nothing but himself!' 
 
 " ' What, Mr. Cumberland ?' exclaimed I. 
 
 " 'Yes,' answered she ; ' I hope you don't like him ?' 
 
 "'I don't know him, ma'am. I have only seen him 
 once, at Mrs. Ord's." 
 
 " ' Oh, don't like him for your life ! I charge you not ! 
 I hope you did not like his looks ?' 
 
 " ' Why,' quoth I, laughing, ' I went prepared and 
 determined to like him ; but perhaps, when I see him 
 next, I may go prepared for the contrary.' 
 
 " A rat-tat-tat-tat ensued, and the Earl of Harcourt was 
 announced. When he had paid his compliments to Mrs. 
 Cholmondele}^ — 
 
 " ' I knew, ma'am,' he said, 'that I should find you at 
 home.' 
 
 " ' I suppose then, my lord,' said she, ' that 3'ou have 
 seen Sir Joshua Reynolds ; for he is engaged to be 
 here.' 
 
 "'I have,' answered his lordship; 'and heard from 
 him that I should be sure to find you.' 
 
 " And then he added some very fine compliment, but I 
 have forgot it. 
 
 "'Oh, my lord,' cried she, 'you have the most dis- 
 cernment of anybody ! His lordship (turning another 
 way) always says these things to me, and yet he never 
 flatters.'
 
 94 ^ Hint for a Comedy. 
 
 " Lord Harcourt, speaking of the lady from whose 
 house he was just come, said : 
 
 " * j\Irs. Vesey® is vastly agreeable, but her fear of cere- 
 mony is really troublesome : for her eagerness to break a 
 circle is such, that she insists upon everybody's sitting 
 with their backs one to another ; that is, the chairs are 
 drawn into little parties of three together, in a confused 
 manner, all over the room.' 
 
 " ' Wh}^ then,' said my father, 'they may have the 
 pleasure of caballing and cutting up one another, even in 
 the same room,' 
 
 " ' Oh, I like the notion of all things,' cried Mrs. 
 Cholmondeley ; ' I shall certainly adopt it !' 
 
 "And then she drew her chair into the middle of our 
 circle. Lord Harcourt turned his round, and his back to 
 most of us, and my father did the same. You can't 
 imagine a more absurd sight. 
 
 "Just then the door opened, and Mr. Sheridan 
 entered. 
 
 "Was I noi; in luck ? Not that I believe the meeting 
 was accidental ; but I had more wished to meet him and 
 his wife than any people I know not. 
 
 " I could not endure my ridiculous situation, but re- 
 placed myself in an orderly manner immediately. Mr. 
 Sheridan stared at them all, and Mrs. Cholmondeley said 
 she intended it as a hint for a comedy. 
 
 " Mr. Sheridan has a very fine figure, and a good, though 
 I don't think a handsome, face. He is tall, and very up- 
 right, and his appearance and address are at once manly 
 
 * Well known as the founder of the has bleu meetings, and the author of the 
 name. j\Ir. Edward Slillingrleet, a writer on natural history, who was one of 
 her favourite guests, always wore blue stockings, and a phrase used by her, 
 ' Come in your blue stockings,' or 'We can do nothing without the blue 
 stockings,' caused ths has bleu to be adopted as the symbol of her literary 
 parlies,'
 
 A Charmed Circle. 95 
 
 and fashionable, without the smallest tincture of foppery 
 or modish graces. In short, I like him vastly, and think 
 him every way worthy his beautiful companion. 
 
 " And let me tell you what I know will give you as 
 much pleasure as it gave me — that, by all I could observe 
 in the course of the evening, and we stayed very late, 
 they are extremely happy in each other : he evidently 
 adores her, and she as evidently idolizes him. The world 
 has by no means done him justice. 
 
 "When he had paid his compliments to all his acquaint- 
 ance, he went behind the sofa on which Mrs. Sheridan 
 and Miss Cholmondeley were seated, and entered into 
 earnest conversation with them. 
 
 " Upon Lord Harcourt's again paying Mrs. Cholmon- 
 deley some compliment, she said : 
 
 " 'Well, my lord, after this I shall be quite sublime for 
 some days ! I shan't descend into common life till — till 
 Saturday, and then I shall drop into the vulgar style — I 
 shall be in the ma foi way. 
 
 " I do really believe she could not resist this, for she had 
 seemed determined to be quiet. 
 
 "When next there was a rat-tat, Mrs. Cholmondeley 
 and Lord Harcourt, and my father again, at the command 
 of the former, moved into the middle of the room, and 
 then Sir Joshua Reynolds and Dr. Warton entered. 
 
 " No further company came. You may imagine there 
 was a general roar at the breaking of the circle, and 
 when they got into order, Mr. Sheridan seated himself in 
 the place Mrs. Cholmondeley had left, betv/een my father 
 and myself. 
 
 "And now I must tell you a little conversation which I 
 did not hear myself till I came home ; it was between 
 Mr. Sheridan and my father. 
 
 '• ' Dr. Burney,' cried the former, ' have you no older
 
 96 S/icridaji. 
 
 daughters ? Can this possibly be the authoress of 
 ' Evehna '?' 
 
 " And then he said abundance of fine things, and begged 
 my father to introduce him to me. 
 
 "'Wh}', it will be a very formidable thing to her,' 
 answered he, ' to be introduced to you.' 
 
 " ' Well, then, by-and-by,' returned he. 
 
 " Some time after this, my eyes happening to meet his, 
 he waived the ceremony of introduction, and in a low 
 voice said : 
 
 " ' I have been telling Dr. Burney that I have long 
 expected to see in Miss Burney a lady of the gravest 
 appearance, with the quickest parts.' 
 
 " I was never much more astonished than at this un- 
 expected address, as among all my numerous puffers the 
 name of Sheridan has never reached me, and I did really 
 imagine he had never deigned to look at my trash. 
 
 " Of course I could make no verbal answer, and he pro- 
 ceeded then to speak of 'Evelina ' in terms of the highest 
 praise ; but I was in such a ferment from surprise (not to 
 sa}^ pleasure), that I have no recollection of his expres- 
 sions. I only remember telling him that I was much 
 amazed he had spared time to read it, and that he re- 
 peatedly called it a most surprising book; and some time 
 after he added : ' But I hope, Miss Burney, you don't 
 intend to throw away your pen ?' 
 
 " ' You should take care, sir,' said I, 'what you say: for 
 you know not what weight it may have.' 
 
 " He wished it might have any, he said; and soon after 
 turned again to my father. 
 
 " I protest, since the approbation of the Streathamites, 
 I have met with none so flattering to me as this of Mr. 
 Sheridan, and so very unexpected 
 
 " Some time after, Sir Joshua returning to his standing-
 
 Not a Fair Question. 97 
 
 place, entered into confab with Miss Linley and your 
 slave, upon various matters, during which Mr. Sheridan, 
 joining us, said : 
 
 " ' Sir Joshua, I have been telling Miss Burne\' that 
 she must not suffer her pen to lie idle — ought she ?' 
 
 " Sir Joshua : No, indeed, ought she not. 
 
 " Mr. Sheridan : Do j'ou then, Sir Joshua, persuade her. 
 But perhaps 3'ou have begun something ? May we ask ? 
 Will you answer a question candidly ? 
 
 " F. B. : I don't know, but as candidly as Mrs. Candour 
 I think I certainly shall. 
 
 " Mr. Sheridan : What then are you about now ? 
 
 " /''. B. : Why, twirling my fan, I think ! 
 
 "Mr. Sheridan: No, no; but what are you about at 
 home ? However, it is not a fair question, so I won't 
 press it. 
 
 " Yet he looked very inquisitive ; but I was glad to get 
 off without any downright answer. 
 
 " Sir Joshua : Anything in the dialogue way, I think, 
 she must succeed in ; and I am sure invention will not be 
 wanting. 
 
 "Mr. Sheridan: No, indeed; I think, and say, she 
 should write a corned}-. 
 
 " Sir Joshua : I am sure I think so ; and hope she will. 
 
 " I could only answer by incredulous exclamations. 
 
 " ' Consider,' continued Sir Joshua, ' you have already 
 had all the applause and fame you can have given you in 
 the closet ; but the acclamation of a theatre will be new 
 to you.' 
 
 " And then he put down his trumpet, and began a 
 violent clapping of his hands. 
 
 " I actually shook from head to foot ! I felt myself 
 already in Drury Lane, amidst the hubbub of a first 
 night.
 
 qS Pressed to ]]'rite for the Stage. 
 
 " ' Oh no !' cried I ; ' there may be a noise, but it 
 will be just the reverse.' And I returned his salute \vith 
 a hissinf^. 
 
 " Mr. Sheridan joined Sir Joshua very warmly. 
 
 "Oh, sir!' cried I: 'you should not run on so — you 
 don't know what mischief you may do !' 
 
 " 'Sir. Sheridan : I wish I may — I shall be very glad to 
 be accessory." 
 
 We gather from the remarks made by Mrs. Chol- 
 mondeley and Sheridan in the preceding extracts that 
 Miss Burney at this time looked much younger than she 
 reall}' was. With her low stature, slight figure, and timid 
 air, she did not seem quite the woman. Probably this 
 vouthful appearance may have helped to set afloat the 
 rumour which confounded the age of her heroine with her 
 own. An unmarried lady of six-and-twenty could hardly 
 be expected to enter a formal plea of not guilty to the 
 oharge of being only a girl ; yet we shall see presently that 
 Mrs. Thrale was pretty well informed as to the number of 
 Fanny's years. 
 
 Some readers may be tempted to think that, with all 
 her coyness, she was enraptured by the pursuit of her 
 admirers. This is only to sa\- that she was a woman. 
 We must remember, moreover, that the Diar}^ which 
 betrays her feelings was not written with any design of 
 publication, but consisted of private letters, addressed 
 chiefly to her sister Susan, and intended to be shown to 
 no one out of her own family, save her attached Daddy 
 Crisp. ' If,' says Macaulay ver}' fairly, ' she recorded 
 with minute diligence all the compliments, delicate and 
 coarse, which she heard wherever she turned, she recorded 
 them for the eyes of two or three persons who had loved 
 licr from infancy, who had loved her in obscurity, and to.
 
 Flattered by Coiuptiniciits. 99 
 
 \vhom her fame gave the purest and most exquisite dchght. 
 Nothing can be more unjust than to confound these out- 
 pouring of a kind heart, sure of perfect sympathy, with 
 the egotism of a bhie stocking, who prates to all who 
 come near her about her own novel or her own volume 
 of sonnets.'
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ■Return to Streatham — Murphy the Dramatist — A Proposed Comedy — ' The- 
 Wiilinqs' —Adverse Judgment of Mr. Crisp and Dr. Burney — Fanny ti> 
 Mr. Crisp — Dr. Johnson on Miss Burney — A Visit to Brighton — Cumberland 
 ■ — An Eccentric Character — Sir Joshua's Prices — Tragedies — Actors and 
 Singers— Regrets for the Comedy — Crisp's Reply — The Lawrence Family 
 at Devizes — Lady Miller's Vase — The Gordon Riots — Precipitate Retreat — 
 Crub Street — Sudden Death of Mr. Thrale — Idleness and Work — A Sister 
 of the Craft — The Mausoleum of Julia — Progress of 'Cecilia' through the 
 Piess — Crisp's Judgment on ' Cecilia ' — Johnson and ' Cecilia ' — Publica- 
 tion of 'Cecdia' — Burke — His Letter to Miss Burney^Assembly at Miss 
 Monckton's — New Acquaintances — Soame Jenyns — Illness and Death of 
 Crisp— Mrs. Thralc's Struggles^Ilhhealth of Johnson — Mr. Burney Organist 
 of Cdielst-a Hospital — Mrs. Thrale marries Piozzi — Last Interview wilk 
 Johnson — His Death. 
 
 In February, 1779, Miss Burney returned to Streatham.. 
 A bedroom was set apart for her exclusive use. She 
 became almost as much a recognised member of the 
 family as Dr. Johnson had for many years been. Nearly 
 all the remainder of 1779 was spent with her new friends, 
 either at Streatham, Tunbridge Wells, or Brighton. Her 
 father could scarcely regain possession of her, even for a 
 few daj's, without a friendly battle. Johnson always took 
 the side of the resisting party. In one of these contests, 
 when Burney urged that she had been away from home 
 too long: ' Sir,' cried Johnson, seizing both her hands to 
 detain her, ' I do not think it long; I would have her always 
 come ! and never go !' In February, the first new face she 
 saw at Mrs. Thrale's was that of Arthur Murphy,* play- 
 
 * 1730-1805. A native of Elphin, in Ireland ; was educated at St. Omer's t 
 gave up the trade on which he had entered for literature ; published the Grays-
 
 Murphy the Draumtist. loi 
 
 Avright and translator of Tacitus. Mrs. Thrale charged 
 her to make herself agreeable to this gentleman, whose 
 knowledge of the stage might be of service to her in rela- 
 tion to the corned}' which her friends were urging her to 
 write. The exhortation was unneeded, for almost the 
 first words uttered by Murphy in her presence won 
 Fanny's heart. Mrs. Thrale, missing Dr. Burney, who 
 after his weekly lesson had returned to town without 
 taking leave, inveighed against him as a male coquet : he 
 only, she said, gave enough of his company to excite a 
 desire for more. Murpliy was ready with his compliment. 
 
 ' Dr. Burney,' he replied, ' is indeed a most extraordinary 
 man ; I think I don't know such another : he is at home 
 upon all subjects, and upon all so agreeable ! he is a won- 
 derful man.' 
 
 Noting down this pretty speech led the diarist to record 
 some words which had passed between Johnson and her- 
 self on the same theme : 
 
 " ' I love Burney,' said the Doctor ; ' my heart goes out 
 
 to meet him.' 
 
 " ' He is not ungrateful, sir,' cried I : ' for most heartily 
 
 docs he love you.' 
 
 " ' Does he, madam ? I am surprised at that.' 
 
 " ' Why, sir ? Why should you have doubted it ?' 
 
 " * Because, madam, Dr. Burney is a man for all the 
 
 world to love ; it is but natural to love him.'' 
 
 " I could almost have cried with delight at this cordial, 
 
 ■unlaboured eloge." 
 
 An admirer of her father was a man whom Fanny could 
 trust at once, and she soon had confidences with Murphy, 
 
 Jiin Journal from 1752 to 1754 ; went 011 the stage, wrotedramas, and engaged 
 in politics ; at last became a barrister, and died a Commissioner of Bankrupts. 
 lie produced twenty-three plays, of which the ' Grecian Daughter ' was the 
 most popular. His translation of Tacitus had great repute in its day.
 
 I02 A Proposed Comedy. 
 
 as well as with Johnson, on the subject of her projected 
 play. In May, the first draft was submitted to the former, 
 who bestowed on it abundance of flattery. Mrs. Thrale 
 also was warm in its praise. But the piece, when finished, 
 had to be submitted to critics who felt a deeper interest, 
 and a stronger sense of responsibility. The manuscript 
 was carried by Dr. Burney to Crisp at Chesington, and the 
 two old friends sat in council on it. " I should like," wrote 
 Fanny to Crisp, " that your first reading should have 
 nothing to do with me — that you should go quick through 
 it, or let my father read it to you — forgetting all the time, 
 as much as you can, that Fannikin is the writer, or even 
 that it is a play in manuscript, and capable of alterations; — 
 and, then, when you have done, I should like to have three 
 lines, telling me, as nearly as you can trust my candour, 
 its general effect. After that take it to your own desk, and 
 lash it at your leisure. Adieu, my dear daddy ! I shall 
 hope to hear from you very soon, and pray believe mc 
 yours ever and ever." 
 
 The comedy was intended to be called ' The Witlings,' 
 and seems to have borne a strong resemblance to the 
 Fennncs Savantes. We have not the letter containing 
 Crisp's judgment, but he told his disciple plainly that 
 her production would be condemned as a pale copy of 
 Moliere's piece. We gather also from subsequent corre- 
 spondence that both he and Dr. Burney felt 'The Witlings,' 
 to be a failure, even when considered on its own merits. 
 It was some consolation to Fanny that she had never 
 read Moliere, but she sought no saving for her self-love. 
 Here is her answer to her daddy : 
 
 "Well! 'there are plays that are to be saved, and 
 plays that are not to be saved !' so good-night, Mr. 
 Dabbler ! — good-night, Lady Smatter, — Mrs. Sapient, — -
 
 A Letter to Daetdy. 103 
 
 Mrs. Voluble, — Mrs. Wheedle, — Censor, — Cecilia, — Beau- 
 fort, — and you, you great oaf, Bobby ! — good-night! good- 
 night ! 
 
 And good-morning, Miss Fanny Burney ! — I hope now 
 you have opened your eyes for some time, and will not 
 close them in so drowsy a lit again — at least till the full 
 of the moon. 
 
 I won't tell you I have been absolutely ravic with 
 delight at the fall of the curtain ; but I intend to take the 
 affair in the tant micnx manner, and to console m3'self for 
 your censure by this greatest proof I have ever received 
 of the sincerity, candour, and, let me add, esteem, of m\- 
 dear daddy. And as I happen to love m3'self rather more 
 than my play, this consolation is not a very trifling one. 
 
 As to all you say of my reputation and so forth, I 
 perceive the kindness of your endeavours to put me in 
 humour with myself, and prevent my taking huff, which 
 if I did, I should deserve to receive, upon any future trial, 
 hollow praise from you — and the rest from the public. 
 
 As to the MS., I am in no hurry for it. Besides, it 
 ought not to come till I have prepared an ovation, and 
 the honours of conquest for it. 
 
 The only bad thing in this affair is, that I cannot take 
 the comfort of my poor friend Dabbler, by calling you a 
 crabbed fellow, because you write with almost more kind- 
 ness than ever ; neither can I (though I try hard) persuade 
 myself that you have not a grain of taste in your whole 
 composition. 
 
 This, however, seriously I do believe, — that when my 
 two daddies put their heads together to concert for me 
 that hissing, groaning, catcalling epistle they sent me 
 they felt as sorry for poor little Miss Bayes as she could 
 possibly do for herself. 
 
 You see I do not attempt to repay your frankness with
 
 I04 Dr. Johusoii and Fanny Biirney. 
 
 the art of pretended carelessness. But though somewhat 
 disconcerted just now, I will promise not to let my vexa- 
 tion live out another day. I shall not browse upon it, but, 
 on the contrary, drive it out of my thoughts, by filling 
 them up with things almost as good of other people's. 
 
 Our Hettina is much better; but pray don't keep 
 Air. B. beyond Wednesday, for Mrs. Thrale makes a 
 point of my returning to Streatham on Tuesda}', unless, 
 w^hich God forbid, poor Hetty should be worse again. 
 
 Adieu, my dear daddy, I won't be mortified, and I 
 won't be doicncd, — but I will be proud to find I have, out 
 of my own family, as well as in it, a friend who loves me 
 well enough to speak plain truth to me. 
 
 Always do thus, and always you shall be tried by, 
 
 Your much obliged 
 
 And most affectionate, 
 
 Frances Burney." 
 
 The manuscript comedy does not appear to have been 
 shown to Dr. Johnson. This was not for want of en- 
 couragement. He was extremely willing to read it, or 
 have it read to him, but desired that his opinion should 
 be taken before that of Murphy, who was to judge of the 
 stage effect, and as the latter had already offered his 
 services, the scrupulous author felt that this could not be. 
 Fanny continued to grow in favour with Johnson. His 
 expressions of affection became stronger, his eulogy of her 
 novel more unmeasured, 
 
 " I know," he said on one occasion, " none like her, nor 
 do I believe there is, or there ever was, a man who could 
 write such a book so young."' 
 
 " I suppose," said Mrs. Thrale, " Pope was no older 
 than Miss Burney when he wrote ' Windsor Forest;'* and 
 I suppose ' Windsor Forest ' is equal to ' Evelina !' " 
 
 * In January, 1779, Mrs. Thrale wrote to Fanny: "You are twenty odd 
 years old, and I am past thirty-six."
 
 Visil to Bn'ch^ou. lo- 
 
 ^> 
 
 'Windsor Forest,' thouj^h, according to Pope himself, 
 it was in part written at the age of sixteen, was finished 
 and pubhshed when the poet was twenty -five. But 
 Johnson would by no means allow that 'Windsor Forest ' 
 was so remarkable a work as ' Evelina.' The latter, he 
 said, seemed a work that should result from long experi- 
 ence and deep and intimate knowledge of the world ; yet 
 it had been written without either. 
 
 " Miss Burney," added the sage, " is a real wonder. 
 What she is, she is intuitively. Dr. Burney told me she 
 had had the fewest advantages of any of his daughters, 
 from some peculiar circumstances. And such has been 
 her timidity, that he himself had not any suspicion of 
 her powers." 
 
 About this time, Johnson began teaching his favourite 
 Latin, an attention with which she would gladly have 
 dispensed, thinking it an injury to be considered a learned 
 lady. 
 
 In the autumn of this year, Miss Burney accompanied 
 the Thrales to Tunbridge Wells, and thence to Brighton. 
 Her Diary contains some lively sketches of incidents 
 on the Pantiles and the Steyne, for which we cannot 
 find space. At Brighton she encountered Sir Fretful 
 Plagiary : 
 
 " ' It has been,' said Mrs. Thrale warmly, ' all I could 
 do not to affront Mr. Cumberland to-night 1' 
 
 " ' Oh, I hope not !' cried I ; ' I would not have you for 
 the world !' 
 
 " ' Why, I have refrained ; but with great difficulty 1' 
 
 "And then she told me the conversation she had just 
 had with him. As soon as I made off, he said, with a 
 spiteful tone of voice : 
 
 " ' Oh, that young lady is an author, I hear 1'
 
 io6 An Eccentric Character. 
 
 " 'Yes/ answered Mrs. Thrale, 'author of Evelina !' 
 
 " ' Humph — I am told it has some humour !' 
 
 " ' Ay, indeed ! Johnson says nothing like it has ap- 
 peared for 3-ears !' 
 
 " ' So,' cried he, biting his lips, and waving uneasil}' in 
 his chair, ' so, so !' 
 
 " ' Yes,' continued she ; ' and Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 told Mr. Thrale he w^ould give fifty pounds to know the 
 author 1' 
 
 " ' So, so — oh, vastly well !' cried he, putting his hand 
 on his forehead. 
 
 " ' Nay,' added she, ' Burke himself sat up all night to 
 finish it !' 
 
 " This seemed quite too much for him ; he put both his 
 hands to his face, and waving backwards and forwards, 
 said : 
 
 " ' Oh, vastl}^ well ! — this will do for anything!' with a 
 tone as much as to say. Pray, no more ! Then Mrs. 
 Thrale bid him good-night, longing, she said, to call Miss 
 Thrale first, and say,- ' So you won't speak to my daughter? 
 — why, she is no author !' " 
 
 At another time, Mrs. Thrale said : 
 
 ' Let him be tormented, if such things can torment 
 him. For my part I'd have a starling taught to halloo 
 ' Evelina ' ! 
 
 At Brighton, also, Miss Burne}^ met with one of these 
 humorous characters which her pen loved to describe : 
 
 " I must now have the honour to present to you a new 
 
 acquaintance, who this day dined here — Mr. B- y, an 
 
 Irish gentleman, late a commissary in Germany. He is 
 between sixty and seventy, but means to pass for about 
 thirty ; gallant, complaisant, obsequious, and humble to
 
 An Eccentric Characicr. 107 
 
 the fair sex, for whom he has an awful reverence ; but 
 when not immediately addressing them, swaggering, 
 blustering, pufting, and domineering. These arc his two 
 apparent characters ; but the real n^ian is worth}-, moral, 
 religious, though conceited and parading. 
 
 " He is as fond of quotations as my poor 'Lady Snmttcr,' 
 and, like her, knows little beyond a song, and always 
 blunders about the author of that His whole con- 
 versation consists in little French phrases, picked up 
 during his residence abroad, and in anecdotes and story- 
 telling, which are sure to be re-told daily and daily in the 
 same words 
 
 " Speaking of the ball in the c\cning, to which we were 
 all going, 'Ah, madam!' said he to Mrs. Thralc, 'there 
 was a time when — tol-de-rol, tol-de-rol [rising, and dancing 
 and singing] , tol-de-rol !— I could dance with the best of 
 them ; but, now a man, forty and upwards, as my Lord 
 Ligonier used to say — but — tol-de-rol! — there was a 
 time !' 
 
 "'Ay, so there was, Mr. B 3',' said Mrs. Thrale, 
 
 ' and I think you and I together made a very venerable 
 appearance !' 
 
 " ' Ah ! madam, I remember once, at Bath, I was called 
 out to dance with one of the finest 3oung ladies I ever 
 saw. I was just preparing to do m}' best, when a gentle- 
 man of my acquaintance was so cruel as to whisper me — 
 
 ' B y ! the eyes of all Europe are upon you !' — for that 
 
 was the phrase of the times. 'B y!" sa3's he, 'the 
 
 e3'es of all Europe are upon you !' — I vow, ma'am. ',nough 
 to make a man tremble ! — tol-de-rol, tol-de-rol ! [dancing] 
 — the eyes of all Europe are upon you ! — I declare, ma'am, 
 enough to put a man out of countenance !" 
 
 " Dr. Delap, who came here some timo after, was speak- 
 ing of Horace.
 
 loS An Eccentric Character. 
 
 " 'Ah ! madam,' cried Mr. B y, 'this Latin — things 
 
 of that kind — we waste our youth, ma'am, in these vain 
 studies. For my part, I wish I had spent mine in study- 
 ing French and Spanish — more useful, ma'am. But, bless 
 me, ma'am, what time have I had for that kind of thing? 
 Travelling here, over the ocean, hills and dales, ma'am — 
 reading the great book of the world — poor ignorant 
 mortals, ma'am — no time to do anything.' 
 
 " ' A}', Mr. B y,' said Mrs. Thrale, ' I remember ho^\'■ 
 
 3-ou downed Beauclerk and Hamilton, the wits, once at 
 our house, when they talked of ghosts !' 
 
 " ' Ah ! ma'am, give me a brace of pistols, and I warrant 
 ril manage a ghost for you ! Not but Providence may 
 please to send little spirits — guardian angels, ma'am — to 
 watch us : that I can't speak about. It would be pre- 
 sumptuous, ma'am — for what can a poor, ignorant mortal 
 know ?' 
 
 " 'A}-, so you told Beauclerk and Hamilton.' 
 
 " ' Oh 3es, ma'am. Poor human beings can't account 
 for anything — and call themselves csprits forts. I vow 'tis 
 presumptuous, ma'am ! Esprits forts, indeed ! they can 
 see no farther than their noses, poor, ignorant mortals ! 
 Here's an admiral, and here's a prince, and here's a general, 
 and here's a dipper — and poor Smoker, the bather, ma'am ! 
 What's all this strutting about, and that kind of thing ? 
 and then they can't account for a blade of grass !' 
 
 " After this. Dr. Johnson being mentioned, 
 
 *' ' Ay,' said he, ' Fm sorry he did not come down with 
 you. I liked him better than those others : not much of 
 a fine gentleman, indeed, but a clever fellow — a deal of 
 knowledge — got a deuced good understanding !'.... 
 
 '" I am absolutely almost ill with laughing. This Mr. 
 
 B y half convulses me ; yet I cannot make you laugh 
 
 by writing his speeches, because it is the manner which
 
 Sir Josluids Prices. 1 09 
 
 accompanies them that, more than the matter, renders 
 them so pecuharly ridiculous. His extreme pomposity, 
 the solemn stiffness of his person, the conceited twinkling 
 of his little old eyes, and the quaint importance of his 
 delivery, are so much more like some pragmatical old 
 coxcomb represented on the stage, than like anything in 
 real and common life, that I think, were I a man, I should 
 sometimes be betrayed into clapping him for acting so 
 well. As it is, I am sure no character in any comed}' I 
 ever saw has made me laugh more extravagantly. 
 
 " He dines and spends the evening here constantl}', to 
 my great satisfaction. 
 
 "At dinner, when Mrs. Thrale offers him a scat next 
 her, he regularly says : 
 
 " ' But where are Us cliaruinntcs ?' meaning Miss T. and 
 me, ' I can do nothing till they are accommodated !' 
 
 " And, whenever he drinks a glass of wine, he never 
 fails to touch either Mrs. Thrale"s or my glass, with 
 ' cst-il-perniis ?' 
 
 "But at the same time that he is so courteous, he is 
 proud to a most sublime excess, and thinks every person 
 to whom he speaks honoured beyond measure by his 
 notice, — nay, he does not even look at anybody without 
 evidently displaying that such notice is more the effect of 
 his benign condescension, than of any pretension on their 
 part to deserve such a mark of his perceiving their exist- 
 ence. But you will think me mad about this man .... 
 
 " As he is notorious for his contempt of all artists, w'hom 
 he looks upon with little more respect than upon day- 
 labourers, the other day, when painting was discussed, he 
 spoke of Sir Joshua Reynolds as if he had been upon a 
 level with a carpenter or farrier. 
 
 " ' Did you ever,' said Mrs. Thrale, * see his Nativity?' 
 
 ** ' No, madam, — but I know his pictures very w^ell ; I
 
 I lo Tragedies. 
 
 ^> 
 
 knew him many years ago, in Minorca ; he drew my 
 picture there, and then he knew how to take a moderate 
 price ; but now, I vow, ma'am, 'tis scandalous — scanda- 
 lous indeed ! to pay a fellow here seventy guineas for 
 scratching out a head !' 
 
 " ' Sir !' cried Dr. Delap,* 'you must not run down Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds, because he is Miss Burney's friend.' 
 
 " ' Sir,^ answered he, ' I don't want to run the man 
 down; I like him well enough in his proper place; he is 
 as decent as any man of that sort I ever knew; but for all 
 that, sir, his prices are shameful. Why, he would not 
 [looking at the poor Doctor witli an enraged contempt^ — he 
 ^\"Ould not do your head under seventy guineas !' 
 
 " ' Well,' said Mrs. Thrale, ' he had one portrait at the 
 last Exhibition, that I think hardly could be paid enough 
 for; it was of a Mr. Stuart; I had never done admir- 
 ing it.' 
 
 " ' What stuff is this, ma'am !' cried Mr. B y : ' how 
 
 can two or three dabs of paint ever be worth such a sum 
 as that ?' 
 
 " ' Sir,' said Mr. Sclwyn (always willing to draw him 
 out), ' you know not how much he is improved since you 
 knew him in Minorca; he is now the finest painter, per- 
 haps, in the world.' 
 
 " ' Pho, pho, sir !' cried he, ' how can you talk so ? you, 
 ]\Ir. Selwyn, who have seen so m.any capital pictures 
 abroad ?' 
 
 ''' ' Come, come, sir,' said the ever odd Dr. Delap, 'you 
 must not go on so undervaluing him, for, I tell you, he is 
 a friend of Miss Burney's.' 
 
 " ' Sir,' said Mr. B y, ' I tell you again I have no 
 
 objection to the man ; I have dined in his company two 
 
 * Joliu Delap, D.D. (1725-ICS12), poet nnd dramatist. After being curate 
 to Mason, the jioet, he held livincjs in Sussex, and w rote numerous poems and 
 tiaL;edies, al! of ^hich have long been forgotlen.
 
 '•?/-^«<^'->-' 
 
 .J/Lfci'luLa- if/aimcr. 
 
 ^SriSrr.ith.jc-.
 
 Actors and Sinzcrs. - 1 1 1 
 
 v> 
 
 or three times ; a very decent man he is, fit to keep com- 
 pany with .s^entlemen ; but, ma'am, what are all your 
 modern dabblers put together to one ancient ? Nothing ! 
 — a set of — not a Rubens among them ! I vow, ma'am, 
 not a Rubens among them !'.... 
 
 " Whenever plays are mentioned, we have also a regular 
 speech about them. 
 
 " ' I never,' he says, * go to a tragedy, — it's too affect- 
 ing ; tragedy enough in real life : tragedies are only fit for 
 fair females ; for m.y part, I cannot bear to see Othello 
 tearing about in that violent manner ; — and fair little 
 Desdemona — ma'am, 'tis too affecting ! to see 3-our kings 
 and your princes tearing their pretty locks, — oh, there's 
 no standing it ! 'A straw-crown'd monarch,' — what is 
 that, Mrs. Thrale ? 
 
 ' A strau'-crown'cl monarch in mock mnjesty.' 
 
 I can't recollect now where that is ; but for my part, I 
 really cannot bear to see such sights. And then out come 
 the white handkerchiefs, and all their pretty eyes are 
 wiping, and then come poison and daggers, and all that 
 kind of thing, — Oh, ma'am, 'tis too much ; but yet the fair 
 tender hearts, the pretty little females, all like it !' 
 
 " This speech, word for word^ I have already heard from 
 him literall}^ four times. 
 
 "When Mr. Garrick was mentioned, he honoured him 
 with much the same style of compliment as he had done 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds. 
 
 "'Ay, ay,' said he, 'that Garrick is another of those 
 fellows that people run mad about. Ma'am, 'tis a shame 
 to think of such things ! an actor living like a person of 
 quality! scandalous! I vow, scandalous !' 
 
 " * Well, — commend me to Mr. B y !' cried Mrs, 
 
 Thrale, ' for he is your only man to put down all the 
 people that everybody else sets up.'
 
 112 Regrets for iJic Comedy. 
 
 " ' Why, ma'am,' answered he, ' I hke all these people 
 very well in their proper places ; but to see such a set of 
 poor beings living like persons of quality, — 'tis prepos- 
 terous ! common sense, madam, common sense is against 
 that kind of thing. As to Garrick, he is a very good 
 mimic, an entertaining fellow enough, and all that kind of 
 thing ; but for an actor to live like a person of quality — 
 oh, scandalous !' 
 
 " Some time after, the musical tribe was mentioned. 
 He was at cards at the time with Mr. Selwyn, Dr. Delap, 
 and Mr, Thrale, while we * fair females,' as he always 
 calls us, were speaking of Agujari. He constrained him- 
 self from flying out as long as he was able ; but upon our 
 mentioning her having fifty pounds a song, he suddenl}-, 
 in a great rage, called out, ' Catgut and rosin ! — ma'am, 
 'tis scandalous !' 
 
 " We all laughed, and Mr. Selwyn, to provoke him on, 
 said : 
 
 " ' Why, sir, how shall we part with our money better ?' 
 
 " ' Oh fie ! fie !' cried he, ' I have not patience to hear 
 of such folly; common sense, sir, common sense is against 
 it. Why, now, there was one of these fellows at Bath last 
 season, a Mr. Rauzzini,* — I vow I longed to cane him 
 every day ! such a work made with him ! all the fair 
 females sighing for him ! enough to make a man sick !' " 
 
 At the beginning of 1780, Miss Burney was troubled 
 about her suppressed comedy. She wrote to Mr. Crisp : 
 
 "As my play was settled, I entreated my father to 
 call on Mr. Sheridan, in order to prevent his expecting 
 
 * An Italian composer and singer. Born at Rome in 1747 ; came to 
 England in 1774; adopted the profession of singing-master in 1777: settled 
 psrmanently at Bath in 17S7, and died there in 1810. lie was the author of 
 several Operas, and counted Brahani among his pupils.
 
 S/icridaiis Rcuionsirancc. 1 1 
 
 o 
 
 "anything from mc, as he had had a good right to do, 
 from m\^ having sent him a positive message that I 
 should, in comphance ^vith his exhortations at IMrs. 
 Chohnondeley's, try m\^ fortune in the theatrical line, 
 and send him a piece for this winter. My father did call, 
 but found him not at honic, neither did he happen to see 
 him till about Christmas. He then acquainted him that 
 what I had written had entirely dissatisfied me, and that 
 I desired to decline for the present all attempts of that 
 sort. 
 
 " Mr. Sheridan was pleased to express great concern, — 
 nay, more, to protest he would not accept my refusal. He 
 begged my father to tell me that he could take no denial 
 to seeing what I had done — that I could be no fair judge 
 for myself— that he doubted not but what it would please, 
 but was glad I was not satisfied, as he had much rather 
 see pieces before their authors were contented with them 
 than afterwards, on account of sundry small changes 
 always necessary to be made by the managers, for theatri- 
 cal purposes, and to which the}^ were loth to submit when 
 their writings were finished to their own approbation. In 
 short, he said so much, that my father, ever easy to be 
 worked upon, began to waver, and told me he wished I 
 would show the play to Sheridan at once." 
 
 As the result of this, Fanny conceived a plan for revis- 
 ing and altering her piece, which she submitted to her 
 daddy. Crisp answered : 
 
 " The play has wit enough and enough — but the story 
 and the incidents don't appear to me interesting enough to 
 seize and keep hold of the attention and eager expectations 
 of the generality of audiences. This, to me, is its capital 
 defect." He went on to suggest that this fault, being 
 fundamental, admitted of no remedy. And then in 
 
 8
 
 114 ^'^^^ Lawrence Family at Devizes. 
 
 reference to a proposed trip to Italy, he added: "They 
 tell me of a delightful tour you are to make this autumn 
 on the other side of the water, with Mr. and Mrs. Thrale, 
 Dr. Johnson, Mr. Murphy, etc. Where will you find such 
 another set ? Oh, Fanny, set this down as the happiest 
 period of your life; and when you come to be old and sick, 
 and health and spirits are fled (for the time may come)^ 
 then live upon remembrance, and think that you have 
 had your share of the good things of this world, and say :; 
 For what I have received, the Lord make me thankful !"" 
 The autumnal trip to the Continent did not take place,, 
 but in April the Thrales and Miss Burney went by easy 
 stages to Bath : 
 
 "The third day we reached Devizes. 
 
 " And here, Mrs. Thrale and I were much pleased with 
 our hostess, Mrs. Lawrence, who seemed something above 
 her station in her inn. While we were at cards before 
 supper, we were much surprised by the sound of a piano- 
 forte. I jumped up, and ran to listen whence it pro- 
 ceeded. I found it came from the next room, where the 
 overture to the ' Buona Figliuola ' was performing. The 
 playing was very decent, but as the music was not quite 
 new to me, my curiosity was not whole ages in satisfying 
 itself, and therefore I returned to finish the rubber. 
 
 " Don't I begin to talk in an old-cattish manner of 
 cards ? 
 
 " Well, another deal was hardly played, ere we heard 
 the sound of a voice, and out I ran again. The singing, 
 however, detained me not long, and so back I whisked :. 
 but the performance, however indifferent in itself, yet 
 surprised us at the Bear at Devizes, and, therefore, Mrs. 
 Thrale determined to know from whom it came. Accord- 
 ingly, she tapped at the door. A very handsome girl,.
 
 The Lawrence Family at Devizes. 1 1 5 
 
 about thirteen years old, with fine dark hair upon a finely- 
 formed forehead, opened it. Mrs. Thrale made an apology 
 for her intrusion, but the poor girl blushed and retreated 
 into a corner of the room : another girl, however, advanced, 
 and obligingly and gracefully invited us in, and gave us all 
 chairs. She was just sixteen, extremely pretty, and with 
 a countenance better than her features, though those were 
 also very good. Mrs. Thrale made her many compli- 
 ments, which she received with a mingled modesty and 
 pleasure, both becoming and interesting. She was, indeed, 
 a sweetly-pleasing girl. 
 
 " We found they were both daughters of our hostess, and 
 born and bred at Devizes. We were extremely pleased 
 with them, and made them a long visit, which I wished to 
 have been longer. But though those pretty girls struck 
 us so much, the wonder of the f imily was yet to be pro- 
 duced. This was their brother, a most lovely boy of ten 
 years of age, who seems to be not merely the wonder of 
 their family, but of the times, for his astonishing skill in 
 drawing.* They protest he has never had any instruc- 
 tion, yet showed us some of his productions that were 
 really beautiful. Those that were copies were delightful 
 — those of his own composition amazing, though far 
 inferior. I was equally struck with the boy and his 
 works. 
 
 " We found that he had been taken to town, and that 
 all the painters had been very kind to him, and Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds had pronounced him, the mother said, the most 
 promising genius he had ever met with. Mr. Hoaref 
 
 * This boy was afterwards the celebrated pahiter, Sir Thomas Lawrence, 
 Tresldent of the Royal Academy. 
 
 t Mr. C. Prince Hoare. The intended patronage did not take place. The 
 Lawrences left Devizes almost immediately alter tlie date of the above notice, 
 and thenceforth the whole family were supported by the extraordinary talents of 
 the boy artist. 
 
 8—2
 
 ]i6 Lady Millers Vase. 
 
 has been so charmed with this sweet boy's drawings 
 that he intends sending him to Italy with his own 
 son. 
 
 " This house was full of books, as well as paintings, 
 drawings, and music ; and all the family seem not only 
 ingenious and industrious, but amiable ; added to which, 
 they are strikingly handsome." 
 
 A chief topic of conversation at this time in Bath was 
 Lady Miller's vase at Batheaston. Horace Walpole 
 mentions this vase, and the use to which it was put : 
 ' They hold a Parnassus-fair every Thursday, give out 
 rhymes and themes, and all the flux at Bath contend for 
 the prizes. A Roman vase, dressed with pink ribbons 
 and myrtles, receives the poetry, which is drawn out 
 every festival. Six judges of these Olympic games retire, 
 and select the brightest composition.' Fanny met Lady 
 Miller, whom she describes with her usual candour : 
 ' Lady Miller is a round, plump, coarse-looking dame of 
 about forty, and while all her aim is to appear an elegant 
 woman of fashion, all her success is to seem an ordinary 
 woman in very common life, with fine clothes on. Her 
 habits are bustling, her air is mock-important, and her 
 manners very inelegant.' In the midst of a round of 
 gaieties, the Thrale party attended a reception at Bath- 
 easton. The rooms were crowded; but it being now June, 
 the business of the vase was over for that season, and the 
 sacred vesselitself had been removed. On returning to their 
 lodging, they received the news of the Gordon Riots. Next 
 morning Mrs. Thrale had letters acquainting her that 
 her town-house had been three times attacked, but saved 
 by the Guards, with the children, plate, and valuables, 
 which were removed. Streatham had also been threat- 
 ened and emptied of all its furniture. The same day a
 
 The Gordon Riots. 1 1 7 
 
 Bath newspaper denounced Mr. Thrale as a papist. The 
 brewer was now in a critical state of health, and it became 
 necessary to remove him without exciting his alarm. 
 Miss Burney was employed to break the matter to him, 
 and obtained his consent to an immediate departure. 
 Arriving at Salisbury on the nth of June, they were 
 reassured by information that order had been restored in 
 London, and Lord George Gordon sent to the Tower. 
 In London the friends parted, and Fanny returned to her 
 father's house. Johnson met her at Sir Joshua's a few 
 days after, and mention being made of a house in Grub 
 Street that had been destroyed by the mob, proposed that 
 they should go there together, and visit the seats of their 
 progenitors, 
 
 The latter part of this year, and part of 1781, were 
 spent by Miss Burney chiefly in writing ' Cecilia.' 
 While thus occupied she passed most of her time at 
 Chesington. \\\ February, 1781, she writes from that 
 place to Mrs. Thrale : " 1 think I shall always hate this 
 book, which has kept me so long away from you, as much 
 as I shall always love ' Evelina,' which first comfortably 
 introduced me to you." Shortly after the date of this 
 letter, the writer returned home, apparently for the pur- 
 pose of meeting the Thrales, who were fixed for the 
 winter in Grosvenor Square. She found them engaged 
 in giving parties to half London. In the midst of their 
 entertainments Mr. Thrale died suddenly from a stroke 
 of apoplexy. Fanny could not desert her friend in such 
 trouble. So soon as the widow could bear any society, 
 she summoned her young companion to Streatham, and 
 kept her there, with hardly an interval, till the summer 
 was over. It does not appear that Fanny was at all 
 averse to be detained, but so long a stay was not to her 
 advantage. Her hostess, of course, was much engrossed
 
 1 1 8 Idleness and Work. 
 
 by the late brewer's affairs. Dr. Johnson, as one of the 
 executors, was similarly employed ; and though Miss 
 Burne}^, from time to time, saw something of him, as 
 well as of his co-executors, Mr. Cator* and Mr. Crutchley,"!* 
 she met with little in the narrowed and secluded house- 
 hold to compensate her for her loss of time. If she 
 busied herself at all with ' Cecilia ' during this period, 
 she seems to have accomplished very little. At any rate, 
 both her fathers became impatient of her inaction. 
 Prompted from Chesington, Dr. Burney would have 
 recalled his daughter, but found himself powerless 
 against the self-willed little lady of Thrale Hall. The 
 more resolute Crisp then took the field in person, J 
 and in spite of his infirmities, repaired to Streatham, 
 whence he carried off the captive authoress, and straight- 
 way consigned her to what he called the Doctor's 
 Conjuring Closet, at his own abode. There Fanny 
 was held to her task till the beginning of 1782, when 
 she was called home to be present at the marriage of 
 her sister Susan to Captain Phillips ; after which Dr. 
 Burney kept her stationary in St. Martin's Street till she 
 had written the word * Finis ' on the last proof-sheet of 
 * Cecilia.' 
 
 However, when the new novel was fairly in the printer's 
 hands, the author was again seen in London society. At 
 a party, given by a Mrs. Paradise, she was introduced to 
 a sister of her craft : 
 
 *' Mrs. Paradise, leaning over the Kirwans and Char- 
 lotte, who hardly got a seat all night for the crowd, said 
 
 * M.P. for Ipswich in 17S4. Described by Dr. Johnson as having "much 
 good in his character, and much usefulness in his knowledge." Johnson used 
 to visit Mr. Cator at his seat at Beckenhani. 
 
 t M.I', for Horsham in 1784. 
 
 :;; " Memoirs," vol. ii., p. 21S.
 
 A Sister of the Craji. 1 1 9 
 
 •she begged to speak to me. I squeezed my great person 
 out, and she then said : 
 
 " ' Miss Burney, Lady Say and Sele desires the honour 
 •of being introduced to you.' 
 
 " Her ladyship stood by her side. She seems pretty 
 near fifty — at least turned forty; her head was full of 
 feathers, flowers, jewels, and gew-gaws, and as high as 
 Lady Archer's ; her dress was trimmed with beads, silver, 
 Persian sashes, and all sort of fine fancies ; her face is 
 thin and fiery, and her whole manner spoke a lady all 
 alive. 
 
 " ' Miss Burney,' cried she, with great quickness, and 
 a look all curiosity, ' I am very happy to see you ; I have 
 longed to see you a great while; I have read your per- 
 formance, and I am quite delighted with it. I think it's 
 the most elegant novel I ever read in my life. Such a 
 style ! I am quite surprised at it. I can't think where 
 you got so much invention !' 
 
 ' You may believe this was a reception not to make 
 me very loquacious. I did not know which wa}- to turn 
 my head. 
 
 " ' I must introduce you,' continued her ladyship, * to 
 ray sister ; she'll be quite delighted to see you. She has 
 written a novel herself ; so you are sister authoresses. A 
 most elegant thing it is, I assure you ; almost as pretty 
 as yours, only not quite so elegant. She has written two 
 novels, only one is not so pretty as the other. But 
 I shall insist upon your seeing them. One is in letters, 
 like yours, only yours is prettiest ; it's called the " Mauso- 
 leum of Julia !" ' 
 
 " What unfeeling things, thought I, are my sisters ! I'm 
 ■sure I never heard them go about thus praising me ! 
 
 " Mrs. Paradise then again came forward, and^ taking 
 my hand, led me up to her ladyship's sister, Lady Hawke,
 
 I20 * The Maiisoleiuu of JilHli^ 
 
 saying aloud, and with a courteous smirk, ' Miss Burney, 
 ma'am, authoress of " Evehna," '. . . . 
 
 " Lady Hawke arose and curtseyed. She is much 
 younger than her sister, and rather pretty ; extreme!}: 
 languishing, delicate, and pathetic ; apparently accus- 
 tomed to be reckoned the genius of her family, and well 
 contented to be looked upon as a creature dropped from 
 the clouds 
 
 "'My sister intends,' said Lady Say and Sele, 'to 
 print her " Mausoleum," just for her own friends and 
 acquaintances.' 
 
 " ' Yes,' said Lady Hawkc : ' I have never printed 
 yet' .... 
 
 " ' Well,' cried Lady Say, ' but do repeat that sweet 
 part that I am so fond of — you know what I mean ; 
 Miss Burney must hear it — out of your novel, you know !' 
 
 '^ Lady H. : No, I can't ; I have forgot it. 
 
 '^ Lady S. : Oh, no ! I am sure you have not ; I insist 
 upon it. 
 
 "LadyH. : But I know you can repeat it yourself; 3'ou 
 have so fine a memory ; I am sure you can repeat it. 
 
 "Lady S.: Oh, but I should not do it justice! that's 
 all — I should not do it justice I 
 
 " Lady Hawke then bent forward, and repeated : ' If, 
 when he made the declaration of his love, the sensibility 
 that beamed in his eyes was felt in his heart, what pleasing 
 sensations and soft alarms might not that tender avowal 
 awaken !' 
 
 "'And from what, ma'am/ cried I, astonished, and 
 imagining I had mistaken them, 'is this taken?' 
 
 From my sister's novel !' answered the delighted 
 Lady Say and Sele, expecting my raptures to be equal to 
 her own; 'it's in the " Mausoleum," — did not you know 
 that ? Well, I can't think how you can write these sweet
 
 Progress of ' Cecilia ' through ike Press. 1 2 1 
 
 novels ! And it's all just like that part. Lord Hawkc 
 himself says it's all poetry. For my part, I'm sure I 
 never could write so. I suppose, Miss Burncy, you are 
 producing another— a'n't you ?' 
 
 " ' No, ma'am.' 
 
 " ' Oh, I dare say }Ou are. I dare say 30U are writing 
 one at this very minute !' " 
 
 Years afterwards, when Miss Burney had entered the 
 royal household. Queen Charlotte lent her a presentation 
 copy of a novel which her Majesty had received from 
 Lady Hawke. The book proved to be the " Mausoleum 
 of Julia," then at length given to the public. " It is all 
 of a piece," laughed Fanny, on reading it — " all love, love, 
 love, unmixed and unadulterated with any more worldly 
 materials." 
 
 * Cecilia ' was now passing slowly through the press, 
 amidst the comments and flattering predictions of the 
 few friends who were permitted to see the manuscript. 
 Mrs. Thrale and Queeny reddened their eyes over the 
 pages ; Dr. Burney found them more engrossing even 
 than ' Evelina ;' but the author's only real adviser was 
 her * other daddy.' Crisp was a close, but not an over- 
 bearing critic ; he had great faith in his Fannikin, and 
 he was restrained, besides, by rankling memories of his 
 unfortunate ' Virginia.' ' Whomever you think fit to con- 
 sult,' he wrote, ' let their talents and taste be ever so 
 great, hear what they say, but never give up, or alter 
 a tittle, merely on their authority, nor unless it perfect!}' 
 accords with your own inward feelings. I can say this to 
 my sorrow and to my cost. But mum !' And if Crisp 
 was somewhat dogmatic, he was also a sanguine ad- 
 mirer, declaring that he would insure the rapid and com- 
 plete success of the novel for half a crown. Miss Burney,
 
 122 Johnson and ^Cecilia' 
 
 too, thouj^h bashful in a drawing-room, had plenty of self- 
 reliance in her stud}^, and was by no means disposed to be 
 often seeking counsel. Macaulay, always confident in his 
 conjectures, will have it that she received assistance from 
 Johnson. But he had before him, in the Diar}', a distinct 
 assertion to the contrary, stated to have been made by 
 the Doctor himself some time after the publication. If 
 we may trust Fanny, Johnson said : ' Ay, some people 
 want to make out some credit to me from the little rogue's 
 book. I was told by a gentleman this morning that it 
 Avas a very fine book if it was all her own. " It is all her 
 own," said I, "for me, I am sure; for I never saw one 
 word of it before it was printed." '* Macaulay did not 
 mean to emulate Croker; he was betrayed by fancied 
 resemblances of style, than which nothing can be more 
 deceptive. The probability is that the manuscript was 
 not submitted to Johnson, lest he should be held to have 
 written what he only corrected. 
 
 ' Cecilia ; or, The Memoirs of an heiress,' was pub- 
 lished in July, 1782. " We have been informed," says 
 Macaulay, " by persons who remember those days, that 
 no romance of Sir Walter Scott was more impatiently 
 awaited, or more eagerly snatched from the counters of 
 the booksellers." The first edition, which was ex- 
 hausted in the following October, consisted of two 
 thousand copies; and Macaulay was told by some- 
 one, not named, that an equal number of pounds was 
 received by the author for her work. There is no pro- 
 ducible authority for the latter statement, and we cannot 
 
 * Diary, November 4, 17S2. Tlie story, which was repeated and believed by 
 Lord Byron, tliat Johnson superintended 'CeciHa,' was corrected by Moore in 
 liis life of the poet, published in 1S30. ' Lord Byron is here mistaken. Dr. 
 Johnson never saw " Cecilia " till it was in print. A day or two before pub- 
 lication the young authoress, as I understand, sent three copies to the three 
 persons who had most claim to them— her father, Mrs. Thrale, and Dr. 
 Johnson.'
 
 Burkes Letter to Jlliss Biiniey. 1 2 
 
 o 
 
 but think that it is an exaggeration, arising out of some 
 confusion between the amount paid for the copyright, 
 and the number of copies first printed. At any rate, the 
 sum mentioned does not seem to square with some ex- 
 pressions used by Burke, who about this time began to 
 take a personal interest in Miss Burney. 
 
 The great statesman was introduced to her, a few days 
 before her second novel appeared, at a dinner given by Sir 
 Joshua in his house on Richmond Hill. At the end of 
 July he addressed her in a letter of congratulation : ' You 
 have crowded,' he wrote, 'into a few small volumes an in- 
 credible 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 v/ho are come young to excessive and 
 sudden opulence. I might trespass on 3'Our delicacy if I 
 should fill my letter to you with what I fill my conversa- 
 tion 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.' To be 
 addressed in such terms by such a man w^as enough to 
 turn the head of any young writer ; and this letter may 
 be regarded as marking the topmost point in Fanny's 
 iterary career. 
 
 Four months afterwards she encountered Mr. Burke 
 again at Miss Monckton's* assembly. The gathering was 
 
 * The Honourable Mary Alonckton, daughter of the first Viscount Galway, 
 and wife of the seventh Earl of Cork and Ossory, well known to the readers of 
 Boswell as ' the hvely Miss Monckton, who used always to have the finest 
 bit of blue at her parties.' She was bora iu April, 1746, and died on the 
 iOth of Mav iS-io
 
 124 Durkes Eulogy and Criticism. 
 
 a brilliant one : most of the ladies present were going to 
 the Duchess of Cumberland's, and were in full dress, 
 oppressed by the weight of their sacques and ruffles ; 
 but as soon as Burke and Sir Joshua Reynolds entered, 
 Frances Burney had no eyes for anyone else. When 
 the knight had paid his compliments, Burke sat down 
 beside her, and a conversation ensued, in which the great 
 man used the words to which we have referred. He began 
 by repeating and amplifying the praises of his letter ; and 
 then, not to appear fulsome, proceeded to find fault : 
 the famous masquerade he thought too long, and that 
 something might be spared from Harrel's grand assembly ; 
 he did not like Morrice's part at the Pantheon, and he 
 wished the conclusion either more happy or more miser- 
 able ; ' for in a work of imagination,' said he, ' there is no 
 medium.' But, he added, there was one further fault more 
 serious than any he had mentioned, and that was the 
 disposal of the book : why had not Mr. Briggs, the city 
 gentleman of the novel, been sent for ? he would have 
 taken care that it should not be parted with so much 
 below par. Had two thousand pounds, or any sum ap- 
 proaching that, been given for the copyright, the price 
 could not have been considered insufficient. We are 
 obliged, therefore, to conclude that the story told to the 
 Edinburgh Reviewer was apocryphal.* 
 
 The list of Miss Burney's friends continued to enlarge 
 itself. In the winter of 17S2-3, besides being made free 
 of certain fashionable houses, such as Miss Monckton's and 
 Mrs. Walsingham'Sjt she became known to the two ' old 
 
 * There is also a letter of Crisp's in which he mentions a promise of Dr. 
 Burney to mal^e up his daughter's gains to even mont-y. A few years later, 
 when her reputation was enlianced by ' Cecilia,' Miss IJurney asked for her 
 ihiid novel, ' Camilla,' no more than eleven hundred guineas. On the whole, 
 we are inclined to believe that the sum she receiveel for ' Cecilia' was less than 
 
 ;^' 1.000. 
 
 f Daughter of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams.
 
 Soaiiic Jcnyns. 1 2 
 
 3 
 
 wits/ Owen Cambrid.t^e and Soame Jen}-ns,* to Erskine, 
 the Wartons, Benjamin West, Jackson of Exeter, William 
 Windham, Dr. Parr, Mrs, Dclany, and a host of others, 
 till she began ' to grow most heartily sick of this con- 
 tinual round of visiting, and these eternal new acquaint- 
 ances.' Soame Jenyns came to meet her at a reception 
 arranged by his special request, and, at seventy-eight, 
 arrayed himself for the occasion in a Court suit of 
 apricot-coloured silk, lined with white satin, making all 
 the slow speed in his power to address her, as she entered, 
 in a studied harangue on the honour, and the pleasure, 
 and the what not, of seeing so celebrated an authoress ; 
 while the whole of a large company rose, and stood to 
 listen to his comphments. 
 
 But the time was coming when Frances was to learn 
 that hfe has its trials even for the most favoured children 
 of fortune. In the spring of 17S3, ]\Ir. Crisp's old enemy 
 the gout fixed upon his head and chest ; and, after an 
 illness of some duration, he sank under the attack. His 
 fits of gout had latterly become so constant that at first 
 the fatal seizure caused little apprehension. In the early 
 part of his sufferings Fanny sent frequent letters to 
 cheer him. ' God bless,' she writes, ' and restore you, 
 my most dear daddy ! You know not ho\v kindh* I 
 take your thinking of me, and inquiring about me, in 
 an illness that might so well make you forget us all; 
 but Susan assures me your heart is as affectionate as 
 ever to your ever and ever faithful and loving child.' As 
 soon as danger w^as declared, she hastened to Chesington. 
 She attended the old man throughout his last few days ; 
 he called her, at parting, ' the dearest thing to him on 
 
 * Contriliutors to " Tlie World." Soame Jenyns was chiefly known by 
 his work "On the Evidences of the Cliristian Religion." lie died in 1877 ; 
 Cambridge ia 1S02.
 
 126 Ill-JiealtJi of JoJuison. 
 
 earth ;' and her passionate sorrow for his death excited 
 the alarm, though not the jealous}', of her natural 
 father.* 
 
 And this loss was not the only trouble of that year. 
 Mrs. Thrale had for some time been meditating her foolish 
 second marriage. As soon as ' Cecilia ' was off her mind, 
 Miss Burney had resumed her visits to Streatham. She 
 at once found that her friend was changed. Mrs. Thrale 
 had become absent, restless, moody. The secret of her 
 attachment to Piozzi was not long in being disclosed to 
 Fanny, who could give her comfort, though not sympathy. 
 The latter remained long enough at Streatham to witness 
 the gradual estrangement of her hostess from Dr. Johnson. 
 One morning the Doctor accompanied his little Burney in 
 the carriage to London : as they turned into Streatham 
 Common, he exclaimed, pointing backwards : ' That house 
 is lost to mc for ever !' A few weeks later, the house was 
 let to Lord Shelburne. Mrs. Thrale retired to Brighton, 
 and afterwards coming to town, passed the winter in 
 Argyle Street. Frances spent much time with her there. 
 But in the beginning of April the uneasy widow went 
 with her three eldest daughters to take up her abode at 
 Bath, till she could make up her mind to complete the 
 match which all her friends disapproved. Crisp's illness 
 becoming serious shortly afterwards, left Fanny no time 
 at first to grieve over this separation. She felt it all the 
 more on her return to St. Martin's Street after her daddy's 
 death. And in the summer. Dr. Johnson's health, which 
 for some time had been steadily declining, was broken 
 down by a stroke of paralysis. She visited him frequently 
 at his house in Bolt Court. One evening, when she with 
 
 ••' Crisp died April 24, 1783, aged seventy-six. A monument to his memory- 
 was put up in the little church nt Chesingion, with an inscriiDtion from tlie pen 
 of Dr. Burney. His library was sold in the following year.
 
 Mrs. Thralc Jllarn'cs Piozzi. 127 
 
 her father and some others were sitthig with him, he 
 turned aside to her, and, grasping her hand, said : ' The 
 bhster I have tried for my breath has betrayed some very 
 bad tokens; but I will not terrify myself by talking of 
 them. Kh., pricz Dieii pour mot f 
 
 One ray of comfort the close of 1783 brought with it. 
 On the day on which the Ministry to which he belonged 
 was dissolved, Mr. Burke appointed Dr. Burney organist 
 of Chelsea Hospital, at the insignificant, though augmented 
 salary of ^50 a year, regretting that while he had been 
 Paymaster-General, nothing more worthy of the Doctor's 
 acceptance had fallen to his disposal. About this incident 
 Miss Burney writes : ' You have heard the whole story of 
 Mr. Burke, the Chelsea Hospital, and his most charming 
 letter? To-day he called, and, as my father was out, 
 inquired for me. He made a thousand apologies for 
 breaking in upon me, but said the business was finally 
 settled at the Treasury. Nothing could be more delicate, 
 more elegant than his manner of doing this kindness. I 
 don't know whether he was most polite, or most friendly, 
 in his whole behaviour to me. I could almost have cried 
 when he said, '' This is my last act in office." He said it 
 with so manly a cheerfulness, in the midst of undisguised 
 regret. What a man he is !' 
 
 The record of 1784 in the Diary is very short. The 
 chief incidents are the marriage of Mrs. Thrale to Piozzi, 
 and the death of Dr. Johnson. Enough, and more than 
 enough, has been written on the subject of the marriage. 
 Most of the lady's contemporaries spoke of it as if it had 
 been some disgraceful offence. Many in later times have 
 adopted the same tone. Dr. Burney had introduced 
 Piozzi to the Thrales, and for this and other reasons, the 
 Doctor and his family were disposed to be more lenient in 
 their judgment. Dr. Burney said : ' No one could blame
 
 I 28 Last Inccrview 7oitJi Johnson. 
 
 Vlozz'i for accepting a gay rich widow. What could a 
 man do better ?' And the singing-master was a quiet, 
 inoffensive person. Still, as to the lady, it could not be 
 forgotten that she had 3'Oung daughters, whose prospects 
 she had no right to prejudice by a match so unequal and. 
 so generally condemned. It is, therefore, not surprising 
 that when the wedding took place about the middle of 
 this year, and Mrs. Piozzi wrote, demanding cordial 
 congratulations. Miss Burney was unable to reply with 
 warmth enough to satisfy her. The intimate friendship 
 and correspondence of six years, therefore, came to an 
 end. Fanny, who was the last to write, attributed the 
 rupture, at one time, to the cause just mentioned, and, at 
 another, to the resentment of Piozzi, when informed of 
 her constant opposition to the union. 
 
 Some months later, IMiss Burney had her final interview 
 with Dr. Johnson : 
 
 " Last Thursday, Nov. 25th, my father set me down at 
 Bolt Court, while he went on upon business. I was 
 anxious to again see poor Dr. Johnson, who has had 
 terrible health since his return from Lichfield. He let me 
 in, though very ill. He was alone, which I much rejoiced 
 at : for I had a longer and more satisfactory conversation 
 with him than I have had for many months. He was in 
 rather better spirits, too, than I have lately seen him ; 
 but he told me he was going to try what sleeping out of 
 town might do for him. 
 
 " ' I remember,' said he, ' that my wife, when she was 
 near her end, poor woman, was also advised to sleep out 
 of town ; and when she was carried to the lodgings that 
 had been prepared for her, she complained that the stair- 
 case was in very bad condition — for the plaster was beaten 
 cff the walls in many places. ' Oh,' said the man of the
 
 ]\Irs. P'wzzi. 129 
 
 house, ' that's nothing but b}^ the knocks against it of 
 the coffins of the poor souls that have died in the 
 lodgings !' 
 
 " He laughed, though not without apparent secret 
 anguish, in telling me this. I felt extremely shocked, but, 
 willing to confine my words at least to the literal story, I 
 ■only exclaimed against the unfeeling absurdity of such a 
 -confession. 
 
 "'Such a confession,' cried he, 'to a person then 
 coming to try his lodging for her health, contains, indeed, 
 more absurdity than we can well lay our account for.' 
 
 " I had seen ]Miss T. the day before. 
 
 " ' So,' said he, ' did I.' 
 
 " I then said : ' Do you ever, sir, hear from her 
 mother ?' 
 
 " ' No,' cried he, 'nor write to her. I drive her quite 
 from my mind. If I meet with one of her letters, I burn 
 it instantly. I have burnt all I can find. I never speak 
 of her, and I desire never to hear of her more. I drive 
 her, as I said, wholly from m}^ mind.' 
 
 " Yet, wholly to change this discourse, I gave him a 
 history of the Bristol milk-woman,'* and told him the 
 tales I had heard of her writing so wonderfully, though 
 she had read nothing but Young and Milton ; ' though 
 those,' I continued, ' could never possibly, I should think, 
 be the first authors with anybody. Would children 
 understand them ? and grown people who have not read 
 are children in literature.' 
 
 " ' Doubtless,' said he ; ' but there is nothing so little 
 comprehended among mankind as what is genius. They 
 give to it all, when it can be but a part. Genius is 
 nothing more than knowing the use of tools ; but there 
 must be tools for it to use : a man who has spent all his 
 
 * Ann Yearsley.
 
 1 30 What is Genius ? 
 
 life in this room will give a very poor account of what is 
 contained in the next.' 
 
 " ' Certainly, sir ; yet there is such a thing as invention ; 
 Shakespeare could never have seen a Caliban.' 
 
 " ' No ; but he had seen a man, and knew, therefore, 
 how to vary him to a monster. A man who would draw 
 a monstrous cow, must first know what a cow commonly 
 is ; or how can he tell that to give her an ass's head or an 
 elephant's tusk will make her monstrous ? Suppose you 
 show me a- man who is a very expert carpenter ; another 
 will say he was born to be a carpenter — but what if he 
 had never seen any wood ? Let two men, one with 
 genius, the other with none, look at an overturned 
 waggon : — he who has no genius, will think of the waggon 
 only as he sees it, overturned, and walk on ; he who has- 
 genius, will paint it to himself before it was overturned, 
 — standing still, and moving on, and heavy loaded, and 
 empty ; but both must see the waggon, to think of it 
 at all.' 
 
 " How just and true all this, my dear Susy ! He then 
 grew animated, and talked on, upon this milk-woman,, 
 upon a once as famous shoemaker, and upon our immortal 
 Shakespeare, with as much fire, spirit, wit, and truth of 
 criticism and judgment, as ever yet I have heard him. 
 How delightfully bright are his faculties, though the poor 
 and infirm machine that contains them seems alarmingly 
 giving way. 
 
 " Yet, all brilhant as he was, I saw him growing worse, 
 and offered to go, which, for the first time I ever remember, 
 he did not oppose ; but, most kindly pressing both my 
 hands : 
 
 " ' Be not,' he said, in a voice of even tenderness, 'be 
 not longer in coming again for my letting you go now.' 
 
 ** I assured him I would be the sooner, and was running
 
 Johnsons Death. 131 
 
 off, but he called me back, in a solemn voice, and, in a 
 manner the most energetic, said : 
 
 " ' Remember me in your prayers !' 
 
 " I longed to ask him to remember me, but did not dare. 
 I gave him my promise, and, ver}' heavily indeed, I left 
 him. Great, good, and excellent that he is, how short a 
 time will he be our boast ! Ah, my dear Susy, I see he is 
 going ! This ^vinter will never conduct him to a more 
 genial season here ! Elsewhere, who shall hope a fairer ? 
 I wish I had bid him pray for me ; but it seemed to me 
 presumptuous, though this repetition of so kind a conde- 
 scension might, I think, have encouraged me.' 
 
 * He wished to look on her once more ; and on the da}- 
 before his death she long remained in tears on the stairs 
 leading to his bedroom, in the hope that she might be 
 called in to receive his blessing. He was then sinking 
 fast, and though he sent her an affectionate message, was 
 unable to see her.'* 
 
 * Macaulay.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IMrs. Delany — Her Childhood — Her First Marriage — Swift — Dr. Delany — The 
 Dowager Duchess of Portland — Mrs. Delany a Favourite at Court — Her 
 Flower-Work — Miss IJurney's First \'isit to Mrs. Delany — ]Meets the 
 Duchess of Portland — Mrs. Sleepe — Crisp — Growth of Friendship with ]\Irs. 
 Delany — Society at her House — Mrs. Delany's Reminiscences — The Lockes 
 of Norbury Park — Mr. Smelt — Dr. P)urneyhas an Audience of the King and 
 Queen — The King's Bounty to Mrs. Delany — Miss Buiney Visits Windsor — 
 Meets the King and Queen — ' Evelina ' — Invention Exhausted — The King's 
 Opinion of \'oUaire, Rousseau, and Shakespeare — The Queen and Bookstalls 
 ■ — Expectation — Journey to Windsor — The Terrace — Dr. Eurney's Dis- 
 appointment — Proposal of the Queen to Miss Burney — Doubts and Fears 
 — An Interview- — The Decision — Mistaken Criticism — Burke's Opinion— A 
 Misconception — Horace Walpole's Regret — Miss Burney's Journals of her 
 Life at Court — Sketches of Character — The King and (^ueen — Mrs. Schwel- 
 lenberg — The Queen's Lodge — Miss Burney's Apartments — A Day's Duties 
 — Royal Snuff — Fictitious Names in the Diary — The Princesses— A Royal 
 Birthday — A Walk on the Terrace — The Infant Princess Amelia. 
 
 We have mentioned Mrs. Delany in our list of the more 
 remarkable friends made by Miss Burney during the 
 winter succeeding the publication of ' Cecilia,' Burke 
 followed a fashion then prevalent when he pronounced 
 this venerable lady the fairest model of female excellence 
 in the previous age. Mrs. Delany owed her distinction 
 in a great measure to the favour which she enjoyed with 
 the royal family. Born in 1700, she was early instructed 
 in the ways of a Court, having been brought up by an 
 aunt who had been maid-of-honour to Queen Mary, and 
 had received for her charge the promise of a similar em- 
 ployment in the household of Queen Anne. Having missed 
 this promotion, the girl next fell into the hands of her 
 uncle, George Granville, Lord Lansdowne, who, though
 
 Mrs. Delany. i''" 
 
 JO 
 
 celebrated by Pope as ' the friend of every Muse,' was 
 not gentleman enough to treat his brother's child with 
 decent consideration. He forced Mary Granville, at 
 seventeen, into a marriage with Alexander Pendarves, a 
 Cornish squire near sixty, of drunken habits and morose 
 manners, who sought the match chiefly to disappoint his 
 expectant heir. After a few years, this worthy died of a 
 fit, to the great relief of all belonging to him, but, unfor- 
 tunately for his wife, without having made the provision 
 for her which, to do him justice, he appears to have 
 intended. Some time later the widow paid a visit to 
 Ireland, where she became acquainted with Dean Swift, 
 and his intimate associate. Dr. Patrick Delany, who was 
 famed as a scholar and preacher. After her return, Swift 
 exchanged occasional letters with her so long as he 
 retained his reason. In 1743, Dr. Delany, then himself a 
 widower, came over to England to offer himself to her in 
 marriage. She accepted him, in spite of her family, 
 whose high stomach rose against a mesalliance with an 
 Irish parson. Their influence, however, was subsequently 
 used to procure for Delany the deanery of Down. On 
 his death, which occurred in 1768, Mrs. Delany settled in 
 London, and, at the time when Miss Burney was intro- 
 duced to her, had a house in St. James's Place. Her 
 most intimate friend was the old Duchess of Portland, 
 with whom she regularly spent the summer at her Grace's 
 dower house of Bulstrode. There she was presented to 
 George III. and his Queen, both of whom conceived a 
 strong regard for her. The King called her his dearest 
 Mrs. Delany, and in 17S2 commissioned Opie to paint 
 her portrait, which was placed at Hampton Court.* 
 
 * ' It is pronounced like Rembrandt, but, as I told her, it does not look 
 older than she is, but older than she does.' — Walpole to Mason, February 14, 
 17S2.
 
 134 ^/^<^ Dowagej" Duchess of Portland. 
 
 While Frances Burney was having her first interview 
 with Mrs. Delany, the Dowager Duchess of Portland 
 condescended to appear upon the scene. This exalted 
 personage, we are given to understand, had a natural 
 aversion to female novel-writers, but, at her friend's 
 request, consented to receive homage from the author of 
 * Cecilia.' Her curiosity, in fact, got the better of her 
 pride. Before her arrival, the conversation turned on the 
 tiower-work for which Mrs. Delany was famous among 
 her acquaintances. This was a kind of paper mosaic, 
 invented b}' the old lady, and practised by her until her 
 eyesight failed. Some specimens of it were thought 
 worthy of being offered, as a tribute of humble duty, to 
 Queen Charlotte. The admiration freely bestowed on 
 this trumpery, and the doubtful reception accorded to 
 literary merit in a woman, illustrate the tone which pre- 
 vailed in the highest society a hundred years ago. To 
 cut out bits of coloured paper, and paste them together 
 on the leaf of an album so as to resemble flowers, was 
 considered a wonderful achievement even for a paragon 
 of her sex. To have written the best work of imagina- 
 tion that had proceeded from a female pen was held to 
 confer only an equivocal title to eminence. The Duchess, 
 however, exerted herself to be civil. ' She was a simple 
 woman,' says Walpole ; but she did her best. She joined 
 Mrs. Delany in recalling the characters that had pleased 
 them most in ' Cecilia ;' she dwelt on the spirit of the 
 Avriting, the fire in the composition, and, ' with a solemn 
 sort of voice,' declared herself gratified by the morahty 
 of the book, * so striking, so pure, so genuine, so instruc- 
 tive.' Fanny, always impressed by grandeur, eager after 
 praise, thankful for notice, was charmed with these com- 
 pliments. She found her Grace's manner not merely 
 free from arrogance, but ' free also from its mortifying
 
 The Duchess and Air. Crisp. 135 
 
 'deput}-, affabilit}'.' Yet the worship of rank, which 
 belonged to that age, was, in little Miss Burne}^ always 
 subordinate to better feelings. In her eyes the dignified 
 visitor appeared by no means so interesting as her 
 hostess.* Nor was it an}' air of courtliness that attracted 
 her in Mrs. Delany, but a simple domestic association. 
 Though not a person of genius, or, it should seem, of any 
 extraordinary cultivation, this veteran of English and 
 Irish society had preserved an unsullied, gentle, kindly 
 spirit which showed itself in her face and carriage. 
 Fanny could not remember to have seen so much sweet- 
 ness of countenance in anyone except her own grand- 
 mother, Mrs. Sleepe. She at once began to trace, or to 
 imagine, a resemblance between ' that saint-like woman ' 
 and her new friend, and gave herself up to the tender- 
 ness which the current of her thoughts excited. 
 
 Besides this similarit}^ she bethought her of another 
 recollection which she could with propriet}^ impart to the 
 ladies before her. She had often heard Mr. Crisp speak 
 of his former intercourse with the Duchess and Mrs. 
 Uelany. The latter, she learned on inquiry, had been 
 ■chiefly intimate with Crisp's sisters ; but the Duchess 
 had known Crisp himself well, and was curious to learn 
 •what had become of so agreeable and accomplished a 
 man. Her questions gave the shy, silent Fanny a theme 
 ■on which she could enlarge with animation. ' I spared 
 not,' she writes, ' for boasting of my dear daddy's kind- 
 ness to me.' The accounts she had received from the 
 
 The editor of Mrs. Delany's ' Correspondence,' having a grudge against 
 Madame d'Arblay, labours to prove that the Duchess of Portland cannot have 
 been present at this interview. The supposed proof consists in showing from 
 some old letters that the Duchess did not read ' Evelina ' for nearly twelve 
 months after the date spoken of. But this is nothing to the purpose. ' Evelina ' 
 does not appear to have been mentioned when its author was introduced to 
 Miss Delany. The conversation recorded to have passed related wholly to 
 * Cecilia.'
 
 136 Gi'owth of Friendship luitJi Ilirs. Delany. 
 
 Crisp family, she told Mrs. Delany, had first made her 
 desire the acquaintance that day commenced. She ran 
 on to relate the story of Crisp's disappearance, painted 
 his way of life in his retreat, and entertained the company 
 with a description of Chesington Hall, its isolated and 
 lonely position, its ruinous condition, its nearly inacces- 
 sible roads, its quaint old pictures, and straight long" 
 garden paths.* Her flow of spirits banished all reserve, 
 and that evening laid the foundations of a friendship 
 that partly consoled her for the death of Crisp and the 
 desertion of Mrs. Thrale. 
 
 The attachment between Mrs. Delany and the favourite 
 of Chesington and Streatham grew up rapidly. The 
 entries in Fanny's Diary show that she very soon became 
 a constant visitor in St. James's Place. She is flattered at 
 being so much in favour there as to find its mistress 
 always eager to fix a time for their next and next meeting. 
 Yet, while profuse in praise of her venerable friend, she 
 dwells more on the qualities of the old lady's heart than 
 on any accomplishments of mind or manner ; she loves 
 even more than she admires her ; possibly some touches 
 of high-breeding were lost on the music-master's daughter;, 
 at any rate, the first impression abides with her, and in 
 the noted pattern of antique polish and tastet she sees 
 always the image of the departed Mrs. Sleepe. 
 
 Except in the presence of her young grand-niece Mary 
 Port,! Mrs. Delany's house had little charm of liveliness. 
 The chief persons that frequented it belonged to the 
 
 * Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 313. 
 
 t The courtier-bishop Plurd described Mrs. Delany as a lady ' of great 
 politeness and ingenuity, and of an unaffected piety.' 
 
 X Georgina Mary Ann Port {called ' Mary' ijy her great-aunt) was born oa 
 September i5, 1771. Her father having outrun his means, she was taken by 
 Mrs Delany, who brought her up to the age of sixteen. Not long after the 
 death of her protectress, she married JNIr. Benjamin Waddington, of Llanover.. 
 tjhe died on January 19, 1S50.
 
 Mrs. Dclanys Circle. 137 
 
 same generation as the Duchess of Portland, who spent 
 most of her evenins^s there. A sombre figure in that 
 pecuhar assembly was Lady Wallingford,the impoverished 
 widow of a gaming peer, and a daughter of the speculator 
 Law. This lady, who never opened her lips, invariably 
 appeared in full mourning dress, wearing a black silk 
 robe, a hoop, long ruffles, a winged cap, and other ap- 
 pendages of an attire that even then was obsolete. 
 Another visitor was the Countess of Bute, wife of 
 George IIL's early favourite, and daughter of Lady Mary 
 Wortley Montagu. The elderly wit Horace Walpole often 
 joined a circle in which his old-fashioned pleasantry was 
 still received with the old applause. Fanny, who had 
 met him elsewhere, thought that he never showed to 
 such advantage as when surrounded by those stately 
 dowagers. And while Horace, and most of the other 
 callers, had, more or less, the air of having outlived their 
 age, the lady to whom they paid their respects had passed 
 the better portion of her life in a still more remote period. 
 She encouraged Miss Burney to turn over Swift's letters 
 to her ; and her most interesting anecdotes related to the 
 days of the Dean, and Pope, and Young, 
 
 Perhaps it was, in part, some memory of the time 
 when she herself had shared the talk of men of letters, 
 that made her take to the young writer who had done 
 more to raise the literary credit of women than Mrs. 
 Montagu, or Hannah More, or the whole tribe of blue- 
 stockings united. The admired of Johnson, Burke and 
 Reynolds was both a more entertaining guest, and a 
 greater ornament to her drawing-room, than the respect- 
 able Mrs. Chapone, the learned Mrs. Carter, or even ' the 
 high-bred, elegant ' Mrs. Boscawen. And, whatever may 
 have been said at a later date by distant connections of 
 Mrs. Delany, soured by a peevish family pride which ^Iw
 
 138 . The Lockcs of Norbury Pcwk. 
 
 disdained, her own published letters prove that she not 
 merely appreciated Fanny's talents, but understood and 
 valued her character. At one time she declares that 
 'Evehna' and 'Cecilia,' excellent as she finds them, are 
 their author's meanest praise, and goes on to extol ' her 
 admirable understanding, tender affection and sweetness 
 of manners ;' after three years' experience she writes of 
 her companion : ' Her extreme diffidence of herself, not- 
 withstanding her great genius, and the applause she has 
 met with, adds lustre to all her excellences, and all 
 improve on acquaintance.' It is scarcely too much to 
 say that the correspondence in which these lines occur 
 would never have been printed but for Miss Burney. The 
 love and esteem expressed in her Diary have almost alone 
 saved Mrs. Delany's name from utter oblivion ; it would 
 be strange indeed had such regard gone unrequited by 
 its object. 
 
 Frances Burney had certainly a remarkable capacity 
 for friendship. Not long after her introduction in St. 
 James's Place, she formed another acquaintance, which 
 ripened steadily, and became, on Mrs. Delany's death, the 
 chief intimacy of her life outside her own family. It 
 seems to have been in the summer of 1783 that Dr. 
 Burney and his now celebrated daughter first met with 
 Mr. and Mrs. Locke, of Norbury Park. From some 
 cause or other, we do not get so vivid a picture of these 
 worthy persons as we do of most of Fanny's other 
 friends. This is perhaps partly explained by the fact that 
 Mr. Locke was a man of reserved and retiring tempera- 
 ment. But though silent in general society, he had a 
 benevolent heart and a cultivated taste ; was a great lover 
 of the picturesque, and a collector of works of art. Dr. 
 Burney paid his first visit to Norbury in company with 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds ; and many years afterwards Sir
 
 Air. Smelt, 139 
 
 Thomas Lawrence told Madame d'xA.rblay that in all his 
 experience he had never seen a second Mr. Locke. The 
 eldest son of the house, William Locke, was an amateur 
 artist of some skill. Miss I5urney's particular friend was, 
 naturally, Mrs. Locke. The sketch transmitted to us of 
 this lady is even more faint than that of her husband, 
 whom, we are told, she strongly resembled. She was 
 lovely, of course, and amiable : Fanny sometimes calls 
 her bewitching ; but we search in vain for anytl^ng more 
 distinctive. After the summer of 17S4, Miss Burney, 
 except during her employment at Court, was often at 
 Norbur}'. It pleased her to think that when there she 
 was only six miles from Chesington, And v/hile the 
 place was still new to her, her sister Susan, who had been 
 abroad for her health, returned, and settled with her 
 husband, Captain Phillips, in the village of Mickleham, 
 hard by the gates of Norbury Park. Thenceforth the 
 Park banished all regrets for Streatham. The Thrales 
 themselves were never more hospitable or kinder than the 
 excellent Lockes proved to be. If we cannot get to know 
 the latter as we know the former, it is a satisfaction, at 
 least, to learn that Mr. Smelt, who had been sub-governor 
 to the Prince of Wales, spoke of them to Fanny as ' that 
 divine family.' 
 
 Mr. Smelt, previously a slight acquamtance of the 
 Burneys, had lately shown a disposition to cultivate their 
 society. Such attention on the part of a confidential 
 royal servant, though easily accounted for by the fame of 
 * Cecilia,' was among the omens which befell about this 
 time of what the fates had in store for the author. 
 Another premonitory incident occurred at the beginning of 
 1785, when Dr. Burney was admitted to a private audi- 
 ence of the King and Queen, in order that he might 
 present to them copies of his narrative of the Handel
 
 1 40 TJie Kings Bounty to Mrs. Dclany. 
 
 Commemoration, which had taken place in the preceding 
 year. The good-natured monarch, according to his wont 
 on such occasions, entered into a famihar and discursive 
 conversation with the Doctor. The last topic discussed 
 was the story of the publication of Evelina. ' And is it 
 true,' asked the King eagerly, 'that you never saw 
 Evehna before it was printed ?' 'Nor even till long after 
 it was published,' was the reply. The King then drew 
 from the gratified father a detailed account of Evelina's 
 first introduction to the world, which, as the Doctor 
 reported, afforded the greatest amusement to the Queen, 
 as well as to his inquiring Majesty. 
 
 The old Duchess of Portland died in July, 1785. Her 
 will made no provision for her older friend, whom no 
 doubt she had expected to survive ; and this accident 
 indirectly determined the great mistake of Miss Burney's 
 life. The loss of her summer quarters at Bulstrode, 
 which for the half of every year had been her constant 
 home, was a serious inconvenience for Mrs. Delany, whose 
 income barely sufficed for the maintenance of her London 
 establishment during the winter. Informed of this, the 
 King caused a house belonging to the Crown at Windsor, 
 near the Castle, to be fitted up for the use of his aged 
 favourite, and settled a pension of three hundred pounds 
 a year upon her for the rest of her days, that she might 
 be enabled to enjoy a country life without giving up her 
 accustomed residence in St. James's Place. The royal 
 bounty was so complete that Mrs. Delany's maid was 
 commanded to see that her mistress brouerht nothinp- 
 with her but her clothes : everything else was to be pro- 
 vided ; and when supplies were exhausted, the abigail 
 was to make a requisition for more. The King himself 
 superintended the workmen : when his new neighbour 
 arrived, he was on the spot to welcome her; and she
 
 .Miss Bm^ney Visits Windsor. 141 
 
 found that her benefactor had not only caused the house 
 to be furnished with plate, china, glass, and linen, but 
 the cellars to be stocked with wine, and the cupboards 
 stored with sweetmeats and pickles.* Such was the 
 plainness, and such the generosity, of George III. 
 
 Miss Burney was on a visit to her friend while these 
 arrangements were in progress ; when the latter left 
 London for Windsor, she herself went to her father at 
 Chesington Hall, in which old haunt Dr. Burney was 
 then employed on his still unfinished History. In the 
 following December, Fanny rejoined Mrs. Delany at 
 Windsor, and during her stay there was introduced to 
 the King and Queen. It seems that etiquette forbade 
 her being formally presented to them, except at a 
 drawing-room ; but they were desirous of making her 
 acquaintance, and it was at length arranged that when 
 next their Majesties called on her hostess, as they were in 
 the habit of doing, she should remain in the room. On 
 the first occasion that occurred, her courage failed her at 
 the critical moment, and she fled. A few days later, Mrs. 
 Delany returned from her afternoon nap to find her 
 nephew, Mr. Bernard Dewes, his little daughter, and Miss 
 Port, engaged in the drawing-room with Miss Burney, 
 who was teaching the child some Christmas games, in 
 which her father and cousin joined. The Diary proceeds : 
 
 * Miss Burney 's account is confirmed in every important particular by 
 Walpole, who states that he had his iiiformatiou from Mrs. Ilelany's own 
 mouth: Walpole to Lady Ossory, SeiHember 17, 1785. Lady Llanover, who 
 edited the ' Delany Correspondence,' is wroth that the thankful recipient of all 
 this minute bounty should be accused of having been helpeti in her house- 
 keeping by the Duchess of Portland. In the ' Memoirs of Dr. Burney ' 
 (vol. iii., p. 50), it is stated that the Duchess, who visited at Mrs. Delany's 
 nearly every evening, contrived to assist the i/ieitagc, without offending her 
 hostess by the offer of money. If Madame d'Arblay erred in this statement — 
 and Lady Llanover by no means satisfies us that she did err — surely the mistake 
 was a most venial one. But Lady Llanover's outraged digniiy fumes through 
 hundreds of pages in feeble sneers at Fanny's low origin, and still more feebic 
 attempts to convict her of inaccuracy. A'ol'lcssc oblige.
 
 142 Miss Burney Meets the King. 
 
 " We were all in the middle of the room, and in some 
 confusion ; — but she had but just come up to us to inquire 
 what was going forwards, and I was disentangling myself 
 from Miss Dewes, to be ready to fly off if anyone knocked 
 at the street-door, when the door of the drawing-room 
 was again opened, and a large man, in deep mourning, 
 appeared at it, entering and shutting it himself without 
 speaking. 
 
 " A ghost could not more have scared me, when I dis- 
 covered by its glitter on the black, a star ! The general 
 disorder had prevented his being seen, except by myself, 
 who was always on the watch, till Miss Port, turning 
 round, exclaimed, ' The King ! — Aunt, the King !' 
 
 " Oh, mercy ! thought I, that I were but out of the 
 room ! which way shall I escape ? and how pass him 
 unnoticed ? There is but the single door at which he 
 entered, in the room 1 Everyone scampered out of the 
 way : Miss Port, to stand next the door ; Mr. Bernard 
 Dewes to a corner opposite it ; his little girl clung to me ; 
 and Mrs. Delany advanced to meet his Majest}', who, 
 after quietly looking on till she saw him, approached, and, 
 inquired how she did. 
 
 " He then spoke to Mr. Bernard, whom he had already 
 met two or three times here. 
 
 " I had now retreated to the wall, and purposed gliding 
 softly, though speedity, out of the room ; but before I had 
 taken a single step, the King, in a loud whisper to Mrs. 
 Delan}', said, 'Is that Miss Burney?' — and on her 
 answering, ' Yes, sir,' he bowed, and with a countenance 
 of the most perfect good humour, came close up to me." 
 
 Having put a question to her, and received an inaudible 
 reply, he went back to Mrs. Delany, and spoke of the 
 Princess Elizabeth, who, incredible as it sounds, was then
 
 A Ridiculous Siitiation. 143 
 
 recovering from an illness after having been blooded 
 twelve times in a fortnight : 
 
 *' A good deal of talk then followed about his own health, 
 and the extreme temperance by which he preserved it. 
 The fault of his constitution, he said, was a tendency to 
 excessive fat, which he kept, however, in order by the 
 most vigorous exercise, and the strictest attention to a 
 simple diet. 
 
 " When Mrs. Delany was beginning to praise his for- 
 bearance, he stopped her. 
 
 "'No, no,' he cried, ''tis no virtue; I only prefer 
 eating plain and little, to growing diseased and infirm.' 
 
 " During this discourse, I stood quietly in the place 
 where he had first spoken to me. His quitting me so 
 soon, and conversing freely and easily with Mrs. Delany, 
 proved so delightful a relief to me, that I no longer wished 
 myself away; and the moment my first panic from the 
 surprise was over, I diverted myself with a thousand 
 ridiculous notions of my own situation. 
 
 " The Christmas games we had been showing Miss 
 Dewes, it seemed as if we were still performing, as none 
 of us thought it proper to move, though our manner of 
 standing reminded one of Puss in the corner. Close to 
 the door was posted Miss Port ; opposite her, close to the 
 wainscot, stood Mr. Dewes ; at just an equal distance 
 fromx him, close to a window, stood myself; Mrs. Delany, 
 though seated, was at the opposite side to JNliss Port ; 
 and his Majesty kept pretty much in the middle of the 
 room. The little girl, who kept close to me, did not 
 break the order, and I could hardly help expecting to be 
 beckoned, wath a puss ! puss ! puss ! to change places 
 with one of my neighbours. 
 
 " This idea, afterwards, gave way to another more
 
 144 -^^^^ King Que si ions IJiss Burney. 
 
 pompous. It seemed to me we were acting a play. 
 There is something so httle like common and real life, in 
 everybody's standing, while talking, in a room full of 
 chairs, and standing, too, so aloof from each other, that 
 I almost thought myself upon a stage, assisting in the 
 representation of a tragedy — in which the King played 
 his own part of the king ; ^Irs. Delany that of a venerable 
 confidante ; Mr. Dewes, his respectful attendant ; Miss 
 Port, a suppliant virgin, waiting encouragement to bring 
 forward some petition ; Miss Dewes, a young orphan, 
 intended to move the royal compassion ; and myself, a 
 very solemn, sober, and decent mute. 
 
 " These fancies, however, only regaled me while I con- 
 tinued a quiet spectator, and without expectation of being 
 called into play. But the King, I have reason to think, 
 meant only to give me time to recover from my first 
 embarrassment ; and I feel myself infinitely obliged to 
 his good breeding and consideration, which perfectly 
 answered, for before he returned to me I was entirely 
 recruited. . . . 
 
 " The King went up to the table, and looked at a book 
 of prints, from Claude Lorraine, which had been brought 
 down for Miss Dewes ; but Mrs. Delany, by mistake, told 
 him they were for me. He turned over a leaf or two, and 
 then said : 
 
 " ' Pray, does Miss Burney draw too ?' 
 "The too was pronounced very civilly, 
 " ' I believe not, sir,' answered Mrs. Delany ; ' at least, 
 she does not tell.' 
 
 "'Oh!' cried he, laughing, 'that's nothing! She is 
 not apt to tell ; she never does tell, you know ! Her 
 father told me that himself. He told me the whole history 
 of her Evelina. And I shall never forget his face when 
 he spoke of his feelings at first taking up the book I — he
 
 The King and Evelina. 145 
 
 looked quite frightened, just as if he was doing it that 
 moment ! I never can forget his face while I hve I' 
 
 " Then coming up close to me, he said : 
 
 " * But what ? — what ? — how was it ?' 
 
 " ' Sir,' cried I, not well understanding him. 
 
 *' ' How came you — how happened it ? — what ? — 
 what V 
 
 " ' I — I only wrote, sir, for my own amusement — only 
 in some odd, idle hours.' 
 
 " ' But your publishing — your printing — how was that T 
 
 " ' That was only, sir — only because ' 
 
 " I hesitated most abominably, not knowing how to tell 
 him a long story, and growing terribly confused at these 
 questions — besides, to say the truth, his own " what ? 
 what ?" so reminded me of those vile Probationary Odes,* 
 that, in the midst of all my flutter, I was really hardly 
 able to keep my countenance. 
 
 "The What! was then repeated with so earnest a look, 
 that, forced to say something, I stammeringly answered -. 
 
 " ' I thought — sir — it would look very well in print !' 
 
 " I do really flatter myself this is the silliest speech I 
 ever made ! I am quite provoked with myself for it ; but 
 a fear of laughing made me eager to utter anything, and 
 by no means conscious, till I had spoken, of what I was 
 saying. 
 
 " He laughed very heartily himself — well he might — and 
 walked away to enjoy it, crying out : 
 
 " ' Very fair indeed ! that's being ver}^ fair and honest I' 
 
 " Then, returning to me again, he said : 
 
 '"But your father — how came you not to show him 
 what you wrote ?' 
 
 * The Trobationary Odes for the Laure.iteship appeared in 17S5, after the 
 appointment of Thomas Warton to that oflke, on the vacancy occasioned by 
 the death of William Whitehead. 
 
 10
 
 146 Invention Exhausted. 
 
 " ' I was too much ashamed of it, sir, seriously.' 
 
 " Literal truth that, I am sure. 
 
 " ' And how did he find it out ?' 
 
 " ' I don't know myself, sir. He never w-ould tell 
 me.' .... 
 
 " ' What entertainment 3'ou must have had from hearing 
 people's conjectures before 3'OU were known ! Do you 
 remember any of them ?'.... 
 
 " ' I heard that Mr. Baretti laid a wager it was written 
 by a man ; for no woman, he said, could have kept her 
 own counsel.' 
 
 " This diverted him extremely. 
 
 *' * But how was it,' he continued, '3'OU thought most 
 likely for your father to discover you ?' 
 
 " ' Sometimes, sir, I have supposed I must have dropped 
 some of the manuscript : sometimes, that one of my 
 sisters betrayed me.' 
 
 " ' Oh ! your sister ? — what, not your brother ?' 
 
 ** ' No, sir ; he could not, for ' 
 
 " I was going on, but he laughed so much I could not 
 be heard, exclaiming : 
 
 " ' Vastly well ! I see you are of Mr. Baretti's mind, 
 and think your brother could keep 5^our secret, and not 
 your sister .... But you have not kept your pen unem- 
 ployed all this time ?' 
 
 " * Indeed I have, sir.' 
 
 " ' But why ?' 
 
 " * I — I believe I have exhausted myself, sir.' 
 
 " He laughed aloud at this, and went and told it to 
 Mrs. Delany, civilly treating a plain fact as a mere hon 
 motr 
 
 The King asked several other questions about Evelina, 
 and the prospect of anything further appearing from the
 
 -■ Enter the Queen. 147 
 
 •author's pen. A change of subject led to the mention of 
 hunting, when, looking round on the party, he said : ' Did 
 you know that Mrs. Dclany once hunted herself, and in a 
 long gown and a great hoop ?' As he spoke, a violent 
 thunder was heard at the door. Fanny again felt herself 
 sinking into the carpet. Miss Port slid out of the room 
 backwards, and lights shone in the hall. Enter the Queen. 
 Her Majesty drops a profound reverence to the King, 
 holds out both hands to her dear Mrs. Delany, and then 
 turns her face on the short-sighted stranger, who, un- 
 certain whether she has received a salute or not, is 
 bewildered what to do. The King comes to her relief, 
 repeats to his consort all that Miss Burney has already 
 told him, and proceeds with a further catechism. The 
 Queen, more curious about the future than the past, has 
 questions of her own to put. ' Shall we have no more ? — 
 nothing more ?' she asks. Fanny can only shake her 
 head in reply, and when gracious phrases of regret and 
 encouragement are uttered, is unable to find a word of 
 acknowledgment. Presently the conversation, becoming 
 general, ranges over a variety of topics, from the ex- 
 emplary behaviour of the Princess Sophia, aged nearly 
 nine, in guarding her music-master's great nose from 
 ridicule, to Bishop Porteous's sermons, which the King 
 thought that admired preacher would do wrong to publish, 
 because every discourse printed would diminish his stock 
 for the pulpit. 
 
 Three days later the King made an evening visit. 
 The Diary describes the mode of his reception on these 
 occasions. ' The etiquette always observed on his 
 entrance is, first of all, to fiy off to distant quarters ; and 
 next, Miss Port goes out, walking backwards, for more 
 candles, which she brings in, two at a time, and places 
 upon the tables and pianoforte. Next she goes out for 
 
 10 — 2
 
 148 Shakspeare Criticized. 
 
 tea, which she then carries to his Majesty, upon a large 
 salver, containing sugar, cream, and bread and butter 
 and cake, while she hangs a napkin over her arm for his 
 fingers. This, it seems, is a ceremony performed, in other 
 places, always by the mistress of the house ; but here 
 neither of their Majesties will permit Mrs. Delany to 
 attempt it.' While drinking his tea, the King ran on, in 
 his usual discursive vein, about authors, actors, books, 
 and plays. Concerning the tendency of Voltaire's works, 
 and the personal character of Rousseau, he expressed the 
 current opinions of English society ; calling the former a 
 monster, and telling anecdotes to illustrate ' the savage 
 pride and insolent ingratitude ' of the latter. He vexed 
 Miss Burney by pronouncing Mrs. Siddons the most 
 excellent player of his time, not even excepting the 
 divine Garrick. From players he went to plays, and 
 having deplored the immorality of the old English 
 comedies, and the poverty of the new ones, he came at 
 length to Shakspeare. 
 
 "'Was there ever,' cried he, 'such stuff as great part 
 of Shakspeare ? only one must not sa}' so ! But what 
 think you? What? Is there not sad stuff? What? 
 What r 
 
 " ' Yes, indeed, I think so, sir, though mixed with such 
 excellences, that ' 
 
 " ' Oh !' cried he, laughing good-humouredly ; ' I know 
 it is not to be said ! but it's true. Only it's Shakspeare,. 
 and nobody dares abuse him.' 
 
 " Then he enumerated many of the characters and parts 
 of plays that he objected to ; and, when he had run them 
 over, finished with again laughing, and exclaiming : ' But 
 one should be stoned for saying so !' " 
 
 The following afternoon, the Queen came, and was 
 also in a mood for hterary criticism. She talked of the
 
 The Terrace at Windsor. 149 
 
 "* Sorrows of Werter,' and Klopstock's ' Messiah,' and 
 mentioned, with praise, another book, saying : 
 
 ' I picked it up on a stall. Oh, it is amazing what good 
 books there are on stalls !' 
 
 * It is amazing to me,' said !Mrs. Delany, * to hear 
 that.' 
 
 'Why, I don't pick them up myself; but I have a 
 servant very clever ; and if they are not to be had at the 
 bookseller's, they are not for me any more than for 
 another.' 
 
 In May, 17S6, the Mastership of the King's Band, 
 which had formerly been promised to Dr. Burney, once 
 more became vacant. The Doctor was again a candidate 
 for the appointment. We gather from his having ac- 
 cepted so small a post as that of Organist to Chelsea 
 Ho::pital, and from some other indications, that his cir- 
 cumstances had not improved as he grew older. He was 
 now sixty years of age : he must have found the work of 
 tuition at once less easy to be met with, and more 
 laborious to discharge, than it had been in his younger 
 days ; we cannot be mistaken in supposing that he was 
 eager to obtain, not merely promotion, but also some 
 permanent and lighter occupation. In his anxiety he 
 had recourse to Mr. Smelt, who counselled him to go to 
 Windsor, not to address the King, but to be seen by him. 
 * Take your daughter in your hand,' said the experienced 
 courtier, ' and walk upon the Terrace. Your appearing 
 there at this time the King will understand, and he is 
 more likel}^ to be touched by such a hint than by any 
 direct application.' Burney lost no time in acting on the 
 advice thus given. \Mien he and Fanny reached the 
 Terrace in the evening, they found the Royal Family 
 already there. The King and Queen, the Queen's mother, 
 and the Prince of Mecklenburg, her Majesty's brother,
 
 150 The Terrace at Windsor. 
 
 all walked together. Behind them followed six lovely 
 young princesses,* with their ladies and some of the 
 young princes, making, in the eyes of loyal subjects, ' a 
 very gay and pleasing procession of one of the finest 
 families in the world.' " Every way they moved," con- 
 tinues the narrator, " the crowd retired to stand up 
 against the wall as they passed, and then closed in to 
 follow. When they approached, and we were retreating. 
 Lady Louisa Clayton placed me next herself, making her 
 daughters stand below — without which I had certainly 
 not been seen ; for the moment their Majesties advanced, 
 I involuntarily looked down, and drew my hat over my 
 face. I could not endure to stare at them ; and, full of 
 our real errand, I felt ashamed even of being seen by 
 them. Consequently, I should have stood in the herd, 
 and unregarded ; but Lady Louisa's kindness and good 
 breeding put me in a place too conspicuous to pass un- 
 noticed. The moment the Ouecn had spoken to her, 
 which she stopped to do as soon as she came up to her, 
 she inquired, in a whisper, who was with her. The 
 Queen then instantly stepped near me, and asked me 
 how I did ; and then the King came forward, and, as 
 soon as he had repeated the same question, said : 
 
 *' ' Are you come to stay ?' 
 
 " * No, sir ; not now.' 
 
 " * I was sure,' cried the Queen, ' she was not come 
 to stay, by seeing her father !' 
 
 " I was glad by this to know my father had been 
 observed. 
 
 " 'And when,' asked the King, 'do you return again 
 to Windsor ?' 
 
 * Cliailotte, b. 1766, d. 182S, m. King of Wurtemljerg ; Augustp., b. 1768, 
 d. 1840 (unm.) ; Elizabeth, b. 1770, d. 1840,111. Landgrave of Hts^e Honiburg ;. 
 Mary, b. 1776, d. 1S40, m. her cousin, the Duke of Gloucester; Sophia, b. 1777, 
 d. 1S4S (unm.) ; Amelia, b. 17S3, d. iSlo (unm.).
 
 <( 
 
 Dr. Buriicys Disappointment. 1 5 i 
 
 ' Very soon, I hope, sir.' 
 
 'And— and— and,' cried he, half laughing and hesi- 
 tating significantly, ' pray, how goes on the Muse ?' 
 
 " At first I only laughed too ; but he repeated the in- 
 quiry, and then I answered : 
 
 '* ' Not at all, sir.' 
 
 " ' No ? But why ?— why not ?' 
 
 " ' I — I — I am afraid, sir,' stammered I. 
 
 " * And why ?' repeated he ; — ' of what ?' 
 
 *' I spoke something — I hardly know what myself — so 
 indistinctly that he could not hear me, though he had 
 put his head quite under my hat from the beginning of 
 the little conference ; and after another such question or 
 two, and no greater satisfaction in the answer, he smiled 
 very good-humouredly, and walked on, his Queen by his 
 side. 
 
 " We stayed some time longer on the Terrace, and my 
 poor father occasionally joined me ; but he looked so 
 conscious and depressed that it pained me to see him. 
 He was not spoken to, though he had a bow every time 
 the King passed him, and a curtsey from the Queen. But 
 it hurt him, and he thought it a very bad prognostic ; and 
 all there was at all to build upon was the graciousness 
 shown to me." Much dejected, the Doctor posted back 
 to town with his daughter ; and, on reaching home, heard 
 that the place he sought had been disposed of by the 
 Lord Chamberlain, in whose gift it was. 
 
 Miss Burney was persuaded that the King was dis- 
 pleased with the action of his official, but we venture to 
 doubt the correctness of her belief. Beyond question, 
 Mr. Smelt had had good reason for implying that the 
 daughter, rather than the father, was the object of favour 
 at Windsor. Dr. Burney was by no means a sound 
 enough Handelian to satisfy George III. And, to say the
 
 152 Proposal of the Queen to Miss Biirney. 
 
 truth, the account of the Handel Centenary Festival was 
 but a poor performance. On the other hand, Fanny's 
 literary success, and her manner of carrying it, had 
 pleased and interested the royal pair. It is probable, 
 if not absolutely certain, that the design of finding her 
 some employment at Court had already been entertained, 
 and that this was considered to render her father's suit 
 for himself inopportune. 
 
 The first thought was to settle her with one of the 
 princesses, in preference to the numerous candidates of 
 high birth and station, but small fortune, who were wait- 
 ing and supplicating for places about the persons of the 
 King's daughters. But in the month following Dr. 
 Burney's disappointment, a vacancy occurred in the 
 Queen's own Household. The office of Keeper of the 
 Robes was jointly held by two Germans, Mrs. Schwellen- 
 berg and Mrs. Haggerdorn, who had accompanied 
 Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, when she came to 
 England. The health of Mrs. Haggerdorn broke down 
 about this time, and in June, 17S6, it was arranged that 
 she should retire, and return to her own country. Who 
 should succeed her was a matter of eager speculation and 
 fierce competition in Court circles ; but without consult- 
 ing anyone, the Queen commissioned Mr. Smelt to make 
 an offer to Frances Burney. This trusted agent was 
 instructed to express her Majesty's wish to attach the 
 young lady permanently to herself and her family : he was 
 to propose to her to undertake certain duties, which were 
 in fact those of Mrs. Haggerdorn ; and he was to intimate 
 that in case of her accepting the situation designed for 
 her, she would have apartments in the palace, would 
 belong to the table of Mrs. Schwellenberg, with whom 
 the Queen's own visitors — bishops, lords, or commons — 
 always dined ; would be allowed a separate footman, and
 
 Doubts and Fears. 153 
 
 the use of a carriage in common with her senior colleague ; 
 and would receive a salary of two hundred pounds a 3'ear. 
 Fanny listened, and was struck with consternation. 
 " The attendance," she wrote to her dear Miss Cambridge, 
 " was to be incessant, the confinement to the Court con- 
 tinual ; I was scarce ever to be spared for a single visit from 
 the palaces, nor to receive anybod}' but with permission ; 
 and what a life for me, who have friends so dear to me, and 
 to whom friendship is the balm, the comfort, the very 
 support of existence !' It was not the sacrifice of literary 
 prospects that alarmed her. She did not even think of 
 
 * those distinguished men and women, the flower of all 
 political parties, with whom she had been in the habit of 
 mixing on terms of equal intercourse,'* and from whose 
 society she would be exiled. Her mind dwelt only on the 
 pain of being separated from her family and intimate 
 friends : from Susan and the Lockes ; from the old 
 familiar faces at Chesington ; from her sister Charlotte, 
 now married and settled in Norfolk ; from her corre- 
 spondent at Twickenham. ' I have no heart,' she sa3's, 
 
 * to write to Mickleham or Norbury. I know how they 
 will grieve : they have expected me to spend the whole 
 summer with them.' Good Mr. Smelt, who, in the words 
 of Macaulay, seems to have thought that going to Court 
 was like going to heaven, was equally surprised and morti- 
 fied at the mournful reception accorded to his flattering 
 proposals. Mrs. Delany, in whose town house they were 
 delivered, was not less astounded. The recipient, how- 
 ever, had but one thought, that, which ever way her own 
 feelings inclined, the matter must be referred to her 
 father, as the only person entitled to decide it. Dr. 
 Burney, as might have been anticipated, was enraptured 
 by the honour done to his family, and the vista which, in 
 
 * Macaulay.
 
 154 Intcj^view and Acceptance. 
 
 his sanguine view, was opened before his daughter. 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Smelt had gone down to Windsor, and 
 brought back word that the Queen desired a personal 
 interview with Miss Burney. Fanny had her audience, 
 and it ended, as she foresaw must be the case, in her 
 submission. When her Majesty said, with the most 
 condescending softness, ' I am sure, Miss Burney, we 
 shall suit one another very well,' there was nothing to be 
 done, but to make a humble reverence, and accept. The 
 Queen told Mrs. Delany : ' I was led to think of Miss 
 Burney, first by her books, then by seeing her ; then by 
 always hearing how she was loved by her friends ; but 
 chiefly by your friendship for her.' 
 
 Of course, the proposition and the acceptance were 
 alike mistaken. The service required was unworthy of 
 the servant, nor was she competent for the service. On 
 the one hand, the talents of a brilliant writer were thrown 
 away in a situation where writing was neither expected 
 nor desired. On the other, a novice of puny figure, imper- 
 fect sight, extreme nervousness, and small aptitude for 
 ordinary feminine duties, was most unlikely to become 
 distinguished in the profession of a lady-in-attendance. 
 Under the most favourable circumstances, the gains and 
 advantages attached to her constrained life at Court were 
 not to be compared with those which might be looked for 
 from the diligent use of her pen in the freedom of home. 
 Yet allowing all this, we cannot disguise from ourselves 
 that much heedless rhetoric has been expended by several 
 critics on the folly of Miss Burney's choice, and the 
 infatuation of her parent. These critics, we conceive, 
 have been led astray, partly by those more extreme trials 
 of her servitude which no prudence could have foreseen, 
 but principally by an erroneous estimate of her position 
 at the time when she closed with the Queen's offer.
 
 Mistaken Criticism. 155 
 
 The picture which has been imagined of Frances 
 Burney sending forth, at short intervals, a series of 
 ' Cecilias,' and receiving for each a cheque of two thousand 
 guineas, is attractive, but purely visionary. It would, we 
 venture to say, have tickled her fine sense of humour 
 amazingly. We are not to think of her as of a favourite 
 novelist of to-da}-, whom the booksellers and the editors 
 of magazines conspire to keep constantly employed. Her 
 longing to see herself in print seems to have been satiated 
 by the appearance of ' Evelina.' Her second work was a 
 much less spontaneous production. Indeed, it is not 
 clear that ' Cecilia ' would have been written but for the 
 urgency of Crisp, seconded by other friends. Her two 
 fathers were agreed that she ought to exert herself while her 
 powers and her fame were fresh ; but how much stimulus 
 was applied after Crisp's death, we are not informed. 
 Hers was not a very energetic nature, and she had some 
 misgiving that her invention was exhausted. At any rate, 
 she had now let four 3-ears go by without attempting 
 anything new. Her third book was not published for the 
 space of a lustrum after her release from Court, and then 
 only under strong pressure of the vc^ angiista douii. There 
 had been some talk of laying out the amount paid for 
 ' Cecilia ' in the purchase of an annuity. But we do not 
 find that this saving plan was executed. What has been 
 contemptuously called ' board, lodging, and two hundred 
 a year,' was no bad provision for a single lady of thirty- 
 four, who was producing nothing, and had no income of 
 her own. Boswell, it is true, declared that he would farm 
 her out himself for double or treble the money ; but then 
 Boswell did not know a great deal of female authors. 
 Burney was much better aware what to expect from his 
 daughter's enterprise and resolution ; and we are by no 
 means sure that, in accepting for her the offered place, he
 
 15(3 , Burkes Opinion. 
 
 proved^himself a less practical man than the ' irresponsible 
 reviewers ' who have derided him as a moon-struck 
 worshipper of royalty. Burke, who certainly did not 
 undervalue JMiss Burney, and who knew something of her 
 family circumstances, was delighted at the news, and 
 thought that the Queen had never shown more good 
 sense than in appointing Miss Burney to her service; 
 though he afterwards owned to having miscalculated, 
 when the service turned out to mean confinement to such 
 a companion as Mrs. Schwellenberg. 
 
 But neither the irksomeness of the duty, nor the 
 character of Mrs. Schwellenberg, was known to the outer 
 world. Both required experience to make them under- 
 stood. How by degrees they disclosed themselves to 
 Miss Burney, we shall learn presently. For the feud 
 which sprang up between the two ladies, it must, in fair- 
 ness, be owned that the elder was not wholly answerable. 
 Miss Burney — we ought now properly to call her Mrs. 
 Burney — had been appointed second Keeper of the Robes. 
 She seems to have supposed that this put her on a level 
 with Mrs. Schwellenberg, giving the latter the advantage 
 of formal precedence only. But whatever had been the 
 relation of ]\Irs. Haggerdorn to her colleague, it appears 
 clear that Fanny, a much younger, and quite inexperi- 
 enced person, was intended to be subordinate. Thus, 
 when she expresses a fear that, by want of spirit to assert 
 it, she had lost a right to invite guests to table, we cannot 
 but remember that, in the terms proposed to her, the 
 table had been described as Mrs. Schwellenberg's. The 
 chief Keeper, as we shall see, was coarse and offensive in 
 speech, domineering and tyrannical in action, but her 
 junior sometimes resented a tone of superiority and 
 command which their royal mistress evidently thought 
 natural and reasonable.
 
 Horace V/alpoles Regret. 157 
 
 Whatever injury Miss Burney may have sustained by 
 entering the palace, her readers at least have no cause to 
 complain. ' I am glad for Iky interest,' wrote Walpole, 
 ' though sorry for my own, that Evelina and Cecilia 
 are to be transformed into a Madame de Motteville, as 
 I shall certainly not live to read her Memoirs, though 
 I might another novel.' But what was to Horace a 
 source of regret, may be to us matter for congratulation. 
 Fanny's Diaries are now much more studied than her 
 novels. Few of us would wish to exchange the journal of 
 her life at Court for another fiction from her pen. The 
 Harrels, the Delvilles, the Briggses, about whom Burke 
 and Reynolds and IMrs. Delany talked as if they were 
 real personages, are for most of us names that call up no 
 association. Queen Charlotte and stout King George arc 
 better known to us than any other royal pair mentioned 
 in English history. And for this we are in great measure 
 indebted to the little lady who joined their household 
 in July, 1786. The likeness of the Queen, which we 
 remember as well as we do the features of our mothers, is 
 entirely of her drawing; while she contributes not a few 
 of the sketches which are combined in our impression of 
 the monarch who loved music, and backgammon, and 
 homely chat, and Ogden's sermons, as much as he 
 detested popery, and whiggery, and freethinking, and 
 Wilkes. Nor are characters of another kind wanting in 
 this journal. Mrs. Schvvellenberg's arrogance, her inso- 
 lence, her peevishness, her ferocious selfishness, her 
 broken English, are more familiar to the present genera- 
 tion than the humours, the affectations, the piebald 
 dialect of Madame Duval, or than the traits of any of the 
 other figures in Evelina. The Senior Robe-keeper was no 
 doubt as indifferent to posthumous reputation as she was 
 to the contemporary opinion of all who could not dis-
 
 158 TJie Schzucllenbcrc^. 
 
 place her. That she ran any risk from the satire of her 
 timorous assistant was a thought which never occurred to 
 her illiterate mind. She hardly knew what satire meant. 
 She flattered herself that Harry Bunbury could not 
 caricature her because she had no hump. For writers 
 of imagination she had an unbounded contempt. ' I 
 won't have nothing what you call novels,' she once cried 
 in Fanny's presence, ' what you call romances, what you 
 call histories — I might not read such what you call stuff — 
 not I !' Had she been one degree less callous, or one 
 degree less ignorant, she might have been slower to pro- 
 voke the hostility of Johnson's ' little character-monger.' 
 Well ! we have her portrait, most carefully executed. 
 And we have also, by the same cunning hand, vivid 
 delineations of many other persons, more or less notable, 
 and of several interesting scenes that fell under the 
 artist's view during her connection with the Queen. We 
 do not go to Miss Burney's record of those five years for 
 secrets of state, or politics, or even Court scandal — with 
 which last, indeed, she seems to have busied herself as 
 little as with the first two — but for a picture of the 
 domestic life and manners of the Sovereign and his 
 consort. It is no small proof of the journalist's tact and 
 discretion that she was able to produce so candid a 
 narrative of what she experienced and witnessed without 
 giving offence to the family concerned. The Duke of 
 Sussex is reported to have said, that he and the other 
 surviving children of George HI. had been alarmed when 
 the Diaries of Madame d'Arblay were announced for 
 publication, but pleased with the book when it appeared ; 
 * though I think,' added his Royal Highness, ' that she is 
 rather hard on poor old Schwellenberg.' The Duke, of 
 course, had seen the Schwellenberg only in her part of an 
 abject toad-eater. Yet there may be something in his
 
 Miss Bnrncys Apartinenis. 159 
 
 observation. Fanny had a light touch, but, hke other 
 women, was unforgiving towards an enemy of her own 
 sex. 
 
 Our readers must not suppose that Miss Burney, on 
 her appointment, went to hve in Windsor Castle. Some 
 years before that time, the Castle had been forsaken by 
 the royal family as uninhabitable. A sort of makeshift 
 palace, known as the Upper Lodge, or the Queen's 
 Lodge,* was erected hard b}-, opposite the South Terrace ; 
 a long narrow building, with battlements fronting north- 
 ward towards the old towers, and southward towards a 
 walled garden, at the further end of which was placed the 
 Lower Lodge, a smaller building of similar character, 
 appropriated to the use of the Princesses. Fann}-, as an 
 attendant on the person of the Queen, was quartered in the 
 Upper Lodge. " My Windsor apartment," she wrote, " is 
 extremely comfortable. I have a large drawing-room, as 
 they call it, which is on the ground-floor, as are all the 
 Queen's rooms, and which faces the Castle and the 
 venerable Round Tower, and opens at the further side, 
 from the windows, to the Little Park. It is airy, pleasant, 
 clean, and healthy. My bedroom is small, but neat and 
 comfortable ; its entrance is only from the drawing-room, 
 and it looks to the garden. These two rooms are delight- 
 fully independent of all the rest of the house, and contain 
 everything I can desire for my convenience and comfort.'' 
 The sitting-room had a view of the walk leading to the 
 Terrace, access to which was obtained by a flight of steps 
 and an iron gate. Mrs. Delany's door was at a distance of 
 less than fifty yards from the Queen's Lodge. The paltry 
 and uncomfortable barracks erected under George IIL 
 no longer discredit the Crown of England. The restora- 
 
 •''■ It was sometimes called the ' Queen's Lodge,' because it stood on the site 
 of the older Queen Anne's Lodge.
 
 i6o A Days Duties. 
 
 tion of Windsor Castle was commenced in 1800, and 
 occupied a good many years. ' In 1823 the Queen's 
 • House was pulled down, and the present royal stables, 
 built in 1839, occupy part of the site. It is, indeed, very 
 difficult to identify any of the landmarks now ; ever3-thing- 
 has been so completely changed. The steps and the 
 iron gate, the railings and the Princesses' garden, have 
 all disappeared as completely as the Upper and Lower 
 Lodges.'"^ 
 
 In the following passage we have a summary of the 
 new Robe-keeper's usual round of daily duties : 
 
 " I rise at six o'clock, dress in a morning gown and cap, 
 and wait my first summons, which is at all times from 
 seven to near eight, but commonly in the exact half-hour 
 between them. The Queen never sends for me till her 
 hair is dressed. This, in a morning, is always done by 
 her wardrobe-woman, Mrs. Thielky, a German, but who 
 speaks English perfectly well. Mrs. Schwellenberg, since 
 the first week, has never come down in a morning at all. 
 The Queen's dress is finished by Mrs. Thielky and myself. 
 No maid ever enters the room while the Queen is in it. 
 Mrs. Thielky hands the things to me, and I put them on. 
 'Tis fortunate for me I have not the handing them 1 I 
 should never know which to take first, embarrassed as I 
 am, and should run a prodigious risk of giving the gown 
 before the hoop, and the fan before the neckerchief. By 
 eight o'clock, or a little after, for she is extremely 
 expeditious, she is dressed. She then goes out to join 
 the King, and be joined by the Princesses, and they all 
 proceed to the King's chapel in the Castle, to prayers, 
 attended by the governesses of the Princesses, and the 
 King's equerry. Various others at times attend ; but 
 
 * Loflie's ' \Yiadsor Castle'
 
 Dressing for the Day. i6i 
 
 •only these indispensably. I then return to my own room 
 to breakfast. I make this meal the most pleasant part of 
 the dav ; I have a book for my companion, and I allow 
 myself an hour for it. . . . At nine o'clock I send off my 
 breakfast-things, and relinquish my book, to make a 
 serious and steady examination of everything 1 have upon 
 my hands in the way of business — in which, preparations 
 for dress are always included, not for the present day 
 .alone, but for the Court-days, which require a particular 
 •dress ; for the next arriving birthday of any of the Royal 
 Family, every one of which requires new apparel ; for 
 Kew, where the dress is plainest ; and for going on here, 
 where the dress is very pleasant to me, requiring no 
 show nor finery, but merely to be neat, not inelegant, and 
 moderately fashionable. That over, I have my time at 
 my own disposal till a quarter before twelve, except on 
 Wednesdays and Saturdays, when I have it only to a 
 quarter before eleven. . . . These times mentioned call 
 me to the irksome and quick-returning labours of the 
 toilette. The hour advanced on the Wednesdays and 
 Saturdays is for curling and craping the hair, which it 
 now requires twice a week. A quarter before one is the 
 usual time for the Queen to begin dressing for the day. 
 Mrs. Schwellenberg then constantly attends ; so do I ; 
 Mrs. Thielky, of course, at all times. We help her oif 
 with her gown, and on with her powdering things, and 
 then the hairdresser is admitted. She generally reads 
 the newspapers during that operation. When she observes 
 that I have run to her but half dressed, she constantly 
 gives me leave to return and finish as soon as she is 
 seated. If she is grave, and reads steadily on, she dis- 
 misses me, whether I am dressed or not ; but at all times 
 she never forgets to send me away while she is powdering, 
 with a consideration not to spoil my clothes, that one 
 
 II
 
 1 62 Faiinie. 
 
 b 
 
 would not expect belonged to her high station, iseithcr 
 does she ever detain me without making a point of reading 
 here and there some little paragraph aloud. . . . Few 
 minutes elapse ere I am again summoned. I lind her 
 then always removed to her state dressing-room, if anv 
 room in this private mansion can have the epithet of 
 state. There, in a very short time, her dress is finished. 
 She then says she won't detain me, and I hear and see no 
 more of her till bedtime. . . . 
 
 " At five, we have dinner. Mrs. Schwellenberg and I 
 meet in the eating-room, ^^'e are commonly tete-a-tete. 
 .... When we have dined, we go upstairs to her apart- 
 ment, which is directly over mine. Here we have coffee 
 till the terracing is over : this is at about eight o'clock. Our 
 tete-a-tete then finishes, and we come down again to the 
 eating-room. There the equerry, whoever he is, comes to 
 tea constantly, and with him any gentleman that the 
 King or Queen may have invited for the evening; and 
 when tea is over, he conducts them, and goes himself, to 
 the concert-room. This is commonly about nine o'clock. 
 From that time, if i\Irs. Schwellenberg is alone, I never 
 quit her for a minute, till I come to my little supper at 
 near eleven. Between eleven and twelve my last summons 
 usually takes place, earlier and later occasionally. Twentv 
 minutes is the customary time then spent with the Queen : 
 half an hour, I believe, is seldom exceeded. I then come 
 back, and after doing whatever I can to forward my dress 
 for the next morning, I go to bed — and to sleep, too, 
 believe me : the early rising, and a long day's attention to 
 new affairs and occupations, cause a fatigue so bodily, 
 that nothing mental stands against it, and to sleep I fall 
 the moment I have put out my candle and laid down my 
 head." 
 
 The best-known writer of that day was wounded at
 
 Royal Smt£f. 163. 
 
 first by having to ' answer the bell,' like any chamber- 
 maid ; and she had cast on her another burden, which 
 even her loyalty could not consider dignified. She had 
 to mix the Queen's snuff. To perform this task belonged 
 to her place, and it was an inflexible rule with her Majesty 
 that discipline must be preserved. We cannot help 
 thinking that there was a touch of regret in the King's 
 voice when he said : 
 
 ' Miss Burney, I hear you cook snuff very well.' 
 
 * Miss Burney,' exclaimed the Princess Elizabeth, ' I 
 hope you hate snuff; for I hate it of all things in the 
 world.' 
 
 Thus we see that disaffection lurked even in members 
 of the Royal House. 
 
 We pause here for a moment to notice that a precau- 
 tion adopted by Mrs. Phillips, in her replies to her sister's 
 Court Journal, of giving fictitious names to some of the 
 persons mentioned, was imitated, when the Diary was 
 printed, by substituting the names invented by Susan for 
 the real ones which occurred in the original. Thus, in 
 the published volumes from which our extracts are taken, 
 Mr. Turbulent stands for M. de Guiffardiere,* a clergy- 
 man who held the office of French reader to the Oueen 
 and the Princesses; Colonel Welbred is Colonel Greville : 
 and Colonel Fairl}^ is the Honourable Stephen Digb}-. 
 who lost his first wife, a daughter of Lord Ilchester, in 
 1787, and married Miss Gunning, called in the Diary 
 Miss Fuzilier, in 1790. 
 
 Next to the King and Queen, the most important 
 figures in Fanny's new life are their fair daughters, the 
 Princesses who inhabited the Lower Lodge. * The histor\- 
 
 * Commonly known as the Rev. Charles Gifiardier. He had a prebeiidal 
 stall at Salisbury, and was vicar of Nev.in^lon, and rector of Berkhampsteau. 
 • — Croker in the Quarterly Kiview. 
 
 II — 2
 
 164 The Princesses. 
 
 of the daughters,' says Thackeray, 'as httle Miss Burney 
 has painted them, is dehghtful. They were handsome — 
 she calls them beautiful ; they were most kind, loving, 
 and ladylike ; they were gracious to every person, high 
 and low, who served them. They had many little accom- 
 phshments of their own. This one drew : that one played 
 the piano : they all worked most prodigiously, and fitted 
 up whole suites of rooms — pretty smiling Penelopes — with 
 their busy little needles .... The prettiest of all, I 
 think, is the fathers darling, the Princess Amelia, pathetic 
 for her beauty, her sweetness, her early death, and for 
 the extreme passionate tenderness with which the King 
 loved her.' Three weeks after I\Ii3s Burney entered on 
 her post, occurred the birthday of this favourite child. 
 On such festivals, when the weather was fine, the Royal 
 I'amily never failed to walk on the Terrace, which was 
 crowded with persons of distinction, who, by this mode 
 of showing respect, escaped the necessit}' of attending 
 the next Drawing-room. On the present occasion, Mrs. 
 Delany was carried in her sedan — the gift of the King — 
 to the foot of the stairs, and appeared on the promenade 
 with the new Keeper of the Robes by her side. " It was 
 really a mighty pretty procession," writes Fanny. " The 
 little Princess, just turned of three years old, in a robe- 
 coat covered with fine muslin, a dressed close cap, white 
 gloves, and a fan, walked on alone and first, highly 
 delighted in the parade, and turning from side to side to 
 see everybody as she passed : for all the terracers stand 
 up against the walls, to make a clear passage for the 
 Royal Family, the moment they com.e in sight. Then 
 followed the King and Queen, no less delighted them- 
 selves with the joy of their little darling. The Princess 
 Royal, leaning on Lady Elizabeth Waldegrave, followed 
 at a little distance ; next the Princess Augusta, holding
 
 Jiir .■'•'iinccsscs. liiti'v, rSrphiiV aiu' r 'imciLa .
 
 A Pretty Procession. 165 
 
 by the Duchess of Ancaster ; and next the Princess 
 Elizabeth, holding by Lady Charlotte Bertie. Office 
 here takes place of rank, which occasioned Lady Elizabeth 
 Waldegravc, as lady of her bedchamber, to walk with the 
 Princess Royal. Then followed the Princess Mary with 
 Miss Goldsworthy,* and the Princess Sophia with Made- 
 moiselle Montmoulin and Miss Planta ;t then General 
 Biide and the Duke of Montague •,X and, lastly, Major 
 Price, who, as cquerrj', always brings up the rear, walks 
 at a distance from the group, and keeps off all crowd 
 from the Royal Family." 
 
 ' One sees it,' adds Thackeray : * the band playing its 
 old music ; the sun shining on the happy loyal crowd, and 
 lighting the ancient battlements, the rich elms, and purple 
 landscape, and bright green sward : the royal standard 
 drooping from the great tower yonder ; as old George 
 passes, followed by his race, preceded by the charming 
 infant, who caresses the crowd with her innocent 
 smiles.' 
 
 The Diary proceeds : * On sight of Mrs. Delany, the 
 King instantly stopped to speak to her. The Queen, of 
 course, and the little Princess, and all the rest, stood 
 still, in their ranks. They talked a good while with the 
 sweet old lady ; during which time the King once or 
 twice addressed himself to me. I caught the Oueen's 
 eye, and saw in it a little surprise, but b}- no means any 
 displeasure, to see me of the party. 
 
 " The little Princess went up to Mrs. Delan}-, of whom 
 she is very fond, and behaved like a little angel to her : 
 she then, with a look of inquiry and recollection, slowly, 
 of her own accord, came behind Mrs. Delany to look at 
 
 * Sub-govcrness of the Princesses. 
 
 f English teacher to the two eldest Piincesser, 
 
 X Master of the Horse.
 
 1 66 A Charming Infant. 
 
 me. * I am afraid,' said I, in a whisper, and stooping 
 down, 'your Royal Highness does not remember me ?' 
 
 "What think you was her answer? An arch little 
 smile, and a nearer approach, with her lips pouted out to 
 kiss me. I could not resist so innocent an invitation ; 
 but the m.oment I had accepted it, I was half afraid it 
 might seem, in so public a place, an ijnproper liberty : 
 however, there was no help for it. She then took my 
 fan, and having looked at it on both sides, gravely returned 
 it me, saying, ' O ! a brown fan !' "
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 I\oyal Visit to Xuneham— A Present from the Queen— Official Exhortations — 
 Embarrassments at Nuneham— A Laborious Sunday— Hairdressing— The 
 Court visits Oxford— Journey thither — Reception by the University — 
 Address and Reply — Kissing Hands — Christchurch — Fatigues of the Suite 
 — Refreshment under Difficulties— A Surprise — The Routine of Court Life — 
 The Equerries— Draughts in the Palace— Early Prayers — Barley-water — The 
 London Season— Mrs. Siddons — Mrs. Schwellenberg's Apartments— Her 
 Tame Frogs — Her Behaviour to Miss Burney — Cruel Treatment — A Change 
 for the Better — Newspaper Reports — Conversation with the Queen — Miss 
 Burney as Reader — Her Attainments, Tastes, and Powers. 
 
 A FEW days after the scene described at the end of our 
 last chapter, the Court set out on a visit to Lord and 
 Lady Harcourt at Nuneham. The arrangement was that 
 the royal party should pass the first day with their host 
 and hostess ; spend the second and third in excursions to 
 Oxford and Blenheim respectively, sleeping each night at 
 Nuneham ; and return the fourth day to Windsor. Miss 
 Burney was informed that she was to be one of her 
 Majesty's suite. In making this communication to her, 
 Mrs. Schwellenberg took occasion to say : ' I tell you 
 once, I shall do for you what I can ; you are to have a 
 gown !' Seeing Fanny draw back in surprise at this 
 abrupt speech, the important old lady added : * The 
 Queen will give you a gown ; the Queen says you are not 
 rich.' Offended at the grossness with which the intended 
 gracious present was offered, our inexperienced Court 
 servant declared a wish to decline it. Her superior 
 instantly flew into a passion. ' Miss Bernar,' cried she, 
 quite angrily, ' I tell you once, when the Queen will give
 
 1 68 Royal Visit to Niineham. 
 
 you a gown,* you must be humble, thankful, when you are 
 Duchess of Ancaster !' Before the journey to Nuneham 
 took place, Fanny, rather unwisely, expressed her regret 
 that she had some time previously neglected an opportunity 
 of being introduced to the lady whose house she was about 
 to visit ; she had met Lord Harcourt, she said, and 
 thought it might have smoothed her way to know some- 
 thing of his Countess also. She was promptly told that 
 she was utterly insignificant — that, going with the Queen, 
 she was sure of civil treatment ; but that whether or not 
 she had a servant, or any change of dress, was of no con- 
 sequence. There is no need,' said the senior Robe- 
 Keeper, ' that you should be seen. I shall do everything 
 that I can to assist you to appear for nobody.' 
 
 In fact, the whole expedition might have seemed to be 
 planned for the purpose of convincing her that any im- 
 portance she had once enjoyed was now absolutely gone. 
 Their Majesties went to Nuneham to breakfast. Miss 
 Burney followed in the afternoon, with j\Iiss Planta, 
 English teacher of the Princesses, Mrs. Thielky, the 
 Queen's wardrobe-woman, and one or two more of the 
 royal attendants. On their arrival, they found the house 
 to be * one of those straggling, half-new, half-old, half- 
 comfortable, and half-forlorn mansions, that are begun in 
 one generation and finished in another.' We have a 
 graphic and amusing description of accidents encountered 
 and discomforts endured, before the hapless and helpless- 
 diarist was settled for the night : the being handed from 
 her carriage by a common postilion ; the deserted hall, 
 where not even a porter was to be seen ; the entire 
 absence of a welcome, the whole family being in the 
 
 * Macaiilay says that this promise of a gown was never performed ; but he 
 is mistaken. Miss Burney did get the gown after tome delay. It was 'a lilac 
 tabby,' whatever that may be, or may have been. (Diaiy, ii. 1S9.)
 
 Official Evibarrassinents. 169 
 
 Park, with the King and Queen and Princesses, and the 
 mistress of the house having deputed no one to act for 
 her; the want of assistance in searching for her apart- 
 ment ; the wanderings through unknown mazy passages ; 
 the ' superfine men in yellow-laced liveries ' occasionally 
 met sauntering along, who disdained to waste a word in 
 answer to inquiries ; the sitting down at length in despair 
 in a room destined for one of the Princesses ; the alarm 
 at being surprised there by its owner and her sisters ; the 
 subsequent promises, only made to be broken, of guidance 
 to the wished-for haven ; and finally, when that haven 
 had at last been reached, the humiliation of being sum- 
 moned to supper by a gentleman- footman haughtily calling 
 out from the foot of the stairs, ' The equerries want the 
 ladies !' It is impossible to read the account of these 
 * difficulties and disgraces ' without seeing that the sh}-, 
 sensitive, flattered novel-writer had indeed mistaken her 
 vocation when she accepted service in a royal house- 
 hold. 
 
 The next day was Sunday, and was appointed to be 
 observed, after due attendance at Church, by a visit to 
 the University of Oxford. Late on Saturday night. Miss 
 Burney received the Queen's commands to belong to the 
 suite on the morrow, and rejoiced exceedingly that she 
 had brought with her a new Chambery gauze, instead of 
 only the dress she wore, according to her Cerbera's 
 advice. We abridge Fanny's narrative of her laborious 
 Sabbath : 
 
 " August 13TI1. — At six o'clock my hairdresser, to mj' 
 great satisfaction, arrived. Full two hours was he at 
 work, yet was I not finished, when Swarth}^, the Queen's 
 hairdresser, came rapping at my door, to tell me her 
 Majesty's hair was done, and she was waiting for me. I
 
 1 70 The Court Visits Oxford. 
 
 hurried as fast as I could, and ran down without any cap. 
 She smiled at sight of my hasty attire, and said I should 
 not be distressed about a hairdresser the next day, but 
 employ Swarthy's assistant, as soon as he had done with 
 the Princesses : ' You should have had him,' she added, 
 ' to-day, if I had known you wanted him.' 
 
 " When her Majesty was dressed, all but the hat, she 
 sent for the three Princesses ; and the King came also. 
 I felt very foolish with my uncovered head ; but it was 
 somewhat the less awkward, from its being very much a 
 custom, in the Royal P'amily, to go without caps ; though 
 none that appear before them use such a freedom. 
 
 " As soon as the hat was on — ' Now, Miss Burney,' 
 said the Queen, ' I won't keep you ; 3'ou had better go 
 and dress too.' " 
 
 Breakfast and morning service followed, and then came 
 the Oxford expedition : 
 
 " How man}'- carriages there were, and how the}- were 
 arranged, I observed not sufficiently to recollect ; but the 
 party consisted of their Majesties, the Princesses Royal, 
 Augusta, and Elizabeth, the Duchess of Ancaster, Lord 
 and Lady Harcourt, Lady Charlotte Bertie, and the two 
 Miss Vernons. These last ladies are daughters of the 
 late Lord Vernon, and sisters of Lady Harcourt. General 
 Harcourt, Colonel Fairly, and Major Price, and Mr. 
 Hagget, \vith Miss Planta and myself, completed the 
 group. Miss Planta and I, of course, as the only un- 
 dignified persons, brought up the rear. . . . The city of 
 Oxford afforded us a very noble view on the road, and its 
 spires, towers, and domes soon made me forget all the 
 little objects of minor spleen that had been crossing me 
 as I joui^neyed towards them ; and, indeed, by the time I
 
 Reception by the University. 171 
 
 arrived in the midst of them, their grandeur, nobihty, 
 antiquity, and elevation impressed my mind so forcibly, 
 that I felt, for the first time since my new situation had 
 taken place, a rushing in of ideas that had no connection 
 with it whatever. The roads were lined with decently- 
 dressed people, and the high street was so crowded we 
 were obliged to drive gently and carefully, to avoid 
 trampling the people to death. Yet their behaviour was 
 perfectly respectful and proper. Nothing could possibly 
 be better conducted than the whole of this expedition.' 
 
 The royal party were received by the Vice-Chancellor, 
 and all the heads of colleges and professors then in 
 residence, who conducted them in state to the Theatre, 
 which was crowded with spectators. The King took his 
 seat, v^'ith his head covered, on the Chancellor's chair, 
 the Queen and Princesses sitting below him to the left. 
 An address, which was read by the Vice-Chancellor, con- 
 tained, among other expressions of loyalt}^ the congratula- 
 tions of the University to the King on his recent escape 
 from the knife of Margaret Nicholson ; at the same time 
 touching on the distress which the attempt had occasioned 
 the Queen, and paying a tribute to her amiable and 
 virtuous character. 
 
 " The Queen could scarcely bear it, though she had 
 already, I doubt not, heard it at Nuneham, as these 
 addresses must be first read in private, to have the 
 answers prepared. Nevertheless, this public tribute of 
 loyalt}^ to the King, and of respect to herself, went grate- 
 fully to her heart, and filled her e3'es with tears — which 
 she would not, however, encourage, but, smiling through 
 them, dispersed them with her fan, with which she was 
 repeatedly obliged to stop their course down her cheeks.
 
 1/2 Kissinc^ Hands. 
 
 The Princesses, less guarded, the moment their father's 
 danger was mentioned, wept with but httle control .... 
 
 " When the address was ended, the King took a paper 
 from Lord Harcourt, and read his answer .... When he 
 had done, he took off his hat, and bowed to the Chan- 
 cellor and Professors, and delivered the answer to Lord 
 Harcourt, who, walking backwards, descended the stairs, 
 and presented it to the Vice-Chancellor .... 
 
 " After this, the Vice-Chancellor and Professors begged 
 for the honour of kissing the King's hand. Lord Har- 
 court was again the backward messenger ; and here 
 followed a great mark of goodness in the King : he saw 
 that nothing less than a thoroughbred old courtier, such 
 as Lord Harcourt, could walk backwards down these 
 steps, before himself, and in sight of so full a hall of 
 spectators ; and he therefore dispensed with being ap- 
 proached to his seat, and walked down himself into the 
 area, where the Vice-Chancellor kissed his hand, and was 
 imitated by every Professor and Doctor in the room. 
 
 " Notwithstanding this considerate good-nature in his 
 Majesty, the sight, at times, was very ridiculous. Some 
 of the worthy collegiates, unused to such ceremonies, and 
 unaccustomed to such a presence, the moment they had 
 kissed the King's hand, turned their backs to him, and 
 walked away as in any common room ; others, attempting 
 to do better, did still worse, by tottering and stumbling, 
 and falling foul of those behind them ; some, ashamed to 
 kneel, took the King's hand straight up to their mouths ; 
 others, equally off their guard, plumped down on both 
 knees, and could hardly get up again ; and many, in their 
 confusion, fairly arose by pulling his Majesty's hand to 
 raise them .... 
 
 *' It was vacation time ; there were therefore none of the 
 students present ....
 
 Chi'istcJmrch. i "iZ 
 
 " At Christ Church, where we arrived at about three 
 o'clock, in a large hall there was a cold collation prepared 
 for their Majesties and the Princesses. It was at the 
 upper end of the hall. I could not see of what it con- 
 sisted, though it would have been very agreeable, after so 
 much standing and sauntering, to have given my opinion 
 of it in an experimental way. Their Majesties and the 
 Princesses sat down to this table; as well satisfied, I 
 believe, as any of their subjects so to do. The Duchess 
 of Ancaster and Lady Harcourt stood behind the chairs 
 of the Queen and the Princess Royal. There were no 
 other ladies of sufficient rank to officiate for Princesses 
 Augusta and Elizabeth. Lord Harcourt stood behind 
 the King's chair ; and the Vice-Chancellor, and the Head 
 of Christ Church, with salvers in their hands, stood near 
 the table, and ready to hand to the three noble waiters 
 whatever was wanted : while the other Reverend Doctors 
 and Learned Professors stood aloof, equally ready to 
 present to the Chancellor and the Master whatever they 
 were to forward. 
 
 *' We, meanwhile, untitled attendants, stood at the 
 other end of the room, forming a semicircle, and all 
 strictly facing the Royal coUationcrs .... A whisper was 
 soon buzzed through the semicircle of the deplorable 
 state of our appeLite; and presently it reached the ears 
 of some of the worthy Doctors. Immediately a new 
 whisper was circulated, which made its progress with 
 great vivacity, to offer us whatever we would wish, and to 
 beg us to name what we chose. Tea, coftec, and choco- 
 late, were whispered back. The method of producing, 
 and the means of swallowing them, were much more 
 difficult to settle than the choice of what was acceptable. 
 Major Price and Colonel Fairly, however, seeing a very 
 large table close to the wainscot behind us, desired our
 
 174 Refreshment under Difficulties. 
 
 refreshments might be privately conveyed there, behind 
 the semicircle, and that, while ail the group backed very 
 near it, one at a time might feed, screened by all the rest 
 from observation. I suppose I need not inform you, my 
 dear Susan, that to eat in presence of any of the Royal 
 Family, is as much hors d'nsagc as to be seated. This 
 plan had speedy success, and the very good Doctors soon, 
 by sly degrees and with watchful caution, covered the 
 whole table with tea, coffee, chocolate, cakes, and bread 
 and butter .... 
 
 " The Duchess of Ancaster and Lady Harcourt, as soon 
 as the first serving attendance was over, were dismissed 
 from the royal chairs, and most happy to join our group, 
 and partake of our repast. The Duchess, extremely 
 fatigued with standing, drew a small body of troops before 
 her, that she might take a few minutes' rest on a form by 
 one of the doors ; and Lady Charlotte Bertie did the 
 same, to relieve an ankle which she had unfortunately 
 sprained. 'Poor MissBurney!' cried the good-natured 
 Duchess, ' I wish she could sit down, for she is unused 
 to this work. She does not know yet what it is to stand 
 for five hours following, as we do . . . .' 
 
 '' In one of the colleges I stayed so long in an old 
 chapel, lingering over antique monuments, that all the 
 party were vanished before I missed them, except Doctors 
 and Professors ; for we had a train of those everywhere ; 
 and I was then a little surprised by the approach of one 
 of them, saying, ' You seem inclined to abide with us, 
 Miss Burney ?' — and then another, in an accent of 
 facetious gallantry, cried, ' No, no; don't let us shut up 
 Miss Burney among old tombs ! — No, no !' " 
 
 At Magdalene College, Miss Burney and two or three 
 other members of the suite, having slipped away to a
 
 Routine of Court Life. 175 
 
 small parlour, sat down to rest, and enjoy some apricots 
 which Mr. Fairly had brought in his pockets. Suddenly 
 the door opened ; the Queen entered ; the truants started 
 up, and tried to look as if sitting was a posture unknown 
 to them ; while desperate exertions were made to hide 
 the forbidden fruit. 'I discovered,' says Fanny, 'that 
 our appetites were to be supposed annihilated, at the 
 same time that our strength was to be invincible.' How- 
 ever, her fatigues ended at last, and she was permitted to 
 spend the Monday in peace among the pictures and 
 gardens of Nuneham, not being commanded to join in 
 the excursion to Blenheim. 
 
 After this expedition, the year wore on slowly and 
 tediously. There were more royal birthdays to be kept, 
 with the usual terracings and concerts. In alternate 
 weeks, the Court removed from Windsor to Kew for two 
 or three days, and again returned to Windsor. There 
 were journeys from Kew to St. James's, and back, on the 
 days appointed for Drawing-rooms. But the ordinary 
 routine of W^indsor and Kew was monotony itself. ' The 
 household always rose, rode, dined at stated intervals. 
 Day after day was the same. At the same hour at night 
 the King kissed his daughters' jolly cheeks; the Princesses 
 kissed their mother's hand ; and Madame Thielky brought 
 the royal nightcap. At the same hour the equerries and 
 women-in-waiting had their little dinner, and cackled 
 over their tea. The King had his backgammon or his 
 evening concert ; the equerries yawned themselves to 
 death in the anteroom.'* And it must be remembered 
 that poor Miss Burney had only a partial share even in 
 this unvaried round of existence. Her views of the 
 Court proper were confined to glimpses through half- 
 opened doors, and down the vistas of long corridors. 
 
 * Thackerny.
 
 I -J 6 The Kinoes Equerries. 
 
 She was not even permitted to stand at the entrance of 
 the room where ' nothing but Handel was pbyed ;' and 
 when Mrs. Siddons once came to the Lodge to read a 
 play, the Keepers of the Robes w^ere only allowed access 
 to ' a convenient adjoining room.' She was Hcensed to 
 receive hardly anyone from the outer world, except her 
 father and sisters, Mrs. Delany, and the Lockes ; beyond 
 these, she had to use the utmost caution in admitting 
 visitors ; while her associates wdthin the palace w^ere 
 restricted to the King's equerries, Mr. Turbulent, Mrs. 
 SchweUenberg, Miss Planta, and a few other persons in 
 positions resembling her own. She saw no other com- 
 pany but the strangers who from time to time were sent 
 to dine at Mrs. Schwellenberg's table. 
 
 His Majesty's equeiTies were certainly not selected for 
 their brilliant attainments, or their powers of conversa- 
 tion, or even for their polished manners. One of these 
 gentlemen, a Colonel Goldsworthy, whom Miss Burney 
 had not before seen, arrived for his turn of duty at the 
 end of September. * He seems to me,' says the Diary, 
 * a man of but little cultivation or literature, but delight- 
 ing in a species of dry humour, in which he shines most 
 successfully, by giving himself up for its favourite butt.' 
 He soon began to warn Fanny of the discomforts of 
 winter service in the ill-built and ill-contrived Queen's 
 Lodge. * Wait till November and December, and then 
 you'll get a pretty taste of them .... Let's see, how 
 many blasts must you have every time you go to the 
 Queen ? First, one upon opening your door ; then 
 another, as you get down the three steps from it, which 
 are exposed to the wind from the garden-door downstairs ; 
 then a third, as you turn the corner to enter the passage ; 
 then you come plump upon another from the hall door ; 
 then comes another, fit to knock you down, as you turn
 
 Ba7'lcy- Water. 177 
 
 to the upper passage ; then, just as you turn towards the 
 Queen's room comes another ; and last, a whiff from the 
 King's stairs, enough to blow you half a mile off. One 
 thing,' he added, * pray let me caution you about — don't 
 go to early prayers in November ; if you do, that will 
 completely kill you ! . . . . When the Princesses, used to 
 it as they are, get regularly knocked up before this busi- 
 ness is over, off they drop one by one : — first the Queen 
 deserts us ; then Princess Elizabeth is done for ; then 
 Princess Royal begins coughing ; then Princess Augusta 
 gets the snuffles ; and all the poor attendants, my poor 
 sister* at their head, drop off, one after another, like so 
 many snuffs of candles : till at last, dwindle, dwindle, 
 dwindle — not a soul goes to the Chapel but the King, the 
 parson, and myself; and there we three freeze it out 
 together !' 
 
 That the King was considerate to his attendants, the 
 following story by the same elegant wit will testify. It 
 was told after a hard day's hunting : " ' After all our 
 labours,' said he, * home we come, with not a dry thread 
 about us, sore to the very bone, and forced to smile all 
 the time, and then : 
 
 ** ' Here, Goldsworthy !' cries his Majesty ; so up I 
 comes to him, bowing profoundly, and my hair dripping 
 down to my shoes. ' Goldsworthy, I say,' he cries, ' will 
 3'ou have a little barley-water ?' 
 
 " 'And, pray, did you drink it ?' 
 
 '* * I drink it ? — drink barley-water ? No, no; not come 
 to that neither. But there it was, sure enough ! — in a jug 
 fit for a sick-room; just such a thing as you put upon a 
 hob in a chimney, for some poor miserable soul that keeps 
 his bed ! And : ' Here, Goldsworthy,' says his Majesty, 
 * here's the barley-water !' 
 
 * Miss Goldsworthy, sub-governess of the Princesses. 
 
 12
 
 1/8 The London Season. 
 
 " 'And did the King drink it himself?' 
 
 " ' Yes, God bless his Majesty ! but I was too humble a 
 subject to do the same as the King!'" 
 
 In January, 1787, the Court removed to London for 
 the winter. During their residence in the capital, the 
 Royal Family occupied Buckingham House, then called 
 the Queen's House, But the season in town was inter- 
 rupted by short weekly visits to Windsor. The only 
 Sundays of the year which George HI. spent in London 
 were the six Sundays of Lent, Miss Burney went to the 
 play once or twice, and also attended ' the Tottenham 
 Street oratorios.' She had more than one illness in the 
 early part of this year ; but her custodians courteously 
 entreated their prisoner, and gave her liberty to go to her 
 friends to refresh herself. Under this permission, she had 
 opportunities of meeting Mrs. Cholmondeley, Sir Joshua, 
 Mrs. Montagu, INIrs. Vesey, Horace Walpole,* and sundry 
 other old acquaintances. But at the beginning of June 
 the relaxations of this pleasant time, as well as the 
 fatiguing journeys backwards and forwards to Windsor, 
 came to an end, and the household were again settled in 
 the Upper Lodge. The rest of the year passed in much 
 the same way as the summer and autumn of 1786 had 
 done, but with fewer noticeable incidents. 
 
 In August occurred the commanded visit of Mrs. 
 Siddons, to which we have before referred : 
 
 " In the afternoon .... her Majesty came into the 
 room, and, after a little German discourse with Mrs. 
 
 "" ' The last time I saw her (Mrs. Vesey) hcfore I left London,' writes Wal- 
 pole, ' Miss Burney passed the evening there, looking quite recovered and well ; 
 and so ciieerful and agreeable that the Court seems only to have improved the 
 ease of her manner, instead of stamping more reserve on it, as I feared. But 
 what slight graces it can give will not compensate to us and the world for the 
 loss of her company and her writings.' — Walj ole to Hannah More, June 15, 
 1787-
 
 ]\Trs. Siddons. 179 
 
 Schwellenber^, told me Mrs. Siddons had been ordered to 
 the Lodge, to read a play, and desired I would receive her 
 in my room. 
 
 " I felt a little queer in the office ; I had only seen her 
 twice or thrice, in large assemblies, at Miss Monckton's, 
 and at Sir Joshua Reynolds's, and never had been intro- 
 duced to her, nor spoken with her. However, in this 
 dead and tame life I now lead, such an interview was by 
 no means undesirable. 
 
 " I had just got to the bottom of the stairs, when she 
 entered the passage gallery. I took her into the tea- 
 room, and endeavoured to make amends for former 
 distance and taciturnity, by an open and cheerful recep- 
 tion. I had heard from sundry people (in old days) that 
 she wished to make the acquaintance ; but .... now that 
 we came so near, I was much disappointed in my expecta- 
 tions .... I found her the Heroine of a Tragedy — sublime, 
 elevated, and solemn. In face and person, truly noble 
 and commanding; in manners, quiet and stiff; invoice, 
 deep and dragging ; and in conversation, formal, senten- 
 tious, cahii, and dry. I expected her to have been all 
 that is interesting; the delicacy and sweetness with which 
 she seizes every opportunity to strike and to captivate 
 upon the stage had persuaded me that her mind was 
 formed with that peculiar susceptibility which, in different 
 modes, must give equal powers to attract and to delight 
 in common life. But I was very much mistaken. As a 
 stranger, I must have admired her noble appearance and 
 beautiful countenance, and have regretted that nothing in 
 her conversation kept pace with their promise ; and, as a 
 ■celebrated actress, I had still only to do the same. 
 Whether fame and success have spoiled her, or whether 
 .she only possesses the skill of representing and cmbeUish- 
 
 12 — 2
 
 I So Mrs. Schwellenberg s Rooms. 
 
 ing materials with which she is furnished by others, I 
 know not ; but still I remain disappointed. 
 
 " She was scarcely seated, and a little general discourse- 
 begun, before she told m.e — all at once — that ' there was 
 no part she had ever so much wished to act as that 
 of Cecilia.' I made some little acknowledgment, and 
 hurried to ask when she had seen Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 Miss Palmer, and others with whom I knew her ac- 
 quainted. The play she was to read was 'The Provoked 
 Husband.' She appeared neither alarmed nor elated by 
 her summons, but calmly to look upon it as a thing of 
 course, from her celebrity." 
 
 The company that assembled in Mrs. Schwellenberg's 
 apartments occupied their leisure hours with small-talk, 
 mild flirtations, and trifling amusements, varied by occa- 
 sional misunderstandings. The first Keeper of the Robes 
 domineered over them all, and her rule was a savage 
 tyranny, tempered by ill-health. Her infirmities some- 
 times detained her in London for weeks together. During 
 her absence, her junior presided at the dinner-table, and 
 made tea for the equerries. Great was the joy whenever 
 the old lady went up to town to consult her physician. 
 Then Mr. Turbulent,* more gay and flighty than beseemed 
 a married clergyman, t would practise on the patent prudery 
 of Fanny's character by broaching strange theories of 
 morality, and breaking out in wild rhapsodies of half- 
 amatory admiration. Then the colonels-in-waiting, relieved 
 from the watchful eyes of Cerbera, exerted themselves for 
 the entertainment of the fair tea-maker. They were not 
 always successful. Miss Burney cared but little for 
 
 * What induced Macaulay to describe this gentleman as 'half-witted,' we 
 are at a loss to conjecture. He possessed, as Miss Burney bears witness, 
 remarkable cleverness, extraordinary attainments and great powers of con- 
 versation. 
 
 f He had a wife to whom he was strongly attached.
 
 1 1 f c)zc/f/ryi.>.
 
 Her Tame Frocs. i8i 
 
 '^^> 
 
 Colonel Goldsworthj^'s rough humour, and still less for 
 the vocal performances of a certain Colonel Manners, 
 who, in love with his own voice, and with what he called 
 the songs that he heard at cliurch, insisted on regaling 
 his friends with snatches from Tate and Brady, married to 
 the immortal notes of the National Anthem. Fanny 
 once or twice caused some unpleasantness by endeavour- 
 ing to escape from the duty of receiving the equerries in 
 the evening. As soon as the Schwcllenbcrg returned, 
 she was again thrown into the background. Destitute of 
 ■every attraction, yet constantly demanding notice, the 
 principal could not bear to see the least attention 
 bestowed on anyone else. ' Apparently,' says the Diary, 
 ' she never wishes to hear my voice but when we are tctc- 
 ct-tete, and then never is in good-humour when it is at 
 rest.' When in company, she would sometimes talk 
 about a pair of tame frogs which she kept, and fall into 
 an ecstasy while describing * their ladder, their table, and 
 their amiable ways of snapping live flies.' ' And I can 
 make them croak when I will,' she would say, ' when I 
 only go so to my snuff-box — knock, knock, knock — they 
 croak all what I please.' Rather to our surprise, we hear 
 of this lady being once engaged in reading : the author 
 was Josephus, 'which is the only book in favour at 
 present, and serves for all occasions, and is quoted to 
 solve all difficulties.' But the sole effectual mode of 
 amusing her, after the gentlemen had retired, was to join 
 her in a game at cards. Fanny disliked cards, and knew 
 little of trumps or honours ; but to avert threatened 
 attacks of spasms, she was at length fain to waive her 
 objections, and learn piquet. When in the least crossed, 
 Mrs. Schwellenberg put no restraint on her temper, 
 language, or demeanour. If her servants kept her waiting 
 for her coach, she would talk of having them trans-
 
 io2 Her Behaviour to Miss Dnnic] 
 
 J 
 
 ported ; if Miss Burney spoke of taking tea with Mrs. 
 Delany, she would leave her unhelped at the dinner-table. 
 Such was la Prcsidentc. More than once, Miss Burney 
 felt her ill-usage so intolerable that she was only held 
 back from resigning her appointment by reluctance to 
 mortify her father. The most violent dispute between 
 them occurred towards the end of November, 17S7, when, 
 during a journey to town for a Drawing-Room, Mrs. 
 Schwellenberg had insisted upon keeping the window of 
 the carriage on her companion's side open, though a sharp 
 wind was blowing, which before their arrival in London 
 set up an inflammation in poor Fanny's eyes. The scene 
 on the journey back is thus described : 
 
 *' The next day, when we assembled to return to- 
 Windsor, Mr. de Luc was in real consternation at sight 
 of my eyes ; and I saw an indignant glance at my coad- 
 jutrix, that could scarce content itself without being 
 understood. . . . 
 
 " Some business of Mrs. Schwellenberg's occasioned a 
 delay of the journey, and we all retreated back ; and 
 when I returned to my room, Miller, the old head house- 
 maid, came to me, with a little neat tin saucepan in her 
 hand, saying, ' Pray, ma'am, use this for your eyes : 'tis 
 milk and butter, s;/c/i as I used to make for Madame Hagger- 
 dorn when she travelled in the winter with Mrs. Schwellen- 
 berg.' 
 
 " I really shuddered when she added, that all that poor 
 woman's misfortunes with her eyes, which, from inflam- 
 mation after inflammation, grew nearly blind, were at- 
 tributed by herself to these journeys, in which she was 
 forced to have the glass down at her side in all weathers, 
 and frequently the glasses behind her also ! 
 
 *' Upon my word this account of my predecessor was
 
 Cruel Treatment. 1^2, 
 
 the least exhilarating intellig^ence I could receive ! Gotcr 
 told me, afterwards, that all the servants in the house 
 had remarked I was going just the same icay ! 
 
 " Miss Planta presently ran into my room, to say she 
 had hopes we should travel without this amiable being ; 
 and she had left me but a moment when Mrs. Stainforth 
 succeeded her, exclaiming, ' Oh, for Heaven's sake, don't 
 leave her behind ; for Heaven's sake. Miss Burney, take 
 her with you !' 
 
 " 'Twas impossible not to laugh at these opposite 
 interests ; both, from agony of fear, breaking through all 
 restraint. 
 
 " Soon after, hov.'ever, we all assembled again, and got 
 into the coach. Mr. de Luc, who was my vis-ci-vh, 
 instantly pulled up the glass. 
 
 " ' Put down that glass !' v,-as the immediate order. 
 
 " He affected not to hear her, and began conversing. 
 
 "She enraged quite tremendously, calling aloud to be 
 obeyed without delay. He looked compassionately at 
 me, and shrugged his shoulders, and said, ' But, 
 ma'am " 
 
 " * Do it, Mr. de Luc, when I tell you ! I will have it I 
 "When you been too cold, you might bear it !' 
 
 " ' It is not for me, ma'am, but poor Miss Burney.' 
 
 " ' O, poor Miss Burney might bear it the same ! put 
 it down, Mr. de Luc ! without, I will get out ! put it 
 down, when I tell you 1 It is my coach ! I will have it 
 selfs ! I might go alone in it, or with one, or with what 
 you call nobody, when I please !' 
 
 *' Frightened for good Mr. de Luc, and the more for 
 being much obliged to him, I now interfered, and begged 
 him to let down the glass. Very reluctantly he complied, 
 and I leant back in the coach, and held up my muff to 
 my eyes.
 
 iSj. Cruel Treat iiicnt. 
 
 "^ 
 
 " What a journey ensued ! To see that face when 
 hghted up with fury is a sight for horror ! I was glad to 
 exclude it by my muff. 
 
 " Miss Planta alone attempted to speak. I did not 
 think it incumbent on me to ' make the agreeable,' thus 
 used ; I was therefore wholly dumb : for not a word, not 
 an apology, not one expression of being sorry for what I 
 suffered, was uttered. The most horrible ill-humour, 
 violence, and rudeness, were all that were shown. Mr. 
 de Luc was too much provoked to take his usual method 
 of passing all off by constant talk : and as I had never 
 seen him venture to appear provoked before, I felt a great 
 obligation to his kindness. 
 
 " When we w^ere about half-way, we stopped to water 
 the horses. He then again pulled up the glass, as if 
 from absence. A voice of fury exclaimed, ' Let it down ! 
 without, I won't go !' 
 
 " ' I am sure,' cried he, ' all Mrs. de Luc's plants will 
 be killed by this frost !' 
 
 " For the frost was very severe indeed. 
 " Then he proposed my changing places with Miss 
 Planta, who sat opposite Mrs. Schwellenberg, and con- 
 sequently on the sheltered side. 
 
 "'Yes!' cried Mrs. Schwellenberg, 'Miss Burney 
 might sit there, and so she ought !' 
 
 " I told her briefly I was always sick in riding back- 
 wards. 
 
 " ' Oh, ver well ! when you don't like it, don^t do it. 
 You might bear it when you like it ! What did the poor 
 Haggerdorn bear it ! when the blood was all running 
 down from her e3'es !' 
 
 " This was too much ! ' I must take, then,' I cried, 
 ' the more warning !' "
 
 A Change for the Better. 185 
 
 Even this quarrel blew over. Mrs. Schwellenberg* con- 
 tinued to look black, and hurl thunderbolts, as long as 
 the peccant eyes remained inflamed, but as these gradu- 
 ally grew well, her brows cleared and her incivility wore 
 off, till the sufferer became far more in favour than she had 
 ever presumed to think herself till that time. She was ' my 
 good Miss Berner' at every other word; no one else was 
 listened to if she would speak, and no one else was 
 accepted for a partner at piquet if she would play. 
 Fanny found no cause to which she could attribute this 
 change, and believed the whole mere matter of caprice. 
 
 In the autumn of 17S7, the newspapers began to make 
 frequent mention of Miss Burncy's name. Paragraphs 
 appeared regretting her long silence, and the employment 
 to which it was supposed to be attributable. t Fanny had 
 many regrets connected with her situation : she lamented 
 her dependence on her odious colleague ; she lamented 
 the inferiority of most of her associates ; she lamented 
 her separation from her old friends ; but we have no 
 reason to think that she repined at the want of liberty to 
 print and publish. At least we cannot discover any 
 passage in her Diary indicating such a feeling. Pre- 
 sently the paragraphs proceeded to mingle rumours 
 with regrets. The ' World ' was informed that Miss 
 Burney ' had resigned her place about the Queen, and 
 had been promoted to attend the Princesses, an office far 
 more suited to her character and abilities.' Then followed 
 
 * Croker was told by the Right Hon. Joseph Planta, on the authority of 
 Miss Planta, that Mis. Schwellenberg was so despotic that she was better 
 served, and more attended to than the (^ueen herself. ' Her servant always 
 waited at the step of her door that she might not have to ring a l)ell ; and a 
 very constant exjiression of hers was, that if such and such a thing \\as good 
 enough for her Majesty, it was not good enough for her.' — Jesse's 'George III.,' 
 voL ii., App., p. 539. 
 
 t 'I flatter myself j)'<7« will never be royally gagged and promoted to fold 
 muslins, as has been lately wittily said on Miss liurney, in the List of five 
 hundred living authors.' — Walpole to Hannah MorC; July 12, 17SS.
 
 1 86 Fanny as Reader to tJie Queen, 
 
 a contradiction. ' The rumour of resignation was prema- 
 ture, and only arose from thoughts of the benefit the 
 education of the Princesses might reap from Miss Burney's 
 virtues and accomphshments.' Such speculations made 
 it needful for their subject to explain herself to the Queen. 
 Fanny hastened to repudiate all participation in the idea 
 that it could be promotion to her to be transferred from 
 the service of her Majesty to that of the Princesses; she 
 disclaimed, with equal warmth, having the slightest wish 
 for such a transference. There can be no doubt that she 
 was perfectly sincere. The Queen, she felt, had some 
 regard for her, and she had a decided attachment to the 
 Queen. * Oh,' she sighed, ' were there no Mrs. Schwellen- 
 bergl' 
 
 One cannot help wondering if the question whether 
 some more worthy position at Court might not be found 
 for Miss Burney occurred to the Queen, or to herself, at 
 this interview. If such a thought did present itself, it 
 does not seem to have been mentioned by either. Fanny 
 had early conceived the notion that the Queen intended 
 to employ her as an English reader. She was not 
 altogether wrong. She had been occasionally called on 
 to read, but the result did not prove very satisfactor}'. 
 At the first trial her voice was quite unmanageable ; when 
 she had concluded, the Queen talked of the Spectator she 
 had read, but forebore saying anything of any sort about 
 the reader. Of a subsequent attempt we have this record : 
 ' Again I read a little to the Queen — two Tatlers ; both 
 happened to be very stupid ; neither of them Addison's, 
 and therefore reader and reading were much on a par: 
 for I cannot arrive at ease in this exhibition to her 
 Majesty; and where there is fear or constraint, how de- 
 ficient, if not faulty, is every performance !' For the ofBce 
 of preceptress to the Princesses she was even less fitted
 
 miss Bzirncys Attainments. 187 
 
 than for that of reader to their mother. Probably Mrs. 
 Goldsworthy and Miss Planta were much better quahfied 
 to instruct their young charges than jSIiss Burney would 
 have been. This may be confessed without the slightest 
 reflection on her extraordinary talents. She could afford 
 to have it known that her education had been neglected. 
 It was nothing that she had withdrawn rather ungra- 
 ciously from Johnson's Latin lessons. It was little that 
 she did not understand a word of the German which the 
 Royal Family commonly spoke among themselves. Hardly 
 any Englishwom.en in those days read Latin, or were 
 acquainted with the language of Goethe and \^'icland. 
 But Miss Burney had not even a strong taste for reading. 
 At the height of her fame, her knowledge of ordinary 
 English authors was surprisingly limited. Queen Charlotte, 
 who read a good deal in French and English, as well as in 
 German, was disappointed by the scanty furniture of her 
 attendant's book-shelves. And whenever her Majesty or 
 anyone else at Court mentioned any standard or current 
 work in her presence, it almost invariably happened that 
 she had not read it. One evening, Cowper's ' Task ' was 
 referred to, and she was asked if she knew the poem ; 
 ' Only by character,' was her answer. She had not even 
 that amount of acquaintance with Churchill's Satires, the 
 very existence of which seems to have been unknown to 
 her. Akenside's w^orks she knew of only by some quota- 
 tions which she had heard from Mr. Locke. It may, per- 
 haps, be urged that Cowper was then quite a new writer, 
 and that the fame of Mark Akenside and Charles 
 Churchill, though bright when she was a child, had 
 become dim before she grew up. Well, then, take Gold- 
 smith. No poems were more popular than 01i\-cr's when 
 Fanny began to see the world in Martin's Street ; yet we 
 have her confession that she never read the ' Traveller,'
 
 1 88 Her Tastes and Powers. 
 
 or ' The Deserted Village,' till a friend made her a present 
 of them in i7go."'" This being so, we cannot wonder that 
 she had never heard of Falconer's ' Shipwreck ' when 
 Colonel Digb}^ produced a copy of that work. She appears 
 to have been barely aware of Cumberland's ' Observer,' a 
 production in which she herself and most of her friends 
 were referred to, until the Queen read some passages to 
 her, and afterwards lent her the volumes. She had not 
 seen Hawkins's ' Life of Johnson ' when the King first 
 mentioned it to her, and ' talked it over with great 
 candour and openness.' Nor did she take much interest 
 in literary questions. The Scotch ballad of * The 
 Gaberlunzie Man,' then lately printed in Germany, she 
 threw aside almost contemptuously, though it had been 
 lent her by the Queen. About Shakspeare her views 
 were those of a most loyal subject. She reads Hamlet 
 to Mrs. Delan}-, and this is her comment : * How noble 
 a play it is, considered in parts ! how wild and how 
 improbable, taken as a whole ! But there are speeches, 
 from time to time, of such exquisite beauty of language, 
 sentiment, and pathos, that I could wade through the 
 most thorny of roads to arrive at them.' The Oueen, as 
 Thackeray has observed, could give shrewd opinions 
 about books, and we suspect she presently learned to value 
 her second Robe- Keeper for her brightness of intelligence, 
 her powers of description, and her lively humour, rather 
 than for the solidity or the variety of her attainments. 
 
 * ' Diary,' vol. iii., p. 245.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Trial of Warren Hastings — Westminster Hall — Description of it on the 
 Opening Day of the Trial — Edmund Luike — The other Managers — Proces- 
 sion of the Peers — Entrance of the Defendant — ^The Arraignment — Speech 
 of Lord Chancellor Thuriow — Reply of Warren Hastings— Opening of the 
 Trial — Mr. Windham — Mis Admiration of Dr. Johnson — His Rellections 
 on the Spectacle — Bearing of the Lord Chancellor — Windham on Ha^'tings 
 — William Pitt — Major .Scott — Conversation wiih Windham — Partisanship 
 — Close of the First Day's Proceedings — Conference on it with the Queen — 
 Another Day at the Trial — r)Uike's Great Speech — Resemblance between 
 Plastings and Windham — Fox's Eloquence — Death of Mrs. Delany. 
 
 On the 13th of February, 1788, began the trial of Warren 
 Hastings. ]\Iiss Burney was furnished by the Queen with 
 two tickets for the opening ceremony. She went accord- 
 ingly, accompanied by her brother Charles, and also by a 
 Miss Gomme, of whom she was commanded to undertake 
 the charge. We abridge her description of this great 
 spectacle. It should be premised that the zeal with 
 which she espoused the side of the defence was due not 
 solely to the favour shown to Mv. and Mrs. Hastings by 
 the Court, but in an equal degree, at least, to her own 
 personal friendship for the accused statesman and his 
 wife, with whom she had become acquainted before she 
 joined the royal service : 
 
 " We got to Westminster Hall between nine and ten 
 o'clock .... 
 
 " The Grand Chamberlain's Box is in the centre of the 
 upper end of the ?Iall : there we sat. Miss Gomme and
 
 190 Westminster Hall. 
 
 myself, immediately beliind the chair placed for Sir Peter 
 Burrell. To the left, on the same level, were the green 
 benches for the House of Commons, which occupied a 
 third of the upper end of the Hall, and the whole of the 
 left side : to the right of us, on the same level, was the 
 Grand Chamberlain's Gallery .... 
 
 " The bottom of the Hall contained the Royal Family's 
 Box and the Lord High Steward's .... 
 
 " A gallery also was run along the left side of the Hall, 
 above the green benches, which is called the Duke of 
 Newcastle's Box, the centre of which was railed off into 
 a separate apartment for the reception of the Queen and 
 four eldest Princesses, who were then incog., not choosing 
 to appear in state, and in their own Box. 
 
 *' In the middle of the floor was placed a large table, 
 and at the head of it the seat for the Chancellor, and 
 round it seats for the Judges, the Masters in Chancery, 
 the Clerks, and all who belonged to the Law ; the upper 
 end, and the right side of the room, was allotted to the 
 Peers in their robes ; the left side to the Bishops and 
 Archbishops. 
 
 " Immediately below the Great Chambelain's Box was 
 the place allotted for the Prisoner. On his right side was 
 a box for his own Counsel, on his left the Box for the 
 Managers, or Committee, for the Prosecution ; and these 
 three most important of all the divisions in the Hall were 
 all directly adjoining to where I was seated .... 
 
 " The business did not begin till near twelve o'clock. 
 The opening to the whole then took place, by the entrance 
 of the Managers of the Prosecntion ; all the company were 
 already long in their boxes or galleries. 
 
 " I shuddered, and drew involuntarily back, when, as 
 the doors were flung open, I saw Mr. Burke, as Head of 
 the Committee, make his solemn entry. He held a scroll
 
 The Procession. 191 
 
 in his hand, and walked alone, his brow knit with corrod- 
 ing care and deep labouring thought — a brow how different 
 to that which had proved so alluring to my warmest 
 admiration when first I met him ! so highly as he had 
 been my favourite, so captivating as I had found his 
 manners and conversation in our first acquaintance, and 
 so much as I owed to his 2eal and kindness to me and 
 my affairs in its progress ! How did I grieve to behold 
 him now the cruel Prosecutor (such to me he appeared) 
 of an injured and innocent man ! 
 
 " Mr. Fox followed next, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Windham, 
 Messrs. Anstruther, Grey, Adam, Michael Angelo Taylor, 
 Pelham, Colonel North, Mr. Frederick Montagu, Sir 
 Gilbert Elliot, General Burgoyne, Dudle\^ Long, etc. . . . 
 
 " When the Committee Box w^as filled, the House of 
 Commons at large took their seats on their green 
 benches . . , . 
 
 " Then began the procession, the Clerks entering first, 
 then the Lawyers according to their rank, and the Peers, 
 Bishops, and Ofiicers, all in their coronation robes ; con- 
 cluding with the Princes of the Blood, — Prince William, 
 son to the Duke of Gloucester, coming first, then the 
 Dukes of Cumberland, Gloucester, and York, then the 
 Prince of Wales ; and the whole ending by the Chancellor, 
 with his train borne. 
 
 " They then all took their seats. 
 
 " A Serjeant-at-Arms arose, and commanded silence. . . . 
 
 "Then some other officer, in a loud voice, called out, as 
 well as I can recollect, words to this purpose : — ' Warren 
 Hastings, Esquire, come forth ! Answer to the charges 
 brought against you ; save your bail, or forfeit your 
 recognizance !' 
 
 
 Indeed I trembled at these words, and hardly could 
 keep my place when I found Mr. Hastings was being
 
 192 The Arraignment. 
 
 brought to the bar. He came forth from some place 
 immediately under the Great Chamberlain's Box, and 
 was preceded by Sir Francis Molyneux, Usher of the 
 Black Rod ; and at each side of him walked his Bails, 
 Messrs, Sullivan and Sumner. 
 
 "The moment he came in sight, which was not for full 
 ten minjtes after his awful summons, he made a low bow 
 to the Chancellor and Court facing him. I saw not his 
 face, as he was directly under me. He moved on slowly, 
 and, I think, supported between his two Bails, to the 
 opening of his own Box ; there, lower still, he bowed 
 again ; and then, advancing to the bar, he leant his hands 
 upon it, and dropped on his knees ; but a voice in the 
 same moment proclaiming he had leave to rise, he stood 
 up almost instantaneously, and a third time profoundly 
 bowed to the Court. 
 
 " What an awful moment this for such a man ! — a man 
 fallen from such a height of power to a situation so humili- 
 ating — from the almost unlimited command of so large a 
 part of the Eastern World to be cast at the feet of his 
 enemies, of the great tribunal of his country, and of the 
 nation at large, assembled thus in a body to try and to 
 judge him ! Could even his prosecutors at that moment 
 look on — and not shudder at least, if they did not blush ? 
 
 " The crier, I think it was, made, in a loud and hollow 
 voice, a public proclamation, * That Warren Hastings, 
 Esquire, late Governor-General of Bengal, was now on 
 his trial for high crimes and misdemeanours, with which 
 he was charged by the Commons of Great Britain ; and 
 that all persons whatsoever who had aught to allege 
 against him were now to stand forth.' 
 
 " A general silence followed, and the Chancellor, Lord 
 Thurlow, now made his speech .... 
 
 " Again Mr. Hastings made the lowest reverence to the
 
 ^.L/aHsr^n 'i'n 
 
 'I'Vri lien . y/f ? s f-in qs.
 
 opening of I lie Trial. 193 
 
 'Court, and, leaning over the bar, answered, with much 
 iigit'ation, through evident efforts to suppress it, ' My 
 I^ords — impressed — deepl}^ impressed — I come before 
 3'our Lordships, equally confident in my own integrity, 
 and in the justice of the Court before which I am to 
 'dear it.' .... 
 
 " A general silence again ensued, and then one of the 
 lawyers opened the cause. He began by reading from 
 an immense roll of parchment the general charges against 
 Mr, Hastings, but he read in so monotonous a chant that 
 nothing else could I hear or understand than now and 
 then the name of Warren Hastings. 
 
 " During this reading, to which I vainly lent all my 
 -attention, LIr. Hastings, finding it, I presume, equally 
 impossible to hear a word, began to cast his eyes around 
 the House, and having taken a survey of all in front and 
 at the sides, he turned about and looked up : pale looked 
 ■his face — pale, ill, and altered. I was much affected by 
 .the sight of that dreadful harass which, was written on 
 his countenance. Had I looked at him without restraint, 
 it could not have been without tears, I felt shocked, too, 
 shocked and ashamed, to be seen by him in that place. 
 J had wished to be present from an earnest interest in the 
 business, joined to firm confidence in his powers of 
 defence ; but hh eyes were not those I wished to meet in 
 Westminster Hall .... 
 
 " Another lawyer now arose, and read so exactly in the 
 same manner, that it was utterly impossible to discover 
 even whether it was a charge or an answer. 
 
 *' Such reading as this, you may well suppose, set every- 
 
 .body pretty much at their ease ; and but for the interest 
 
 I took in looking from time to time at Mr. Hastings, and 
 
 watching his countenance, I might as well have been 
 
 ..away. He seemed composed after the first half-hour, and
 
 194 '^■^^- Windham . 
 
 calm ; but he looked with a species of indignant contempt 
 towards his accusers, that could not, I think, have been 
 worn had his defence been doubtful. Many there are 
 who fear for him ; for me, I own myself wholly confident 
 in his acquittal .... 
 
 " At length I was called by a ' How d'ye do, Miss 
 Burney ?' from the Committee Box ! And then I saw 
 young Mr. Burke, who had jumped up on the nearest 
 form to speak to me. Pleasant enough ! I checked my 
 vexation as well as I was able, since the least shyness on 
 my part to those with whom formerly I had been social 
 must instantly have been attributed to Court influence ; 
 and therefore, since I could not avoid the notice, I did 
 what I could to talk with him as heretofore. He is,, 
 besides, so amiable a young man, that I could not be 
 sorry to see him again, though I regretted it should be 
 just in that place, and at this time .... 
 
 " The moment I was able to withdraw from young Mr. 
 Burke, Charles, who sat behind me, leant down and told 
 me a gentleman had just desired to be presented to me. 
 
 " 'Who?' quoth I. 
 
 *' 'Mr. Windham,' he answered. 
 
 " I really thought he was laughing, and answered accord- 
 ingly ; but he assured me he was in earnest, and that Mr. 
 Windham had begged him to make the proposition. 
 What could I do ? There was no refusing : j^et a planned 
 meeting with another of the Committee, and one deep in 
 the prosecution, and from whom one of the hardest 
 charges has come — could anything be less pleasant as I 
 was then situated ? 
 
 " The Great Chamberlain's Box is the only part of the 
 hall that has any communication with either the Com- 
 mittee Box or the House of Commons, and it is also the 
 very nearest to the prisoner. Mr. Windham I had seen
 
 His Admiration of JoJinson. 195- 
 
 twice before — both times at i\Iiss Monckton's ; and any- 
 where else I should have been much gratified by his 
 desire of a third meeting, as he is one of the most agree- 
 able, spirited, well-bred, and brilliant conversers I have 
 ever spoken with. He is a neighbour, too, now, of 
 Charlotte's. He is member for Norwich, and a man of 
 family and fortune, with a very pleasing, though not 
 handsome face, a very elegant figure, and an air of fashion 
 and vivacity .... 
 
 " I was sorry to see him make one of a set that appeared 
 so inveterate against a mian I believe so injuriously 
 treated ; and my concern was founded upon the good 
 thoughts I had conceived of him, not merely from his 
 social talents, which are yet very uncommon, but from a 
 reason dearer to my remembrance. He loved Dr. John- 
 son — and Dr. Johnson returned his affection. Their 
 political principles and connexions \\'ere opposite, but 
 Mr. Windham respected his venerable friend too highly 
 to discuss any points that could offend him ; and showed 
 for him so true a regard, that, during all his late illnesses, 
 for the latter part of his life, his carriage and himself were 
 alike at his service, to air, visit, or go out, whenever he 
 was disposed to accept them. 
 
 " Nor was this all ; one tender proof he gave of warm 
 and generous regard, that I can never forget, and that 
 rose instantly to my mind when I heard his name, and 
 gave him a welcome in my eyes when they met his face. 
 It is this : Dr. Johnson, in his last visit to Lichfield, was 
 taken ill, and waited to recover strength for travelling 
 back to town in his usual vehicle, a stage-coach. As soon 
 as this reached the ears of IMr. Windham, he set off for 
 Lichfield in his own carriage, to offer to bring him back 
 .to town in it, and at his own time .... 
 
 " Charles soon told me he was at my elbow .... 
 
 13—2
 
 196 JVindhani on Hastings. 
 
 " After the first compliments he looked around him, 
 and exclaimed, * What an assembly is this ! How strik- 
 ing a spectacle ! I had not seen half its splendour down 
 there. You have it here to great advantage ; you lose 
 some of the Lords, but you gain all the Ladies. You 
 have a very good place here.' 
 
 " ' Yes ; and I may safely say I make a very impartial 
 use of it : for since here I have sat, I have never discovered 
 to which side I have been listening !' 
 
 " He laughed, but told me they were then running 
 through the charges. 
 
 " ' And is it essential,' cried I, ' that they should so 
 run them through that nobody can understand them ? Is 
 that a form of law ?' 
 
 " He agreed to the absurdity ; and then, looking still at 
 the spectacle, which indeed is the most splendid I ever 
 saw, arrested his eyes upon the Chancellor. ' He looks 
 very well from hence,' cried he ; ' and how well he acquits 
 himself on these solemn occasions ! With what dignity, 
 what loftiness, what high propriety, he comports him- 
 self!' .... 
 
 " Suddenl}', his eye dropped down upon poor Mr. Hast- 
 ings : the expression of his face instantly lost the gaiety 
 and ease with which it had addressed me ; he stopped 
 short in his remarks ; he fixed his eyes steadfastly on this 
 new, and but too interesting object, and after viewing 
 him some time in a sort of earnest silence, he suddenly 
 exclaimed, as if speaking to himself, and from an impulse 
 irresistible — ' What a sight is that ! to see that man, that 
 small portion of human clay, that poor feeble machine of 
 earth, enclosed now in that little space, brought to that 
 Bar, a prisoner in a spot six foot square — and to reflect on 
 his late power ! Nations at his command ! Princes 
 prostrate at his feet ! — What a change ! how must he feel 
 it 1 '
 
 Conversation until JViiid/iaui. 197 
 
 " He stopped, and I said not a word. I was j^dad to sec 
 him thus impressed ; I hoped it might soften his enmity. 
 I found, by his manner, that he had never, from the 
 Committee Box, looked at him .... 
 
 " Recovering, now, from the strong emotion with which 
 the sight of Mr. Hastings had filled him, he looked again 
 around the Court, and pointed out several of the principal 
 characters present, with arch and striking remarks upon 
 each of them, all uttered with high spirit, but none with 
 ill-nature. 
 
 " ' Pitt,' cried he, ' is not here !— a noble stroke that 
 for the annals of his administration ! A trial is brought 
 on by the whole Ilouse of Commons in a body, and he is 
 absent at the very opening ! However,' added he, with 
 a very meaning laugh, ' I'm glad of it, for "tis to his 
 eternal disgrace !' 
 
 " Mercy ! thought I, what a friend to kindness is 
 party ! 
 
 " ' Do 3'Ou see Scott ?' cried he. 
 
 " ' No, I never saw him ; pray show him me.' 
 
 " * There he is, in green ; just now by the Speaker, now 
 moved by the Committee ; in tv^o minutes more he will 
 be somewhere else, skipping backv/ards and forwards : 
 what a graishopper it is !' 
 
 " * I cannot look at him,' cried I, ' without recollecting 
 a very extraordinary letter from him, that I read last 
 summer in the newspaper, where he answers some attack 
 that he says has been made upon him, because the tern^. 
 is used of " a very insignificant fellow ;'' and he printed 
 two or three letters in the Public Advertiser, in followini'- 
 days, to prove, with great care and pains, that he knew it 
 was all meant as an abuse of himself, from those words !' 
 
 "'And what,' cried he, laughing, ' do you say to that 
 notion now you see him ?'
 
 198 Pariisansh ip. 
 
 " ' That no one,' cried I, examining him with my glass, 
 ' can possibly dispute his claim !' 
 
 " What pity that Mr. Hastings should have trusted his 
 cause to so frivolous an agent ! I believe, and indeed it 
 is the general belief, both of foes and friends, that to his 
 officious and injudicious zeal the present prosecution is 
 wholly owing." 
 
 A long conversation — or rather several conversations, 
 for the talk was interrupted more than once — ensued, in 
 the course of which Miss Burney, much to the astonish- 
 ment of Windham, who knew her friendship for Burke, 
 declared herself a partisan of Hastings, while at the same 
 time she admitted that she knew nothing of the merits of 
 the case — had not even read the charges against the late 
 Governor-General. " I had afterwards,'' she writes, " to 
 relate a great part of this to the Queen herself. She saw 
 me engaged in such close discourse, and with such 
 apparent interest on both sides, with Mr. Windham, that 
 I knew she must else form conjectures innumerable. So 
 candid, so liberal is the mind of the Queen, that she not 
 only heard me with the most favourable attention towards 
 Mr. Windham, but was herself touched even to tears by 
 the relation. We stayed but a short time after this last 
 conference ; for nothing more was attempted than reading 
 over the charges and answers, in the same useless manner.'' 
 
 Miss Burney went again to Westminster Hall on the 
 second day of Burke's opening speech : 
 
 " All I had heard of his eloquence, and all I had con- 
 ceived of his great abilities, was more than answered by 
 his performance. Nervous, clear, and striking was almost 
 all that he uttered: the main business, indeed, of his 
 coming forth was frequently neglected, and not seldom
 
 Burkes Great Speech. 199 
 
 wholly lost ; but his excursions were so fanciful, so enter- 
 taining, and so ingenious, that no miscellaneous hearer, 
 like myself, could blame them. It is true he was unequal, 
 but his inequality produced an effect which, in so long a 
 speech, was perhaps preferable to greater consistency, 
 since, though it lost attention in its falling off, it recovered 
 it with additional energy by some ascent unexpected and 
 wonderful. When he narrated, he was easy, flowing, and 
 natural; when he declaimed, energetic, warm, and brilliant. 
 The sentiments he interspersed were as nobly conceived 
 as they were highly coloured ; his satire had a poignancy 
 of wit that made it as entertaining as it was penetrating ; 
 his allusions and quotations, as far as they were English 
 and within my reach, were apt and ingenious ; and the 
 wild and sudden flights of his fancy, bursting forth from 
 his creative imagination in language fluent, forcible, and 
 varied, had a charm for my ear and my attention wholly 
 new and perfectly irresistible." 
 
 She was again visited in her box by Windham, who, on 
 Hastings happening to look up, remarked that he did not 
 like his countenance. '' I could have told him," says 
 Fanny, "that he is reckoned extremely like himself; but 
 after such an observation I would not venture, and only 
 said : ' Indeed, he is extremely altered : it was not so he 
 looked when I conceived for him that prepossession I 
 have owned to 30U.'" The Queen's reporter, for such 
 she was, attended a third time on the day after the 
 Lords had enraged the Managers by deciding that 
 they must complete their case upon all the charges 
 before the accused was called on for any defence. She 
 heard Mr. Fox speak for five hours with a violence 
 that did not make her forget what she was told of hir> 
 being in a fury. His eloquence was not nearly so much
 
 200 Death of Mrs. Dclany. 
 
 to her taste as Burke's. Fox's countenance struck her as- 
 hard and callous ; his violence, she thought, had that sort 
 of monoton}^ that seemed to result from its being factitious^ 
 and she felt less pardon for that than for any extravagance 
 in Mr. Burke, whose excesses seemed at least to be un- 
 affected and sincere. Mr. Fox appeared to her to have no- 
 such excuse; 'he looked all good-humour and negligent 
 ease the instant before he began a speech of uninterrupted 
 passion and vehemence, and he wore the same careless 
 and disengaged air the very instant he had finished/ 
 After other attendances at the trial, Miss Burney's mind 
 was withdrawn from the subject in which she took so- 
 much interest by the last illness and death of Mrs. 
 Delany, The old lady, who died on the 15th of April, 
 1788, left some small remembrances to the friend whose, 
 companionship had soothed her latter days.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The King's Health — Koyal Visit to Cheltenham — Excursions — Robert Raikcs 
 — Colonel Digby — The Duke of York — The Court attends the Musical 
 Festival at Worcester — Return to Windsor — ^^. de Lalandc, the Astronomer 
 — His Compliments — His Volubility — Illness of the King — The King grows 
 worse — 'The Queen is my Physician' — Alarm and Agitation — (Irief of the 
 (^ueen — The King Insane — Arrival of the Prince of Wale-; — Paroxysm of the 
 King at Dinner- — The Queen 111 — 1 he Physicians — The Ro) al Pair separated 
 — The Prince takes the Government at the Palace — Prayers for the King's 
 Recovery — The King and his Equerries — Sir Lucas Pepys — A Privy Council 
 — Preparations for leaving \Vindsor — Departure for Kew — JMournful Spec- 
 tacle — Mrs. Schwellcnberg arrives. 
 
 For many 3'ears George III. had enjoyed unbroken good 
 health. 'The King,' wrote a well-informed gossipper'' 
 in January, 1788, ' walks twelve miles on his way from 
 Windsor to London, which is more than the Prince of 
 Wales can do.' Early in June, however, his Majesty was 
 disturbed by passing symptoms, which proved to be fore- 
 ri'.nncrs of an illness famous in English history. The 
 complaint, in its first stage, was called a bilious attack : 
 and when the patient appeared to have thrown it off, he 
 was advised by his physician to drink the waters at 
 Cheltenham for a month, in order to complete his re- 
 covery. On June 8, the King sent his old friend Dr. 
 Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, a letter, in which he an- 
 nounced his intended journey into Gloucestershire; and, 
 at the same time, proposed to enlarge his excursion b\- 
 paying a visit to Hartlebury, and afterwards attending the 
 Festival of the Three Choirs, which that year was to be 
 
 * Mr. Storer, the friend of George Selwyn.
 
 202 Royal Visit to Cheltenham. 
 
 held at Worcester. His Majesty went on to say that, as 
 feeding the hungry was a Christian duty, he should expect 
 his correspondent, while welcoming the sovereign to his 
 cathedral city, to provide some cold meat for his refresh- 
 ment. 
 
 The hearty old English gentleman, in fact, was minded 
 to enjoy his holiday in the homely way that pleased him 
 best. On July 12, the Court travelled from Windsor to 
 Cheltenham, where Bays Hill Lodge, a seat of the Earl 
 of Fauconberg, situated just outside the town, had been 
 engaged for the royal party. The Lodge was so small 
 that their Majesties, with the three eldest Princesses 
 who accompanied them, could only be housed there at a 
 considerable sacrifice of state and ceremony. No bed 
 could be provided within its walls for any male person 
 but the King. The female attendants on the Queen and 
 her daughters were limited to one lady-in-waiting, Miss 
 Barney, Miss Planta, and the wardrobe women. 
 
 ' Is this little room for your r\Iajesty?' exclaimed Fanny, 
 in astonishment. 
 
 ' Stay till you see your own,' retorted the Queen, laugh- 
 ing, ' before you call this little.' 
 
 Colonel Gwynn, the King's equerry, and Colonel Digby, 
 the Queen's vice-chamberlain, slept in a house at som.e 
 distance. The Queen consented to dine with these 
 officers, though until then the German etiquette in which 
 she was trained had prevented her from sitting at table 
 with men of much higher rank. 
 
 During his stay at Cheltenham, the King drank the 
 waters at six o'clock every morning, and afterwards took 
 exercise in the 'Walks.' This parade was conducted in 
 the same manner as the terracing at Windsor. The King 
 led the way, with the Queen leaning on his arm ; the 
 Princesses followed them ; and the equerry brought up
 
 Robert Raikes. 203 
 
 o 
 
 the rear. The unaccustomed spectacle drew crowds from 
 the town and the country round, causing at first a good 
 deal of inconvenience, which the King bore with his 
 usual good-nature. In the course of July, he made ex- 
 cursions with his family to several places of interest in 
 the neighbourhood : to Oakley Grove, the seat of Lord 
 Bathurst, patron of Pope and Prior, and friend of Boling- 
 broke and Atterbury ; to the Abbey Church of Tewkes- 
 bury ; to Gloucester Cathedral ; to Croome Court, the 
 abode of Lord Coventry and his beautiful Countess. 
 
 Miss Burney and j\Iiss Planta were not of the suite on 
 these expeditions, and altogether enjoyed much more 
 liberty than fell to their lot at Windsor or Kew. Some- 
 times they amused themselves by making little excursions 
 on their own account. On the day of the royal visit to 
 Oakley Grove, they went over to Gloucester, where Miss 
 Planta had an acquaintance in the person of the philan- 
 thropic printer, Robert Raikes, still remembered as the 
 originator of Sunday-schools. i\Ir. Raikes felt himself a 
 man of importance ; he had been invited to Windsor, 
 and had had the honour of a long conversation with the 
 Queen. Apparently the notice taken of him had left 
 traces on his manner. ' He is somewhat too flourishing,' 
 Fanny whispered to her Diary, ' somewhat too forward, 
 somewhat too voluble ; but he is worthy, benevolent, 
 good-natured, and good-hearted, and therefore the over- 
 flowings of successful spirits and delighted vanity must 
 meet with some allowance.' Bating this little self-com- 
 placency, the good man proved himself a capital host and 
 guide, entertaining the royal attendants in a handsome 
 and painstaking manner, which obtained their warm 
 acknowledgments. 
 
 But Miss Burney beguiled her leisure principally in 
 improving her acquaintance with Colonel Digby, who
 
 204 Colonel Dig by. 
 
 paid her marked attention during their attendance at 
 the Gloucestershire watering-place. This courteous, in- 
 sinuating colonel suited her taste far better than the 
 more soldier-like equerries whom she met at Court. She 
 had conceived a decided inclination for him from the 
 moment of his first introduction to her. ' He is a man,' 
 she then wrote, 'of the most scrupulous good-breeding; 
 diffident, gentle, and sentimental in his conversation, and 
 assiduously attentive in his manners.' He had now the 
 additional recommendation that belongs to a widower 
 grieving over jo}'^ departed, yet not despairing of con- 
 solation. In this state of mind, he neglected no oppor- 
 tunity of making himself agreeable to a lady whose 
 disposition was so congenial to his own. Even a fit of 
 the gout, which detained him from his official duties, 
 could not prevent him from limping over to the Lodge to 
 sit with Miss Burney. They talked of many things, but 
 chiefly of books, of the affections, of happiness, and of 
 religion. The famous authoress astonished her admirer 
 not a little by the discovery she was fain to make of 
 the many books she had never yet read. Her candour 
 encouraged him to produce his own stores of literature, 
 which were much more extensive than hers. This pensive 
 gentleman, we need scarcely say, was addicted to reciting 
 poetry and passages of pious sentiment. One line 
 especially, which was often in his mouth, about ' the 
 chastity of silent woe,' Fanny found peculiarly beautiful, 
 though it might have reminded her of the Irish Commis- 
 sary whom she had met at Brighton. Very soon quota- 
 tions were succeeded by readings. The pair studied 
 together Akenside's poems. Falconer's ' Shipwreck,' Carr's 
 Sermons, and a work* entitled ' Original Love-Letters,' 
 with which we own ourselves unacquainted. Presently, 
 
 * By William Combe [1741-1S23], author of ' Doctor Syntax.'
 
 The Duke of York. 205 
 
 however, as the air of Cheltenham did not appear to suit 
 the Colonel's gout, he began to think of taking leave of 
 absence. 
 
 A visit from the Duke of York was expected while the 
 Court was at Cheltenham. So eager was the King for 
 the society of this his favourite son, that he caused a 
 portable wooden house to be moved from the further end 
 of the town, and joined on to Bays Hill Lodge, for the 
 reception of the Prince and his attendants. The work 
 consumed much time and monev, but the fond father was 
 bent on lodging his Frederick close to himself. All this 
 care and affection met with the too familiar return. The 
 Duke ■ arrived on August i, according to his appoint- 
 ment ; and Miss Burney describes the King's joy as onK- 
 less extreme than the transport he had shown when, a year 
 before, she had seen the darling appear at Windsor after 
 long absence in Germany. But the Prince, so much 
 looked for, would remain no more than a single night. 
 Military business, he declared, required him to be in 
 London by the next day but one, which was Sunday ; 
 however, he would travel all Saturday night that he might 
 be able to spend a second evening with his parents. ' I 
 wonder,' cried Colonel Digby, Vvith the sententious pro- 
 priety which charmed our branny, ' how these Princes, 
 who are thus forced to steal even their travelling from 
 their sleep, find time to say their prayers !' 
 
 On August 5 the Court visited Worcester for the pur- 
 pose of attending the jNIusical Festival. When the royal 
 cortege stopped at the Bishop's palace, " the King had an 
 huzza that seemed to vibrate through the whole town, 
 the Princess Royal's carriage had a second, and the 
 equerries a third. The mob then," proceeds the Diary, 
 " as ours drew on in succession, seemed to deliberate 
 whether or not we also should have a cheer ; but one of
 
 2o6 Musical Festival at Wo7xester. 
 
 them soon decided the matter by calling out, ' These are 
 the maids of honour !' and immediately gave us an huzza 
 that made us quite ashamed." The opening performance 
 of the Festival next morning did not much gratify the 
 historian, ' It was very long and intolerably tedious, 
 consisting of Handel's gravest pieces and fullest choruses, 
 and concluding with a sermon, concerning the institution 
 of the charity, preached by Dr. Langhorne.'* A second 
 morning performance to which she went did not strike 
 her more favourably. One of the evening concerts she 
 liked better. Of another she observes that it ' was very 
 Handelian, though not exclusively so.' 
 
 At the close of the Festival the ro3^al party and their 
 suite returned to Cheltenham. On the same evening 
 Colonel Digby took his departure, 'leaving me,' says 
 Fanny, ' firmly impressed with a belief that I shall find 
 in him a true, an honourable, and even an affectionate 
 friend for life.' Next day an express came from him with 
 a letter for Miss Burney, begging her to inform the Queen 
 that the ]^.Iastership of St. Katharine's Hospital, which 
 was in her Majesty's gift, had just become void by the 
 death of the occupant. In a few more days it was an- 
 nounced that the vacant appointment had been conferred 
 on Mr. Digby. 
 
 By August t6, the Court was again established at 
 Windsor, and a rumour began to circulate of the Colonel's 
 gallantry at Cheltenham, mingled with a second rumour 
 of his being then confined by gout at a house where lived 
 Miss Gunning, for whom he had been supposed to have 
 an admiration. Both reports were disregarded by Mrs. 
 Schwellenberg's assistant, who could think of nothing but 
 the change from the pleasant society which she had lately 
 enjoyed to the arrogance, the contentiousness, the pre- 
 
 * The writer and translctor, 1735-1799.
 
 Jlf. de Lalandc. 207 
 
 Euming ip-norance, that assailed her in the hated dining- 
 room at the Queen's Lodge. ' What scales,' she wrote, 
 ' could have held and weighed the heart of F. B. as she 
 drove past the door of her revered lost comforter, to enter 
 the apartment inhabited by such qualities !' 
 
 One strange visitor, however, she had at starting, 
 who provided her with some little amusement : 
 
 " August iStk. — Well, now I have a new personage to 
 introduce to you, and no small one ; ask else the stars, 
 moon and planets ! While I was surrounded with band- 
 boxes, and unpacking. Dr. Shepherd* was announced. 
 Eager to make his compliments on the safe return, he 
 forced a passage through the back avenues and stairs, for 
 he told me he did not like being seen coming to me at the 
 front door, as it might create some jealousies amongst the 
 other Canons ! A very commendable circumspection ! but 
 whether for my sake or his own he did not particularize. 
 
 " M. de Lalande, he said, the famous astronomer, was 
 just arrived in England, and now at Windsor, and he had 
 expressed a desire to be introduced to me 
 
 " His business was to settle bringing M. de Lalande to 
 see me in the evening. I told him I vs-as much honoured, 
 and so forth, but that I received no evening compan}-, as 
 I was officially engaged. He had made the appointment, 
 he said, and could not break it, without affronting him ; 
 besides, he gave me to understand it would be an honour to 
 me for ever to be visited by so great an astronomer. . . . 
 
 " In the midst of tea, with a room full of people, I was 
 called out to Dr. Shepherd !....! hurried into the next 
 room, where I found him with his friend, j\I. de Lalande. 
 What a reception awaited me ! how unexpected a one 
 from a famed and great astronomer ! ]\L de Lalande 
 
 * One of the Canons of Windsor.
 
 2o8 My Excellent French. 
 
 advanced to meet me — I will not be quite positive it was 
 on tiptoe, but certainly with a mixture of jerk and strut 
 that could noi be quite flat-footed. He kissed his hand 
 with the air of a pdit maiirc, and then broke forth into 
 such an harangue of Eloges, so solemn with regard to its 
 own weight and importance, and so fade with respect to 
 the little personage addressed, that I could not help 
 thinking it lucky for the planets, stars, and sun, thev 
 were not bound to hear his comments, though obliged 
 to undergo his calculations. 
 
 '' On my part sundry profound reverences with now and 
 then an ' Oh, monsieur /' or ' c'cst trop d'honneur,' acquitted 
 nie so well, that the first harangue being finished, on the 
 score of general and grand reputation, Eloge the second 
 began, on the excellence with which ' cette cclebre demoiselle ' 
 spoke French ! 
 
 " This may surprise you, my dear friends ; but you must 
 consider M. de Lalande is a great discoverer. 
 
 " Well, but had you seen Dr. Shepherd ! he looked lost 
 in sleek delight and wonder, that a person to whom he- 
 had introduced M. de Lalande should be an object for 
 such fine speeches. 
 
 " This gentleman's figure, meanwhile, corresponds no 
 better with his discourse than his scientific profession, for 
 he is an ugly little wrinkled old man, with a fine showy 
 waistcoat, rich lace ruffles, and the grimaces of a dentist. 
 I believe he chose to display that a Frenchman of science 
 could be also a man of gallantry. 
 
 *' I was seated between them, but the good doctor made 
 no greater interruption to the florid professor than I did 
 myself : he only grinned applause, with placid, but in- 
 effable satisfaction. 
 
 " Nothing therefore intervening, £/o^c the third followed, 
 after a pause no longer than might be necessary for due
 
 ]\L dc Lalaudcs l^Glnbility. 209 
 
 admiration of Elogc the second. This had for ^ujet the 
 fair female sex; how the ladies were now all improved; 
 how they could write, and read, and spell ; how a man 
 nowadays mi^cjht talk with them and be understood, and 
 how delightful it was to see such prctt}- creatures turned 
 rational ! 
 
 " And all this, of course, interspersed with particular ob- 
 servations and most pointed applications ; nor was there 
 in the whole string of compliments which made up the 
 three houqxich, one single one amongst them that might 
 have disgraced any ['Ctit niaiirc to utter, or any petite 
 inaUressc to hear. 
 
 " The third being ended, a rather longer pause ensued. 
 I believe he was dry, but I offered him no tea. I would 
 not voluntarily be accessory to detaining such great 
 personages from higher avocations. I wished him next 
 to go and study the stars ; from the moon he seemed so 
 lately arrived there was little occasion for another journe}'. 
 
 " I flatter myself he was of the same opinion, for the 
 fourth ElogewsiS all upon his unhappiness in tearing him- 
 self awa3' from so much merit, and ended in as many 
 bows as had accompanied his entrance. 
 
 " I suppose, in going, he said, with a shrug, to the 
 Canon, 'M. Ic Docteur, c'cst hicn gcnant, ma is il faiit dire dcs 
 jolies choses aux dames !' 
 
 " He was going the next day to see Dr. Maskelyne's* 
 Observatory. Well ! I have had him first in mine I" 
 
 The King, at his return to Windsor, appeared to be re- 
 stored to his usual health. In less than two months, how- 
 ever, he was again out of order. We give the most 
 noteworthy passage in Miss Burney's account of his 
 subsequent illness as it fell under her obscr\ation. She 
 * Dr. Maskelyne (1732-1S1 1) was Astronomer Royal at llic time. 
 
 14
 
 Illness of the King. 
 
 was doing double duty at this time, in the absence of 
 Mrs, Schwellenberg-, who had gone to Weymouth for her 
 health. The Court was at Kew when the first appre- 
 hensions arose : 
 
 " October 17TH. — Our return to Windsor is postponed 
 till to-morrow. The King is not well ; he has not been 
 quite well some time, yet nothing I hope alarming, 
 tliough there is an uncertainty as to his complaint not 
 very satisfactory. 
 
 " 19TH. — The Windsor journey is again postponed, and 
 the King is but very indifferent. Heaven preserve him ! 
 there is something unspeakabty alarming in his smallest 
 indisposition. I am very much with the Queen, who, I 
 see, is very uneasy, but she talks not of it. 
 
 " 20Tii. — The King was taken very ill in the night, and 
 we have all been cruelly frightened ; but it went off, and, 
 thank Heaven ! he is now better. 
 
 " 25TH. — The King was so much better, that our 
 Windsor journey at length took place, v.ith permission of 
 Sir George Baker,* the only ph}sician his Majesty will 
 admit. 
 
 " I had a sort of conference with his Majesty, or rather 
 I was the object to whom he spoke, with a manner so un- 
 common, that a high fever alone could account for it ; a 
 rapidity, a hoarseness of voice, a volubility, an earnest- 
 ness — a vehemence, rather — it startled me inexpressibl}-, 
 vet with a graciousness exceeding all I ever met with 
 before — it was almost kindness ! Heaven — Heaven pre- 
 serve him ! The Queen grows more and more uneasy. 
 She alarms me sometimes for herself; at other times she 
 has a sedateness that wonders me still more. 
 
 "Sunday, Oct. 26th. — The King was prevailed upon 
 
 * Physician in Ordinary to the King : born 1722 ; died 1809.
 
 The Kino- oTozus zuorsc. 2 1 1 
 
 '<3 .*> 
 
 not to iE^o to chapel this mornint^. I met him in the 
 passage from the Queen's room ; he stopped me, and 
 conversed upon his health near half an hour, still with 
 that extreme quickness of speech and manner that belongs 
 to fever ; and he hardly sleeps, he tells me, one minute all 
 night ; indeed, if he recovers not his rest, a most delirious 
 fever seems to threaten him. He is all agitation, all 
 emotion, yet all benevolence and goodness, even to a 
 degree that makes it touching to hear him speak. He 
 assures ever3'body of his health ; he seems only fearful to 
 give uneasiness to others, yet certainly he is better than 
 last night. Nobody speaks of his illness, nor what they 
 think of it. 
 
 " November ist. — Our Kingdoes not advance in amend- 
 ment ; he grows so weak that he walks like a gouty man, 
 yet has such spirits that he has talked away his voice, 
 and is so hoarse it is painful to hear him. The Queen 
 is evidently in great uneasiness. God send him 
 better ! . . . 
 
 " During the reading this morning, twice, at pathetic 
 passages, my poor Queen shed tears. ' How nervous I 
 am !' she cried ; ' I am quite a fool ! Don't you think 
 so?' 
 
 " No, ma'am !' was all I dared answer. 
 
 " The King was hunting. Her an.xiety tor his return 
 was greater than ever. The moment he arrived he sent 
 a page to desire to have coffee and take his bark in the 
 Queen's dressing-room. She said she would pour it out 
 herself, and sent to inquire how he drank it. 
 
 " The King is very sensible of the great change there is 
 in himself, and of her disturbance at it. It seems, but 
 Heaven avert it ! a threat of a total breaking up of the 
 constitution. This, too, seems his own idea. I was 
 present at his first seeing Lady Effingham on his return 
 
 14—2
 
 2 12 ' The Queen is my Physician! 
 
 to Windsor this last time. ' My dear Effy,' he cried^ 
 ' you see me, all at once, an old man.' 
 
 " I was so much affected by this exclamation, that I 
 wished to run out of the room. Yet I could not but 
 reco\er when Lady Effingham, in her well-meaning but 
 literal way, composedly answered, ' We must all grow 
 old, sir ; I am sure I do.' 
 
 " He then produced a walking-stick which he had just 
 ordered. 'He could not,' he said, 'get on without it;. 
 his strength seemed diminishing hourly.' 
 
 " He took the bark, he said ; ' but the Queen,' he cried,. 
 * is my physician, and no man need ha^"e a better; she is 
 my I-ricnd, and no man can have a better.' 
 
 " How the Queen commanded herself I cannot con- 
 ceive. . . . Nor can I ever forget him in what passed this 
 night. When I came to the Queen's dressing-room he 
 was still with her. He constantly conducts her to it 
 before he retires to his own. He was begging her not to^ 
 speak to him when he got to his room, that he might fall 
 asleep, as he felt great want of that refreshment. He re- 
 peated this desire, I believe, at least a hundred times, 
 though, far enough from needing it, the poor Queen never 
 uttered one syllable ; He then applied to me, saying he 
 was really very well, except in that one particular, that 
 he could not sleep. . . . 
 
 " 3RD. — We are all here in a most uneasy state. The 
 King is better and worse so frequently, and changes so,, 
 daily, backwards and forwards, that everything is to be 
 apprehended, if his nerves are not some way quieted. I 
 dreadfuUv fear he is on the eve of some severe fever- 
 The Queen is almost overpowered with some secret 
 terror. I am affected beyond all expression in her 
 presence, to see what struggles she makes to support 
 serenity. To-day she gave up the conflict when I was
 
 Grief of the Queen. 2 1 3 
 
 alone with her, and burst into a violent fit of tears. It 
 was very, very terrible to see ! . . . 
 
 " 2TH. — I found my poor Royal Mistress, in the morn- 
 ing, sad and sadder still ; something horrible seemed im- 
 pending. . . . 
 
 " I was still wholly unsuspicious of the greatness of the 
 cause she had for dread. Illness, a breaking up of the 
 constitution, the payment of sudden infirmity and prema- 
 ture old age for the waste of unguarded health and strength 
 — these seemed to me the threats awaiting her ; and great 
 and grievous enough, yet how short of the fact ! . . . 
 
 "At noon the King went out in his chaise, with the 
 Princess Royal, for an airing. I looked from my window 
 to see him ; he was all smiling benignity, but gave So 
 many orders to the postilions, and got in and out of the 
 carriage twice, with such agitation, that again my fear of 
 a great fever hanging over him grew more and more 
 powerful. Alas ! how little did I imagine I should see 
 him no more for so long — so black a period ! 
 
 " When I went to my poor Queen, still worse and worse 
 I found her spirits. . . . 
 
 " The Princess Royal soon returned. She came in 
 cheerfully, and gave, in German, a history of the airing, 
 and one that seemed comforting. 
 
 '' Soon after, suddenly arrived the Prince of Wales. He 
 came into the room. He had just quitted Brighthelm- 
 stone. Something passing within seemed to render this 
 meeting awfully distant on both sides. She asked if he 
 should not return to Brighthelmstone ? He answered 
 }es, the next day. He desired to speak with her ; they 
 retired together. . . . 
 
 " Only Miss Planta dined with me. We were both 
 nearly silent : I was shocked at I scarcely knew what, 
 and she seemed to know too much for speech. She
 
 214 Paroxysm at Dinner. 
 
 stayed with me till six o'clock, but nothing passed, 
 beyond general solicitude that the King might get better. 
 
 " Meanwhile, a stillness the most uncommon reigned 
 over the whole house. Nobody stirred ; not a voice was 
 heard ; not a motion. I could do nothing but watch, 
 without knowing for what : there seemed a strangeness in 
 the house most extraordinary. 
 
 " At seven o'clock Columb came to tell me that the 
 music was all forbid, and the musicians ordered awav ! 
 
 "This was the last step to be expected, so fond as his 
 Majesty is of his concert, and I thought it might have 
 rather soothed him : I could not understand the prohibi- 
 tion ; all seemed stranger and stranger." 
 
 One after another, the usual evening visitors made 
 their appearance. First the equerries, and then Colonel 
 Digby, who had reached the palace that afternoon, came 
 in to tea. " Various small speeches now dropped, by 
 which I found the house was all in disturbance, and the 
 King in some strange way worse, and the Queen taken 
 ill !" Presently the whole truth was divulged. " The 
 King, at dinner, had broken forth into positive delirium, 
 which long had been menacing all who saw him most 
 closely ; and the Queen v/as so overpowered as to fall 
 into violent hysterics. All the Princesses were in- misery, 
 and the Prince of Wales had burst into tears. No one 
 knew what was to follow — no one could conjecture the 
 event." 
 
 At ten o'clock. Miss Burney went to her own room to 
 be in readiness for her usual summons to the Queen : 
 
 " Two long hours I waited — alone, in silence, in ignor- 
 ance, in dread ! I thought they would never be over ; at 
 twelve o'clock I seemed to have spent two whole days in 
 waiting. I then opened my door, to listen, in the passage,
 
 The Once 11. 2 1 5 
 
 if anything seemed stirring. Not a sound could I hear. 
 My apartment seemed wholly separated from life and 
 motion. Whoever was in the house kept at the other 
 end, and not even a servant crossed the stairs or passage 
 by my rooms. 
 
 " I w^ould fain have crept on myself, anywhere in the 
 v.-orld, for some inquirv, or to see but a face, and hear a 
 voice, but I did not dare risk losing a sudden summons. 
 
 " I re-entered my room, and there passed another end- 
 less hour, in conjectures too horrible to relate. 
 
 "A little after one, I heard a step — my door opened — • 
 and a page said I must come to the Queen. 
 
 " I could hardly get along — hardly force myself into the 
 room ; dizzy I felt, almost to falling. But the first shock 
 passed, I became more collected. Useful, indeed, proved 
 the previous lesson of the evening : it had stilled, if not 
 mortified my mind, which had else, in a scene such as 
 this, been all tumult and emotion. 
 
 " M}' poor Royal Mistress ! never can I forget her 
 countenance — pale, ghastly pale she looked ; she was 
 seated to be undressed, and attended by Lady Elizabeth 
 Waldegrave and Miss Goldsworthy ; her whole frame was 
 disordered, 5'et she was still and quiet. 
 
 " These two ladies assisted me to undress her, or rather 
 I assisted them, for they W3re firmer, from being longer- 
 present ; my shaking hands and blinded eyes could scarce 
 be of any use. 
 
 " I gave her some camphor julep, which had been 
 ordered her by Sir George Baker. ' How cold I am I' 
 she cried, and put her hand on mine ; marble it felt ! and 
 went to my heart's core ! 
 
 " The King, at the instance of Sir George Baker, had 
 consented to sleep in the next apartment, as the Queen 
 was ill. For himself, he would listen to nothing. Ac-
 
 2i6 Illness of the Quccii. 
 
 cordingly, a bed was put up for him, by his own order, in 
 the Queen's second dressinj^-room, immediately adjoining 
 to the bedroom. He would not be further removed. Miss 
 Goldsworthy was to sit up with her, by the King's 
 direction. 
 
 " I would fain have remained in the little dressing-room, 
 on the other side the bedroom, but she would not permit 
 it .... I went to bed, determined to preserve my 
 strength to the utmost of my ability, for the service of 
 my unhappy mistress. I could not, however, sleep. I do 
 not suppose an eye was closed in the house all night. 
 
 " 6th. — I rose at six, dressed in haste by candle-light, 
 and unable to wait for my summons in a suspense so 
 awful, I stole along the passage in the dark, a thick fog 
 intercepting all faint light, to see if I could meet with 
 Sandys,* or anyone, to tell me how the night had passed. 
 
 " When I came to the little dressing-room, I stopped, 
 irresolute what to do. I heard men's voices ; I was 
 seized with the most cruel alarm at such a sound in her 
 Majesty's dressing-room. I waited some time, and then 
 the door opened, and I saw Colonel Goldsworthy and Mr. 
 Batterscomb. I was relieved from my first apprehension, 
 yet shocked enough to see them there at this early hour. 
 They had both sat up there all night, as well as .Sandys. 
 Every page, both of the Kmg and Queen, had also sat up, 
 dispersed in the passages and ante-rooms ; and oh, what 
 horror in every face I met ! 
 
 " I waited here, amongst them, till Sand3-s was ordered 
 by the Queen to carry her a pair of gloves. I could not 
 resist the opportunity to venture myself before her. I 
 glided into the room, but stopped at the door : she was 
 in bed, sitting up ; Miss Goldsworthy was on a stool by 
 her side ! 
 
 * Wardrobe-woman to the Queen.
 
 The Quccii and Miss Barney. 217 
 
 *' I feared approacliinj:^ without permission, yet could 
 not prevail with myself to retreat. She was looking; 
 down, and did not see me. Miss Goldsworthy, turning 
 round, said, "Tis Miss Burney, ma'am.' 
 
 " She leaned her head forward, and in a most soft 
 manner, said, ' Miss Burney, how are you ?' 
 
 "Deeply affected, I hastened up to her; but, in trying 
 to speak, burst into an irresistible torrent of tears. 
 
 " My dearest friends, I do it at this moment again, and 
 can hardly write for them ; yet I wish you to know all 
 this piercing history right. 
 
 " She looked like death — colourless and wan; but nature 
 is infectious ; the tears gushed from her own eyes, and a 
 perfect agony of weeping ensued, which, once begun, she 
 could not stop; she did not, indeed, try; for when it 
 subsided, and she wiped her eyes, she said, ' I thank you, 
 Miss Burney — you have made me cry; it is a great relief to 
 me — I had not been able to cry before, all this night long.' 
 " Oh, what a scene followed ! what a scene was related ! 
 The King, in the middle of the night, had insisted upon 
 seeing if his Queen was not removed from the house ; 
 and he had come into her room, with a candle in his 
 hand, opened the bed-curtains, and satisfied himself she 
 was there, and Miss Goldsworthy by her side. This 
 observance of his directions had much soothed him ; l)ut 
 he stayed a full half-hour, and the depth of terror during 
 that time no words can paint. The fear of such another 
 entrance was now so strongly upon the nerves of the poor 
 Queen that she could hardly support herself. 
 
 " The King — the royal sufferer — was still in the next 
 room, attended by Sir George Baker and Dr. Heberden,* 
 
 * William Ilebcrden. Born in 1710; Fellow of St. John's Colle<:e, Cam- 
 l)ri'lee ; piractised medicine at Cambriilt;e ; lemuvcd to London in 1748 ; wrote 
 ' Mcdiral CoiiuHcntaiies ;' passed the later yeais of his life at Windsor, whore 
 he died in iSoi.
 
 2 1 8' The Physicians. 
 
 and his pages, with Colonel Goldsworthy occasionalh-, 
 and as he called for him. He kept talking unceasingly; 
 his voice was so lost in hoarseness and weakness, it was 
 rendered almost inarticulate ; but its tone was still all 
 benevolence — all kindness — all touching graciousness. 
 
 " It was thought advisable the Queen should not rise, 
 lest the King should be offended that she did not go to 
 him ; at present he was content, because he conceived 
 her to be nursing for her illness. 
 
 " But what a situation for her ! She would not let me 
 leave her now ; she . . . frequently bid me listen, to hear 
 what the King was saying or doing, I did, and carried 
 the best accounts I could manage, without deviating from 
 truth, except by some omissions. Nothing could be so 
 afflicting as this task ; even now, it brings fresh to my 
 ear his poor exhausted voice. 'lam nervous,' he cried ; 
 ' I am not ill, but I am nervous : if you would know what 
 is the matter with me, I am nervous. But I love you 
 both very well ; if you would tell me truth : I love Dr. 
 Heberden best, for he has not told me a lie : Sir George 
 has told me a lie — a white lie, he says, but I hate a white 
 lie ! If you will tell me a lie, let it be a black lie 1' 
 
 " This was what he kept saying almost constantly, mixed 
 in with other matter, but always returning, and in a voice 
 that truly will never cease vibrating in my recollection." 
 
 In the course of the morning, a third physician — Dr. 
 Warren* — arrived. His opinion was eagerly awaited by 
 the Queen ; but he did not come to her, though repeatedly 
 summoned. At length, Lady Elizc'.beth brought news 
 that he and the other two physicians were gone over to 
 the Castle to the Prince of Wales. 
 
 * Richard Warren. Born about 1732 ; Fellow of ihe Royal and Antic]iiarian 
 Societies; Physician in Ordinary to CJcortje III. and the Prince of Wales; 
 died in 1797.
 
 ^TJic Royal rair Separated. 219 
 
 " I think a deeper blow I had never witnessed. Already 
 to become but second, even for the King ! The tears 
 were now wiped : indignation arose, with pain, the severest 
 pain, of every species. 
 
 " In about a quarter of an hour Colonel Goldsworthy 
 sent in to beg an audience. It was granted, a long cloak 
 only being thrown over the Oucen. 
 
 " He now brought the opinion of all the physicians in 
 consultation, * That her Majesty would remove to a more 
 distant apartment, since the King would undoubtedly be 
 worse from the agitation of seeing her, and there could 
 be no possibility to prevent it while she remained so 
 near.' 
 
 " She instantly agreed, but with what bitter anguish ! 
 Lady Elizabeth, JNIiss Goldsworthy, and m}'self attended 
 her ; she went to an apartment in the same row, but to 
 which there was no entrance except by its own door. It 
 consisted of only two rooms, a bedchamber, and a dress- 
 ing-room. They are appropriated to the lad3''-in-waiting 
 when she is here. 
 
 " At the entrance into this new habitation the poor 
 wretched Queen once more gave way to a perfect agony 
 of grief and affliction ; while the words, ' What will 
 become of me ! What will become of me !' uttered 
 with the most piercing lamentation, struck deep and hard 
 into all our hearts. Never can I forget their desponding 
 sound ; they implied such complicated apprehension." 
 
 Of the scene in the King's rooms that night, Miss 
 Burne}^ had only a momentary glimpse. Being sent on 
 some commission for the Queen, " When I gently opened," 
 she writes, " the door of the apartment to which I was 
 directed, I found it quite filled with gentlemen and 
 attendants, arranged round it on chairs and sofas, in dead
 
 2 20 TJie Prince of Wales. 
 
 silence. It was a dreadful start with which I retreated ; 
 for anything more alarming and shocking could not be 
 conceived— the poor King within another door, uncon- 
 scious an3one was near him, and thus watched, by dread 
 necessity, at such an hour of the night !" How the hours 
 passed she heard the next day. 
 
 " 7TH. — While I was yet with my poor royal sufferer 
 this morning the Prince of Wales came hastily into the 
 room. He apologized for his intrusion, and then gave a 
 very energetic history of the preceding night. It had 
 been indeed most affectingly dreadful ! The King had 
 risen in the middle of the night, and would take no denial 
 to walking into the next room. There he saw the large 
 congress I have mentioned : amazed and in consterna- 
 tion, he demanded what they did there ? Much followed 
 that I have heard since, particularly the warmest eloge 
 on his dear son Frederick, his favourite, his friend. 
 ' Yes,' he cried, ' Frederick is my friend !' — and this son 
 v^as then present amongst the rest, but not seen ! 
 
 " Sir George Baker was there, and was privately ex- 
 horted by the gentlemen to lead the King back to his 
 room ; but he had not courage : he attempted only to 
 speak, and the King penned him in a corner, told him he 
 was a mere old woman — that he wondered he had ever 
 followed his advice, for he knew nothing of his complaint, 
 which was only nervous ! 
 
 " The Prince of Wales, by signs and whispers, would 
 have urged others to have drawn him away, but no one 
 dared approach him, and he remained there a consider- 
 able time, 'N'or do I know when he would have been 
 got back,' continued the Prince, ' if at last Mr. Digby* 
 had not undertaken him. I am extremely obliged to Mr. 
 
 * We have substituted the real name here for the ' Mr. Fairly ' of the printed 
 Diary.
 
 Takes the Govcrnmeuf of llie Palace. 22 r 
 
 Digb}' indeed. He came boldly up to him, and took him 
 by the arm, and beg<::^ed him to go to bed, and then drew 
 liim along, and said he must go. Then he said he would 
 not, and cried, ' Who are you ?' ' I am Mr. Uigby, sir,' 
 he answered, ' and your Majesty has been very good to 
 me often, and now I am going to be very good to you, for 
 3'ou must come to bed, sir : it is necessarv to vour life. 
 And then he was so surprised that he let himself be 
 drawn along just like a child ; and so they got him to 
 bed. I believe else he would have stayed all night !' " 
 
 On the following morning, an incident occurred which 
 showed the revolution that had taken place in the palace. 
 Mr. Smelt had travelled post from York on hearing of the 
 King's illness, but had not yet l^ecn able to see either him 
 or the Oueen. Accidentallv meeting with the Prince of 
 Wales, he was received by his old pupil with much 
 apparent kindness of manner, and invited to remain at 
 Windsor till he could be admitted to the Queen's 
 presence. Not small, then, was his surprise when, on 
 returning shortly afterwards to the Upper Lodge, the 
 porter handed him his great-coat, saying that he had 
 express orders from the Prince to refuse him re-admis- 
 sion.* 'From this time,' continues Miss Burne}', 'as 
 the poor King grew worse, general hope seemed universal!}' 
 to abate ; and the Prince of Wales now took the govern- 
 ment of the house into his own hands. Nothing was 
 done but by his orders, and he was applied to in every 
 difficulty. The Queen interfered not in an^'thing : she 
 lived entirely in her two new rooms, and spent the 
 
 * It is fair to mention that t!ie Prince afterwards apnioij'/ed to his old sub- 
 governor on meeting him at Kew. — -Uiary, iii. 117. Ilvch Walpole, chary as 
 he usually is of praise, has done justice to the "singular virtues and character," 
 the " ignorance of the world as well as iis deiiravity," of this estimable person. 
 " Happy for tlie Prince," adds Walpole, " had he had no other governor ; at 
 least no other director of his morals and opinions of government." — See 
 Walpole's 'Reign of tieorge III.,' vol. iv., pp. 312, 313.
 
 2 2 2 Prayej^s for tJie King s Recovery. 
 
 whole day in patient sorrow and retirement with her 
 daughters.' 
 
 The next news which reached the suite was that the 
 Prince had issued commands to the porter to admit only 
 four persons into the house on any pretence whatever ; 
 and these were ordered to repair immediately to the 
 equerry-room below stairs, while no one whatsoever was 
 to be allowed to go to any other apartment. ' From this 
 time,' adds the Diary, ' commenced a total banishment 
 from all intercourse out of the house, and an unremitting 
 confinement within its walls.' The situation was rendered 
 even more intolerable bv the sudden return of Mrs. 
 Schwellenberg from Weymouth. On the loth, Miss 
 Burney writes : 'This was a most dismal day. The dear 
 and most suffering King was extremely ill, the Queen very 
 wretched, poor Mrs. Schwellenberg all spasm and horror, 
 Miss Planta all restlessness, the house all mystery, and m}^ 
 only informant and comforter [Colonel Digby] distanced.' 
 
 Then began a series of tantalizing fluctuations. From 
 November 12 to the 15th, the King showed some signs of 
 amendment ; but on Sunday, the i6th, all was dark again 
 in the Upper Lodge. 'The King was worse. His night 
 had been very bad ; all the fair promise of amendment 
 was shaken ; he had now some symptoms even dangerous 
 to his life. Oh, good heaven ! what a day did this prove ! 
 I saw not a human face, save at dinner ; and then what 
 faces ! gloom and despair in all, and silence to every 
 species of intelligence.' The special prayer for the King's 
 recovery was used this day for the first time in St. 
 George's Chapel. Evidences of the general distress were 
 apparent on all sides. ' Every prayer in the service in 
 which he was mentioned brought torrents of tears from 
 all the suppliants that joined in them.' Fanny ran away 
 after the service to avoid inquiries.
 
 The King and his Equerries. 223 
 
 Of the afternoon she writes : ' It was melancholy to 
 see the crowds of former welcome visitors who were 
 now denied access. The Prince reiterated his former 
 orders ; and I perceived from my window those who had 
 ventured to the door returning back in tears.' She 
 received letters of inquiry, but was not at liberty to write 
 a vv'ord. The night of the 19th was no better than that 
 of the i6th. ' Mr. Charles Hawkins came,' proceeds the 
 Diar}'. ' He had sat up. Oh, how terrible a narrative 
 did lie drily give of the night ! — short, abrupt, peremptorily 
 bad, and indubitably hopeless. I did not dare alter, but 
 I greatly softened this relation, in giving it to my poor 
 Queen.' On this day Dr. Warren told Mr. Pitt that there 
 was now every reason to believe that the King's disorder 
 was no other than actual lunacy. 
 
 All the equerries, except one who was ill, were now on 
 duty. The King, in his rambling talk, reproached them 
 with want of attention. They lost their whole time at 
 table, he said, by sitting so long over their bottle ; * and 
 Mr. Digby,' he added on one occasion, ' is as bad as au}^ 
 of them ; not that he stays so long at table, or is so fond 
 of wine, but yet he's just as late as the rest; for he's so 
 fond of the company of learned ladies, that he gets to 
 the tea-table with Miss Burney, and there he stays and 
 spends his whole time.' Colonel Digby, in repeating this 
 speech to the lady interested, was good enough to explain 
 to her that what the King had in his head was — Miss 
 Gunning. The Colonel went on to mention Miss 
 Gunning's learning and accomplishments with great 
 praise, yet ' with that sort of general commendation that 
 disclaims all peculiar interest ;' touched, in a tone of 
 displeasure, on the report that had been spread concerning 
 him and her ; lightly added something about its utter 
 falsehood ; and concluded by saying that this, in the then
 
 2 24 '^^^' I^i'ccis Pipys. 
 
 confused state of the King's mind, was what his Majest}' 
 meant by 'learned ladies.' More puzzled than enlightened 
 by this explanation, Fanny, with some hesitation, assented 
 to the insinuating Chamberlain's suggestion that she should 
 think no more of what the King had said, but allow the 
 Colonel ' to come and drink tea with her very often.' 
 
 From the 20th to the cSth there was no improvement 
 in the condition of the sick monarch. Nearly all who 
 saw him, whether physicians or members of the suite, 
 began to abandon hope of his recovery ; only Sir Lucas 
 Pepys, an old friend of the Burneys, who was now added 
 to the medical attendants, inclined to a more encouraging- 
 view. The proceedings of the 28th are entered in the 
 Diar}', as follows : 
 
 " Sir Lucas made me a visit, and informed me of all the 
 medical proceedings ; and told me, in confidence, we were 
 to go to Kew to-morrow, though the Queen herself had 
 not 3'et concurred in the measure ; but the physicians 
 joined to desire it, and they were supported by the 
 Princes. The difficulty how to get the King away from 
 his favourite abode was all that rested. If they even 
 attempted force, they had not a doubt but his smallest 
 resistance w^ould call up the whole country to his fancied 
 rescue ! Yet how, at such a time, prevail b}' persuasion ? 
 
 " He moved me even to tears, by telling me that none of 
 their own lives would be safe if the King did not recover, 
 so prodigiously high ran the tide of affection and loyalt}'. 
 All the physicians received threatening letters dail}', to 
 answer for the safety of their monarch with their lives ! 
 Sir George Baker had alread}- been stopped in his 
 carriage b}' the mob, to give an account of the King; and 
 when he said it was a bad one, they had furiously ex- 
 claimed, ' The more shame for vou !'
 
 A Privy Council. 225 
 
 *' After he left me, a Privy Council was held at the 
 Castle, with the Prince of Wales ; the Chancellor, Mr. 
 Pitt, and all the officers of state were summoned, to sign 
 a permission for the King's removal. The poor Queen 
 gave an audience to the Chancellor — it was necessary to 
 sanctify their proceedings. The Princess Royal and Lady 
 Courtown attended her. It was a tragedy the most 
 dismal ! 
 
 " The Queen's knowledge of the King's aversion to Kcw 
 made her consent to this measure with the extremest re- 
 luctance ; yet it was not to be opposed : it was stated as 
 much the best for him, on account of the garden : as here 
 there is none but what is public to spectators from the 
 terrace, or tops of houses. I believe they were perfectly 
 right, though the removal was so tremendous. 
 
 " The physicians were summoned to the Privy Council, 
 to give their opinions, upon oath, that this step was 
 necessary. 
 
 " Inexpressible was the alarm of everyone, lest the 
 King, if he recovered, should bear a lasting resentment 
 against the authors and promoters of this journey. To 
 give it, therefore, every possible sanction, it was decreed 
 that he should be seen both by the Chancellor and Mr. 
 Pitt. 
 
 "The Chancellor went into his presence with a tremor 
 such as, before, he had been only accustomed to inspire ; 
 and when he came out, he was so extremely affected by 
 the state in which he saw his Royal master and patron 
 that the tears ran down his cheeks, and his feet had 
 difficulty to support him. 
 
 " Mr. Pitt was more composed, but expressed his grief 
 with so much respect and attachment, that it added new 
 weight to the universal admiration with which he is here 
 beheld. 
 
 15
 
 220 P7-cparing to Leave Windsor. 
 
 "All these circumstances, with various others of equal 
 sadness which I must not relate, came to my knowledge 
 through Sir Lucas, Mr. de Luc, and my noon attendance 
 upon her INIajesty, who was compelled to dress for her 
 audience of the Chancellor. 
 
 " Saturday, November 2gTH. — Shall I ever forget the 
 varied emotions of this dreadful day ! 
 
 " I rose with the heaviest of hearts, and found my poor 
 Royal Mistress in the deepest dejection : she told me now 
 of our intended expedition to Kew. Lady Elizabeth 
 hastened away to dress, and I was alone with her for 
 some time. 
 
 " Her mind, she said, quite misgave her about Kev/: the 
 King's dislike was terrible to think of, and she could not 
 foresee in what it might end. She would have resisted 
 the measure herself, but that she had determined not to 
 have upon her own mind any opposition to the opinion 
 of the physicians. 
 
 " The account of the night was still more and more dis- 
 couraging : it was related to me by one of the pages, Mr. 
 Brawan ; and though a little I softened or omitted 
 particulars, I yet most sorrowfully conveyed it to the 
 Queen. 
 
 " Terrible was the morning ! — uninterruptedly terrible ! 
 all spent in hasty packing up, preparing for we knew not 
 what, nor for how long, nor with what circumstances, 
 nor scarcely with what view ! We seemed preparing for 
 captivity, without having committed any offence ; and for 
 banishment, without the least conjecture when we might 
 be recalled from it. 
 
 "The poor Queen was to get off in private: the plan 
 settled between the Princes and the physicians was that 
 her Majesty and the Princesses should go away quietlv, 
 and then that the King should be told that they wcru
 
 Departure for Kciu. 227 
 
 ;^onc, which Avas the sole method they could devise to 
 prevail with him to follow. He was then to be allured by 
 a promise of seeing them at Kew ; and, as they knew he 
 would doubt their assertion, he was to go through the 
 rooms and examine the house himself. 
 
 " I believe it was about ten o'clock when her ]\Iajesty 
 departed : drowned in tears, she glided along the passage, 
 and got softly into her carriage, with two weeping 
 Princesses, and Lady Courtown, who was to be her Lady- 
 in-waiting during this dreadful residence, 
 
 " Then followed the third Princess, with Lady Char- 
 lotte Finch. They went off without any state or parade, 
 and a more melancholy scene cannot be imagined. There 
 was not a dr}' eye in the house. The footmen, the 
 housemaids, the porter, the sentinels — all cried even 
 bitterly as they looked on. . . . 
 
 " It was settled the King was to be attended by three of 
 his gentlemen in the carriage, and to be followed by the 
 physicians, and preceded by his pages. But all were to 
 depart on his arrival at Kew, except his own Equerry-in- 
 waiting. . . . 
 
 " Miss Planta and I were to go as soon as the packages 
 could be ready, with some of the Queen's things. Mrs. 
 Schwellenberg was to remain behind, for one day, in 
 order to make arrangements about the jewels. . . . 
 
 " In what confusion was the house ! Princes, Equerries, 
 physicians, pages — all conferring, whispering, plotting, 
 and caballing, how to induce the King to set off! 
 
 " At length we found an opportunity to glide through 
 the passage to the coach ; Miss Planta and mj-self, with 
 her maid and Goter. .... 
 
 " We were almost wholly silent all the way. 
 
 *' When we arrived at Kew, we found the suspense with 
 which the King was awaited truly terrible. Her Majesty 
 
 15—2
 
 228 A Motirnful Spectacle. 
 
 had determined to return to Windsor at night, if he 
 came not. We were all to forbear unpacking in the 
 meanwhile. . . . 
 
 " Dinner went on, and still no King. We now began to 
 grow very anxious, when Miss Planta exclaimed that she 
 thought she heard a carriage. We all listened. ' I 
 hope !' I cried. . . The sound came nearer, and presently 
 a carriage drove into the front court. I could see 
 nothing, it was so dark ; but I presently heard the much- 
 respected voice of the dear unhappy King, speaking 
 rapidly to the porter, as he alighted from the coach. . . . 
 
 " The poor King had been prevailed upon to quit 
 Windsor with the utmost difficulty : he was accompanied 
 by General Harcourt, his aide-de-camp, and Colonels 
 Goldsworthy and Welbred — no one else ! He had passed 
 all the rest with apparent composure, to come to his 
 carriage, for they lined the passage, eager to see him once 
 more ! and almost all Windsor was collected round the 
 rails, etc., to witness the mournful spectacle of his 
 departure, which left them in the deepest despondence, 
 with scarce a ray of hope ever to see him again. 
 
 " The bribery, however, which brought, was denied him 1 
 — he was by no means to see the Queen ! . . . 
 
 " I could not sleep all night — I thought I heard the poor 
 King. He was under the same range of apartments., 
 though far distant, but his indignant disappointment 
 haunted me. The Queen, too, was very angry at having 
 promises made in her name which could not be kept^ 
 What a day altogether was this ! 
 
 " Sunday, November 30TH. — Here, in all its dread 
 colours, dark as its darkest prognostics, began the Kew 
 campaign, I went to my poor Queen at seven o'clock : 
 the Princess Augusta arose and went away to dress, and 
 I received her Majesty's commands to go down for in-
 
 Airs. ScJrcJcllcnbcrg AinHves. 229 
 
 quiries. She had herself passed a wretched niglit, and 
 already lamented leavings Windsor. 
 
 " I waited ver\' long in the cold dark passages below, 
 before I could find anyone of whom to ask intelligence. 
 The parlours were without fires, and washing. I gave 
 directions afterwards to have a fire in one of them by 
 seven o'clock every morning. 
 
 " At length I procured the speech of one of the pages, 
 and heard that the night had been the most violently bad 
 of any yet passed ! — and no wonder ! 
 
 '' I hardly knew how to creep upstairs, frozen both 
 within and without, to tell such news ; but it was not re- 
 ceived as if unexpected, and I omitted whatever was noi 
 essential to be known. 
 
 "Afterwards arrived Mrs. Schwellenberg, so oppressed 
 between her spasms and the house's horrors, that the 
 oppression she inflicted ought perhaps to be pardoned. 
 It was, however, difficult enough to bear ! Harshness, 
 tyranny, dissension, and even insult, seemed personified. 
 I cut short details upon this subject — they would but 
 make you sick."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 State of Kew Palace — Dr. Willis and his Son called in — Progress under the 
 New Doctors — Party Spirit — The Regency Question — Attacks on the Queen 
 — Huctuationsin the King's State — ^'io!ence of P>urke — Extraordinary Scene 
 between the King and Miss Burney in Kew Gardens — Marked Improvement 
 of the King — The Regency Pill postponed-yThe King informs Miss Burney 
 of his Recovery — The Restoration — Demonstrations of Joy — Return to 
 Windsor — Old Routine resumed — Reaction. 
 
 The beginning of December saw the diminished and 
 imprisoned household suffering under an increase of 
 apprehensions. The condition of the King became even 
 more alarming ; the Oueen began to sink as she had 
 not done before. From the outer world came sinister 
 rumours, the duration of the malady threatening a 
 Regency — ' a word,' says Fann}', ' which I have not yet 
 been able to articulate.' Inside, the palace at Kew was 
 'in a state of cold and discomfort past all imagination.' 
 It had never been a winter residence, and there was 
 nothing prepared to fit it for becoming one. Not only 
 were the bedrooms of the Princesses without carpets, but 
 so out of repair was the building, that a plentiful supply of 
 sandbags had to be provided to moderate the gales that 
 blew through the doors and windows. The parlour in 
 which Miss Burney had to sit with the Schwellenberg 
 was carpetless, chilly, and miserable ; and even this was 
 locked in the morning on Fanny's admission of having 
 used it before breakfast ; Cerbera barking out that, 
 'when everybody went to her room, she might keep an
 
 Dr. Willis and his Son called in. 2^1 
 
 o 
 
 inn — what you call hotel.' These domestic incon- 
 veniences endured for some time. By degrees, however, 
 the worst of them were obviated. The bare boards were 
 wholly or partiall}' covered ; the apartments allotted to 
 the family were refurnished and redistributed ; and Miss 
 Burney was no longer exposed to the cold damps of a 
 dark passage while awaiting the page who brought her 
 for the Queen the lirst news of how the night had been 
 passed by the patient. 
 
 Hitherto no progress had been made towards a 
 successful treatment of the King's malady. In the earl\- 
 days of December, however, even the Queen felt it useless 
 to disguise any longer the nature of the attack, and ex- 
 perts in mental disease were according^ added to the 
 staff of physicians. Fortunately, a right choice was made 
 at the first trial. The new advisers selected were Dr. 
 Francis Willis, a clergyman who for twenty-eight years had 
 devoted himself to the cure of lunacy, and his son. Dr. 
 John Willis, who was associated with him in practice. 
 The arrival of these two country practitioners — they 
 came from Lincolnshire — revived the hopes which the 
 Court physicians, by their dissensions and general 
 despondency, had well-nigh destroyed. Though decried 
 by the regular faculty as interlopers, if not charlatans, the 
 Doctors Willis took the hearts of all at Kew Palace by 
 storm. Mr. Digby pronounced them ' fine, liveh', natural, 
 independent characters. Miss Burne}-, on making their 
 acquaintance, heartily re-echoed this praise : 
 
 " I am extrcmclv struck with both these physicians. 
 Dr. Willis is a man of ten thousand ; open, honest, 
 dauntless, hght-hearted, innocent, and high-minded : I 
 see him impressed with the most animated reverence and 
 -affection for his royal patient ; but it is wholly for his
 
 232 Progress under the New Doctors. 
 
 character — not a whit for his rank. Dr. John, his eldest 
 son, is extremely handsome, and inherits, in a milder 
 degree, all the qualities of his father ; but living more in 
 the general world, and having his fame and fortune still 
 to settle, he has not yet acquired the same courage, nor is 
 he, by nature, quite so sanguine in his opinions. The 
 manners of both are extremely pleasing, and they both 
 proceed completely their own way, not merely un- 
 acquainted with Court etiquette, but wholly, and most 
 artlessly, unambitious to form any such acquaintance." 
 
 The new doctors at once modified the treatment to 
 which the King had been subject, and the effects of the 
 change were speedily apparent : 
 
 "December iith. — To-day we have had the fairest 
 hopes ; the King took his first walk in Kew garden ! 
 There have been impediments to this trial hitherto, that 
 have been thought insurmountable, though, in fact, they 
 were most frivolous. The walk seemed to do him good, 
 and we are all in better spirits about him than for this 
 many and many a long day past." 
 
 It was not to be expected that the advance to restora- 
 tion would proceed without break or check. On the 17th 
 we have the entry : * My account this morning was quite 
 afflictive once more ;' but under date of the 22nd we 
 read : ' With what joy did I carry this morning an ex- 
 ceeding good account of the King to my royal mistress ! 
 It was trebly welcome, as much might depend upon it in 
 the resolutions of the House concerning the Regency, 
 which was of to-day's discussion ;' and in some notes 
 summing up the remaining days of the year, we have : 
 ' The King went on, now better, now worse, in a most 
 fearful manner ; but Sir Lucas Pepys never lost sight of 
 hope, and the management of Dr. Willis and his two
 
 Party Spirit. 233 
 
 sons* was most wonderfully acute and successful. Yet, so 
 much were they perplexed and tormented by the inter- 
 ruptions given to their plans and methods, that they 
 were frequently almost tempted to resign the undertaking 
 from anger and confusion.' 
 
 The new year opened amid the same alternations of 
 progress and relapse. In society, the war of politics took 
 a new departure from the King's derangement. Sup- 
 porters of the Administration were confident of his speedy 
 recovery ; the Opposition were indefatigable in spreading 
 the belief that his disorder was incurable. The animosity 
 on both sides rose to a height which had not been 
 equalled even at Pitt's first entrance into office. ' It is 
 a strange subject,' wrote the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 ' for party to insist upon, and disgraceful to the country 
 that it should be so; but so it is.' Uneasiness and un- 
 certainty prevailed everywhere. Some of I\Iiss Burney's 
 best friends began to be dismayed at her position, and at 
 the prospect before her. Her sister Charlotte, now Mrs. 
 Francis, wrote from Norfolk, urging that Dr. Burney's 
 consent should be obtained to her resignation, and offer- 
 ing her, on behalf of Mr. Francis and herself, a permanent 
 residence in their house. Evidently, Fanny's family 
 regarded her as a helpless person, requiring to be looked 
 after and taken care of. Her faith, however, in the com- 
 forting predictions of the Willises and Sir Lucas Pepys 
 remained unshaken, and she would not hear of quitting 
 her post. 
 
 A fresh trouble had by this time arisen. The Queen 
 could not escape becoming involved in the strife of parties. 
 The Prince of Wales and the Duke of York were naturally 
 impatient to push their afflicted father from his seat. 
 
 * Dr. Willis was now assisted by a younger son, named Thomas, who, like 
 himself, was in holy orders, as well as by his eldest son John.
 
 2 34 The Regency Question. 
 
 What they wanted in brains was amply supphed by the 
 combined genius of the Whig leaders — by Fox, and 
 Burke, and Sheridan — all embittered at having been so 
 often checkmated by the young statesman whom they 
 had flouted as a mere bo}-. What the Princes lacked in 
 tenacity of purpose was driven into them by the incessant 
 cry of myriad place-hunters, 5'elling like famished wolves. 
 The first thought of the faction was how to clutch power 
 as soon as might be ; their second, how to engross it as 
 exclusively as i)ossiblc. No scruple was made of declaring 
 that all places would be vacated and refilled, even if the 
 Regency were to last only a single day.* That there 
 v.'ould be a complete change of Administration was a 
 matter of course. But beyond this, changes were medi- 
 tated in the army, and other departments of the State, 
 which it was known must grievously offend the King, 
 should they come to his knowledge. Among other promo- 
 tions, every colonel in favour with the Prince or the Duke 
 was to be raised to the rank of Major-General. Mrs. 
 Fitzherbert, it was said, was to be created a Duchess.i* 
 
 Next to Pitt and his colleagues, the chief obstacle 
 to the speedy execution of these notable projects was 
 Queen Charlotte. It was not to be expected that a wife 
 would be as ready as the heir-apparent to believe in the 
 confirmed insanity of the head of the house. It was 
 excusable, to say the least, that one who for more than 
 twenty - eight years had filled, without reproach, the 
 station of Queen Consort, should object to be effaced with 
 her lord, until the necessity for his seclusion was unmis- 
 takably demonstrated. And when discord raged in the 
 medical council, when Dr. Warren pronounced the King 
 
 * ' Cornwallis Papers,' vol. i. , p. 406. 
 
 t 'Buckingham Papers,' vol. ii., p. 104 ; ' Auckland Correspondence,' vol. ii., 
 pp. 251, 2S9.
 
 Attacks on the Queeii. 235 
 
 to be ' rather worse ' than he had been at Windsor, while 
 to Sir Lucas and the speciahsts, as well as to ordinary 
 observers, his condition appeared most hopeful, she might 
 surely be pardoned for leaning to the favourable view. 
 Partisans, however, were too excited to listen to reason. 
 The clergyman from Lincolnshire was denounced in the 
 Opposition newspapers as a mere empiric and creature of 
 Pitt. The most scurrilous abuse was heaped upon the 
 Queen. Both in the press, and in the House of Commons, 
 she was accused of being in league with Willis to mis- 
 represent the state of the King's health, in order to pre- 
 vent the Prince, her son, from being invested with the 
 authority of Regent. Pitt, having no option but to pro- 
 pose a Regenc}', was proceeding with the utmost caution, 
 and seeking to lay on the expectant Viceroy several 
 restrictions, which his character seemed to call for, and 
 which assuredly have not been disapproved by the judg- 
 ment of posterity. Besides limiting the Prince's power 
 to confer peerages and pensions, and to alienate royal 
 property, the Premier recommended that the care and 
 management of thf King's person, as well as the appoint- 
 ments in the household, should be entrusted to the 
 Queen. Perhaps no part of the Government's plan 
 aroused more angry hostility than this. ' How would the 
 King on his recovery,' demanded Burke in Parliament, 
 ' be pleased at seeing the patronage of the Household 
 taken from the Prince of Wales, his representative, and 
 given to the Oueen ? He must be shocked at the idea.' 
 Allusions to these attacks on one who so little deserved 
 them occur in Miss Burney's Diary about this time: 
 
 "January ioth. — The King again is not so well ; and 
 new evidences are called for in the House, relative to his 
 state. My poor Royal Mistress now droops. I grieve —
 
 2^:6 Fluctuations in the Kings State. 
 
 o 
 
 f^rieve to see her ! — but her own name and conduct called 
 in question ! Who can wonder she is shocked and 
 shaken ? Was there not enough before, firmly as she 
 supported it ? 
 
 "iiTH. — This morning Dr. John gave me but a bad 
 account of the poor King. His amendment is not pro- 
 gressive ; it fails, and goes back, and disappoints most 
 grievously ; yet it would be nothing were the case and its 
 circumstances less discussed, and were expectation more 
 reasonable. 
 
 *'i2TH. — A melancholy day : news bad both at home 
 and abroad. At home, the dear, unhappy King still worse ; 
 abroad, new examinations voted of the physicians ! Good 
 Heaven ! what an insult does this seem from Parliamentary 
 power, to investigate and bring forth to the world every 
 circumstance of such a malady as is ever held sacred to 
 secrecy in the most private families ! How indignant we 
 all feel here no words can sa}'." 
 
 Macaulay is very severe on poor Miss Burney for the 
 want of correct constitutional principles shown in this 
 last entry. He cites the passage to prove that the second 
 Robe- Keeper's ' w'ay of life was rapidly impairing her 
 powers of reasoning and her sense of justice ;' that, as 
 he elsewhere says, this existence was as incompatible 
 with health ' of mind as the air of the Pomptine Marshes 
 with health of body.' The critic is perfectly right in 
 stating that the motion which roused indignation at 
 Kew was made by Mr. Pitt, who was regarded as the 
 King's champion, though he should have added that it 
 was brought forward in response to a challenge from the 
 Opposition. But Miss Burney felt as a woman, and 
 wrote as a woman, not as a politician. Had she been a 
 politician, she would still have been entitled to the in-
 
 Violence of Bitrke. 237 
 
 diligence which was being claimed and abused by every 
 speaker and journalist on the side opposed to the Court. 
 Consider the debates and the scandalous charges that she 
 read daily in the newspapers. And if she erred, she erred 
 in company with a large number of other heretics who 
 should have been far better fortified in sound doctrine 
 than herself. If the atmosphere of the palace was un- 
 wholesome, it was much less contaminating than the 
 malaria of Carlton House. If the novelist was wrong in 
 thinking that the House of Commons ought not to con- 
 cern itself with the details of the King's illness, what is 
 to be said of the eminent Whigs who maintained that the 
 Legislature had nothing to do with any question relating 
 to the disposition of the regal authority ? What shall be 
 said for Alexander Wedderburn, then Chief Justice of 
 the Common Pleas, and afterwards Lord Chancellor, 
 who advised the Prince of Wales to seize on the Regency 
 without consulting either House of Parliament ? Or 
 what can be urged for Fox himself, who asserted his 
 patron's right to take this course, in the very face of the 
 assembled Commons ? ' It is melancholy,' says Macaulay, 
 ' to see genius sinking into such debasement.' What 
 words, then, shall we apply to Edmund Burke, who 
 scandalized both sides of the House by declaring that 
 ' the Almighty had hurled the monarch from his throne, 
 and plunged him into a condition which drew down upon 
 him the pity of the meanest peasant in his kingdom ' ? 
 Miss Burney, still feeling and writing as a woman, could 
 not accuse her old friend Burke of being debased, though 
 she sadly laments over him as ' that most misguided of 
 vehement and wild orators.'* Such was the virulence 
 engendered in a spectator of the misery at Court by 
 associating with Leonard Smelt and Colonel Digby. 
 
 * Diary, vol. iii., p. 163.
 
 238' TJic King and Miss Bnrncy. 
 
 " Kew Palace, Monday, February 2nd.— What an 
 adventure had I this morning ! one that has occasioned 
 me the severest personal terror I ever experienced in my 
 hfe. 
 
 " Sir Lucas Pepys still persisting that exercise and air 
 were absolutely necessary to save me from illness, I have 
 continued my walks, varying my gardens from Richmond 
 to Kew, according to the accounts I received of the 
 movements of the King. For this I had her Majesty's 
 permission, on the representation of Sir Lucas. 
 
 " This morning, when I received my intelligence of the 
 King from Dr. John Willis, I begged to know where I 
 might walk in safety. ' In Kew Gardens,' he said, ' as 
 the King would be in Richmond.' 
 
 " ' Should any unfortunate circumstance,' I cried, ' at 
 r,ny time, occasion my being seen by his Majesty, do not 
 mention my name, but let me run off without call or 
 notice.' 
 
 " This he promised. Everybody, indeed, is ordered to 
 keep out of sight. 
 
 " Taking, therefore, the time I had most at command, 
 I strolled into the gardens. I had proceeded, in my 
 quick way, nearly half the round, when I suddenly per- 
 ceived, through some trees, two or three figures. Relying 
 on the instructions of Dr. John, I concluded them to be 
 workmen and gardeners ; yet tried to look sharp, and in 
 so doing, as they were less shaded, I thought I saw the 
 person of his Majesty ! 
 
 " Alarmed past all possible expression, I waited not to 
 know more, but turning back, ran off with all my might. 
 But what was my terror to hear myself pursued ! — to 
 hear the voice of the King himself loudly and hoarsely 
 calling after me, ' Miss Burney ! Miss Burney !' 
 
 ** I protest I was ready to die. I knew not in what
 
 All Extraordinary Scene. 239 
 
 state he might be at the time ; I only knew the orders to 
 keep out of his way were universal ; that the Queen 
 would highly disapprove any unauthorised meeting, and 
 that the very action of my running away might deeplj', in 
 his present irritable state, offend him. Nevertheless, on 
 I ran, too terrified to stop, and in search of some short 
 passage, for the garden is full of little labyrinths, by 
 which I might escape. 
 
 " The steps still pursued me, and still the poor hoarse 
 and altered voice rang in my ears : — more and more foot- 
 steps resounded frightfully behind me, — the attendants 
 all running, to catch their eager master, and the voices of 
 the two Doctor Willises loudly exhorting him not to heat 
 himself so unmercifully. 
 
 " Heavens, how I ran ! I do not think I should have 
 felt the hot lava from Vesuvius — at least, not the hot 
 cinders — had I so run during its eruption. My feet were 
 not sensible that they even touched the ground. 
 
 " Soon after, I heard other voices, shriller, though less 
 nervous, call out, ' Stop ! stop ! stop !' 
 
 " I could by no means consent : I knew not what was 
 purposed, but I recollected fully my agreement with Dr. 
 fohn that very morning, that I should decamp if surprised, 
 and not be named. 
 
 " My own fears and repugnance, also, after a flight and 
 disobedience like this, were doubled in the thought of not 
 escaping : I knew not to what I might be exposed, should 
 the maladvbe then high, and take the turn of resentment. 
 Still, therefore, on I flew ; and such was my speed, so 
 almost incredible to relate or recollect, that I fairly believe 
 no one of the whole party could have overtaken me,, if 
 these words, from one of the attendants, had not reached 
 me, ' Doctor Willis begs you to stop !' 
 
 " * I cannot ! I cannot !' I answered, still flying on,
 
 240 All Extraordinary Scene. 
 
 when he called out, ' You must, ma'am ; it hurts the 
 King to run.' 
 
 " Then, indeed, I stopped — in a state of fear really 
 amounting to agony. I turned round, I saw the two 
 Doctors had got the King between them, and three 
 attendants of Dr. Willis's were hovering about. They 
 all slackened their pace, as they saw me stand still ; but 
 such was the excess of m}^ alarm, that I was wholly 
 insensible to the effects of a race which, at any other 
 time, would have required an hour's recruit. 
 
 " As they approached, some little presence of mind 
 happily came to my command : it occurred to me that, 
 to appease the wrath of my flight, I must now show some 
 confidence : I therefore faced them as undauntedly as I 
 was able, only charging the nearest of the attendants to 
 stand by my side. 
 
 " When the}^ were within a few yards of me, the King 
 called out, ' Why did you run away ?' 
 
 " Shocked at a question impossible to answer, yet a 
 little assured by the mild tone of his voice, I instantly 
 forced myself forward to meet him, though the internal 
 sensation, which satisfied me this was a step the most 
 proper to appease his suspicions and displeasure, was so 
 violently combated by the tremor of my nerves, that I 
 fairly think I may reckon it the greatest effort of personal 
 courage I have ever made. 
 
 " The effort answered : I looked up, and met all his 
 wonted benignity of countenance, though something still 
 of wildness in his eyes. Think, however, of my surprise, 
 to feel him put both his hands round my two shoulders, 
 and then kiss my cheek ! 
 
 " I wonder I did not really sink, so exquisite was my 
 affright when I saw him spread out his arms ! Involun- 
 tarily, I concluded he meant to crush me : but the Willises,
 
 The Kings Conversation. 241 
 
 who have never seen him till this fatal illness, not knowing 
 how very extraordinary an action this was from him, 
 simply smiled and looked pleased, supposing, perhaps, it 
 was his customary salutation ! 
 
 " I believe, however, it was but the joy of a heart un- 
 bridled, now, by the forms and proprieties of established 
 custom and sober reason. To see any of his household 
 thus by accident, seemed such a near approach to liberty 
 and recovery, that who can wonder it should serve rather 
 to elate than lessen what yet remains of his disorder ! 
 
 " He now spoke in such terms of his pleasure in seeing 
 m.e, that I soon lost the whole of my terror ; astonish- 
 ment to find him so nearly well, and gratification to see 
 him so pleased, removed every uneasy feeling, and the 
 joy that succeeded, in my conviction of his recovery, 
 made me ready to throw myself at his feet to express it. 
 
 "What a conversation followed! When he saw me 
 fearless, he grew more and more alive, and made me walk 
 close by his side, away from the attendants, and even the 
 Willises themselves, who, to indulge him, retreated. I 
 own myself not completely composed, but alarm I could 
 entertain no more. 
 
 " Everything that came uppermost in his mind he 
 mentioned.; he seemed to have just such remains of his 
 flightiness as heated his imagination without deranging 
 his reason, and robbed him of all control over his speech, 
 though nearly in his perfect state of mind as to his opinions. 
 
 " What did he not say ! — He opened his whole heart to 
 me, — expounded all his sentiments, and acquainted me 
 with all his intentions. 
 
 " The heads of his discourse I must give you briefly, as 
 I am sure you will be highly curious to hear them, and as 
 no accident can render of much consequence what a man 
 says in such a state of physical intoxication. 
 
 16
 
 242 The Kings Conversation. 
 
 " He assured me he was quite well — as well as he had 
 ever been in his life ; and then inquired how I did, and 
 how I went on ? and whether I was more comfortable ? 
 
 " If these questions, in their implication, surprised me,, 
 imagine how that surprise must increase when he pro- 
 ceeded to explain them ! He asked after the coadjutrix, 
 laughing, and saying, ' Never mind her ! — don't be op- 
 pressed — I am your friend ! don't let her cast you down ! 
 — I know you have a hard time of it — but don't mind 
 her 1' 
 
 "Almost thunderstruck with astonishment, I merely 
 curtseyed to his kind ' I am your friend,' and said 
 nothing. 
 
 "Then presently he added, ' Stick to your father — 
 stick to your own family — let them be your objects.' 
 
 " How readily I assented ! 
 
 " Again he repeated all I have just written, ^nearly in 
 the same words, but ended it more seriously : he suddenly 
 stopped, and held me to stop too, and putting his hand 
 on his breast, in the most solemn manner, he gravely and 
 slowly said, ' I will protect you ! — I promise you that — 
 and therefore depend upon me [' 
 
 ' I thanked him ; and the Willises, thinking him rather 
 too elevated, came to propose my walking on. ' No, no, 
 no !' he cried, a hundred times in a breath ; and their 
 good humour prevailed, and they let him again v/alk on 
 with his new companion. 
 
 "' He then gave me a history of his pages, anim.ating 
 almost into a rage, as he related his subjects of dis- 
 pleasure with them, particularly with Mr. Ernst,* who, 
 
 * Many stories have been told of the deranged King having been brutally 
 treated by this man Ernst, who is said on one occasion to have thrown the 
 patient violently down, exclaiming to the attendants, 'There is your King for 
 you !' But Ernst, who was a Page of the Back Stairs, received a pension on 
 his retirement. It seems probable, therefore, that Ernst's supposed brutality 
 vas, as Miss Burney suggests, an illusion of the King's malady.
 
 The Kings Conversation. 243 
 
 he told mc, had been brou;:;^ht up by himself. I hope his 
 ideas upon these men arc the result of the mistakes of 
 his malady. 
 
 " Then he asked mc some questions that very greatly 
 distressed me, relating to information given him in his 
 illness, from various motives, but -which he suspected to 
 be false, and which I knew he had reason to suspect : yet 
 was it most dangerous to set anything right, as I was not 
 aware what might be the views of their having been 
 stated wrong. I was as discreet as I knew how to be, 
 and I hope I did no mischief; but this was the worst 
 part of the dialogue. 
 
 " He next talked to mc a great deal of my dear father, 
 and made a thousand inquiries concerning his ' Histor}' 
 of Music' This brought him to his favourite theme, 
 Handel ; and he told me innumerable anecdotes of him, 
 and particularly that celebrated tale of Handel's saying 
 of himself, ' While that boy lives, my music will never 
 want a protector.' And this, he said, I might relate to 
 my father. 
 
 " Then he ran over most of his oratorios, attempting to 
 sing the subjects of several airs and choruses, but so 
 dreadfully hoarse that the sound was terrible. 
 
 " Dr. Willis, quite alarmed at this exertion, feared he 
 would do himself harm, and again proposed a separation, 
 'No, no, no!' he exclaimed, 'not 3'et ; I have something 
 I must just mention first.' 
 
 " Dr. Willis, delighted to comply, even when uneasy at 
 compliance, again gave way. 
 
 " The good King then greatly affected me. He began 
 upon my revered old friend, Mrs. Delany ; and he spoke of 
 her with such warmth — such kindness ! ' She was my 
 friend!' he cried, 'and I loved her as a friend ! I have 
 made a memorandum when I lost her — I will show it you.' 
 
 16—3
 
 244 The Kings Cojiversation. 
 
 " He pulled out a pocket-book, and rummaged some 
 time, but to no purpose. 
 
 " The tears stood in his eyes — he wiped them, and Dr. 
 Willis again became very anxious. ' Come, sir,' he 
 cried, ' now do you come in and let the lady go on her 
 walk, — come, now, you have talked a long while, — so 
 we'll go in — if your Majesty pleases.' 
 
 " ' No, no !' he cried, ' I want to ask her a few 
 questions ; — I have lived so long out of the world, I know 
 nothing !' 
 
 " This touched me to the heart. We walked on together, 
 and he inquired after various persons, particularly Mrs. 
 Boscawen, because she was Mrs. Delany's friend ' Then, 
 for the same reason, after Mr. Frederick Montagu, of 
 whom he kindly said, ' I know he has a great regard for 
 me, for all he joined the Opposition.' Lord Grey de 
 Wilton, Sir Watkin Wynn, the Duke of Beaufort, and 
 various others, followed. 
 
 " He then told me he was very much dissatisfied with 
 several of his State officers, and meant to form an entire 
 new establishment. He took a paper out of his pocket- 
 book, and showed me his new list. 
 
 " This was the wildest thing that passed ; and Dr. John 
 Willis now seriously urged our separating ; but he would 
 not consent ; he had only three more words to say, he 
 declared, and again he conquered. 
 
 " He now spoke of my father, with still more kindness, 
 and told me he ought to have had the post of Master of 
 the Band, and not that little poor musician Parsons, who 
 was not fit for it : ' But Lord Salisbury,' he cried, ' used 
 your father very ill in that business, and so he did me ! 
 However, I have dashed out his name, and I shall put 
 your father's in, — as soon as I get loose again !' 
 " This again — how affecting was this !
 
 Marked Improvement of tlie Kwg. 245 
 
 " ' And what,' cried he, ' has your father got, at last ? 
 nothing but that poor thing at Chelsea? O fie ! fie! fie! 
 But never mind ! I will take care of him ! I will do it 
 myself!' 
 
 "Then presently he added, 'As to Lord Salisbury, he 
 is out already, as this memorandum will show you, and 
 so are many more. I shall be much better served ; and 
 when once I get away, I shall rule with a rod of iron !' 
 
 " This was very unlike himself, and startled the two 
 good doctors, who could not bear to cross him, and were 
 exulting at my seeing his great amendment, but yet grew 
 quite uneasy at his earnestness and volubility. 
 
 " Finding we now must part, he stopped to take leave, 
 and renewed again his charges about the coadjutrix. 
 'Never mind her!' he cried, ''depend upon me! I will 
 be your friend as long as I live ! — I here pledge myself to 
 be your friend !' And then he saluted me again just as 
 at the meeting, and suffered me to go on. 
 
 " What a scene ! how variously was I affected by it ! 
 but, upon the whole, how inexpressibly thankful to see 
 him so nearly himself — so little removed from recovery ! 
 
 " I went very soon after to the Queen, to whom I was 
 most eager to avow the meeting, and how little I could 
 help it. Her astonishment, and her earnestness to hear 
 every particular, were very great. I told her almost all. 
 Some few things relating to the distressing questions I 
 could not repeat ; nor many things said of Mrs. Schwellen- 
 berg, which would much, and very needlessly, have hurt 
 her." 
 
 About February 6, a further improvement in the King's 
 state took place, which proved to be decisive. From this 
 time, not only were his equerries allowed to attend him 
 again in the evening, but the Queen was once more
 
 246 The Regency Bill postponed. 
 
 admitted to his chamber. Singularly enough, the progress 
 of his recovery coincided exactly with the progress of the 
 Regency Bill. The latter was brought into the House of 
 Commons on the 5th, and on the following day a printed 
 copy was shown to Fanny. " I shuddered," she writes, 
 ''to hear it named." On the loth she reports: "The 
 amendment of the King is progressive, and without any 
 reasonable fear, though not without some few drawbacks. 
 The Willis family were surely sent by Heaven to restore 
 peace, and health, and prosperity to this miserable house!" 
 On the I2th the Regency Bill passed the Commons, and 
 was carried up to the House of Lords ; it was there 
 subsequently read a second time, went through Com- 
 mittee, and was ordered for a third reading. But that 
 stage was not to arrive. Miss Burney writes on the 13th : 
 " Oh, how dreadful will be the day when that unhappy 
 Bill takes place ! I cannot approve the plan of it ; the 
 King is too well to make such a step right. It will break 
 his spirits, if not his heart, when he hears and under- 
 stands such a deposition. 
 
 *' Saturday, 14TH. — The King is infinitely better. Oh 
 that there were patience in the land, and this Regency 
 Bill postponed !" 
 
 Macaulay, quoting part of the entry for the 13th, leaves 
 it to be inferred that the writer disapproved of ' Pitt's 
 own Bill ' under any circumstances ; he carefully omits 
 the words which show that her objection was to the plan 
 being proceeded with when the King's recovery was so 
 far advanced as to render it inapplicable. The Ministry 
 speedily made it plain that they were of the same mind 
 as Aliss Burney. On the 17th, the Peers, on the motion 
 of the Lord Chancellor, adjourned the further considera- 
 tion of the Regency Bill ; and a week later the measure 
 was finally abandoned.
 
 The King informs Miss Burncy of his Recovery, 247 
 
 *' What a different house," sa_vs the Diary of the 
 igth, " is this house become ! — sadness and terror, that 
 Avholl}^ occupied it so lately, are now flown away, or 
 rather arc now driven out ; and though anxiety still 
 forcibly prevails, 'tis in so small a proportion to joy and 
 thankfulness, that it is borne as if scarce an ill !" Before 
 the month ended. Miss Burney had an assurance of the 
 King's entire restoration from his own mouth. "The 
 King I have seen again — in the Queen's dressing-room. 
 On opening the door, there he stood ! He smiled at 
 my start ; and, saying he had waited on purpose to see 
 me, added, 'I am quite well now — I was nearly so 
 wdien I saw you before ; but I conld overtake 3-ou better 
 now.'" 
 
 All England had been intent on the little palace at 
 Kew, where distress was now turned into rejoicing. To 
 none of his subjects was the recovery of the royal patient 
 a matter of indifference. To a limited party it was a 
 source of bitter disappointment and chagrin. To the 
 immense majority it brought unbounded satisfaction. It 
 Avas the engrossing topic of the day, ' Nobody,' said an 
 observer, ' talks, writes, thinks, or dreams of anything 
 else.' On the ist of March thanksgivings for the happy 
 event were offered in all the churches of the capital. On 
 the loth the physicians took their departure from Kew. 
 On the same day Parliament was opened by Commission 
 under the sign manual. At sunset began a spectacle 
 worthy of the occasion. ' London,' wrote Wraxall, ' dis- 
 played a blaze of light from one extremity to the other ; 
 the illuminations extending, without any metaphor, from 
 Hampstead and Highgate to Clapham, and even as far as 
 Tooting ; whilst the vast distance between Greenwich 
 and Kensington presented the same dazzling appearance. 
 The poorest mechanics contributed their proportion, and
 
 24S Demonstrations of Joy. 
 
 instances were exhibited of cobblers' stalls decorated with 
 one or two farthing candles.* 
 
 The Queen carried all the Princesses, except the- 
 youngest, up to town, to feast their eyes on streets as 
 brilliant and crowded as Vauxhall on a gala night. It 
 may cool our historic fervour to remember that the blaze 
 of light which astonished our ancestors was produced by 
 nothing more luminous than oil-lamps, and that the 
 crowds of 1789 would pass for a sorry muster in the huge 
 Babylon of to-day; but, after all, the scene exhibited in 
 London, when even the cobblers' stalls were illuminated^ 
 was not without its significance on the eve of the meeting 
 of the States General at Versailles, Cowper, usurping 
 the functions of Thomas Warton, then poet-laureate, sang 
 of Queen Charlotte's private expedition : 
 
 ' Glad she came that night to prove, 
 A witness undescried, 
 How much the object of her love 
 \Yas loved by ALL beside.' 
 
 Miss Burney describes how the festive evening was 
 spent at Kew. The Queen, at her own expense, had 
 arranged for an illumination of the palace and courtyard 
 as a surprise to her consort. Biagio Rebecca, by her 
 order, had painted a grand transparency, displaying re- 
 presentations of " the King, Providence, Health, and 
 Britannia, with elegant devices. When this was lighted 
 and prepared, the Princess Amelia went to lead her papa 
 to the front window ; but first she dropped on her knees,, 
 and presented him a paper,"' containing some congratu- 
 latory verses which, at the Queen's desire, the narrator 
 *' had scribbled in her name for the happy occasion," and 
 which concluded with a postscript : 
 
 ' The little bearer begs a kiss 
 From dear papa for bringing this.* 
 
 * Wraxall's Posthumous Memoirs, vol. iii., pp. 369, 370.
 
 Return to Windsor. 249 
 
 "I need not, I think, tell you," continues Fanny, ''that 
 the Httle bearer begged not in vain. The King was ex- 
 tremely pleased. He came into a room belonging to the 
 Princesses, in which we had a party to look at the 
 illuminations, and there he stayed above an hour : cheer- 
 ful, composed, and gracious ; all that could merit the 
 great national testimony to his worth this day paid him." 
 When at one o'clock in the morning the Queen returned 
 to Kew, she found the King standing bare-headed at the 
 porch, ready to hand her from the coach, and eager to 
 assure himself of her safety. So far from being dissatis- 
 fied with anything that she had done during his illness, 
 his affection for her was confirmed by the 2eal with which 
 she had watched over his interests. 
 
 On the 14th of March the Court left Kew for Vvindsor. 
 *' All Windsor," says the Diary, "came out to meet the 
 King. It was a joy amounting to ecstasy. I could not 
 keep my eyes dry all day long. A scene so reversed ! 
 Sadness so sweetly exchanged for thankfulness and 
 delight !" But the period of excitement was now over. 
 The old routine of duty recommenced, with few incidents 
 to relieve its monotony : there was an entertainment or 
 two for the suite in the royal borough to celebrate the 
 restoration ; then one by one the friends and acquaint- 
 ances who were assembled round the household in the 
 early days of March dispersed to their homes ; no society 
 remained at the Upper Lodge but Cerbera and the 
 gentlemen -in -waiting — who did not include Colonel 
 Digby; hardly any change marked the succession of days, 
 save an occasional visit to Kew, and now and then a 
 journey to town for a drawing-room. In the Public 
 Thanksgiving, held at St. Paul's on the 23rd of April, 
 Fanny appears to have had no part, though she received 
 as mementoes of the occasion a medal of green and gold.
 
 250 Reaction. 
 
 and a fan ornamented with the words : Health rcdovcd io 
 one, and happiness io viilUons. Once, when in London, she 
 had a visit from Miss Gunning, who called to inquire after 
 the Queen's health, and who ' looked serious, sensible, 
 interesting,' though she said but little, and in that little 
 managed to introduce the name of Mr. Digb5\ Degree 
 by degree, Fanny's spirits sank to the point of actual de- 
 spondency, till she writes, 'A lassitude of existence creeps 
 sensibly upon me.' A iit of illness did not assist to 
 restore her cheerfulness. Thus ended March, and thus 
 passed April, May, and the greater part of June. The 
 King had raised some alarm by declaring his intention of 
 going to Germany in the summer, but, to the satisfaction 
 of the suite in general, and of one of the Queen's Robe- 
 Keepers in particular, when the time came, the physicians 
 advised a stay at an English watering-place in prefer- 
 ence.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Royal Visit to Weymouth— Lyndhurst— Village Loyalty — Arrival at Wey- 
 mouth— Eathiiio to Music— Mrs. Gwynn— Mrs. Siddons — The Royal Party 
 at the Rooiv.s— First Sight of Mr. Pitt — The Marquis of Salisbury— Royal 
 Tour — Visit to Longleat— Mrs. Delany — Bishop Ken — Tottenham Park — 
 Return to Windsor — Progress of the French Revolution — Colonel Digby"s 
 iMarriage — Miss Burney's Situation — A Senator — Ta.x on Bachelors — Read- 
 ing to the Queen — Miss Burney's Melancholy — Proposal for her Retirement 
 — Her Tedious Solitude — Her Literary Inactivity — Her Declining Health — 
 A Friendly Cabal — Windham and the Literary Club — James Boswell — Miss 
 Burney's Memorial to the (^ueen — Leave of Absence Proposed — The Queen 
 and Mrs. Schwellenberg — Serious Illness of Miss Burney— Discussions on 
 her Retirement — A Day at the Hastings Trial — The Defence — A Lively 
 Scene— The Duke of Clarence — Parting with the Royal Family — Miss Burney 
 receives a Pension — Her Final Retirement. 
 
 On the 25th of June the Court set out on a progress from 
 Windsor to Weymouth. Miss Burney and Miss Planta, as 
 was usual on these occasions, were of the suite ; the 
 Schwellenberg, as usual, remained behind. ' The crowds 
 increased as we advanced, and at Winchester the town 
 was one head.'' At Romse}', on the steps of the Town 
 Hall, a band of musicians, some in coarse brown coats 
 and red neckcloths, some even in smock-frocks, made a 
 chorus of ' God save the King,' in which a throng of 
 spectators joined with shouts that rent the air. ' Carriages 
 of all sorts lined the roadside — chariots, chaises, landaus, 
 carts, waggons, whiskies, gigs, phaetons — mixed and in- 
 termixed, filled within and surrounded without by faces all 
 glee and delight.' On the verge of the New Forest the 
 King was met by a party of foresters, habited in green, 
 with bows and bugles, who, according to ancient custom,
 
 252 Villa(^-e Loyalty. 
 
 presented him with a pair of milk-whits greyhounds, 
 wearing silver collars, and led by silken cords. 
 
 Arrived at Lyndhurst, he drove to the old hunting-seat 
 of Charles II., then tenanted by the Duke of Gloucester. 
 " It is a straggling, inconvenient old house," writes Fann3% 
 "but delightfully situated in a village — looking, indeed, at 
 present, like a populous town, from the amazing con- 
 course of people that have crowded into it. . . . During 
 the King's dinner, which was in a parlour looking into the 
 garden, he permitted the people to come to the window ; 
 and their delight and rapture in seeing their monarch at 
 table, with the evident hungry feeling it occasioned, made 
 a contrast of admiration and deprivation truly comic. 
 1 hey crowded, however, so excessively, that this can be 
 permiitted no more. They broke down all the paling, and 
 much of the hedges, and some of the windows, and all by 
 eagerness and multitude, for they were perfectly civil and 
 well-behaved. . . . We continued at Lyndhurst five days. 
 . . . On the Sunday we all went to the parish church; and 
 after the service, instead of a psalm, imagine our surprise 
 to hear the whole congregation jom in ' God save the 
 King !' Misplaced as this was in a church, its intent was 
 so kind, lo3'al, and affectionate, that I believe there was 
 not a dry eye amongst either singers or hearers." 
 
 On the 30th of June the royal party quitted Lyndhurst, 
 and arrived at Weymouth in the course of the evening. 
 ' The journey was one scene of festivity and rejoicing.' 
 The change of air, the bustle of travelling, the beauty of 
 the summer landscapes, the loyalty of the population, had 
 restored Fanny's tone, and brought back the glow she had 
 experienced at the time of the King's convalescence. Her 
 enthusiasm lent a touch of enchantment to everything 
 she saw. Salisbury and Blandford welcomed their 
 sovereign with displays and acclamations that fairly carried 
 her away. At Dorchester the windows and roofs of the
 
 Bathing to III u sic. 253 
 
 quaint old houses seemed packed with eager faces. 
 * Girls, with chaplets, beautiful young creatures, strewed 
 the entrance of various villages with flowers.' 
 
 Nor were the good people of Weymouth and Mel- 
 comb Regis a whit behind in loyalty, though greatly at a 
 loss how to vary the expression of their feelings. " Not 
 a child could we meet that had not a bandeau round 
 its head, cap or hat, of ' God save the King ' ; all the 
 bargemen wore it in cockades ; and even the bathing- 
 women had it in large coarse girdles round their waists. 
 It is printed in golden letters upon most of the bathing- 
 machines, and in various scrolls and devices it adorns 
 every shop, and almost every house, in the two towns 
 .... Nor is this all. Think but of the surprise of his 
 Majesty when, the first time of his bathing, he had no 
 sooner popped his royal head under water than a band 
 of music, concealed in a neighbouring machine, struck 
 up, ' God save great George our King ' ! One thing, 
 however, was a little unlucky : — When the mayor and 
 burgesses came with the address, they requested leave 
 to kiss hands. This was graciously accorded ; but the 
 mayor advancing in a common way, to take the Queen's 
 hand, as he might that of any lady mayoress, Colonel 
 Gwynn, who stood by, whispered : 
 
 " ' You must kneel, sir.' 
 
 " He found, however, that he took no notice of this 
 hint, but kissed the Queen's hand erect. As he passed 
 him, in his way back, the Colonel said : 
 
 " ' You should have knelt, sir !' 
 
 " ' Sir,' answered the poor Mayor, ' I cannot.' 
 
 " ' Everybody does, sir.' 
 
 " ' Sir, — I have a wooden leg !' 
 
 " But the absurdity of the matter followed — all the rest 
 did the same ; taking the same privilege, by the example, 
 without the same or any cause !"
 
 2 54 Mrs. Gwymi. 
 
 Miss Burney's way of life at Weymouth seems to have 
 been much the same as if she had belonged to a private 
 party. " I have here a very good parlour, but dull from its 
 aspect. Nothing but the sea at Weymouth affords an}- 
 life or spirit. My bedroom is in the attics. Nothing like 
 living at a Court for exaltation. Yet even v^'ith this grati- 
 fication, which extends to j\Iiss Planta, the house will 
 only hold the females of the party .... It is my inten- 
 tion to cast away all superfluous complaints into the main 
 ocean, which I think quite sufficiently capacious to hold 
 them ; and really my little frame will find enough to carry 
 and manage without them .... His Majesty is in delight- 
 ful health, and much improved in spirits. All agree he 
 never looked better .... The Queen is reading Mrs. 
 Piozzi's ' Tour ' to me, instead of my reading it to her. 
 She loves reading aloud, and in this work finds me an 
 able commentator. How like herself, how characteristic 
 is every line ! — Wild, entertaining, flighty, inconsistent, 
 and clever [" As at Cheltenham, much of the stiffness of 
 Windsor etiquette was thrown aside. The King and his 
 family spent most of their time in walking or riding, and 
 the Queen required but little attendance. Now and again 
 the royal party varied the usual amusements of a watering- 
 place by a visit to the Magnificent line-of-battle ship, 
 stationed at the entrance of the bay, by a cruise in the 
 Southampton frigate^ which lay further in, or by an excur- 
 sion to Dorchester, Lulworth Castle, or Sherborne Castle. 
 During these intervals, the Robe- Keeper was left to her 
 own occupations. She passed much of her leisure with 
 the wife of the equerry, Mrs. Gwynn, Goldsmith's 
 * Jessamy Bride,' who had many stories to tell of her old 
 admirer,"* and could exchange anecdotes with Fanny of 
 
 "' "His coffin wns re-opened at the request of the Jessamy Bride, that a lock 
 might be cut from his hair. Jt was in Mrs. Gwynn's possession when she died, 
 after nearly seventy years." — Forster's " Goldsmith."
 
 Mi's. Siddons. 255 
 
 Johnson, Baretti, the Thralcs, Sir Joshua and his nieces. 
 Strolhng with this acquaintance one morning on the 
 sands, Miss Burney " overtook a lady of very majestic 
 port and demeanour, who solemnly returned ]\Irs. Gwynn's 
 salutation, and then addressed herself to me with similar 
 gravity. I saw a face I knew, and of very uncommon 
 beauty, but did not immediately recollect it was Airs. 
 Siddons. Her husband was v.'ith her, and a sweet child. 
 I wished to have tried if her solemnity would have worn 
 away by length of conversation : but I was obliged to 
 hasten home." 
 
 The great actress, as she told Fanny, had come to 
 Weymouth solely for her health ; but she could not resist 
 the royal command to appear at the little theatre, where 
 Mrs. Wells and Quick were already performing. " The 
 King," says the Diary, " has taken the centre front box 
 for himself, and family, and attendants. The side boxes 
 are too small. The Queen ordered places for Miss 
 Planta and me, which are in the front row of a box next 
 but one to the royals. Thus, in this case, our want of 
 rank to be in their public suite gives us better seats than 
 those high enough to stand behind them ! 
 
 "July 2gTH. — We went to the play, and saw ]\Irs. 
 Siddons in Rosalind. She looked beautifull}', but too 
 large for that shepherd's dress ; and her gaiety sits not 
 naturally upon her — it seems more like disguised gravity. 
 I must own my admiration for her confined to her tragic 
 powers ; and there it is raised so high that I feel morti- 
 fied, in a degree, to see her so much fainter attempts and 
 success in comedy." 
 
 A few days later we read that Mrs. Siddons, as Lady 
 Townly, in her looks and the tragic part was exquisite ; 
 and again : " Mrs. Siddons performed Mrs. Oakley. 
 What pity thus to throw away her talents ! But the
 
 256 Royal Tour. 
 
 Queen dislikes tragedy ; and the honour to play before 
 the Royal Family binds her to the little credit acquired 
 by playing comedy. 
 
 *' Sunday, August qth. — The King had a council 
 yesterday, which brought most of the great officers of State 
 to Weymouth. This evening her Majesty desired Miss 
 Planta and me to go to the rooms, whither they com- 
 monly go themselves on Sunday evenings ; and after 
 looking round them, and speaking where they choose, 
 they retire to tea in an inner apartment with their own 
 party, but leave the door open, both to see r.nd be seen. 
 The rooms are convenient and spacious : we found them 
 ver}' full. As soon as the royal party came, a circle was 
 formed, and they moved round it, just as before the ball 
 at St. James's, the King one way, with his Chamberlain, 
 the new-made Marquis of Salisbury,* and the Queen 
 the other, with the Princesses, Lady Courtown, etc. The 
 rest of the attendants planted themselves round in the 
 circle. I had now the pleasure, for the first time, to see 
 Mr. Pitt ; but his appearance is his least recommendation ; 
 it is neither noble nor expressive." 
 
 Three days later occurs a significant entry : 
 
 " Wednesday, August i2TH. — This is the Prince of 
 Wales's birthday ; but it has not been kept." 
 
 On the 13th the royal party left Weymouth for Exeter, 
 where they arrived to a late dinner. Two days afterwards 
 they proceeded through a fertile and varied country to 
 Saltram, the seat of Earl Morley, a minor. All along the 
 route, the enthusiasm of loyalty which had accompanied 
 the King from Windsor continued undiminished. Arches 
 of flowers were erected at every town, with such devices 
 as rustic ingenuity could imagine, to express the welcome 
 
 * James, seventh Earl of Salisbury, was advanced in August, 17S9, to the 
 title of Marquis.
 
 Visil to Loiiglcat. 257 
 
 'of the inhabitants. Everywhere there were crowds, cheers, 
 singing, peals of bells, rejoicings, garlands, and decorations. 
 The view from Saltram commanded Plymouth Sound, 
 Mount Edgecombe, and a wide stretch of the line adja- 
 cent country. Visits were made from this noble house to 
 the great naval port, to the beauties of the famous 
 Mount, to the woods and steeps of Maristovv^, and the 
 antique curiosities of Cothele on the banks of the Tamar. 
 On the 27th the Court quitted Saltram for Weymouth, 
 end in the middle of September finally departed from 
 Weymouth on its return to Windsor. Two nights and 
 the intervening day were spent at Longleat, the seat of 
 the Marquis of Bath. " Longleat," writes Miss Burney, 
 " was formerly the dwelling of Lord Lansdowne, uncle to 
 Mrs. Delany ; and here, at this seat, that heartless uncle, 
 to promote some political views, sacrificed his incom- 
 parable niece, at the age of seventeen, marrying her to an 
 unwieldy, uncultivated countr}' esquire, near sixty years 
 •of age, and scarce ever sober — his name Pendarves. 
 With how sad an awe, in recollecting her submissive 
 unhappiness, did I enter these doors ! — and with what 
 indignant hatred did I look at the portrait of the unfeeling 
 Earl, to whom her gentle repugnance, shown by almost 
 incessant tears, was thrown away, as if she, her person, 
 and her existence, were nothing in the scale, where the 
 disposition of a few boroughs opposed them ! Yet was 
 this the famous Granville — the poet, the fine gentleman, 
 the statesman, the friend and patron of Pope, of whom 
 he wrote : 
 
 ' What Muse for Granville can refuse to sing?' 
 
 Mine, I am sure, for one." 
 
 The house, at the time of this visit, though magni- 
 ficent, and of an immense magnitude, was very much out 
 •of repair, and by no means cheerful cr comfortable. 
 
 17
 
 2 53 Return to Windsor. 
 
 Gloomy grandeur, Fanny thought, was the character ot 
 the building and its fitting-up. " My bedroom," she says, 
 " was furnished with crimson velvet, bed included, yet so 
 high, though only the second story, that it made me 
 giddy to look into the park, and tired to wind up the 
 flight of stairs. It was formerly the favourite room, the 
 housekeeper told me, of Bishop Ken, who put on his 
 shroud in it before he died. Had I fancied I had seen 
 his ghost, I might have screamed my voice away, un- 
 heard by any assistant to lay it ; for so far was I from the 
 rest of the mansion, that not the lungs of j\Ir. Bruce 
 could have availed me." The last place at which the 
 King stopped on his homeward journey was Tottenham 
 Park, the seat of the Earl of Ailesbur}-. Here occurred 
 an instance of the enormous expense to which the great 
 nobles sometimes went in entertaining their sovereign. 
 ' The good lord of the mansion put up a new bed for the 
 King and Queen that cost him ;£"900.' 
 
 On September i8 the Court arrived at Windsor. 
 * Deadly dead sank my heart ' is our traveller's record of 
 her sensation on re-entering the detested dining-room. 
 Nothing happened during the remainder of the year to 
 raise her spirits. In October, the days began to remind 
 her of the terrible miseries of the preceding autumn. 
 She found ' a sort of recollective melancholy always 
 ready to mix ' with her thankfulness for the King's 
 continued good health. And about the same time dis- 
 quieting news came from over the water of the march to 
 Versailles, the return to Paris, and the shouts of the 
 hungry and furious poissardes proclaiming the arrival of 
 ' the baker, his wife, and the little apprentice.' Events 
 of this kind could not but excite uneasiness at any Court, 
 however popular for the time. These shadows were 
 presently succeeded by another, equally undefined, but of
 
 Miss Bitrneys Sihtation. 259 
 
 a more personal character. In the middle of November, 
 L^anny was told by Miss Planta, in confidence, that Mr. 
 Digby had written to acquaint his royal patrons with his 
 approaching marriage. ' I believed not a syllable of the 
 matter,' says the Diary ; ' but I would not tell her that.' 
 Only a few days later, however, the same kind friend 
 informed Miss Burney that ' it was all declared, and that 
 the Princesses had wished Miss Gunning joy at the 
 Drawing- Room.' ' Now first,' says Fanny, ' my belief 
 follov/ed assertion ; — but it was only because it was 
 inevitable, since the Princesses could not have proceeded 
 so far without certaint}-.' The wedding took place early 
 in January ; and from this time the bridegroom appeared 
 no more at Court, which became to one of the attendants 
 an abode of unrelieved gloom. 
 
 Some of her friends were frank enough in their com- 
 ments on her situation. There was something, no doub^, 
 in Miss Burney's aspect which drew such remarks as 
 these from the wife of an Irish bishop : " W^ell ; the 
 Queen, to be sure, is a great deal better dressed than she 
 used to be ; but for all that, I really think it is but an odd 
 thing for you ! — Dear, I think it's something so out of the 
 way for you ! — I can't think how you set about it. It 
 m.ust have been very droll to you at first. A great deal 
 of honour, to be sure, to serve a Queen, and all that; but, 
 I dare say a lady's-maid could do it better .... It must 
 be a mighty hurry-scurry life! You don't look at all 
 fit for it, to judge by appearances, for all its great honour, 
 and all that." Colonel Digby had previously accused her 
 of being absent in her official occupation, and she had 
 owned that she had at first found attention im attainable^ 
 "She had even," she added, "and not seldom, handed 
 the Queen her fan before her gown, and her gloves before 
 her cap !" The Vice-Chamberlain thought this very likely, 
 
 17—2
 
 26o A Senator. 
 
 and observed that such matters did not seem trifles to 
 her Majesty. 
 
 The Diary for the earhcr months of lygo contains httle 
 more than what the writer calls ' loose scraps of anec- 
 dotes,' of which we can find room for only one or two 
 specimens. Here is an account of a conversation with 
 Colonel Manners, who, besides being an equerry, was 
 also a Member of Parliament : 
 
 " I had been informed he had once made an attempt to 
 speak, during the Regency business, last winter ; I begged 
 to know how the matter stood, and he made a most frank 
 display of its whole circumstances. 
 
 " ' Why, they were speaking away,' he cried, ' upon 
 the Regency, and so — and they were saying the King 
 could not reign, and recover ; and Burke was making 
 some of his eloquence, and talking ; and, says he, ' hurled 
 from his throne' — and so I put out my finger in this 
 manner, as if I was in a great passion, for I felt myself 
 very red, and I was in a monstrous passion I suppose, 
 but I was only going to say ' Hear ! Hear !' but I 
 happened to lean one hand down upon my knee, in this 
 way, just as Mr. Pitt does when he wants to speak ; and 
 I stooped forward, just as if I was going to rise up and 
 begin ; but just then I caught Mr. Pitt's eye, looking at 
 me so pitifully ; he thought I was going to speak, and he 
 was frightened to death, for he thought — for the thing 
 was, he got up himself, and he said over all I wanted to 
 say ; and the thing is, he almost always does; for just as 
 I have something particular to say, Mr. Pitt begins, and 
 goes through it all, so that he don't leave anything more 
 to be said about it ; and so I suppose, as he looked at me 
 so pitifully, he thought I should say it first, or else that I 
 should get into some scrape, because I was so warm and 
 looking so red.'
 
 Tax on Bachelors, 261 
 
 "Any comment would disgrace this; I will therefore 
 only tell you his opinion, in his own words, of one of our 
 late taxes.* 
 
 "■'There's only one tax, ma'am, that ever I voted for 
 against my conscience, for I've always been very particular 
 about that ; but that is the hachddors tax, and that I hold 
 to be very unconstitutional, and I am very sorry I voted 
 for it, because it's very unfair ; for how can a man help 
 being a bachcldor, if nobody will have him ? and, besides, 
 it's not any fault to be taxed for, because we did not 
 make ourselves hachddors, for we were made ?o by God, 
 for nobody was born married, and so I thini;. it's a very 
 unconstitutional tax.' " 
 
 Miss Burney's desultory journals for this year contain 
 few notices of her life at Court. We hear, indeed, in the 
 spring, of her being summoned to a new employment, 
 and called upon four or five times to read a play before 
 the Queen and Princesses. But this proved a very occa- 
 sional break in the routine of drudgery which she could 
 no longer support with cheerfulness. Henceforth she 
 seems to avoid all mention of other engagements and 
 incidents at Windsor or Kew as matters too wearisome 
 to think of or write about. We have, instead, accounts 
 of days spent at the Hastings trial, where, as before, she 
 spent much time in conversing with ^^'indham, The 
 charges were now being investigated in detail, and it was 
 often difficult to make up an interesting report for her 
 mistress. Sometimes, however, when evidence weighed 
 the proceedings down, Burke would speak from time to 
 time, and lift them up ; or Windham himself, much to 
 Fanny's satisfaction, would take part in the arguments. 
 
 * In 17815, Mr. I'itt introcluced an increase in the tax paid on men-servants, 
 when they were kept by liachelurs.
 
 262 Ilfiss Biirncys Alclancholy^ 
 
 But Westminster Hall was attractive mainly by contrast 
 to the palace ; in the Great Chamberlain's Box there was 
 no danger of receiving a summons to the Queen, no fear 
 of being late for an attendance in the royal dressing- 
 room. During the recess, when there was no trial to 
 attend. Miss Burney's thoughts were a good deal occupied 
 by the illness and death of a faithful man-servant, and 
 with the subsequent disposal of his savings, which caused 
 her some trouble. 
 
 Once, at the end of May, she had an opportunity of 
 unburdening her mind to her father. They met in 
 Westminster Abbey at one of the many commemorations 
 of Handel which occurred about this time ; and, neither 
 of them caring ver}^ much for the great master's music, 
 they spent three hours chiefly in conversation. For four 
 years they had not been so long alone together. Dr. 
 Burney happened to mention that some of the French 
 exiles wished him to make them acquainted with the 
 author of ' Cecilia,' and repeated the astonished speech 
 of the Comtesse de Boufflers on learning that this was out 
 of his power : ' Mais, monsieur, est-ce possible ! Made- 
 moiselle votre fille n'a-t-elle point de vacances ?' Such an 
 opening was just what Fanny wanted, and she availed 
 herself of it to pour out her whole heart. With many 
 expressions of gratitude for the Queen's goodness, she 
 owned that her way of life was distasteful to her; she 
 was lost to all private comfort, dead to all domestic 
 endearment, worn wiih want of rest and laborious 
 attendance. Separated from her relations, her friends, 
 and the society she loved, she brooded over the past with 
 hopeless regret, and lived like one who had no natural 
 connections. " Melancholy was the existence, where 
 happiness was excluded, though not a complaint could 
 be made ! where the illustrious personages who were
 
 Her TcdioiLS Solitude. id^i 
 
 served possessed almost all human excellence — yet where 
 those who were their servants, though treated with the 
 most benevolent condescension, could never, in any part 
 of the live-long day, command liberty, or social inter- 
 course, or repose !" "The silence of my dearest father," 
 she adds, " now silencing myself, I turned to look at him ; 
 but how was I struck to see his honoured head bowed 
 down almost into his bosom with dejection and dis- 
 comfort ! We were both perfectly still a few moments ; 
 but when he raised his head I could hardly keep my seat 
 to see his eyes filled with tears ! ' I have long,' he cried, 
 * been uneasy, though I have not spoken ; . . . . but .... 
 if you wish to resign — my house, my purse, my arms, 
 shall be open to receive you back !' " 
 
 It cannot fairly be said that, during the preceding four 
 years, Miss Burney had been debarred from literary work. 
 The conditions of her lot were hard, and it may have 
 been one of them that she should publish nothing while 
 in the Queen's service ; but she certainly had enjoyed 
 considerable leisure for composition. Witness the full 
 and carefully-written journal which she had kept during 
 the greater part of her tenure of office. Perhaps the 
 frequent interruptions to which she was liable hmdered 
 her from concentrating her thoughts on the production of 
 a regular narrative. Indefatigable as she was with her 
 pen, we can see that she was far less strenuous when 
 much intellectual exertion was required. When she was 
 offered her post, her jSfuse was at a standstill, as she told 
 the King ; and since she entered the household, she had 
 written nothing capable of being printed, except two or 
 three small copies of verses not worth printing, and the 
 rough draft of a tragedy. She had begun this tragedy 
 during the King's illness, in order to distract her atten- 
 tion ; and after laying it aside for sixteen months, she
 
 264 Hw Literary Inactivity. 
 
 resumed her task in the spring of 1790, and com- 
 pleted the play in August. Well or ill done, she 
 was pleased, she told her sisters, to have done some- 
 thing ' at last — she who had so long lived in all ways 
 as nothing.' In the early part of this year the news- 
 papers announced, as they had done several times before, 
 that the distinguished novelist, who had so long been 
 silent, had at length finished a new tale ready for the 
 press. As often as this rumour appeared, a flutter of 
 apprehension ran through the ante-rooms of the Upper 
 and Lower Lodges. Fanny's genius for seizing the points 
 of a character, and presenting them in a ludicrous light, 
 could not fail to be recognised wherever she went. Years 
 before, the fiery Baretti had warned her that if she dared 
 to put him in a book, she should feel the effects of an 
 Italian's vengeance.* Joseph Baretti, who had stilettoed 
 his man, and who lived to libel Mrs. Piozzi, was the very 
 person to fulfil a promise of this kind. But for his threat, 
 his tempting eccentricities might have exposed him to 
 considerable peril. But the carpet-knights and waiting- 
 women of Windsor stood in no immediate danger. 
 * There is a new book coming out, and we shall all be in 
 it!' exclaimed the conscience -stricken Mr. Turbulent. 
 The colonels frowned, bit their lips, and tried not to look 
 uncomfortable. ' Well, anybody's welcome to me and 
 my character !' cried poor Miss Planta, whom Fanny used 
 to patronize. ' Never mind ! she's very humane !' ob- 
 served one of the Willises, well aware that, whoever else 
 might suffer, he and his family were exempt from ridicule 
 Miss Burney smiled demurely at the tributes paid to her 
 power. Full well she knew that, so far as the characters 
 of her colleagues were worth preserving, she had them all 
 
 * Diary, -.-ol. li., p. 5S1.
 
 Her Dccliiiin(: Health. 26' 
 
 ^> 
 
 safe, under lock and key, in her Diary. But not a line of 
 the dreaded novel had been written. The passion, which 
 possessed her in her early days, for plannin^^; a story, and 
 contriving situations for the actors in it, had faded away 
 as the freshness of }outh departed. 
 
 The months rolled on, and her spirits did not improve, 
 \vhile her health steadily declined. Some of her female 
 ■friends — Mrs. Gwynn, Miss Cambridge, Mrs. Ord— saw 
 her at Windsor or Kew after the close of the London 
 season, and were painfully impressed with the alteration 
 which they noted in her. The reports which these ladies 
 carried up to town were speedily known throughout her 
 father's circle of acquaintances. The discontent that 
 had been felt at her seclusion increased tenfold when it 
 was suspected that there was danger of the prisoner's 
 constitution giving way. A sort of cabal was formed to 
 bring influence to bear upon Dr. Burney. The lead in 
 this seems to have been taken by Sir Joshua Reynolds, 
 who, despite his failing eyesight and his Academic 
 troubles, was zealous as ever in the cause of his old 
 favourite. Dr. Burney had yielded to Fanny's wish of 
 retiring ; but he was not in affluent circumstances, he 
 had expected great things from the Court appointment, 
 his daughter had not much worldl}' wisdom, and in 
 dread of the censure that awaited him in high quarters, 
 if he suffered her to throw away a competency without 
 visible necessity, he was for putting off the evil da\- of 
 resignation as long as possible. It was therefore im- 
 portant that friends whose approbation he valued should 
 unite to make him understand that the case, in their 
 judgment, called for prompt determination. He was 
 much worked upon in the autumn by a letter from Horace 
 Walpole to Frances, in which the writer, with a touch of 
 heartiness quite unusual to him, lamented her confine-
 
 2 66 Wiiidhavi and the Literary Club. 
 
 ment to a closet at Court, and asked whether her talents 
 were given to be buried in obscurity ? About the same 
 time, he was warned by his daughter, Mrs, Francis, that 
 Windham, her neighbour in Norfolk, who had observed 
 for himself the change in Fanny's appearance, was 
 meditating an attack on him as soon as they should meet 
 in town. The politician had already sounded Burney to 
 little purpose ; ' it is resolution,' he told Charlotte, ' not 
 inclination, the Doctor wants.' ' I will set the Literary 
 Club upon him !' he cried. ' Miss Burney has some very 
 true friends there, and I am sure they will all eagerly 
 assist. We will present him an address.' 
 
 The general feeling infected James Boswell, though not 
 very intimate with the Burney family. In this same 
 autumn, Boswell was on a visit to the Dean of Windsor, 
 who was also Bishop of Carlisle. Miss Burney met him 
 one morning at the choir-gate of St. George's Chapel : 
 
 " W'e saluted with mutual glee : his comic-serious face 
 and manner have lost nothing of their wonted singularity; 
 nor yet have his mind and language, as you will soon 
 confess. 
 
 *' ' I am extremely glad to see you indeed,' he cried, 
 'but very sorry to see you here. My dear ma'am, why 
 do you stay? — it won't do, ma'am! you must resign! — 
 we can put up with it no longer. I told my good host 
 the Bishop so last night : we are all grown quite out- 
 rageous !' Whether I laughed the most, or stared the 
 most, I am at a loss to say ; but I hurried away, not to 
 have such treasonable declarations overheard, for we were 
 surrounded by a multitude. He accompanied me, how- 
 ever, not losing one moment in continuing his exhorta- 
 tions : ' If }ou do not quit, ma'am, very soon, some 
 violent measures, I assure you, will be taken. We shall
 
 James Bosivell. 267 
 
 address Dr. Burney in a body ; I am ready to make the 
 harangue myself. We shall fall upon him all at once.' 
 
 " I stopped him to inquire about Sir Joshua ; he said 
 he saw him very often, and that his spirits were ver}' 
 good. I asked about Mr. Burke's book. * Oh,' cried 
 he, 'it will come out next week: 'tis the first book in 
 the world, except my own, and that's coming out also 
 very soon ; only I want your help.' ' j\Iy help ?' ' Yes, 
 madam ; you must give me some of your choice little 
 notes of the Doctor's ; we have seen him long enough 
 upon stilts ; I want to show him in a new light. Grave 
 Sam, and great Sam, and solemn Sam, and learned Sam 
 — all these he has appeared over and over. Now I want 
 to entwine a wreath of the graces across his brow ; I 
 want to show him as gay Sam, agreeable Sam, pleasant 
 Sam : so you must help me with some of his beautiful 
 billets to yourself.' " 
 
 Fanny evaded this request by declaring that she had 
 not any stores at hand ; she could not, she afterwards 
 said, consent to print private letters addressed to herself. 
 The self-satisfied biographer followed her to the Queen's 
 Lodge, continuing his importunity, and repeating his 
 exhortations to her to resign at once. At the entrance, 
 he pulled out a proof-sheet of the First Book in the 
 world, and began to read from it a letter of Dr. Johnson 
 to himself. ' He read it,' says the Diary, ' in strong 
 imitation of the Doctor's manner, very well, and not 
 caricature. But Mrs. Schwellenberg was at her window, 
 a crowd was gathering to stand round the rails, and the 
 King and Queen and Royal Family now approached from 
 the Terrace. I made rather a quick apology, and with a 
 step as quick as my now weakened limbs have left in my 
 power, I hurried to my apartment.'
 
 2 68 A Memorial to the Queen. 
 
 By what representations Dr. Burney was brought to 
 view his daughter's condition in its true hght we are 
 not distinctly informed. We find, however, that, before 
 October ended, a memorial to the Queen, written by 
 Fanny in her father's name and her own, requesting per- 
 mission for the Robe-Keeper to resign, had been approved 
 by the Doctor, who expressed his desire that it should be 
 presented at the first favourable opportunity. Then came 
 a pause : the invalid was taking bark, which for a short 
 time recruited her strength ; and she cherished the hope 
 of obtaining a ship for her brother James before she left 
 the Court, But her hopes both for her brother and her- 
 self proved illusor}^ In December, her loss of health 
 became so notorious that no part of the house could 
 ^v'holly avoid acknowledging it. ' Yet,' she writes, ' was 
 the terrible piquet the catastrophe of every evening, 
 though frequent pains in my side forced me, three and 
 four times in a game, to creep to my own room for 
 hartshorn and for rest,' The remaining members of the 
 household were more considerate than the mistress of the 
 card-table. The ladies had the fellow-feeling of fellow- 
 sufferers ; even Mr. Turbulent frankly counselled Miss 
 Burney to retreat before it was too late. A general 
 opinion prevailed that she was falling into a decline, and 
 that, at best, she was reduced to a choice between her 
 place and her life. " There seemed now," she says, " no 
 time to be lost ; when I saw my dear father he recom- 
 mended to me to be speedy, and my mother was very 
 kind in urgency for immediate measures. I could not, 
 however, summon courage to present my memorial ; my 
 heart always failed me, from seeing the Queen's entire 
 freedom from such an expectation ; for though I was 
 frequently so ill in her presence that I could hardly stand, 
 I saw she concluded me, while life remained, inevitably
 
 Leave of Absence Proposed. 269 
 
 hers." Fanny's nervousness, in fact, had made her less 
 anxious to dehver her letter than her father was to have 
 it delivered, and some further persuasion from him was 
 required before the paper reached her Majesty's hands. 
 
 At length it was presented, and the result was exactly 
 what the writer had anticipated. The Schwellenberg 
 stormed, of course : to resign was to return to nothing- 
 ness ; to forfeit the protection of the Court was to become 
 an outcast ; to lose the beatific vision of the Sovereign 
 and his consort was hardly less than to be excluded from 
 heaven. The Queen thought the memorial very modest 
 and proper, but was surprised at its contents. Indomit- 
 able herself, she could not understand how anvone else 
 could suffer from more than passing illness. She there- 
 fore proposed that her sick attendant should have six 
 weeks' leave of absence, which, with change of air and 
 scene, and the society of her family, the Locks and the 
 Cambridges, would ensure a perfect cure. This proposal 
 was duly communicated to Dr. Burney. The good man's 
 answer arrived by return of post. With much gratitude 
 for the royal goodness, he declared, on medical authorit}-, 
 that nothing short of an absolute retirement gave any 
 prospect of recovery. "A scene almost horrible ensued," 
 says Miss Burney, "when I told Cerbera the offer was 
 declined. She was too much enraged for disguise, and 
 uttered the most furious expressions of indignant con- 
 tempt at our proceedings. I am sure she would gladly 
 have confined us both in the Bastille, had England such 
 a misery, as a fit place to bring us to ourselves, from a 
 daring so outrageous against imperial wishes." 
 
 The Queen herself betrayed a blank disappointment at 
 Dr. Burney's inflexibility, but neither exhibited displeasure 
 nor raised any further obstacle. Yet the prisoner's libera- 
 tion was still at a distance. In January, 1791, she was
 
 2 70 The Queen and Mrs. SchzvellenberQ-. 
 
 prostrated by an attack of some acute illness which lasted 
 through the two following months. On returning to her 
 duty, she found that search was being made for a suitable 
 person to succeed her. But the selection proved difficult, 
 and her Majesty, of course, could not be pressed. It was 
 at length arranged that Miss Burney should be set free 
 soon after the celebration of the King's birthday in June. 
 This matter settled, her position grew easier. Her 
 colleague not only laid aside as[ rity of manner, but 
 became even ' invariable in kindness.' And Fanny now 
 began to do the old lady more justice than she had ever 
 done before. She acknowledged, in short, that Cerbera's 
 bark was worse than her bite ; that though selfish, harsh, 
 and overbearing, she was not unfriendly ; that she was 
 even extremely fond of her junior's society, when the 
 latter could force herself to appear gay and chatty. On 
 such occasions the morose German would melt, and tell 
 the Queen : ' The Bernar bin reely agribble.' ' j\Irs. 
 Schwellenberg, too,' adds the Diary, 'with all her faults, 
 is heart and soul devoted to her royal mistress, with the 
 truest faith and loyalty,' As for this mistress, she treated 
 her retiring servant with all her former confidence, clouded 
 only by a visible, though unavowed, regret at the prospect 
 of tiieir separation. Thus the closing weeks of this life at 
 Court were spent in comparative tranquillity, though there 
 were intervals of great weakness and depression. 
 
 " On the opening of this month," says the Diary for 
 June, " her Majesty told me that the next day Mr. Hastings 
 was to make his defence, and warmly added, ' I would 
 give the world you could go to it!'" There was no 
 resisting such an appeal, and accordingly, under date of 
 June 2nd, we read : " I went once more to Westminster 
 Hall, which was more crowded than on any day since the 
 trial commenced, except the first. Peers, commoners.
 
 A Day at the Hastings Trial. 
 
 2;r 
 
 and counsel, peeresses, commoneresses, and the numerous 
 indefinites, crowded everypart,witli a just and fair curiosity 
 to hear one day's defence, after seventy-three of accusa- 
 tion.' Miss Burney heard the accused read his vindication, 
 and Hstened with an interest which she knew would be 
 shared by the King and Queen ; she heard something also 
 about herself, which she did not communicate to their 
 Majesties. She attended to the story of Hastings when 
 told by himself as she had never attended to it before ; 
 her sympathy followed him when he expressed disdain of 
 his persecutors, when he arraigned the late Minister, Lord 
 North, of double-dealing, and the then Minister, Mr. Pitt, 
 of cowardly desertion. She shared his indignation when 
 the jManagers interrupted him ; she exulted when the 
 Lords quelled the interruption b}' cheering the speaker, 
 and when Lord Kenyon, who presided in the place of the 
 Chancellor, said, '' Mr. Hastings, proceed.' She contrasted 
 the fortitude of the defendant, who for so many days had 
 been silent under virulent abuse, with the intemperate 
 eagerness of his assailants, who could not exercise the 
 like self-control even for three brief hours. Li short, she 
 felt as warm-hearted women always have felt, and as it is 
 suspected that even icy politicians, men of light and lead- 
 ing on their respective sides, occasionally do feel in the 
 present enlightened age. "The conclusion of the defence," 
 continues this excited partisan, " I heard better, as Mr. 
 Hastings spoke considerably louder from this time : the 
 spirit of indignation animated his manner, and gave 
 strength to his voice. You will have seen the chief parts 
 of his discourse in the newspapers ; and you cannot, I 
 think, but grow more and more his friend as you peruse 
 it. He called pathetically and solemnly for instant judg- 
 ment ; but the Lords, after an adjournment, decided to 
 hear his defence by evidence, and in order, the next
 
 2/- TJie Defence. 
 
 Session. How grievous such continued delay to a man 
 past sixty, and sighing for such a length of time for 
 redress from a prosecution as yet unparalleled in our 
 annals !" 
 
 When it was over, Windham approached her, and ' in 
 a tone of very deep concern, and with a look that 
 fully concurred in it,' said, ' Do I see Miss Burney ? 
 Indeed,' he went on, ' I was going to make a speech not 
 very gallant.' ' But it is what I should like better,' cried 
 the lady; for it is kind, if you were going to say I look 
 miserably ill, as that is but a necessary consequence of 
 feeling so, and miserably ill I have felt this long time 
 past.' She prevented more by going on to say how happy 
 she was that he had been absent from the Managers' Box, 
 and had not joined in the attempt made by his fellow- 
 managers to disconcert Mr. Hastings. * Indeed, I was 
 kept in alarm to the very last moment ; for at every 
 figure I saw start up just now — Mr. Fox, Mr. Burke, Mr. 
 Grey — I concluded yours would be the next.' ' You were 
 prepared, then,' cried he with no little malice, ' for a 
 *' voice issuing from a distant pew." ' This unexpected 
 quotation from Cecilia " put me quite out," says Fanny, 
 ^' whereupon he seized his opportunity to put himself in. 
 For, after a little laugh at his victory, he very gravely, 
 and even almost solemnly, said, * But there is another 
 ■subject — always uppermost with me — which I have not 
 ventured to speak of to you ; though to others you know 
 not how I have raved and raged ! But I believe, I am 
 sure, you know what I allude to.' 'Twas impossible, 
 thus challenged, to dissemble. ' Yes,' I answered ; ' I 
 own, I believe I understand you ; and, indeed, I should be 
 tempted to say further — if you would forget it when heard, 
 and make no implications — that, from what has come 
 round to me from different quarters, I hold myself to be
 
 A Lively Scene. 
 
 ~ I o 
 
 very much oblij:^ed to you . . . .' When we came home 
 I was immediately summoned to her Majesty, to whom I 
 gave a full and fair account of all I had heard of the 
 defence ; and it drew tears from her expressive eyes, as I 
 repeated Mr. Hastings' own words, upon the hardship 
 and injustice of the treatment he had sustained." At 
 night, the reporter was called upon to repeat her narrative 
 to the King, to whom she was equally faithful, " sparing 
 nothing of what had dropped from the persecuted de- 
 .fendant relative to the Ministers of the Crown." 
 
 Two days afterwards came the King's birthday, and 
 Miss Burney was well enough to enjoy a lively scene — 
 the last that she was to witness at Court : 
 
 " At dinner Mrs. Schwellenberg presided, attired mag- 
 nificently. Miss Goldsworthy, Mrs. Stainforth, Messrs. 
 de Luc and Stanhope dined with us ; and, while we were 
 still eating fruit, the Duke of Clarence entered. He was 
 just risen from the King's table, and waiting for his 
 equipage to go home and prepare for the ball. To give 
 you an idea of the energy of his Royal Highness's lan- 
 guage, I ought to set apart a general objection to writing, 
 or rather intimating, certain forcible words, and beg leave 
 to show you, in genuine colours, a royal sailor. We ah 
 rose, of course, upon his entrance, and the two gentle- 
 men placed themselves behind their chairs, while the 
 footmen left the room ; but he ordered us all to sit down, 
 and called the men back to hand about some wine. He 
 was in exceeding high spirits, and in the utmost good 
 humour. He placed himself at the head of the table, 
 next Mrs. Schwellenberg, and looked remarkably well, 
 gay, and full of sport and mischief, yet clever withal as 
 well as comical. * Well, this is the first day I have ever 
 dined with the King at St. James's on his birthday. 
 
 i8
 
 274 '^^^^ Duke of Clarence. 
 
 Pray, have you all drunk his Majesty's health ?' * No, 
 your Roy'l Highness : your Roy'l Highness might make 
 
 dem do dat,' said Mrs. Schwellenberg. ' O, by will 
 
 I ! Here, you (to the footman) ; bring champagne ! I'll 
 drink the King's health again, if I die for it ! Yet, I have 
 done pretty well already : so has the King, I promise you ! 
 1 believe his Majesty was never taken such good care of 
 before. We have kept his spirits up, I promise you ; we 
 have enabled him to go through his fatigues : and I should 
 have done more still, but for the ball and Mary — I have 
 promised to dance with Mar}' !' Princess ]\Iary made 
 her iirst appearance at Court to-day : she looked most 
 interesting and unaffectedl}^ lovely : she is a sweet 
 creature, and perhaps, in point of beauty, the first of this 
 truly beautiful race, of which Princess Mary may be 
 called pendant to the Prince of Wales. Champagne being 
 now brought for the Duke, he ordered it all round. 
 W'hen it came to me, I whispered to Westerhaults to 
 carry it on : the Duke slapped his hands violently on the 
 
 table, and called out, ' O, by • -, you shall drink it !' 
 
 There was no resisting this. We all stood up, and the 
 Duke sonorously gave the royal toast." 
 
 The indefatigable diarist, says Thackeray, continues 
 for pages reporting H.R.H.'s conversation, and indicating, 
 W'itli a humour not unworthy of the clever little author of 
 ' Evelina,' the increasing excitement of the young Sailor 
 Prince, who drank more and more champagne, stopped 
 old Mrs. Schwellenberg's remonstrances by kissing her 
 hand, and telling her to shut her potato-trap, and who 
 did not keep ' sober for Mary.' Mary had to find another 
 partner that night, for the royal William Henry could not 
 keep his legs. When the Princess afterwards told Miss 
 Burney of her brother's condition at the ball, and Fanny
 
 Parting zuii/i the Royal Family. 275 
 
 accounted for it by relating what had passed at the 
 attendants' dinner-table, she found that she had been 
 anticipated by the Duke himself. ' Oh !' cried the 
 Princess ; ' he told me of it himself the next morning, 
 and said: "You may think how far I was gone, for I 
 kissed the Schwellenberg's hand!"' The lady saluted 
 was duly sensible of the honour paid her. ' Dat Prince 
 Villiam,' she observed to her junior — ' oders de Duke of 
 Clarence — bin raelly ver merry — oders vat you call 
 tipsy.' 
 
 Mademoiselle Jacobi,* Fanny's destined successor, 
 arrived in the first da3's of July, and the prison door was 
 now thrown open. Miss Burney imagined that, as the 
 day of her discharge approached, the Queen's manner 
 to her became rather less cordial, and betokened an 
 inward feeling that the invalided servant ought, at 
 every hazard, to have remained with her employer. 
 This, we believe, is a common opinion among mis- 
 tresses in all ranks of life, when called upon to sur- 
 render a trusted dependent. The King, with that 
 weakness which the better-half alwa}S despises, was 
 disposed to be much more indulgent. As if to compen- 
 sate for his consort's vexation, he showed himself in- 
 creasingl}^ courteous and kind at every meeting, making 
 opportunities to talk over Boswell's book, which had 
 
 * Macau'ay asserts that, shortly after her release, Miss Burney '•visited her old 
 dungeon, and found her successor already far on the way to the grave, and kept 
 io strict duty, from morning till midnight, with a sprained ankle, and a nervous 
 fever." This is a strange niisstatenient. Mademoiselle Jactjbi had leave of 
 absence to nurse her sprain : it was not " in the old dungeon " tliat Miss IJurney 
 saw her on the occasion referred to, but in a small room at lirompton, where 
 she was sitting with her leg on bolsters, antl unable to put her loot to the 
 ground. Fanny, in January, 1792, took a turn of duty at St. James's, by the 
 Queen's request, because " Alademoiselle Jacobi was still lame." Diary, vol. ill., 
 pp. 585-87. However, we read afterwards that, towards the end of 1 797, 
 ]\iademoise!le Jacobi "retired to Germany, ill and dissatisfied with everythini^ 
 jn England." She, as well a;; Miss I'urney, received a pension. 
 
 7.8—2
 
 276 Miss B2ii'ney receives a Pe7ision. 
 
 recently appeared, and listening to Fanny's anecdotes of 
 Johnson with the utmost complacency and interest. The 
 Princesses did not conceal their sorrow at the impending 
 change. ' Indeed,' says the Diar}^ ' the most flattering 
 marks of attention meet me from all quarters. Mrs, 
 Schwellenberg has been forced to town by ill-health ; she 
 was very friendly, even affectionate, in going !' And 
 before the hour of parting arrived, the light cloud passed 
 away from her Majesty's face. It has been asked. Why 
 should she have grieved at losing an attendant, who, as 
 the Queen used to complain, could never tie the bow of 
 her royal necklace without tying her royal hair in with 
 it ? But, in Miss Burney, Queen Charlotte was losing 
 much more than an unskilful tire-woman, or a nervous 
 reader, who, as we know on the same unimpeachable 
 authority, ' had the misfortune of reading rather low.' She 
 was losing one whom she declared to be 'true as gold,' and 
 who had a much larger share of mind than commonly fell to- 
 the official lot; a familiar friend who was as far as possible 
 from being a learned lad}^ and yet capable of entertaining 
 her mistress with clever and stimulating talk such as her 
 Majesty loved. No retiring pension had been asked for 
 in the petition for leave to resign, and when the subject 
 was mentioned by the Queen, the petitioner hastened to 
 disavow all claim and expectation of that kind. She 
 found, however, that the question of what the occasion 
 demanded had been already considered and decided. 
 Though the term of service had been short, the character 
 of the servant, and the notorious failure of her health, 
 made it imperative that she should receive some pro- 
 vision. The Queen therefore announced her intention of 
 continuing to her second Robe-Keeper in retirement one- 
 half of the annual salary which had been paid to her in 
 office. ' It is but her due,' said the King. ' She has-
 
 Her Final Retirement. 277 
 
 given up five years of her pen,'* Two days after this 
 matter was settled, Miss Barney took leave of the Royal 
 Family. Emotional as one of her own heroines, she 
 ■could not control her feelings in bidding farewell to the 
 <2ueen, and was unable even to look at the King when 
 he came to say ' Good-bye.' She quitted the Court on 
 July 7, 1791, having been a member of the royal house- 
 hold for five years all but ten days. Barke recalled the 
 satisfaction with which he had hailed her appointment ; 
 and, owning that he had never been more mistaken in his 
 life, observed that the story of those five years would 
 have furnished Johnson with another vivid illustration for 
 iiis ' Vanity of Human Wishes.' 
 
 * jNIemoirs, iii. iiS n.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Chelsea Hospital — Tour to Devonshii-e — Visit to Er.th — 'Rcminisrences — 
 The Duchess of Devonshire — Return Home — Literary Pursuits re'-umed — 
 Attempts at Tragedy — Social Engagements — Death of Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 — A Public Breakfast at Mrs. Montagu's — Mrs. Hastings — Mr. Koswell — 
 Visit to Mrs. Crewe — The ISurke Family — Meeting with Edmund Burke — • 
 Burke and the French Revolution — Cliarles Fox — Lord Loughl>orough — 
 Mr. Erskine— His Egotism — The French Refugees in England — Bury St. 
 Edmunds — Madame de Genlis — The Duke dc Liancourt — The Settlement 
 at Mickieham — Count de Narbonne — -The Chevalier d'Arblay — Visit of Mits 
 Burney to Norfolk — Death of Mr. Francis — Return to London. 
 
 Miss Burnev returned to her father, who, with his wife 
 and his youngest daughter Sarah, was then hving in 
 Chelsea HospitaL The family at this time occupied 
 rooms on the ground-floor, which not long afterwards 
 were exchanged for others in the top story. After resting 
 three weeks at home, she set out on a tour to the south- 
 west of England, under the care of her friend Mrs. Ord. 
 The travellers journeyed by easy stages to Sidmouth, 
 taking Stonehenge on their way, and stopping at the 
 principal places which had been visited by the Court in 
 the summer of i/Sg. Having spent eight or nine days 
 on the coast of South Devon, they turned northwards, 
 and proceeded by the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey to 
 Bath. That most famous of English watering-places was 
 greatly altered from what it had been when Fanny passed 
 the season there with the Thrales eleven 3ears before. 
 The circumference, she tells us, had trebled, though the 
 new buildings were scattered, and most of them un-
 
 Visii to Ba'/i. 279^ 
 
 finished, "The hills are built up and down, and the 
 vales so stocked with streets and houses, that, in some 
 places, from the ground-floor on one side a street, you 
 cross over to the attic of your opposite neighbour. It 
 looks a town of hills, and a hill of towns." But the 
 palaces of white stone rising up on every hand interested 
 her less than the old haunts with which she was familiar 
 — the North Parade, where she had lived with Mrs. 
 Thrale ; the houses in the Circus, where she had visited 
 Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Cholmley ; the Belvedere, w^here 
 she had talked with ]\Irs. Byron and Lord Mulgrave. 
 Nearly a month slipped away in reviving old recollec- 
 tions, and in making some new acquaintances to replace 
 the many that had disappeared. The retired official was 
 much flattered by an introduction to the celebrated 
 Duchess of Devonshire, and amused herself with the 
 thought that her first visit after leaving the Oueen 
 should be paid to the greatest lady of the Opposition. 
 Another month was divided between j\Iickleham and 
 Norbury Park, and by the middle of October MissBurney 
 was again at Chelsea. 
 
 ' We shall expect you here to dinner by four,' wrote 
 her father. ' The great grubbery will be in nice order for 
 you, as well as the little ; both have lately had many 
 accessions of new books. The ink is good, good pens in 
 plenty, and the most pleasant and smooth paper in the 
 world ! 
 
 ' " Come, Rosalind, oh, come and see 
 Wliat quires are in store for thee !' ' 
 
 Are we wrong in thinking that these words express Dr, 
 Burney's anxiety to see his daughter once more working 
 as she had not worked since the last sheet of ' Cecilia ' 
 was corrected for the press ? In the succeeding pages of 
 the Diary we find more than one passage where the good
 
 2 So Attempts at Tragedy. 
 
 man's eagerness for some new fruit of her talents is 
 plainly confessed. Friends had united to persuade him 
 that he had but to recall her from the royal dressing- 
 room to her study, and fresh laurels, with abundant 
 riches, would surely and speedily be hers. He was 
 naturally impatient for some fulfilment of these prophecies. 
 Rosalind appeared : she wore out the quills, and covered 
 the quires ; but nothing came of her activity. Her health 
 was now fairly restored, and, in the first ardour of com- 
 position, she felt that she could employ two pens almost 
 incessantly. Unhappily, her industry was devoted to a 
 mistaken purpose. She had brought with her from 
 Windsor the rough drafts of two tragedies, and without 
 pausing to correct these, she occupied herself in writing 
 a third. A less hopeful enterprise could not have been 
 conceived. She had before her eyes the warning example 
 of Mr. Crisp's failure. Had this old friend been living, 
 he would doubtless have been wiser for his pupil than he 
 was for himself. It is certain that Nature had not de- 
 signed the Siddons for tragedy more distinctly than she 
 intended Frances Burney for comedy. With the excep- 
 tion of one or two powerful scenes, such as the death of 
 Harrel, Fanny's chief successes had been won in the 
 departm.ent of humorous writing. It was her misfortune 
 that she had at this moment no literary adviser on whose 
 judgment she could rely. Her acquaintance with Arthur 
 Murphy seems to have ceased ; the Hastings trial, and 
 the debates on the Regency, had cooled her relations 
 with Sheridan and Burke. ' Mr. Sheridan,' she wrote, 
 ' I have no longer any ambition to be noticed by.' Her 
 regard for Burke continued ; but she had not yet met 
 him since her deliverance from captivity. Dr. Burney 
 was told only that she was engaged upon a play, and was 
 made to understand that he must wait until it was
 
 Pjiblic Brcalcfast at Mrs. MontagiLS. 281 
 
 finished before he was indulged with a sight of the manu- 
 script. Towards the end of 1791 she writes: ' I go on 
 with various writings, at different times, and just as the 
 humour strikes. I have promised my dear father a 
 Christmas-box and a New Year's gift ; and therefore he 
 now kindly leaves me tJ my own devices.' We do not 
 find that the anxious parent received cither of the 
 promised presents. The daughter's fit of application 
 seems to ha\-e soon died away: in the early part of 1792, 
 h.er father was ill and occupied with his ailments ; and by 
 the time he was able to think of other things, Fanny had 
 ceased to prepare for coming before the public. Her 
 tragedies slept in her desk for three years : when, at the 
 end of that period, the earliest of them, which had been 
 begun at Kew and finished at Windsor, was put on the 
 stage, it was produced without revision, and failed — 
 as, no doubt, it would have done under any circum- 
 stances. 
 
 As Miss Burney's strength returned, she seems to have 
 fallen back into the indolent life of visiting and party-going 
 which she was leading when she joined the Royal House- 
 hold. She saw once more the failing Sir Joshua, who 
 had worked at her deliverance as if she had been his own 
 daughter ; though he passed from the scene before she 
 found an opportunity of thanking him for his exertions. 
 She attended a great public breakfast given by Mrs. 
 Montagu, whose famous Feather Room and dining-room 
 were thronged by hundreds of guests, and looked like a 
 full Ranelagh by daylight. At this entertainment she 
 met Mrs. Hastings, whose splendid dress, loaded with 
 ornaments, gave her the appearance of an Indian 
 princess. At another breakfast Fanny encountered Bos- 
 well, who had excited her displeasure by his revelation of 
 Johnson's infirmities, and who provoked her again by
 
 282 Visit to Mrs. Ci^ewe. 
 
 tellinj^ anecdotes of the .e^reat Samuel, and actin^^ them 
 with open buffooner}-. During the Session, she spent 
 much of her time at the Hastings trial, listening to the 
 defence conducted by Law, Dallas, and Plomer, and 
 rallying Windham on the sarcasms aimed by Law at the 
 heated rhetoric of Burke. The great orator himself she 
 rarely encountered on these occasions. In June, 1792, 
 however, she spent a day with him at Mrs. Crewe's house 
 on Hampstead Hill. 
 
 "The villa at Hampstead is small, but commodious. 
 We v/ere received by Mrs. Crewe with much kindness. 
 The room was rather dark, and she had a veil to her 
 bonnet, half down, and with this aid she looked still in a 
 full blaze of beauty .... She is certainly, in my e}-es, the 
 most completely a beauty of any woman I ever saw. 1 
 know not, even now, any female in her first youth who 
 could bear the comparison. She uglifies everything near 
 her. Her son was with her. He is just of age, and 
 looks like her elder brother ! he is a heav}', old-looking 
 young man. He is going to China with Lord Macartney.* 
 
 " My former friend, young Burke, was also there. I 
 was glad to renew acquaintance with him ; though I 
 could see some little strangeness in him : this, however, 
 completely wore off before the day was over. Soon after 
 entered Mrs. Burke, Miss French, a niece, and Mr. 
 Richard Burke, the comic, humorous, bold, queer brother 
 of the Mr. Burke .... Mrs. Burke was just what I have 
 always seen her, soft, gentle, reasonable, and obliging ; 
 and we met, I think, upon as good terms as if so man}^ 
 years had not parted us. 
 
 " At length Mr. Burke appeared, accompanied by Mr. 
 Elliot. He shook hands with my father as soon as he 
 
 i737-iSo6. Lord Macartney's mission to China was narrated in two inter- 
 esting works, iMaiartiuy s Jottrna!, and Staiiii/oti's * Account of the Embasiy.'
 
 . Meeting zvith Edumnd Burke. 283 
 
 had paid his devoirs to Mrs. Crewe, but he returned my 
 curtsey with so distant a bow, that I concluded myself 
 quite lost with him, from my evident solicitude in poor 
 Mr. Hastings's cause. I could not wish that less obvious, 
 thinking as I think of it ; but I felt infinitely grieved to 
 lose the favour of a man whom, in all other articles, I so 
 much venerate, and whom, indeed, I esteem and admire 
 as the very first man of true genius now living in this 
 country. 
 
 " Mrs. Crewe introduced me to Mr. Elliot : I am sure 
 we were already personally known to each other, for 1 
 have seen him perpetually in the Managers' Box, whence, 
 as often, he must have seen me in the Great Chamber- 
 lain's. He is a tall, thin young man, plain in face, dress, 
 and manner, but sensible, and possibly much besides; he 
 was reserved, however, and little else appeared. 
 
 " The moment I was named, to my great joy I found 
 Mr. Burke had not recollected me. He is more near- 
 sighted considerably than myself. * Miss Burney !' he 
 now exclaimed, coming forward, and quite kindly taking 
 my hand, ' I did not see you ;' and then he spoke very 
 sweet words of the meeting, and of my looking far better 
 than ' while I was a courtier,' and of how he rejoiced 
 to see that I so little suited that station. 'You look,' 
 cried he, ' quite renewed, revived, disengaged ; you 
 seemed, when I conversed with 3'ou last, at the trial, 
 quite altered ; I never saw such a change for the belter 
 as quitting a Court has brought about !' 
 
 "Ah ! thought I, this is simply a mistake, from reason- 
 ing according to your own feelings. I only seemed 
 altered for the worse at the trial, because I there looked 
 coldly and distantly, from distaste and disaffection to}'our 
 proceedings ; and I here look changed for the better, onh- 
 because I here meet }"ou without the chill of djsapproba-
 
 284 Burke and the French Revolution. 
 
 tion, and with the glow of my first admiration of you and 
 your talents ! 
 
 " Mrs. Crewe gave him her place, and he sat by me, 
 and entered into a most animated conversation upon 
 Lord Macartney and his Chinese expedition, and the two 
 Chinese youths who were to accompany it. These last 
 he described minutely, and spoke of the extent of the 
 undertaking in high, and perhaps fanciful, terms, but 
 with allusions and anecdotes intermixed, so full of general 
 information and brilliant ideas, that I soon felt the whole 
 of my first enthusiasm return, and with it a sensation of 
 pleasure that made the day delicious to me. 
 
 "After this my father joined us, and politics took the 
 lead. He spoke then with an eagerness and a vehemence 
 that instantly banished the graces, though it redoubled 
 the energies, of his discourse. * The French Revolution,' 
 he said, * which began by authorizing and legalizing in- 
 justice, and which by rapid steps had proceeded to every 
 species of despotism except owning a despot, was now 
 menacing all the universe and all mankind with the most 
 violent concussion of principle and order.' My father 
 heartily joined, and I tacitly assented to his doctrines, 
 though I feared not with his fears. 
 
 ** One speech I must repeat, for it is explanatory of his 
 conduct, and nobly explanatory. When he had expatiated 
 upon the present dangers, even to English liberty and 
 property, from the contagion of havoc and novelty, he 
 earnestly exclaimed, * This it is that has made ME an 
 abettor and supporter of Kings ! Kings are necessary, 
 and, if we would preserve peace and prosperity, we must 
 preserve them. We must all put our shoulders to the 
 work! Ay, and stoutly, too!' . . . 
 
 " At dinner Mr. Burke sat next Mrs. Crewe, and I had 
 the happiness to be seated next Mr. Burke ; and my other 
 neicrhbour was his amiable son.
 
 '' ul III mill .'/■)iirhc
 
 Charles Fox. 2S5 
 
 "The dinner, and the dessert when the servants were 
 removed, were dehghtful. How I wish my dear Susanna 
 and Fredy* could meet this wonderful man when he is 
 easy, happy, and with people he cordially likes ! But 
 politics, even on his own side, must always be excluded ; 
 his irritability is so terrible on that theme that it ,t,Mves 
 immediately to his face the expression of a man who is 
 going to defend himself from murderers. . . . 
 
 "Charles Fox being mentioned, Mrs. Crewe told us 
 that he had lately said, upon being shown some passage 
 in Mr. Burke's book which he had warmly opposed, but 
 which had, in the event, made its own justification, very 
 candidly, ' Well ! Burke is right — but Burke is often 
 right, only he is right too soon,' 
 
 " ' Had Fox seen some things in that book,' answered 
 Mr. Burke, ' as soon, he would at this moment, in all 
 probability, be first minister of this country.' 
 
 " ' What r cried Mrs. Crewe, ' with Pitt ?— No !— no ! 
 — Pitt won't go out, and Charles Fox will never make a 
 coalition with Pitt.' 
 
 "'And why not?' said Mr. Burke dryly! 'why not 
 this coalition as well as other coalitions ?' 
 
 " Nobody tried to answer this. 
 
 " ' Charles Fox, however,' said Mr. Burke, afterwards, 
 * can never internally like the French Revolution. He is 
 entangled ; but, in himself, if he should find no other 
 objection to it, he has at least too much taste for such a 
 revolution.' ... 
 
 " Mr. Richard Burke related, very comically, various 
 censures cast upon his brother, accusing him of being the 
 friend of despots, and the abettor of slavery, because he 
 had been shocked at the imprisonment of the King of 
 France, and was anxious to preserve our own limited 
 
 * Mrs. Locke.
 
 2 86 Lord Lo2i(!:Jiboroiis;h and Mr. Erskmc, 
 
 monarchy in the same state in which it so long had 
 flourished. 
 
 " Mr. Burke looked half alarmed at his brother's open- 
 ing, but, when he had finished, he very good-humouredly 
 poured out a glass of wine, and, turning to me, said, 
 * Come, then — here's slavery for ever I' This was well 
 understood, and echoed round the table with hearty 
 laughter. 
 
 "'This would do for j'ou completely, Mr. Burke,' said 
 Mrs. Crewe, ' if it could get into a newspaper ! Mr. 
 Burke, they would say, has now spoken out ; the truth 
 has come to light unguardedly, and his real defection 
 from the cause of true liberty is acknowledged, I should 
 like to draw up the paragraph !' 
 
 "•''And add,' said Mr. Burke, * the toast was ad- 
 dressed to Miss Burney, in order to pay court to the 
 Oueen I' "... . After a stroll : 
 
 " The party returned with tv^'O very singular additions 
 to its number — Lord Loughborough, and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Erskine. They have villas at Hampstead, and were met 
 in the walk ; Mr. Erskine else would not, probably, have 
 desired to meet Mr. Burke, who openly in the House of 
 Commons asked him if he knew what friendship meant, 
 when he pretended to call him, Mr. Burke, his friend ? 
 
 "There was an evident disunion of the cordiality of the 
 party from this time. My father, Mr. Richard Burke, 
 his nephew, and Mr. Elliot entered into some general 
 discourse ; Ivlr. Burke took up a volume of Boileau, and 
 read aloud, though to himself, and with a pleasure that 
 soon made him seem to forget all intruders : Lord Lough- 
 borough joined Mrs. Burke, and Mr. Erskine, seating 
 himself next to Mrs. Crewe, engrossed her entirely, yet 
 talked loud enough for all to hear who were not engaged 
 themselves.
 
 Erskines Egotism. 287 
 
 *' For me, I sat next Mrs. Erskine, who seems m.uch a 
 woman of the world, for she spoke with me just as freely, 
 and readily, and easily as if we had been old friends. 
 
 " Mr. Erskine enumerated all his avocations to Mrs. 
 Crewe, and, amongst others, mentioned, very calm!}', 
 having to plead against Mr. Crewe upon a manor business 
 in Cheshire. Mrs. Crewe hastily and alarmed, interrupted 
 him, to inquire what he meant, and what might ensue to 
 Mr. Crewe ? ' Oh, nothing but the loss of the lordship 
 upon that spot,' he coolly answered ; ' but I don't know 
 that it will be given against him : I only know I shall 
 have three hundred pounds for it.' 
 
 " Mrs. Crewe looked thoughtful ; and i>Ir. Erskine then 
 began to speak of the new Association for Reform, by 
 the friends of the people, headed by Messrs. Grey and 
 Sheridan, and sustained by Mr. Fox, and openly opposed 
 by Mr. Windham, as well as Mr. Burke. He said much 
 of the use they had made of his name, though he had 
 never yet been to the society ; and I began to understand 
 that he meant to disavow it ; but presently he added, ' I 
 don't know whether I shall ever attend — I have so much 
 to do — so little time; however, the people must be 
 supported.' 
 
 " ' Pray, will you tell me,' said Mrs. Crewe dryly, 
 * what you mean by the people ? I never knew.' 
 
 " He looked surprised, but evaded any answer, and soon 
 after took his leave, with his wife, who seems by no means 
 to admire him as much as he admires himself, if I may 
 judge by short odd speeches which dropped from her. 
 The eminence of Mr. Erskine seems all for public life ; in 
 private, his excessive egotisms undo him. 
 
 " Lord Loughborough instantly took his seat next to 
 Mrs. Crewe ; and presently related a speech which Mr. 
 Erskine has lately made at some public meeting, and
 
 288 French Rcftigees in England. 
 
 which he opened to this effect: — 'As to me, gentlemen, 
 I have some title to give my opinions freely. Would you 
 know what my title is derived from ? I challenge any 
 man to inquire ! If he ask my birth, — its genealogy may 
 dispute with kings ! If my wealth, it is all for which I 
 have time to hold out my hand ! If my talents, — No ! of 
 those, gentlemen, I leave you to judge for yourselves !' 
 
 " But I have now time for no more upon this day, 
 except that Mr. and Mrs. Burke, in making their exit, 
 gave my father and me the most cordial invitation to 
 Beaconsfield in the course of the summer or autumn. 
 And, indeed, I should delight to accept it.'' 
 
 The second half of this year was consumed by a round 
 of visits, commencing in town, and ending in Norfolk. 
 On leaving London, Miss Burney accompanied her eldest 
 sister into Essex, where they spent some time together at 
 Halstead Vicarage. From this place, Fanny went alone 
 to stay at Bradfield Hall, near Bury St. Edmunds, with 
 the family of the agriculturist, Arthur Young,* who had 
 married a sister of the second Tvlrs. Burney. 
 
 All over the countr}', in the autumn of 1792, two subjects 
 only were talked of, the Revolution in France, and the 
 adventures of the emigrants to England. Little settle- 
 ments of refugees had been, or were being, formed in 
 various districts. One coterie had established themselves 
 at Richmond, where they received much attention from 
 Horace Walpole. Other unfortunates found their way to 
 Bury. A third colony, and not the least important, sought 
 retirement in the Vale of Mickleham. The fugitives, of 
 course, were not only of different ranks, but of different 
 political complexions. The Revolution had begun to 
 
 * Born in 1741, died in 1821 ; author of many works on acjricultural and 
 economical subjects. His "Travels in France'' weie jiublisheJ in rliis very 
 jear — 1792.
 
 The Duke de Liancourt. 289 
 
 devour its children ; and some of the exiles had helped 
 to raise the passion which swept them away. Suffolk had 
 been visited in the spring by the celebrated Countess of 
 Genlis, governess to the children of Philip Egalite, Duke 
 of Orleans. This lady, who was now called Madame de 
 Sillery, or Brulard, hired a house at Bury for herself and 
 her part}', which included an authentic Mademoiselle 
 d'Orleans, besides the Pamela who afterwards married 
 Lord Edv/ard Fitzgerald, and another young girl. Her 
 establishment also comprised a number of men, who were 
 treated by the ladies sometimes as servants, sometimes as 
 equals. The vagaries of this curious household and its 
 mistress provoked comments which drove them from the 
 county before Miss Burney entered it. It was rumoured 
 that Madame Brulard's departure was hastened by the 
 arrival of the Duke de Liancourt, who warmly denounced 
 her influence over her infamous protector as a principal 
 cause of the French anarchy. Yet the nobleman just 
 named was himself known as a friend of the people. He 
 it was who, bursting into the King's closet to report the 
 fall of the Bastille, had been the first to utter the word 
 ^.evolution. Arthur Young, who, like most other well-to-do 
 Englishmen at that moment, was read}^ to forswear every 
 popular principle he had formerly professed, inveighed 
 against the Duke's folly, while he pitied the misfortunes of 
 a man to whom his travels had laid him under obligation. 
 Fanny met the new-com.er at her host's table, and heard 
 from his own lips the story of his escape from France. 
 Being in command at Rouen when news of the bloody 
 Tenth of August reached that city, and finding a price set 
 on his head by the Jacobins, De Liancourt, with some 
 difficulty, made his. way to the sea, where he embarked in 
 an open boat, and set sail, covered with faggots, for the 
 opposite coast. He entertained his friends at Bradfield 
 
 iq
 
 290 TJie Settlement at Micklcham. 
 
 Hall with an account of his landing at Hastings, describings 
 how he had walked to the nearest public-house, and, ta 
 seem English, had called for 'pot poricrc,' and then, being 
 extremely thirsty, for another ; how, overcome by the 
 strange liquor, he had been carried upstairs in a helpless 
 state, and put to bed ; how he had woke up before day- 
 break in a miserable room, and fancied himself in a French 
 uiaison dc force; how, on creeping cautiously below, the 
 sight of the kitchen, with its array of bright pewter plates 
 and polished saucepans, had convinced him that he must 
 be in a more cleanly country than his native land. What 
 had brought the Duke to Bury we are not informed : he 
 certainly would not have been at home with Walpolc's 
 friends, who seem to have been staunch adherents of the 
 ancien regime . 
 
 Some, though not all, of the strangers at Mickleham 
 had advanced several degrees beyond the timid consti- 
 tutionalism of the Duke de Liancourt, The origin and 
 early history of this settlement were communicated to 
 Fanny by the journalizing letters of her sister, Mrs. 
 Phillips. Two or three families had united to take a 
 house near the v'llage, called Juniper Hall, while another 
 family hired a cottage at West Humble, which the owner 
 let with great reluctance, 'upon the Christian-Hke supposi- 
 tion that, being nothing but French papishes, they would 
 never pay.' The party at the cottage were presided over 
 by Madame de Broglie, daughter-in-law of the Marechal 
 who had commanded the Ro3-alist troops near Paris. 
 Among the first occupants of Juniper Hall were Narbonne, 
 recently Constitutionalist Minister of War, and Mont- 
 morency, ci-devant due, from whom had proceeded the 
 motion for suppressing titles of nobility in France. When 
 Mrs. Phillips made the acquaintance of her new neigh- 
 bours, they had been reinforced by fresh arrivals, in-
 
 The Chevalier (VArblay. 29 & 
 
 eluding an officer of whom she had not 3'et heard. This 
 was j\I. d'Arblay,* who, Susan was told, had been Adjutant- 
 General to her favourite hero, Lafayette, when that leader 
 surrendered himself to the Alhes. On the chief being sent 
 prisoner to Olmutz, the subordinate was permitted to 
 withdraw into Holland, whence he was now come to join 
 his intimate friend and patron, Count Louis de Narbonne. 
 * He is tall,' wrote Mrs. Phillips to her sister, ' and a good 
 figure, with an open and manly countenance ; about forty,, 
 I imagine.' 
 
 The letters from Mickleham were soon full of this 
 General d'Arblay, who won the heart of good Mrs. Phillips 
 by his amiable manners, and his attention to her children, 
 while he fortified her in her French politics, which, to 
 say the truth, were too advanced for Fanny's acceptance. 
 Both the General and Narbonne were attached to their 
 unfortunate master, but considered that they had been 
 very badly treated by Louis, and that it was impossible 
 to serve him, because he could not trust himself, and in 
 consequence distrusted everybody else. D'Arblay had 
 been the officer on guard at the Tuileries on the night of 
 the famous Flight to Varennes, He had not been let 
 into the secret of the plan, but was left, without warning,^ 
 to run the risk of being denounced and murdered for 
 having assisted the King's escape. 
 
 Miss Burney was now in Norfolk with her sister 
 Charlotte. But this visit to her naf:ive county proved the 
 reverse of joyful. Soon after her arrival at Aylsham, Mr. 
 Francis, her brother-in-law, was seized with an attack of 
 apoplexy, which ended in his death. During his illness, 
 she interested herself in the accounts of Juniper Hall — 
 
 * Alexander d'Arblay was born at Joigny, near Paris. He entered the 
 French artillery at thirteen years of age. He was commandant at Longwy, 
 piomoled into Narlionne's regiment, and in 1792 made niarichal de camp, or, as 
 W2 should say, brigadier geneial. 
 
 ig — 2
 
 292 Home Again. 
 
 she had already heard something of M. d'Arblay from the 
 Duke de Liancourt — but her attention was mainly en- 
 grossed by the distress of those around her. When all 
 was over, she remained to assist the widow in settling 
 her affairs, and at the close of the year accompanied her 
 and the children to London.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Miss Biuney at Norbury Park — Execution of the French King — Madame de 
 Staiil and Talleyrand at Mickleham — Miss Burney's Impressions of M. 
 d'Arblay — Proposed Marriafije — Visit to Chesington — The Marriage takes 
 place — A Happy Match — The General as Gardener — Madame d'Arblay 
 resumes her Pen — Birth of a Son — ' Edwy and Elgiva ' — Acquittal of Warren 
 Hastings — Publishing Plans — The Subscription List — Publication of 
 ' Camilla ' — Visit of the Author to Windsor — Interview with the King and 
 Queen — A Compliment from their Majesties — The Royal Family on the 
 Terrace — Princess Elizabeth — Great Sale of ' Camilla ' — Criticisms on the 
 Work — Declension of Madame d'Arblay's Style — Camilla Cottage^Wedded 
 Happiness — Madame d'Arblay's Comedy of ' Love and Fashion ' with- 
 drawn — Death of Mrs. Pliillips— Straitened Circumstances— The d'Arblays 
 go to France — Popularity of Bonaparte — Reception at the Tuileries and 
 Review — War between England and France — Disappointments — Life at 
 Passy — Difficulty of Correspondence — Madame d'Arblay's Desire to return 
 to England — Sails from Dunkirk. 
 
 On the opening of 1793, the French Constitutionahsts 
 were at the lowest point of depression and disgrace. 
 They were reviled on all hands for having given weight 
 and impetus to a movement which they were impotent to 
 control. Norbury Park and Mickleham were eager that 
 Miss Burney should see their new friends and judge them 
 for herself. " Your French colonies," she wrote in reply 
 to Mrs. Locke's pressing invitation, " are truly attractive : 
 I am sure they must be so to have caught me — so sub- 
 stantially, fundamentally the foe of all their proceedings 
 while in power." Having tarried long enough to pay her 
 birthday duty to the Queen, she left London at the com- 
 mencement of the season, and went down to Surrey. A 
 day or two after her arrival came the news of the French 
 King's execution. The excitement caused by this intelli-
 
 ■294 Madame de Sta'cl. 
 
 «-ence quickened the already frequent intercourse between 
 the Lockes and Juniper Hall, and Fanny soon found her- 
 self on familiar terms with the refugees. Before the end 
 of January, Madame de Stael appeared on the scene, and 
 placed herself at the head of the little colony. Neckcr's 
 •daughter had earned the rage of the Commune by her 
 exertions to save life during the massacres of August and 
 September; nor was it at all clear that the privilege 
 which she enjoyed as wife of the Swedish Ambassador 
 would avail for her protection. She had, therefore, crossed 
 the Channel, and now joined her Constitutionahst friends 
 at Juniper Hall, whither she was soon followed by Talley- 
 rand, who had come to England in her company. No 
 other party of refugees could boast two names of equal 
 distinction, though French titles had become plentiful 
 as blackberries in several parts of England. Madame de 
 Stael paid the most flattering attention to the author of 
 ^ Cecilia,' whose second novel had procured her consider- 
 able reputation in Paris. A warm but short-lived intimacy 
 between the two ladies ensued. No two persons could be 
 less suited to one another than our timid, prudish little 
 Burney and the brilliant and audacious Yxq,v\z\\. femme dc 
 JcUres. The public acts of the Bishop of Autun — ' the 
 viper that had cast his skin,' as Walpole called him — had 
 not inclined Fanny in his favour; but his extraordinary 
 .powers conquered her admiration, and as she listened to 
 the exchanges of wit, criticism, and raillery between him 
 .and Madame de Stael, she could see for the moment no 
 blemishes in either, and looked on the little band of 
 exiles, some of whom could almost vie with these leaders, 
 as rare spirits from some brighter world. The group, 
 -consisting at different times of some dozen persons,-* 
 
 * Among other names, we find, besides those already mentioned, the 
 r^Iarquise de la Chatre, IM. de Jaucourt, W. Sicard, the Princesse d'iienin, De 
 ..Lally Tollendai, Duuiont.
 
 Impressions of ill. d" Ai'blay. 295 
 
 were all most aj:!^reeable ; but one, perhaps the least 
 dazzling of the whole constellation, proved more attrac- 
 tive than the rest : 
 
 "!M. d'Arblay," wrote Fanny, "is one of the most singu- 
 larly interesting characters that can ever have been 
 formed. He has a sincerity, a frankness, an ingenuous 
 openness of nature, that I have been unjust enough to 
 think could not belong to a Frenchman. With all this, 
 which is his military portion, he is passionately fond of 
 literature, a most delicate critic in his own language, well 
 versed in both Italian and German, and a very elegant 
 poet. He has just undertaken to become my French 
 master for pronunciation, and he gives me long daily 
 lessons in reading. Pray expect wonderful improvements ! 
 In return, I hear him in English." 
 
 The natural consequences followed. In a few days we 
 read : " I have been scholaring all day, and mastering too; 
 for our lessons are mutual, and more entertaining than 
 can easily be conceived." Our novelist, in short, was 
 more romantic than any of her own creations : Evelina, 
 Cecilia, and Camilla were prosaic women compared with 
 Frances. On the verge of forty- one, she gave away her 
 heart to an admirer, suitable to her in age, indeed, but 
 possessing neither fortune, occupation, nor prospects of 
 any kind. Whatever property d'Arblay could claim, the 
 Convention had confiscated. Fanny herself had nothing 
 but the small annuity which she enjoyed during the 
 Queen's pleasure, and which might be discontinued if she 
 married this Roman Catholic alien. Such a match, in 
 any case, implied seclusion almost as complete as that 
 from which she had recently escaped. This was anything 
 but the issue that her father had been promised when he 
 was pressed to sanction her resignation. It is not sur- 
 prising, therefore, that he wrote her a remonstrance
 
 296 Marriage of Fanny Burncy. 
 
 stronger and more decided than he had been in the habit 
 of addressing to any of his children. But Dr. Burney 
 stood alone. The Lockes and Phillipses were as much 
 fascinated by their French neighbours as his enamoured 
 daughter. Susanna was in avowed league with the enemy. 
 Mr. Locke gave it as his opinion that two persons, with 
 one or more babies, might very well subsist on a hundred 
 a year. Thus assailed by opposing influences, Fanny went 
 to deliberate in solitude at Chesington, and sauntered 
 about the lanes where she had planned ' Cecilia,' wonder- 
 ing if the Muse would ever visit her again. The General's 
 pursuing letters convinced her that his grief at her hesita- 
 tion was sincere and profound. He made a pilgrimage to 
 see her, which vouched his devotion, and gained him the 
 support of her simple hostesses, Mrs. Hamilton and 
 Kitty Cooke, who wept at his tale of misfortunes, and 
 learned for the first time what was meant by the French 
 Revolution. Finally, through the mediation of his favourite 
 Susanna, Dr. Burney was persuaded to give way and send 
 a reluctant consent. The wedding took place on the 
 31st of July, 1793, in Mickleham Church, in the presence 
 of Mr. and Mrs. Locke, Captain and Mrs. Phillips, M. dc 
 Narbonne, and Captain Burney, who acted as proxy for 
 his father. On the following day, the ceremony was 
 repeated at the Sardinian Chapel in Lincoln's Inn Fields, 
 according to the rites of the Romish Church. 
 
 The marriage proved eminently happy. Dr. Burney,. 
 though he shrank from giving away the bride, was a 
 respecter of accomplished facts, and soon became on 
 excellent terms with his new son-in-law. The late im.- 
 petuous lovers proceeded to translate their romance into 
 the most sober prose. Love in a cottage had been the 
 goal of their ambition. Mr. Locke had promised a site 
 for the cottage ; but as funds for building it were not
 
 The General as Gardener. 297 
 
 immediately forthcoming, the pair went first into farm 
 lodgings, afterwards into a hired house of two or three 
 rooms at Bookham, within two miles of Mickleham and 
 Norbury Park. D'Arblay, a man of real honour, would 
 have left his wife, almost in their honeymoon, to fight for 
 Louis XVII. at Toulon; but his offer of service was 
 declined by the English Government, and thenceforth the 
 General resigned himself to wait for better times. Like a 
 sensible man, il cultivait son jardin. Like a man of sense, 
 but not like a good husbandman. His wife, who, not- 
 withstanding her happiness, seems to have lost her sense 
 of humour very soon after matrimony, enjoyed one of 
 her last hearty laughs at the expense of her lord : 
 
 "This sort of work is so totally new to him, that he 
 receives every now and then some of poor Merlin's* 
 'disagreeable compliments'; for when Mr. Locke's or 
 the Captain's gardeners favour our grounds with a visit, 
 they commonly make known that all has been done 
 wrong. Seeds are sowing in some parts when plants 
 ought to be reaping, and plants are running to seed while 
 they are thought not yet at maturity. Our garden, there- 
 fore, is not yet quite the most profitable thing in the 
 world; but M. d'A. assures me it is to be the staff of our 
 table and existence. 
 
 " A little, too, he has been unfortunate ; for, after im- 
 mense toil in planting and transplanting strawberries 
 round our hedge here at Bookham, he has just been 
 informed they will bear no fruit the first year, and the 
 second we may be ' over the hills and far away,' 
 
 " Another time, too, with great labour, he cleared a 
 considerable compartment of weeds ; and when it looked 
 clean and well, and he showed his work to the gardener, 
 the man said he had demolished an asparagus bed 1 
 
 * A French inventor whom Fanny had met at Streatham.
 
 298 Madame cTArblay Resumes her Pen. 
 
 ]\I. d'A. protested, however, nothing could look more like 
 des inaiivaiscs hcrbes. 
 
 " His greatest passion is for transplanting. Everything 
 we possess he moves from one end of the garden to 
 another to produce better effects. Roses take place of 
 jessamines, jessamines of honeysuckles, and honeysuckles 
 of lilacs, till they have all danced round as far as the 
 space allows ; but whether the effect may not be a 
 general mortality, summer only can determine. 
 
 " Such is our horticultural histor}-. But I must not 
 omit that we have had for one week cabbages from our 
 own cultivation everyday! Oh, you have no idea how 
 sweet they tasted ! We agreed they had a freshness and 
 a goilt we had never met with before. We had them for 
 too short a time to grow tired of them, because, as I 
 have already hinted, they were beginning to run to seed 
 before we knew they were eatable." 
 
 While the General was gardening, Madame plied her 
 pen, using it once more, after the lapse of a dozen years, 
 with a definite purpose of publication. Her first com- 
 position was for a charitable object. It was an address 
 to the ladies of England on behalf of the emigrant 
 French clergy, who, to the number of 6,ooo; were suffer- 
 ing terrible distress all over the country. This short 
 paper is an early example of the stilted rhetoric which 
 gradually ruined its author's style. Some months later 
 we hear of a more important work being in progress. 
 This tale, eventually published under the title of ' Camilla,' 
 w^as commenced in the summer of 1794, though it did 
 not see the light till Jul}-, 1796. 
 
 A son, their only child, was born on December 18, 1794, 
 and was baptized Alexander Charles Louis Piochard, re- 
 ceiving the name of his father, with those of his two god- 
 fathers, Dr. Charles Burney the younger, and the Count 
 de Narbonne.
 
 Bdzuy and Elgiva. 299 
 
 An illness, which retarded the mother's recovery, in- 
 terrupted the progress of her novel, and perhaps counted 
 for something in the failure of the traged}' with which, as 
 we mentioned before, she tempted fortune on the stage. 
 * Edwy and Elgiva ' — so this drama w^as called — was pro- 
 duced at Drury Lane on March 21, 1795. It says much 
 for the author's repute that John Kemble warmly recom- 
 mended her work to Sheridan, who seems to have ac- 
 cepted it without hesitation or criticism. The principal 
 characters were undertaken by Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. 
 At the close of the performance, it was announced that 
 the piece was withdrawn for alterations. There was a 
 little complaint that several of the actors were careless 
 and unprepared ; but, on the whole, Madame d'Arblay 
 bore her defeat with excellent temper. She consoled 
 herself with the thought that her play had not been 
 written for the theatre, nor even revised for the press ; 
 that the manuscript had been obtained from her during 
 her confinement ; and that she had been prevented by ill- 
 health from attending rehearsals, and in -'king the changes 
 which, on the night of representation, even her unpro- 
 fessional judgment perceived to be essential. Yet it is 
 difficult to imagine that a tragedy by the author of 
 ' Evelina ' could, under any circumstances, have been 
 successful ; and we are more surprised that Sheridan was 
 so complaisant than that Dr. Burney had always shrugged 
 his shoulders when the Saxon drama was mentioned in 
 his hearing. 
 
 Three years sooner the dramatist would have felt her 
 personal mishap more keenly, as she would have welcomed 
 with far livelier pleasure an event of a public nature which 
 occurred shortly afterwards. On April 23, £795, Warren 
 Hastings was triumphantly acquitted. The incident 
 hardly stirred her at all. vShc was now experiencing that
 
 300 Piiblishing Plans. 
 
 detachment which is the portion of ladies even of social 
 and literary tastes, when they have accomplished the 
 great function of womanhood. Her father writes her a 
 pleasant account of his London life, relating some charac- 
 teristic condolences which he had received from Cumber- 
 land on the fate of her pla}^ mentioning his own visit of 
 congratulation to Hastings, and chatting abcut the doings 
 at the Literary Club. The blissful mother replies in a 
 letter, dated from the ' Hermitage, Bookham,' which is 
 principally occupied with praises of rural retirement and 
 the intelligent infant, though it ends with some words 
 about the tragedy, and a postscript expressing satisfaction 
 at the acquittal. Not long before, Frances Burney had 
 repined at living in what she rather inaptly called a 
 monastery : Frances d'Arblay is more than content with 
 tl:e company of her gardener and their little * perennial 
 plant.' At her marriage, she had counted on having the 
 constant society of Susanna and her Captain, as well as 
 the Lockes ; but in June, 1795, the Phillipses remove to 
 town, and are not missed. The Bambino not only sup- 
 plied all gaps, but made his willing slave work as hard at 
 ' Camilla ' as, long years before, she had worked at 
 * Cecilia ' under the jealous eye of her Chesington 
 daddy. 
 
 She was now as keen as Crisp would have had her be 
 in calculating how she could make most money by her 
 pen. ' I determined,' she says, * when I changed my 
 state, to set aside all my innate and original abhorrenccs, 
 and to regard and use as resources myself what had 
 always been considered as such by others. Without this 
 idea and this resolution, our hermitage must have been 
 madness.' She had formerly objected to a plan, suggested 
 for her by Burke, of publishing by subscription, with the 
 aid of ladies, instead of booksellers, to keep lists and
 
 The Subscription List. 301 
 
 receive names of subscribers. She determined to adopt 
 this plan in bringing out ' Camilla.' The Dowager 
 Duchess of Leinster, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Crewe, and 
 Mrs. Locke, gave her the required assistance. In issuing 
 her proposals, she was careful not to excite the prejudice 
 which still prevailed against works of fiction.* She re- 
 membered that the word novel had long stood in the wa)^ 
 of ' Cecilia ' at Windsor, and that the Princesses had 
 not been allowed to read it until it had been declared 
 innocent by a bishop. ' Camilla,' she warned her friends, 
 was ' not to be a romance, but sketches of characters 
 and morals put in action.' It was, therefore, announced 
 simply as ' a new work by the author of Evelina and 
 Cecilia.' The manuscript was completed by the end 
 of 1795 ; but, as in the case of * Cecilia,' six months 
 more elapsed before the day of publication arrived. 
 
 Meanwhile, the subscription-list filled up nobly. When 
 Warren Hastings heard what was going forward, we arc 
 told that "he gave a great jump, and exclaimed, 'Well, 
 then, now I can serve her, thank Heaven, and I will ! I 
 will write to Anderson to engage Scotland, and I will 
 attack the East Indies myself!'" Nor was Edmund 
 Burke less zealous than his old enemy. Protesting that 
 for personal friends the subscription ought to be five 
 guineas instead of one, he asked for but one copy of 
 ' Camilla ' in return for twenty guineas which he sent on 
 behalf of himself, his wife, his dead brother Richard, and 
 the son for whom he was in mourning. In the same 
 spirit, three Misses Thralc order ten sets of the book. 
 As we glance down the pages of the list, we meet with 
 
 * How strong this prejudice continued to be was shown not long afterwards 
 in a notable instance. Jane Austen's father offered her ' Pride and Prejudice ' 
 to Cadell on November i, 1797 ; the proposid was rejected by return of post, 
 without an inspection of the manuscript, thougli Mr. Austen was willing to 
 bear the risk of the publication.
 
 o 
 
 02 Intervieiu with the King and Queen. 
 
 most of the survivors of the old Blue Stockings, with 
 Airs. Carter, Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Montagu, and Hannah 
 Aloore. There, too, are many literary women of other 
 types : Anna Barbauld, Amelia Alderson, afterwards Mrs. 
 (3pie, Mary Berry, Maria Edgeworth, Sophia and 
 Harriet Lee.* There the incomparable Jane Austen, 
 then a girl of twenty, pays tribute to a passed mistress of 
 her future art. There also figure the names of many of 
 the writer's former colleagues in the royal household. 
 Even Mrs. Schwellenberg is on the list. Perhaps, as the 
 book was to be dedicated by permission to the Queen, 
 this was almost a matter of course. But the subscrip- 
 tion was, in fact, a testimonial to a general favourite from 
 hundreds of attached friends, some of whom cared little 
 for literature ; as well as from a crowd of distant admirers, 
 who regarded her as the most eminent female writer of 
 her time. 
 
 The first parcel of ' Camilla ; or, A Picture of Youth,' 
 reached Bookham on an early day in July, 1796 ; and 
 Madame d'Arblay at once set off for Windsor to present 
 copies to the King and Queen. Immediately on her 
 arrival, she was admitted to an audience of the Queen, 
 during which the King entered to receive his share of the 
 offering. The excellent monarch was in one of his most 
 interrogative moods, and particular]}^ curious to learn 
 who had corrected the proofs of the volumes before him. 
 His flattered subject confessed that she was her own 
 reader. * Why, some authors have told me,' cried 'le, 
 ' that they are the last to do that work for themselves ! 
 They know so well by heart what ought to be, that they 
 run on without seeing what is. They have told me, 
 besides, that a mere plodding head is best and surest for 
 that work, and that the livelier the imagination, the less 
 
 * Author of the ' Canterbury Tales.'
 
 A Covipliiiicut frcDi ihcir jMajcstics. 30 
 
 V? 
 
 it should be trusted to.' Madame had carried her 
 husband with her to Windsor. They were detained 
 there three days ; and, as Walpole remarks with some 
 emphasis, even M. d'Arblay was allowed to dine. Horace 
 means, of course, that the General, who had the Cross of 
 St. Louis, was invited to a place at Mdlle. Jacobi's table. 
 Just before dinner, Madame d'Arblay was called aside bv 
 her entertainer, and presented, in the name of their 
 Majesties, with a packet containing a hundred guineas, 
 as a ' compliment ' in acknowledgment of her dedication. 
 On the following day, the Chevalier and his wife 
 repaired to the Terrace. "The evening was so raw and 
 cold that there was very little compan}-, and scarce an\ 
 expectation of the Royal Family ; and when wo. had 
 been there about half an hour the musicians retreated, 
 and everybod}^ was preparing to follow, when a messenger 
 suddenly came forward, helter-skelter, running after the 
 horns and clarionets, and hallooing to them to return. 
 This brought back the straggling parties, and the King, 
 Duke of York, and six Princesses soon appeared .... 
 The King stopped to speak to the Bishop of Norwich* 
 and some others at the entrance, and then walked on 
 towards us, who were at the further end. As he ap- 
 proached, the Princess Royal said, ' Madame d'Arblay, 
 sir;' and instantly he came on a step, and then stopped 
 and addressed me, and after a word or two of the 
 weather, he said, ' Is that M. d'Arblay ?' and most 
 graciously bowed to him, and entered into a little con- 
 versation, demanding how long he had been in England, 
 how long in the country, etc. Upon the King's bowing 
 and leaving us, the Commander-in-Chief most courteously 
 bowed also to M. d'Arblay ; and the Princesses all came 
 
 * Dr. Manners Sutton, then also Dean of Windsor, and afterwards Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbuiy.
 
 304 Great Sale of ' Camilla^ 
 
 up to speak to me, and to curtsey to him, and the 
 Princess Elizabeth cried, ' I've got leave ! and mamma 
 says she won't wait to read it first !' " 
 
 The lively Princess, who was then twenty-six years of 
 age, and had been concerned in bringing out a poem 
 entitled the ' Birth of Love,' with engravings from 
 designs by herself, intended to communicate that she had 
 obtained permission to read 'Camilla,' though it had not 
 yet been examined by her mother. 
 
 The subscribers to the new novel exceeded eleven 
 hundred ; but the number of copies printed was four 
 thousand. Out of these onlv five hundred remained at 
 the end of three months — a rate of sale considerably 
 more rapid than that of * Cecilia ' had been. Macaulay 
 mentions a rumour that the author cleared more than 
 three thousand guineas by her work. This is not an 
 improbable account ; for Dr. Burney told Lord Orford 
 within the first six weeks that about two thousand pounds 
 had already been realized.* The material results were 
 astonishing ; yet ' Camilla ' could not be considered a 
 success. The ' Picture of Youth ' had neither the fresh- 
 ness of ' Evelina,' nor the mature power of * Cecilia.' It 
 was wanting alike in simplicity and polish. By disuse of 
 her art, the writer had lost touch with the public; by- 
 neglect of reading, she had gone back in literary culture. 
 Hence it was generally felt that the charm which she had 
 exercised was gone. The reviews were severe ; new 
 admirers appeared not ; old friends found their faith a 
 good deal tried. When the first demand was satisfied, 
 there seems to have been no call for a fresh edition, 
 though some years afterwards Miss Austen boldly coupledt 
 
 * Lord Orford to Miss Berry, Aug. 16, 1796. 
 
 t In ' Nortlianger Abbey,' which, though written in 1798, was not prepareJ 
 for the press till 1803.
 
 Criticisms on the Work, 305 
 
 * Camilla ' with * Cecilia ' as a ' work in which most 
 thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest 
 dehneation of its varieties, the Hvehest effusions of wit 
 and humour are conveyed to the world.' When its five 
 volumes were most sharply handled, brother Charles 
 could console the chagrined author with the distich : 
 
 'Now heed no more what critics tlicught 'em, 
 Since this you know, all people bought 'em.' 
 
 The composition of ' Camilla ' has been blamed for 
 the opposite faults of affectation and slovenliness. ' Every 
 passage,' says Macaulay, ' which the author meant to be 
 fine is detestable ; and the book has been saved from 
 condemnation only by the admirable spirit and force of 
 those scenes in which she was content to be familiar.' 
 Other censors have observed that, while the rhetoric is 
 inflated, the grammar is occasionally doubtful, and ths 
 diction sometimes barbarous. Now, it must be owned 
 that the ordinary vocabulary of the Burneys was not 
 remarkable for purity or elegance. In their talk and 
 intimate letters, both the father and the daughters ex- 
 pressed themselves in the most colloquial forms, not 
 seldom lapsing into downright slang. To give one in- 
 stance only, the atrocious vulgarism of ' an invite ' for 
 
 * an invitation ' occurs in several parts of the Diary. 
 When writing for the press, Dr. Burney guarded himself 
 by the adoption of a wholh' artificial style, that swelled, 
 from time to time, into tedious magniloquence. Fanny 
 was schooled for writing ' Cecilia ' by the critical discus- 
 sions of the Streatham circle, by much intercourse with 
 Johnson, and by some study of style — chiefly the style of 
 the ' Ramblers ' and ' Lives of the Poets.' Having 
 despatched her second novel, she ceased to be careful 
 about literary questions. This indifference increased after 
 her marriage. When describing the reception of ' Camilla ' 
 
 20
 
 3o6 Uladamc (f Ardiays Style. 
 
 at Windsor, 'the Queen,' she writes, 'talked of some 
 books and authors, but found me wholly in the clouds as 
 to all that is new.' Her husband, insensible, of course, 
 to the niceties of a foreign idiom, but apparently admiring 
 pompous phraseology, conceived a relish for Dr. Burney's 
 style ; and Madame, delighting to think her ' dear father ' 
 perfect, was pleased to place his English in the very first 
 class.* The eloquence of ' Camilla ' seems to mingle 
 faint Johnsonian echoes with the stilted movement of 
 the music-master's prose ; while too often the choice of 
 words is left to chance. A recent editor of the two 
 earlier novels has called attention to the numerous 
 ■vulgarities of expression, not put into vulgar mouths, 
 which occur in 'Camilla.' 'People " sii'oani the fields," 
 or have "a depressing /t'c/."' This editor suggests that 
 Miss Burney's five years at Court may have done much 
 to spoil her English, remarking that 'she lived at 
 Windsor among hybrids.' By ' hybrids ' we suppose we 
 are to understand equerries. But the equerries, if not 
 possessing great culture, were, at an}^ rate, gentlemen of 
 good position. If they used the incriminated phrases 
 why not also the personages of the novel ? We take it, 
 however, that ' to stream the fields ' is not a low phrase 
 acquired by Fanny at Court, but a provincialism which 
 she learned in her native county, where the verb to 
 "* stream,' or to * strome,' was certainly in use a hundred 
 ^■ears ago,*j* and is, we are assured, familiarly employed at 
 the present day. We believe that I^.Iadame d'Arblay's 
 English was ruined, not by associating with Colonel 
 Digby, or even Colonel Manners, but by neglect of 
 reading, by retirement from lettered society, by fading 
 recollections of Johnson, by untoward family influences, 
 and by a strong hereditary tendency to run into fustian. 
 
 * Diary, iv. 3. + Forby's ' Vocabuluy of East Anglia,' p. 330.
 
 Comedy of ' Love and Fashion! 307 
 
 In October, 1796, Dr. Burney lost his second wife, who, 
 after a prolonged period of ill-health, died at Chelsea 
 Hospital. To prevent him from brooding over his 
 bereavement, INIadame d'Arblay induced her father to 
 resume a poetical history of astronomy which he had 
 begun some time before. This occupation amused him 
 for some time, though in the end the poem, which ran to 
 a great length, was destroyed unfinished. 
 
 Out of the profits made by his wife's publication, M. 
 <rArblay built a small house on land leased to him by Mr. 
 Locke at West Humble, near Dorking, and called it 
 Camilla Cottage. If a family, as well as a nation, is 
 happy that has no histor}-, we must conclude that the 
 d'Arblays lived very much at ease for some 3'ears after 
 their removal to their new abode. When the excitement 
 of planning, building, and taking possession is exhausted, 
 Madame's pen finds little to record, beyond the details of 
 -occasional interviews with the Queen and Princesses at 
 Buckingham House. She wisely declines a proposal of 
 j\Irs. Crewe to make her directress of a weekly paper, 
 Avhich was to have been started, under the name of The 
 Breakfast -Table, to combat the progress of Jacobinical 
 ideas. Later on she abandons unwillingly a venture of a 
 different kind. Still thirsting, for dramatic success, she 
 had written a comedy called ' Love and Fashion ;' and 
 towards the close of 1799 was congratulating herself on 
 having it accepted by the manager of Covent Garden 
 Theatre.'"" The piece was put into rehearsal early in the 
 following spring; but Dr. Burney was seized with such 
 dread of another failure, that, to appease him, his 
 daughter and her husband consented to its being with- 
 drawn. The compliance cost some effort : Fanny com- 
 
 * According to her b'.ographcr, the manager had promised her ;^400 for the 
 Tight of rcpicsciitalion. 
 
 20—2
 
 3oS Straitened Circiinistances. 
 
 plained that she was treated as if she ' had been guilty 
 of a crime, in doing what she had all her life been urged 
 to, and all her life intended — writing a comedy.' ' The 
 combinations,' she added, ' for another long work did 
 not occur to me : incidents and effects for a drama 
 did.' 
 
 This was only a transient disappointment. In the first 
 days of 1800 came a lasting sorrow, in the loss of Mrs. 
 Phillips, who, since the autumn of 1796, had been living 
 with her husband in Ireland, and who died immediately 
 after landing in England on her way to visit her father.* 
 But, except by this grief, the peace of Camilla Cottage 
 was never interrupted so long as the husband and wife 
 remained together. In her old age, Madame d'Arblay 
 looked back to the first eight years of her married life as 
 to a period of unruffled happiness. 
 
 Then occurred a crisis. The d'Arblays had borne 
 poverty cheerfully, even joyfully, so long as any stretch 
 of economy would enable them to keep within their 
 income. The cost of living and the burden of taxation 
 had begun to increase almost from the day of their 
 marriage. One of the motives for bringing out ' Camilla '^ 
 was the rise of prices, which had doubled within the 
 preceding eighteen months. Hardly was Camilla Cottage 
 occupied, when an addition to the window-tax compelled 
 the owners to block up four of their new windows. The 
 expense of building so much exceeded calculation that, 
 after all bills were settled, the balance remaining from the 
 foundress's three thousand guineas produced only a few 
 pounds of annual interest. In the spring of 1800, we read 
 that the gardener has planted potatoes on every spot where 
 they can grow, on account of the dreadful price of pro- 
 
 * Her dealh took place on January 6, iSco; she was buried in Neston 
 churchyard, where Dr. Burney placed an epitaph to her memory.
 
 The d'Arblays in Paris. 309 
 
 visions. Towards the close of 1801, it is admitted that for 
 some time previously they had been encroaching on their 
 little capital, which was then nearly exhausted. As soon, 
 therefore, as the preliminaries of peace were signed. 
 ]\I. d'Arblay determined to remove his family to France, 
 hoping to recover something from the wreck of his 
 fortune, and to obtain from the First Consul some allow- 
 ance for half-pay as a retired officer. Crossing the Channel 
 alone, in the first instance, the General involved himself 
 in a double difficulty : he failed with the French Govern- 
 ment by stipulating that he should not be required to 
 serve against his wife's country, while he had cut off his 
 retreat by pledging himself at the English Alien Office 
 not to return within a year. In this dilemma, he wrote 
 to his wife to join him in Paris with their child. Madame 
 d'Arblay obeyed the summons, amidst the anxious fore- 
 bodings of her father, but with the full approval of the 
 Queen, who granted her a farewell audience, admitting 
 that she was bound to follow her husband. 
 
 Dr. Burney's fears were more than justified by the 
 event. His daughter left Dover a few days after the 
 treaty was signed at Amiens. When she reached Paris, 
 she found the city rejoicing at the conclusion of the war, 
 yet worshipping Bonaparte, whose temper and attitude 
 showed that the peace could not last. A reception by 
 the First Consul, followed by a review, both of which 
 Madame d'Arblay witnessed from an ante-chamber in the 
 Tuileries, afforded striking evidence of the military spirit 
 which animated everything : 
 
 " The scene, with regard to all that was present, was 
 splendidly gay and highly animating. The room was 
 full, but not crowded, with officers of rank in sumptuous 
 rather than rich uniforms, and exhibiting a martial air
 
 o 
 
 lo A Reception at the Tuikyics. 
 
 that became their attire, which, however, generally speak- 
 ing, was too gorgeous to be noble. 
 
 " Our window was that next to the consular apartment, 
 in which Bonaparte was holding a levee, and it was close 
 to the steps ascending to it ; by which means we saw all 
 the forms of the various exits and entrances, and had 
 opportunity to examine every dress and every countenance 
 that passed and repassed. This was highly amusing, I 
 might say historic, where the past history and the present 
 office were known. 
 
 " Sundry footmen of the First Consul, in very fine 
 liveries, were attending to bring or arrange chairs for 
 whoever required them ; various peace-officers, superbh" 
 begilt, paraded occasionally up and down the chamber, to 
 keep the ladies to their windows and the gentlemen to 
 their ranks, so as to preserve the passage or lane, through 
 which the First Consul was to walk upon his entrance, 
 clear and open ; and several gentlemanlike-looking persons, 
 whom in former times I should have supposed pages of 
 the back-stairs, dressed in black, with gold chains hang- 
 ing round their necks, and medallions pending from them, 
 seemed to have the charge of the door itself, leading 
 immediately to the audience chamber of the First Consul. 
 
 *' But what was most prominent in commanding notice, 
 was the array of the aides-de-camp of Bonaparte, which 
 was so almost furiously striking, that all other vestments, 
 even the most gaudy, appeared suddenly under a gloomy 
 cloud when contrasted with its brightness .... 
 
 '&' 
 
 " The last object for whom the way was cleared was the 
 Second Consul, Cambaceres, who advanced with a stately 
 and solemn pace, slow, regular, and consequential; dressed 
 richly in scarlet and gold, and never looking to the right 
 or left, but wearing a mien of fixed gravity and import-
 
 Napoleon Bonaparte. 3 
 
 ir 
 
 ance. He had several persons in his suite, who, I think, 
 but am not sure, were ministers of state. 
 
 "At length the two human hedges were finally formed, 
 the door of the audience chamber was thrown wide open 
 with a commanding crash, and a vivacious oflicer — 
 sentinel — or I know not what, nimbly descended the 
 three steps into our apartment, and placing himself at 
 the side of the door, with one hand spread as high as 
 possible above his head, and the other extended hori- 
 zontally, called out in a loud and authoritative voice, 
 * Le Premier Consul !' 
 
 " You will easily believe nothing more was necessary tO' 
 obtain attention ; not a soul either spoke or stirred as he 
 and his suite passed along, which was so quickly that, had 
 I not been placed so near the door, and had not all about 
 me facilitated my standing foremost, and being least 
 crowd-obstructed, I could hardly have seen him. As it 
 was, I had a view so near, though so brief, of his face, as 
 to be very much struck by it. It is of a deeply impressive 
 cast, pale even to sallowness, while not only in the eye, 
 but in every feature — care, thought, melancholy, and 
 meditation are strongly marked, with so much of cha- 
 racter, nay, genius, and so penetrating a seriousness, or 
 rather sadness, as powcrfull}' to sink into an observer's. 
 mind. . . . 
 
 "The review I shall attempt no description of. I have 
 no knowledge of the subject, and no fondness iox its 
 object. It was far more superb than anything I had ever 
 beheld ; but while all the pomp and circumstance of war 
 animated others, it only saddened me ; and all of past 
 reflection, all of future dread, made the whole grandeur 
 of the martial scene, and all the delusive seduction of 
 martial music, fill my eyes frequently with tears, but not 
 regale my poor muscles with one single smile.
 
 o 
 
 12 Life at Passy. 
 
 " Bonaparte, mounting a beautiful and spirited white 
 horse, closely encircled by his glittering aides-de-camp, 
 and accompanied by his generals, rode round the ranks, 
 holding his bridle indifferently in either hand, and seem- 
 ing utterly careless of the prancing, rearing, or other 
 freaks of his horse, insomuch as to strike some who were 
 near me with a notion of his being a bad horseman." 
 
 '& 
 
 Having introduced his wife to old friends in Paris, and 
 paid a visit with her to his relations at Joigny, the General 
 settled his family in a small house at Passy. Instead of 
 being seen at Chelsea again within eighteen months, as 
 her father had been led to expect, she was detained in 
 France more than ten years. From the moment when 
 Lord Whitworth quitted Paris in May, 1803, her oppor- 
 tunities of communicating with England were few and far 
 between. All remittances thence, including her annuity, 
 ended with the peace. The claims to property on which 
 her husband had built proved delusive. Apparently they 
 would have been without means of any kind, but that, 
 just as war was declared, the influence of General Lauris- 
 ton procured for his old comrade the rctraitc, or retiring 
 allowance, for which the latter had been petitioning. Yet 
 this only amounted to £^2 los. yearly, so that the luckless 
 pair would have been far better off in their cottage at 
 West Humble. Moreover, the receipt of half-pay made 
 it impossible for them to risk any attempt at escape while 
 the war continued. At length, in 1805, M. d'Arblay ob- 
 tained employment in the Civil Department of the Office 
 of Public Buildings. He became, in fact, a Government 
 clerk, plodding daily between his desk and a poorly- 
 furnished home at suburban Passy. He seems to have 
 been eventually promoted to the rank of sous-chef in his 
 department.
 
 Diffic2Llty of Correspondence. ^•^ i 
 
 o 
 
 We learn, however, from the scanty notices belonguig 
 to this period, that the Chevaher was treated with con- 
 sideration by the heads of his office, and that he and 
 Madame kept their footing in Parisian society. ' The 
 society in which I mix,' writes the lad}^ ' when I can 
 prevail with myself to quit my yet dearer fireside, is all 
 that can be wished, whether for wit, wisdom, intelligence, 
 gaiety, or politeness.' She would resume, she adds, her 
 old descriptions if she could onh' write more frequently, 
 or with more security that she was not writing to the 
 winds and the waves. Her N\orst distress was the rarity 
 with which letters could be despatched, or travel either 
 way, with an3'thing like safety. At another time she tells 
 her father : ' I have never heard whether the last six letters 
 f have written have as yet been received. Two of them 
 were antiques that had waited three or four years some 
 opportunity .... the two last were to reach you through 
 a voyage by America.' The very letter in which this is said 
 lost its chance of being sent, and was not finished till a 
 year later. Dr. Burney, in his fear of a miscarriage, 
 finally gave up writing, and charged his family and friends 
 to follow his example. Fanny had nothing to regret in 
 her husband, except his being overworked and in poor 
 health : her heart shrank from leaving him ; 3'et her 
 longing for England increased from year to year. Her 
 visionary castles, she said, were not in the air, but on the 
 sea. 
 
 In 1810 she had prepared everything for flight, when 
 fresh rigours of the police obliged her to relinquish her 
 design. In 1811 she had a dangerous illness, and was 
 operated upon by the famous surgeon, Baron de Larrey, 
 for a supposed cancer. In the summer of 1812, when 
 Napoleon had set out on his Russian campaign, she 
 obtained a passport for America, took ship with her
 
 314 Madame d' Arblay Sails from Dunkirk. 
 
 son at Dunkirk, and landed at Deal. During the interval 
 between her first and second attempts at crossing, all 
 correspondence with England was prohibited on pain of 
 death. One letter alone reached her, announcing in brief 
 terms the death of the Princess Ameha, the renewed and 
 hopeless derangement of the King, and the death of Mr. 
 Locke.
 
 CHAPTER XTII. 
 
 Madame d'Aihlny's Plans for her Son — Landing in England— Arrival at 
 Chelsea — Sadilening Change in Ur. Eurnev — Alexander d'Arblay at Cmi- 
 bridge — Publication of the 'Wanderer' — Death of Dr. Burney — Maiianu; 
 d'Arhlay presented to Louis XX'III. — M. d'Arblay appointed to the Corps 
 de (ianies du Roi — Arrives in England and Carries Madame back to Franct- 
 — ^L'ldamc d'Arblay presented to the Duchess d'Angouleme — I'he Hundred 
 Days— Panic at Brussels — M. d'Arblav invalided — Settles in England — Ilis 
 Death — Remaining Days of Madame d'Arblay — Visit from Sir Walter Scolt 
 — '1 he Memo.rs of Dr. ISurney — Tributes to their Value — Death of Alexander 
 d'Arblay — Death of Madame d'Arblay — Conclusion. 
 
 Madame d'Arblay had other reasons for wishing to 
 return to England besides the mere desire to see her 
 lather and kindred. The longer her only child remained 
 in France, the greater risk he ran of being caught b}- the 
 conscription, which continually increased its demands. 
 The young Alexander was now of an age to be prepared 
 for a profession, and it cannot be doubted that his mother 
 was anxious to make provision for this purpose. Before 
 leaving Paris, she had begun a treaty in London for the 
 publication of her fourth story. Through what channel 
 this was done we do not learn, but as early as December, 
 t8ii, Lord Byron* had heard tiiat a thousand guineas 
 were being asked for a new novel by Madame d'Arblay. 
 She brought the manuscript over with her in a half- 
 finished state. 
 
 The travellers did not escape the perils of the time, 
 though happily they were taken prisoners by their own 
 
 * Moore's 'Life of Byron,' Letters 7S, 80.
 
 o 
 
 1 6 Saddening Change in Dr. Barney. 
 
 countrymen. They and several others had engaged berths 
 on board an American vessel, the astute captain of which 
 delayed his departure so long, in order to obtain more 
 passengers, that when at length he entered British waters, 
 he found himself a prize to the coastguard, news having 
 just arrived that the United States had declared war 
 against England. 
 
 It was the middle of August when mother and son 
 found themselves again on English ground. ' I can hardly 
 believe it,' writes the former to her sister Charlotte, now 
 Mrs. Broome ; ' I look around me in constant inquiry 
 and doubt ; I speak French to ever}' soul, and I whisper 
 still if I utter a word that breathes private opinion.' She 
 goes on to describe her meeting with her father : ' I found 
 him in his library by himself — but, oh ! my dearest, very 
 much altered indeed — weak, weak and changed — his head 
 almost always hanging down, and his hearing most cruelly 
 impaired. I was terribly affected, but most grateful to 
 God for my arrival.' During the separation. Dr. Burncy 
 had not been unfortunate until the infirmities of age 
 overcame him : the pension which he ought to have 
 received from Mr. Pitt had been procured for him by Mr. 
 Fox. He had been happil}- employed in writing for Rees's 
 Encyclopaedia ; had received flattering notice from the 
 Prince of Wales ; had heard his Royal Highness quote 
 Hom_er in Greek and imitate Dr. Parr's lisp, and talked 
 familiarly with him at the opera ; had been a courted guest 
 in many great houses ; and had enjoyed the meetings of the 
 Club till his sight and hearing both began to fail. When 
 he could no longer go abroad, he spent most of his time 
 in reading in his bedroom. ISIadame d'Arblay employed 
 herself during this visit to England in nursing her father 
 in his last days, in settling her son at Cambridge, and in 
 bringing out her new book.
 
 Death of Dr. Bnrncy; 3 1 7 
 
 Having obtained the Tancred scholarship, Alexander 
 d'Arblay commenced residence at Christ's College, Cam- 
 bridge, in October, 1813. He eventually graduated as 
 tenth Wrangler, and became Fellow of his college. 
 ' But,' says Macaulay, who had mixed with his fellow- 
 students, ' his reputation at the University was higher 
 than might be inferred from his success in academical 
 contests. His French education had not fitted him for 
 the examinations of the Senate House ;- but in pure 
 mathematics we have been assured by some of his com- 
 petitors that he had very few equals.' 
 
 ' The Wanderer ; or. Female Difficulties ' appeared in 
 the beginning of 1814. Notwithstanding the falling-off 
 which had been observed in 'Camilla,' the whole edition of 
 the new work was bespoken before it was published. In 
 six months, 3,600 copies were sold at two guineas a copy. 
 But it may be doubted whether the most conscientious 
 reader persevered to the end of the fifth volume. Ten 
 years of exile had destroyed all trace of the qualities 
 which made 'Evelina' popular. 
 
 Dr. Burney lived to his eighty-eighth birthday, and died 
 at Chelsea on the 12th of April, 1814, in the presence of 
 his recovered daughter, who had tended his last hours. 
 A tablet to his memory, bearing an inscription from 
 her pen, was placed in Westminster Abbe}-. 
 
 A few days after his death, Madame d'Arblay was pre- 
 sented to Louis XVni. By desire of Queen Charlotte, 
 she attended a reception held by the restored King in 
 London on the day preceding his departure for France. 
 Her sovereign — for it must be remembered that she was 
 now a French subject — paid her the most courteous 
 
 * He had studied mathematics in Paris according to the analytical method 
 instead of the geometrical, which was at that time exclusively taught at 
 Cambridge.
 
 3 1 S The Hundred Days. 
 
 attention. Addressing her ' in very pretty English,' he 
 told her that he had known her long, for he had been 
 charmed with her books, and ' read them very often.' He 
 bade her farewell in French, with the words ' Bonjour, 
 Madame la Comtesse.' 
 
 M. d'Arblay had no further reason to complain of 
 Bourbon ingratitude. Within a few weeks he received a 
 commission in the King's Corps de Gardes, and soon 
 afterwards he was restored to his former rank of Marechal 
 de Camp. He obtained leave of absence towards the 
 close of the year, and came to England for a few weeks ; 
 after which Madame d'Arblay returned with him to Paris, 
 leaving their son to pursue his studies at Cambridge. 
 
 In the early wrecks of 1815, Madame d'Arblay was 
 admitted to an audience of the Duchesse d'Angouleme, 
 the King's niece ; close on which followed the return of 
 Bonaparte from Elba, and the Hundred Days. Neither the 
 •General nor his wife seems to have felt any alarm till the 
 Corsican reached Lyons. Then a passport was obtained 
 for ]\Iadame, that she might be able to leave France in 
 case of need, while her husband remained fixed to his 
 post in the capital. In the night between the igth and 
 20th of March, after the King had left Paris, and not 
 many hours before Napoleon entered it, Madame d'Arblay 
 took her departure, accompanied by the Princesse d'Henin. 
 After many difficulties and misadventures, the fugitives 
 reached Brussels. In that city Madame d'Arblay was 
 presently joined by her husband, who had followed 
 Louis XVIII. to Ghent with the rest of the royal body- 
 guard. She remained in Brussels till the close of the 
 campaign, and for some weeks longer. At a later date 
 she wrote from memory a narrative of what befell her 
 during this period. It includes a description of the scenes 
 that occurred in the Belgian capital while the armies were
 
 Panic at Brussels. 319 
 
 facing each other within cannon-sound of its streets. The 
 account is graphic, though too diffuse to be quoted at 
 length ; evidently it furnished Thackeray with much of the 
 material for the famous chapters in ' Vanity Fair.' We 
 give some abridged extracts : 
 
 " What a day of confusion and alarm did we all spend 
 on the 17th ! . . . That day, and June i8th, I passed in 
 hearing the cannon ! Good Heaven ! what indescribable 
 horror to be so near the field of slaughter ! such I call it, 
 for the preparation to the ear by the tremendous sound 
 was soon followed by its fullest effect, in the view of the 
 wounded. . . . And hardl}' more afflicting was this dis- 
 abled return from the battle, than the sight of the con- 
 tinually pouring forth victims that marched past my 
 windows to meet similar destruction 
 
 " Accounts from the field of battle arrived hourly ; 
 sometimes directly from the Duke of Wellington to Ladv 
 Charlotte Greville, and to som.e other ladies who had 
 near relations in the combat, and which, by their means, 
 were circulated in Brussels ; and in other times from 
 such as conveyed those amongst the wounded Belgians, 
 whose misfortunes w'ere inflicted near enough to the 
 skirts cf the spots of action, to allow of their bein"- 
 dragged away by their hovering countrymen to the city. . . . 
 
 " During this period, I spent my whole time in seeking 
 intelligence. . . . 
 
 " Ten times, at least, I crossed over to Madame 
 d'Henin, discussing plans and probabilities, and inter- 
 changing hopes and fears. . . . • 
 
 " Madame d'Henin and Madame de la Tour du Pin 
 projected retreating to Gand, should the approach of the 
 enemy be unchecked ; to avail themselves of such protec- 
 tion as might be obtained from seeking it under the wing
 
 320 Living in the Streets. 
 
 of Louis XVIII, M. de la Tour du Pin had, I believe, 
 remained there with his Majesty. 
 
 " M. de Lally and the Boyds inclined to Antwerp, 
 where they might safely await the fate of Brussels, near 
 enough for returning, should it weather the storm, 5'et 
 within reach of vessels to waft them to the British shores 
 should it be lost. 
 
 " Should this last be the fatal termination, I, of course 
 had agreed to join the party of the voyage, and resolved 
 to secure m}' passport, that, while I waited to the last 
 mom.ent, I might yet be prepared for a hasty retreat. 
 
 " I applied for a passport to Colonel Jones, to whom 
 the Duke of Wellington had deputed the military com- 
 mand of Brussels in his absence ; but he was unwilling 
 to sanction an evacuation of Brussels, which he deemed 
 premature. It was not, he said, for vs, the English, to 
 spread alarm, or prepare for an overthrow : he had not 
 sent away his own wife or children, and he had no doubt 
 but victory would repay his confidence. . . . 
 
 " I found upon again going my rounds for information, 
 that though news was arriving incessantly from the scene 
 of action, and with details always varying, Bonaparte 
 was always advancing. All the people of Brussels lived 
 in the streets. Doors seemed of no use, for they were 
 never shut. The individuals, when they re-entered their 
 houses, only resided at the windows : so that the whole 
 population of the city seemed constantly in public view. 
 Not only business as well as society was annihilated, but 
 even every species of occupation. All of which we 
 seemed capable was, to inquire or to relate, to speak or 
 to hear. Yet no clamour, no wrangling, nor even debate 
 was intermixed with either question or answer ; curiosity, 
 though incessant, was serene ; the faces were all mono- 
 tonv, though the tidings were all variety. I could attri-
 
 The FlicrJit from Brussels. 3 2 i 
 
 bute this only to the length of time during which the 
 inhabitants had been habituated to change both of 
 masters and measures, and to their finding that, upon an 
 average, they neither lost nor gained by such successive 
 revolutions .... 
 
 "But what a day was the next — June iSth — the greatest, 
 perhaps, in its results, in the annals of Great Britain ! . . . 
 
 *' I was calmly reposing, when I was awakened by the 
 sound of feet abruptly entering my drawing-room. I 
 started, and had but just time to see by my watch that 
 it was only six o'clock, when a rapping at my bedroom 
 door . . . made me slip on a long kind of domino, . . . and 
 demand what was the matter. " Open your door ! there 
 is not a moment to lose !" was the answer, in the voice of 
 Miss Ann Boyd. I obeyed, in great alarm, and saw that 
 pretty and pleasing young woman, with her mother, Mrs. 
 Boyd. . . . They both eagerly told me that all their new 
 hopes had been overthrown by better authenticated news, 
 and that I must be with them by eight o'clock, to proceed 
 to the wharf, and set sail for Antwerp, whence we must 
 sail on for England, should the taking of Brussels by 
 Bonaparte endanger Antwerp also. . . . 
 
 " My host and my maid carried my small package, and 
 I arrived before eight in the Rue d'Assault. We set off 
 for the wharf on foot, not a fiacre or chaise being pro- 
 curable. Mr. and Mrs. Boyd, five or six of their famil}-, 
 a governess, and I believe some servants, with bearers of 
 our baggage, made our party. . . . When we had got about 
 a third part of the way, a heavy rumbling sound made us 
 stop to listen. It was approaching nearer and nearer, 
 and we soon found that we were followed by innumerable 
 carriages, and a multitude of persons. . . . 
 
 " Arrived at the wharf, Mr. Boyd pointed out to us our 
 barge, which seemed fully ready for departure ; but the 
 
 21
 
 322 Contrad7cfo7y Rnviotu^s. 
 
 crowd, already come and still coming, so incommoded us, 
 that Mr. Boyd desired we would enter a large inn, and 
 wait till he could speak with the master, and arrange our 
 luggage and places. We went, therefore, into a spacious 
 room and ordered breakfast, when the room was entered 
 by a body of military men of all sorts ; but we were 
 suffered to keep our ground till Mr. Boyd came to inform 
 us that we must all decamp ! . . . 
 
 " He conducted us not to the barge, not to the wharf, 
 but to the road back to Brussels ; telling us, in an accent 
 of depression, that he feared all was lost — that Bonaparte 
 was advancing — that his point was decidedly Brussels — 
 and that the Duke of Wellington had sent orders that all 
 the magazines, the artillery, and the warlike stores of 
 every description, and all the wounded, the maimed, and 
 the sick, should be immediately removed to Antwerp. 
 For this purpose he had issued directions that every 
 barge, every boat, should be seized for the use of the 
 army ; and that everything of value should be conveyed 
 away, the hospitals emptied, and Brussels evacuated. 
 
 " If this intelligence filled us with the most fearful 
 alarm, how much more affrighting still was the sound of 
 cannon which next assailed our ears ! The dread rever- 
 beration became louder and louder as we proceeded. . . . 
 
 " Yet, strange to relate ! on re-entering the city, all 
 seemed quiet and tranquil as usual ! and though it was in 
 this imminent and immediate danger of being invested, 
 and perhaps pillaged, I saw no outward mark of distress 
 or disturbance, or even of hurry or curiosity. 
 
 " Having re-lodged us in the Rue d'Assault, Mr. Boyd 
 tried to find some land carriage for our removal. But 
 not only every chaise had been taken, and every diligence 
 secured ; the cabriolets, the caleches, nay, the waggons 
 and the carts, and every species of caravan, had been
 
 A Prisoner of War. 323 
 
 seized for military service. And, after the utmost efforts 
 he could make, in every kind of way, he told us we must 
 wait the chances of the day, for that there was no pos- 
 sibility of escape from Brussels, either by land or 
 water. . . . 
 
 " I was seated at my bureau and writing, when a loud 
 ' hurrah !' reached my ears from some distance, while the 
 daughter of my host, a girl of about eighteen, gently 
 opening my door, said the fortune of the day had 
 suddenly turned, and that Bonaparte was taken prisoner. 
 
 "At the same time the ' hurrah !' came nearer. I flew 
 to the window; my host and hostess came also, crying, 
 ' Bonaparte est pris ! le voild ! U voila r 
 
 " I then saw, on a noble war-horse in full equipment, a 
 general in the splendid uniform of France ; but visibly 
 disarmed, and, to all appearance, tied to his horse, or, at 
 least, held on, so as to disable him from making any 
 effort to gallop it off, and surrounded, preceded, and 
 followed by a crew of roaring wretches, who seemed 
 eager for the moment when he should be lodged where 
 they had orders to conduct him, that they might unhorse, 
 strip, pillage him, and divide the spoil. 
 
 " His high, feathered, glittering helmet he had pressed 
 down as low as he could on his forehead, and I could not 
 discern his face ; but I was instantly certain he was not 
 Bonaparte, on finding the whole commotion produced by 
 the rifling crew above-mentioned, which, though it might 
 be guided, probably, by some subaltern officer, who might 
 have the captive in charge, had left the field of battle at 
 a moment when none other could be spared, as all the 
 attendant throng were evidently amongst the refuse of 
 the army followers. 
 
 " I was afterwards informed that this unfortunate 
 general was the Count Lobau. . * r 
 
 21 — 2
 
 324 Renewed Alar 7ns. 
 
 " The delusion of victory vanished into a merely passing 
 advantage, as I gathered from the earnest researches into 
 which it led me ; and evil onl}^ met all ensuing investiga- 
 tion ; retreat and defeat were the words in ever}^ mouth 
 around me ! The Prussians, it was asserted, were com- 
 pletely vanquished on the 15th, and the English on the 
 i6th, while on the day just passed, the 17th, a day of 
 continual fighting and bloodshed, drawn battles on both 
 sides left each party proclaiming what neither party could 
 prove — success. 
 
 " It was Sunday; but Church service was out of the 
 question, though never were prayers more frequent, 
 more fervent. Form, indeed, they could not have, nor 
 union, while constantly expecting the enemy with fire 
 and sword at the gates. Who could enter a place of 
 worship, at the risk of making it a scene of slaughter? 
 But who, also, in circumstances so awful, could require 
 the exhortation of a priest, or the example of a con- 
 gregation, to stimulate devotion ? No ! in those fearful 
 exigencies, where, in the full vigour of health, strength, 
 and life's freshest resources, we seem destined to abruptly 
 quit this mortal coil, we need no spur — all is spontaneous; 
 and the soul is unshackled. 
 
 " Not above a quarter of an hour had I been restored 
 to my sole occupation of solace, before I was again 
 interrupted and startled ; but not as on the preceding 
 occasion by riotous shouts ; the sound was a howl, violent, 
 loud, affrighting, and issuing from many voices. I ran to 
 the window, and saw the Marche aux Bois suddenly filling 
 with a populace, pouring in from all its avenues, and 
 hurrying on rapidly, and yet as if unconscious in what 
 direction ; while women with children in their arms, or 
 cHnging to their clothes, ran screaming out of doors; 
 and cries, though not a word was ejaculated, filled the
 
 The French Prisoners. 
 
 •^ o 
 
 o-D 
 
 air, and from every house, I saw windows closing, and 
 shutters fastening ; all this, though long in writing, was 
 presented to my eyes in a single moment, and was followed 
 in another by a burst into my apartment, to announce 
 that ihc French were come ! 
 
 " I know not even who made this declaration ; my head 
 was out of the window, and the person who made it 
 scarcely entered the room and was gone. 
 
 " How terrific was this moment ! My perilous situation 
 urged me to instant flight ; and, without waiting to speak 
 to the people of the house, I crammed my papers and 
 money into a basket, and throwing on a shawl and 
 bonnet, I flew downstairs and out of doors. 
 
 " My intention was to go to the Boyds, to partake, as I 
 had engaged, their fate ; but the crowd were all issuing 
 from the way I must have turned to have gained the Rue 
 d'Assault, and I thought, therefore, I might be safer with 
 Madame de Maurville, who, also, not being English, 
 might be less obnoxious to the Bonapartists. . . . 
 
 "What a dreadful day did I pass! dreadful in the 
 midst of its glory ! for it was not during those operations 
 that sent details partially to our ears that we could judge 
 of the positive state of affairs, or build upon any per- 
 manency of success. Yet here I soon recovered from all 
 alarm for personal safety, and lost the horrible apprehen- 
 sion of being in the midst of a city tb.at was taken, sword 
 in hand, by an enemy. . . . 
 
 " The alcrte which had produced this effect, I afterwards 
 learnt, though not till the next day, was utterly false ; but 
 whether it had been produced by mistake or by deceit I 
 never knew. The French, indeed, were coming ; but not 
 triumphantly ; they were prisoners, surprised and taken 
 suddenly, and brought in, being disarmed, by an escort ; 
 and, as they were numerous, and their French uniform
 
 326 Retirement and Death of M. d' Arblay. 
 
 was discernible from afar, the almost universal belief at 
 Brussels that Bonaparte was invincible, might perhaps, 
 without any intended deception, have raised the report 
 that they were advancing as conquerors. 
 
 " I attempt no description of this day, the grandeur 
 of which was unknown, or unbelieved, in Brussels till it 
 had taken its flight, and could only be named as time 
 past." 
 
 The writer's pleasure at the success of the Allies was 
 saddened by an accident which happened to General 
 d'Arblay, who, while employed in raising a force of refugees 
 at Treves, had received a severe wound in the calf of his 
 leg from the kick of a restive horse. This misfortune 
 impaired still further a constitution already weakened. 
 Being for the time disabled for service, and having 
 passed his sixtieth year, the General found himself placed 
 on the retired hst, and obtained leave to settle with his 
 wife in England. When sent on a mission to Blucher, he 
 had been honoured by his master with the title of Comte, 
 which, as being conferred only par une sorte d\isage de 
 Vajicien regime, and being neither established by patent, 
 nor connected with the ownership of an estate, he never 
 used after the occasion on which it was given. He died 
 at Bath on May 3, 1818. 
 
 Little remains to be told of the life of Madame 
 d'Arblay. During her residence at Bath she renewed 
 her acquaintance with Mrs. Piozzi. We have a long and 
 entertaining account from her pen of an escape from 
 drowning which she met with while staying at Ilfracombe. 
 But with this exception, her last diaries and letters con- 
 tain little of interest. Soon after the death of her 
 husband she removed to No. 11, Bolton Street, Piccadilly. 
 Her latter days she spent chiefly in retirement, seeing
 
 Mevioirs of Dr. Burney. 
 
 1 o *• 
 
 few persons but her own relations, and a small circle of 
 established friends. Among the latter were Mrs. Locke 
 and the poet Rogers, with the latter of whom she 
 had made acquaintance on her first return from France. 
 She was delighted, however, by a visit from Sir Walter 
 Scott, who was brought to her by Rogers. Sir Walter, 
 in his Diary for November i8, 1826, thus records the 
 interview: "Introduced to Madame d'Arblay, the cele- 
 brated authoress of ' Evelina ' and ' Cecilia,' an elderly 
 lady with no remains of personal beauty, but with a 
 simple and gentle manner, and pleasing expression of 
 countenance, and apparently quick feelings. She told me 
 she had wished to see two persons — myself, of course, 
 being one, the other George Canning. This was really a 
 compliment to be pleased with — a nice little handsome 
 pat of butter made up by a neat-handed Phillis of a dairy- 
 maid, instead of the grease fit only for cart-wheels which 
 one is dosed with by the pound. I trust I shall see this 
 lady again." 
 
 From the year 1828 to 1832, she occupied herself in com- 
 piling the Memoirs of Dr. Burney. This book, published 
 in her eightieth year, has all the faults of her later style, 
 in their most aggravated form. But her friend Bishop 
 Jebb, while gently hinting at these defects, could honestly 
 congratulate her on the merit of her work. *' Much as 
 we already know of the last age, you have brought many 
 scenes of it, not less animated than new, graphically 
 before our eyes ; whilst I now seem familiar with many 
 departed worthies, who were not before known to me, 
 even so much as by name." Southey also wrote to her 
 son : " ' Evelina ' did not give me more pleasure, when I 
 was a schoolboy, than these Memoirs have given me now; 
 and this is saying a great deal. Except Boswell's, there 
 is no other work in our language which carries us into
 
 o 
 
 28 Death of Madame cV Arblay. 
 
 such society, and makes us fancy that we are acquainted 
 with the persons to whom we are there introduced." 
 
 In January, 1837, she lost the last prop of her old age. 
 Alexander d'Arblay, having taken Orders soon after his 
 degree, became minister of Ely Chapel in 1836, and was 
 about to marry, when he was carried off by an attack of 
 influenza. His mother survived him nearly three years : 
 she had a severe illness, attended by spectral illusions, in 
 November, 1839 ; and died in London on January 6, 
 1840 — a day which she had observed from the beginning 
 of the century in memory of the death of her sister 
 Susanna. She was buried at Walcot, near Bath, by the 
 side of her husband and their only child. 
 
 Except for the production of the " Memoirs," the last 
 quarter of a century in Madame d'Arblay's life was barren 
 both of incident and employment. The details of her 
 experience during the preceding fifteen years could not 
 fail to interest us, if we had them related as she would 
 have told them in her prime. Especially, we should 
 like to know something more about that long detention 
 in France, when chafing under police restrictions, and 
 fretting for news from home, her heart vibrated to the 
 continual echoes of cannon announcing Napoleon's 
 victories. But Fanny married, and growing elderly, was 
 quite a different person from the Fanny of St. Martin's 
 Street and Chesington, of Streatham and Bath, of 
 Windsor and Kew. Her Diary proper came to a final 
 stop with the death of Mrs. Phillips in 1800. She will 
 always be remembered as Frances Burney of the 
 eighteenth century. Deriving her inspiration in part from 
 Richardson, she heads the roll of those female novelists 
 whose works form a considerable part of English 
 literature. The purity of her writings first made the 
 circulating library respectable. " We owe to her," says
 
 Conclusion. 329 
 
 Macaulay very justly, " not only ' Evelina,' * Cecilia,' 
 and * Camilla,' but ' Mansfield Park,' and the ' Absentee.' 
 Yet great as was her influence on her successors,* it was 
 exhausted before the present century began. Indeed, it 
 has been suggested, with some reason, that the excessive 
 sensibility of her heroines is answerable for a reaction in 
 Miss Edgeworth and Miss Austen ; for the too great 
 amount of bright and cold good sense of the first ; for the 
 over-sobriety of feeling of the second. t Fanny's genius 
 for expressing character in dialogue, aided by touches of 
 description, placed her among the first memoir-writers of 
 that journalizing age. A little more power of compres- 
 sion would have made her diaries equal to the best of 
 Boswell's sketches. 
 
 "The author herself," says Mr. Leslie Stephen, "with 
 her insatiable delight in compliments — certainly such as 
 might well turn her head — her quick observation and 
 lively garrulity, her effusion of sentiment rather lively 
 than deep, but never insincere, her vehement prejudices 
 corrected by flashes of humour, is always amusing." We 
 may assent to every word of this sentence, and yet feel 
 that it does its subject something less than justice. We 
 trust that our readers have found Fanny amusing; we 
 trust also that they have recognised in her the possession 
 of some higher qualities. If she was vain, her egotism 
 was of the most innocent kind. It was more harmless 
 than Goldsmith's, for we cannot recall in her utterances a 
 single envious or jealous remark. Of how many self- 
 conscious authors can the like be said ? The simple love 
 of praise which led her to entertain her acquaintance with 
 what was said about herself, has assisted to render her 
 
 * Miss Austen took the title of 'Pride and Prejudice' from some words on 
 the Inst page of ' Ceciha.' 
 
 t Ir.troduciion to ' Evelina ' by Annie Raine Ellis.
 
 SS'^ Conclusion. 
 
 interesting to a wider circle. " Vain glory," says Bacon 
 quaintly, " helpeth to perpetuate a man's memory : like 
 unto varnish that makes ceilings not only shine, but last." 
 If she had strong prejudices, they were free from every 
 taint of personal malevolence. Her dislike of the Opposi- 
 tion resembled Johnson's professed hatred of the Scotch, 
 at which the doctor himself used to laugh. She goes to 
 the trial of Hastings, full of zeal for his cause, and spends 
 her time there chiefly in conversing with his prosecutors. 
 And however prejudiced on some points, she was far 
 from narrow-minded on many matters of controversy. 
 Though brought up a strict Protestant, she married a 
 Roman Catholic. Though to the end of her days an 
 attached daughter of the English Church, she expresses 
 unqualified esteem for the piety of those very pronounced 
 dissenters, Mr. and Mrs. Barbauld. The sympathy 
 between herself and her own family was at all times per- 
 fect. There were no rivalries among them. " I am sure," 
 she wrote modestly in 1800, " my dear father will not 
 think I mean to parallel our works." She was extremely 
 pleased when Queen Charlotte declared a tale published 
 by her half-sister Sarah to be " very pretty." Her 
 faithfulness to duty and her friends was celebrated by her 
 royal mistress in the saying that Miss Burney was " true 
 as gold." When she had cast in her lot with her Chevalier, 
 no isolation, no privation, no anxiety for the future could 
 make her repine. *' I never forget," she wrote in her 
 poverty, " Dr. Johnson's words. When somebody said 
 that a certain person had no turn for economy, he 
 answered, ' Sir, you might as well say that he has no 
 turn for honesty.' " Whatever cavils have been raised 
 by Croker and one or two like-minded detractors, no 
 artifice or indirect dealing can be laid to her charge, even 
 in literary matters, in regard to which such manoeuvres
 
 Conclusion. 331 
 
 are too often deemed excusable. We are not holding her 
 up as a pattern of elevated or extraordinary virtue. She 
 was simply the best representative of a worthy and 
 amiable family who had been trained in the school of 
 Samuel Johnson, That type of character has passed 
 away. The rugged old dictator's political creed is unin- 
 telligible to the present age; his devotion is taken for 
 superstition or formalism ; his canons of criticism are 
 obsolete. His disciples felt nothing of what was stirring 
 in the air. They were but little accessible to fresh ideas. 
 The cause of popular freedom, the Evangelical movement 
 in religion, the romantic spirit in poetry appealed to them 
 with the smallest effect. They were zealous for authority ; 
 they were not in the least introspective ; when they 
 wanted a line or two of verse, they nearly always went to 
 Pope for it. The speculations, the problems of the 
 modern world were all unknown to them. They were far 
 less inchned to embrace new dogmas of faith or agnosticism 
 than to observe old rules of action. Yet when we read 
 the annals of the Burneys— the accomplished, the genial, 
 self-respecting, conscientious, pious Burneys — may we 
 not be pardoned for thinking that there was a good deal, 
 after all, in those antiquated Johnsonian principles ? 
 
 THE END. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.
 
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