FANNY BURNEY AT COURT.

IT is 1779. There is an amusing scene in Mr. Thrale's villa at Streatham. The house, as usual, is full of company. Mr. Boswell, who has recently arrived in London, comes for a morning visit; and what was then called a “collation" is ordered. The sprightly hostess takes her seat, with Dr. Johnson on her right. Next him is a vacant chair, which Boswell is about to occupy, according to his wont as the umbra of his illustrious friend. Mr. Seward interferes with-" Mr. Boswell, that seat is Miss Burney's." Into the chair slides "the little Burney;" and the good Doctor rolls about, and glares upon Fanny with his large one eye, and caresses her as he would a petted child. Boswell is mad with 'jealousy. He will not eat; he takes no place at the table; but seizes a chair, and plants himself behind the sage and his protégée. There is a laugh and a whisper about "Bozzy," when another wig is thrust between the Doctor's wig and the lady's powdered toupet. Terrible is the reproof: "What do you do here, sir? Go to the table, sir. One would take you for a Brangton."-" A Brangton, sir? What is a Brangton, sir ?"-"What company have you kept not to know that, sir?" Poor Boswell is soon informed. Brangton is the name of a

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vulgar family in 'Evelina;' and the little lady who has dispossessed him of the place of honour is the authoress of that novel.

Four years pass on, and Boswell knows his cue better. He calls at Johnson's house, and finds him. at tea with "the celebrated Miss Burney." He is evidently in the way. Johnson, in answer to something about parliamentary speakers, says, Why do you speak here? Either to instruct or entertain, which is a benevolent motive; or for distinction, which is a selfish motive." The canny Scot disarms him he mentions Cecilia;' and then Johnson, with an air of animated satisfaction, as the biographer records" Sir, if you talk of 'Cecilia,' talk

The gentleness to Fanny, and the roughness to Bozzy, are all over. Johnson has pressed her hand for the last time, and said, "Ah, priez Dieu pour moi."

It is the 16th of December, 1785, and "the celebrated Miss Burney" is on a visit to Mrs. Delany, at Windsor. This is the widow of Dr. Delany, the friend and panegyrist of Swift; so that she formed a link between the times of George the Third and the times of Anne. The King had given Mrs. Delany the occupation of a small house close by the Royal Lodge at Windsor; and he would occasionally walk in for a gossip with the ancient lady. The Queen, too, would sometimes come. Fanny Burney had been in a flutter for many days about these visits, ready to fly off if any one knocked at

the street-door. On this wintry afternoon she is in the drawing-room, with Mrs. Delany's niece, and a little girl, playing at puss-in-the-corner. Without any announcement, the door opens, and a large man, in deep mourning, enters, shutting the door himself. The niece exclaims, "Aunt, the King, the King;" and the kittens rush to the sides of the room, as if they had been mice, and a real grimalkin had appeared amongst them. Fanny is planted against the wall, and she says, that she hoped to glide out of the room; but Majesty asks, "Is that Miss Burney?" And then, Miss Burney-standing against the wall, as everybody else stood, with the exception of the venerable lady—had, after sundry royal monologues about James's powder, and whooping-cough, and rheumatism, the happiness (for who can doubt that it was happiness) to hear the King begin to talk about 'Evelina;' and how she never told her father about the book. Then the King, coming up close, said, "But what? what? how was it?"-" Sir !"-" How came you? how happened it? what? what?"-"I-I—only wrote, sir, for my own amusement, only in some odd idle hours."—" But your publishing, your printing, how was that?"—"That was, sir, only because " "What?"—" I thought, sir, it would look very well in print."-"Ha ha! very fair, indeed that's being very fair and honest!"

Now comes the Queen-and then the King repeats all that he had said, and all that Miss Burney had said-and coming up to the bewildered maiden

again, asks, "Are you musical?""Not a performer, sir." The King crosses to the Queen, and communicates the fact. But the royal curiosity is not quite satisfied. "Are you sure you never play? never touch the keys at all?".

"Never to acknowledge it, sir.”—“Oh that's it ;" and he imparts to the Queen, "She does play, but not to acknowledge it." There is then a great deal of talk in the middle of the room-while those against the wall answer if spoken to-when the Queen, in a low voice, says, "Miss Burney;"-and upon Miss Burney coming up to her, whispers" But shall we have no more-nothing more?" and Fanny cannot but understand her, and shakes her head.

We see the shadow of "little Burney," as she writes twenty pages of her diary on that eventful evening, smiling with ineffable happiness, and, wẹ almost fear, forgetting that she had lived with those whose commendation was worth-shall we say it? -almost as much as "the excessive condescension" to the authoress standing against the wall in Mrs. Delany's drawing-room.

In July 1786, Miss Burney has attained, in the view of the world, a high promotion. She is of the Queen's household. She has a drawing-room and a bed-room in the Lodge at Windsor; a footman, and two hundred a year. Is the authoress of Evelina' a confidential amanuensis,-or English reader-or instructress of a Princess? We see her shadow in the unvarying course of her daily life.

Fanny rises at six o'clock. She dresses in a morning-gown and cap, and waits her first summons. What summons her? A bell. "The celebrated Miss Burney," for a considerable time, can never hear that bell without a start, and a blush of conscious shame at her own strange degradation. These are her own words. Poor little Burney! Your father, we would fain believe, forced you to wear these chains of servitude; or perhaps you thought that to wait upon a "sweet Queen" as a lady's maid-yes, Fanny, a lady's maid, nothing more nor less-was to be a bright fairy dressing a born princess all in silk and diamonds for a ball, where the fairy herself might sometimes dance. It is really very prosaic work. Miss Burney has a helper-one Mrs. Thielky; but there is also a lady above her in office, one Mrs. Schwellenberg. Between seven and eight o'clock there is the Queen's morning dressing. Mrs. Thielky hands "the things," and Fanny puts them on. At a quarter before one begins the dressing for the day. Fanny ought to be dressed herself before she enters the royal presence; but, we grieve to say, she is often unpunctual and half-unpowdered. Perhaps she has been musing over the remembrance of the wisdom of Burke, or the kindness of Reynolds, rapt in a dream of the old familiar faces. The bell rings, and she must go. Mrs. Schwellenberg is there, and Mrs. Thielky; and they help the Queen off with her gown, and on with her powdering things, and then the hair-dresser is admitted; the Queen read