part, remarkably unfeeling, her acceptance | favorite. She was also constantly visiting of an appointment at court a great mistake, or receiving her friends within the preobvious from the first. With the remark cincts of the castle, and not unfrequently that Croker certainly makes too light of seeing visitors from without. She had, it the difficulties encountered with Mrs. is true, no regular holidays, therein reSchwellenberg, and that there is some ap-sembling most persons in her position at pearance in his strictures of the spiteful- that time and many now. But she had a ness imputed to him by his antagonist, I now part company with the Quarterly Reviewer and confine myself to him of the Edinburgh. And yet I must first glance for a moment at a verbal question wherein both writers are concerned. It may not seem very important what the title of Miss Burney's office at court was, whether plain "dresser," suggestive of a lady's maid, or "keeper of the robes," equally suggesting a deputy Duchess of Sutherland or Buccleuch. Croker declares, in opposition to her own statement, that the former was her proper designation; and I have been told by those who should know, that the persons who performed such undoubtedly menial duties as hers were called "dressers," both before and after her time. Macaulay, of course, took Frances Burney's side, and will hear of no other name for her than "keeper of the robes.” And he is right. We may thank Miss Annie Ellis for having discovered in the official list of the royal household the name of Miss Burney as holder of that office. But under whatever style or title, the authoress of "Evelina" had to answer the queen's bell, to attend her toilet, and to look after her dresses just like any ordinary tiring-woman. Such duties were then performed for royalty by poor members of respectable families, who were not considered as degraded by their servitude, nor regarded as objects of pity from the unavoidable hardships entailed on them. The mere work however was far from being so heavy as the reviewer would have us think, and the relaxations were much greater than he allows. The mornings on which the guardians of the wardrobe were busy "rummaging drawers" and laying out "fine clothes were not those of all days, as he represents them, but only of two days in each week. Instead of being, as he says, usually engaged till three o'clock, Miss Burney used on most days to take a good walk, and then to write her journal from three to five. Again, far from her life being that of a servant chained to another very disagreeable and quarrelsome servant, our heroine was very frequently in the company of the queen or the princesses, with all of whom she was evidently from the first a great large portion of most days nominally, and, save for her semi-attached colleague, actually at her own disposal. She was admitted to the society of ladies of rank, like Lady Effingham and the Duchess of Ancaster, in a manner altogether unusual for one whose humble position forbade her to appear on state occasions, and who, though personally a lady, was officially a lady's maid. In estimating her treatment by every inhabitant of the castle, from their Majesties down to "Cerbera," or "John," we should bear in mind that we have little or no evidence to go upon, beyond her own statements. We may believe her, or we may laugh at her. Indeed, there are times when we cannot avoid doing both. But we have very slight means of testing the truth of her assertions or the correctness of her impressions. On the whole I believe that our authoress may be trusted not only to mean but to convey the truth. Almost all the records in her diary are consistent with each other. The only unexplained point is her eagerness to get away from the equerries of an evening, when the king regularly visited them, and when absence from the party would not only deprive her of her " vision," but probably bring upon her the royal displeasure. Nevertheless, though both truthful and intelligible, her journal will mislead us unless very carefully read. She mentions but rarely and slightly certain qualities of her own, which must have been exceedingly trying to persons accustomed to the regular habits of a court. Her frequent lateness in attendance, the slovenly, capless undress in which she sometimes left her room and ran through the house, her absurd difficulties, which threw Miss Planta into fits of laughter at Nuneham, her acts of inattention and forgetfulness when attiring the queen, her bad reading, her attempt to get promotion for her brother, her practice of presenting petitions, only stopped at last by a peremptory command,- such peccadillos as these she confesses; and she is not bound to edify her readers with an account of every par ticular transgression. She must also have been decidedly indiscreet in her conduct towards Mr. Giffardier (Turbulent), who would not otherwise have alarmed her modesty by his romps, or have stood behind the queen's chair making hideous faces at her attendant. As described by herself, she undoubtedly appears a less pitiable and more independent person than Macaulay represents her. But we have not yet noticed the manner in which Queen Charlotte comported herself towards her, a subject on which the reviewer is very eloquent and very bitter. Yes, the "sweet queen "fares but ill at his hands. It does not occur to him that honest Fanny Burney would not be constantly giving her Majesty that epithet, and singing her praises in such varied strains, if they were not deserved, As for his statement that sickness was to be considered a pretence until it proved fatal, there is not the slightest symptom of any such feeling on the queen's part, though there may be some on the king's with regard to his equerries. On several occasions, as we find from her narrative, Miss Burney was absent from her duties for a longer or shorter time, through illness. She was always left to judge for herself as to the need of such absence. By no word or sign did the queen ever try to hasten her return. So far from it, both she and the princesses, especially that peerless princess royal, used frequently to visit her when unwell, and on one day at least the queen went to see her twice. He then proceeds to remark : We have looked carefully through the Diary in the hope of finding some trace of the extraordinary benefactions on which the Doctor reckoned. But we can discover only a trace of a promise, never performed, of a gown; and for this gown Miss Burney was expected to return thanks, such as might have suited the beggar with whom St. Martin . . divided his cloak. It seems rather unreasonable that because Dr. Burney chose to expect for his daughter "extraordinary benefactions," therefore Queen Charlotte should be blamed for not affording them. If the doctor "reckoned "as alleged, he reckoned without his host. Such expectations were purely gratuitous and personal, nor was there any need of inquiring into their fulfilment. When, however, Macaulay tells us that he has "looked carefully through the Diary, in the hope of finding some trace of " such benefactions, and “can discover only a trace of a promise, never performed, of a gown," for which nonexistent gown the most abject acknowledg ments were required, we can only acquit him of falsehood by imputing to him gross carelessness. For first, instead of a beggar's thanks, or any thanks at all being required for a present not yet given, all we find is that Mrs. Schwellenberg would not let Miss Burney refuse the queen's gift, but told her that any present from her Majesty to any of her ladies, "when [i.e. if] it was the Duchess of Ancaster;" must be gratefully It is true that the royal mistress appears never to have realized the extent of her servant's sufferings; and to the end she continued in the belief that the long-received. deferred resignation need not take place. Queen Charlotte was mistaken there. But if her only fault was an unwillingness to be persuaded that her favorite domestic must leave her, such an error shows no want of "sweetness," though some of "light." The queen, according to our reviewer, was not only harsh and unfeeling, but stingy and even false. On this last point I must say that Macaulay has gone even beyond his usual dextrous exaggeration, and placed himself in a position of singular discredit. We must here recur to his own words. He first says, and says truly, that Dr. Burney had expected for his daughter "some worldly advantage not set down in the contract of service; but whatever he expected he certainly got nothing. Miss Burney had been hired for board and lodging, and £200 a year. Board and lodging and £200 a year she duly received." He forgets that for five years' service she was pensioned off with £100 a year. And next, it is certain from each of two passages, that the gown was given,* and a remarkably handsome gown it was. "I wore," says the diarist, "my memorable present gown this day in honor of the princess royal. It is a lilac tabby. I saw the king for a moment at night, as he returned from the castle; and he graciously admired it, calling out: 'Emily [i.e., Princess Amelia] should see Miss Burney's gown now, and she would think her fine enough.' A second time allusion is made to this present, when the queen gives Frances three bunches of double violets, received from Stoke that morning. Her comment is, "I quite longed to tell her how much more I valued that gift, presented by her own hand, than the richest tabby in the world by a deputy." It is passing strange that this twice-told tale of a tabby, suggestive, to the male mind, of a cat rather Vol. ii., pp. 189, 277 (large 8vo. edition) than of a garment, should have escaped the reviewer's keen eyes. Again, on New Year's day, 1787, there is an entry in which mention is made, not only of the queen's liberality towards Miss Burney, but also of her habitually giving New Year's gifts to all her household of the upper class. "Mine," she says, was very elegant, a complete set of very beautiful white and gold china, and a coffee-pot, tea-pot, cream-jug and milk-jug, of silver, in forms remarkably pretty." 66 I do not remember ever to have met with another instance in which a critic, while professing careful search through a volume, has hazarded a statement which each of three several entries proves distinctly to be false. her stinginess. The fact that she left no money at her death, but only a vast quantity of diamonds, looks as if her liberality had been excessive. Her trinkets were probably all gifts or legacies. She was not likely to invest all or any of her savings in the purchase of jewellery, a kind of property which she never retained in her possession a moment beyond the time of her wearing it, and the wearing of which she ceased to enjoy after a fortnight's experience. There is not in truth a single suggestion of illiberality, any more than of harshness or insincerity, on the part of Queen Charlotte, throughout these volumes. Like all persons supposed to be richer than they are, her Majesty was exposed to unfavor were ignorant as to the truth. But when an able writer can find no other proofs of her penurious habits than her not giving presents that she did give, and her purchasing books where alone they could be had, we must pronounce our verdict And now as regards the general question of Miss Burney's appointment. So much stress is laid on the offer to her of a place in the royal household, and on her acceptance of it, that I feel bound to enter into some particulars respecting both these points. The impropriety of taking a young lady, of such talent that she had stormed fashionable society by her novels, of such delicate health that she had recently burst her stays with coughing, and placing her among strangers, where, amid other employments, she would have to rise early and sit up late every day of her life, might well be obvious to all who knew her, and above all to herself. She was herself fully aware of the danger, as we shall see. may be well to test Macaulay's accuracy by comparing his account of her conduct with her own journals at the time. He is equally severe upon the proposal and upon its acceptance. Let us see what reasons he had for his judgment in either case. From beginning to end of Fanny Bur-able comment on the part of those who ney's long and minute account of her intercourse with Queen Charlotte, there is not a trace of any harshness, tyranny, or unkindness in the queen's character as portrayed by her. The admirably gracious, thoughtful, and forbearing demeanor invariably employed by her Majesty, un-against him. der frequent and varying provocations, is beyond all praise. If a man cannot easily be a hero to his valet, still less, one would think, can a woman be a heroine to her maid, especially when that maid, instead of being to the manner born, is unsuited by health, habits, and station for any such employment. And yet a more perfect picture than is here presented of a royal lady in connection with a favorite servant can hardly be imagined. The queen must have been constantly provoked by her dresser's peculiar ways. They and Mrs. Schwellenberg's stories about them must have been an unfailing source of worry to a sovereign who had many things to do besides humoring one of her retainers. Yet never did she give Frances a good scolding. The royal couple are depicted throughout these volumes as devoted to the duties of their station, bent on promoting the happiness of all around them. Macaulay himself has no fault to find with the king's conduct as here described; and in order to make out a case against the consort, he is obliged to invent the unwarrantable statement that "Juno delegated the execution of her wrath to Alecto," ie., that she set Mrs. Schwellenberg at Miss Burney, while she herself shrank from upbraiding her. His knack of turning everything to the queen's disadvantage is really marvellous. Even her practice of occasionally sending for a rare book to some second-hand dealer is sneered at, as affording a specimen of It Of the acceptance he writes: "No deception was practised. The conditions of the house of bondage were set forth with all simplicity. The hook was presented without a bait; the net was spread in the sight of the bird; and the naked hook was greedily swallowed, and the silly bird made haste to entangle herself in the net." One could readily imagine the daughter of a man like Dr. Burney acting in the manner here described, and sending to her correspondents the most unreserved expressions of delight at the distinction thus conferred upon her. But she did nothing of the sort. No sooner was the offer made than she wrote a long letter to her friend Miss Cambridge, containing the following sentences: "You cannot easily ... picture to yourself the consternation with which I received this intimation. I frankly owned to Mr. Smelt that no situation of that sort was suited to my own taste or promising to my own happiness." She adds that Mr. Smelt pressed acceptance on her, remarking: "In such a situation you may have opportunities of serving your father and your friends, "such as scarce any other could afford you." In a postscript to the same letter she writes: "I cannot, even to my father, utter my reluctance. . . . I have always and uniformly had a horror of a life of servitude or dependence," with more in the same strain. And again afterwards: "I am married. . . . I look upon it in that light. I was averse to forming the union; but my friends . . . prevailed, and the knot is tied. . . . I will strain every nerve to succeed." And this is what Lord Macaulay calls the fish seizing the unbaited hook, the bird making haste to entangle herself in the net! Not more fortunate is he in his estimate of Queen Charlotte's motives in making the offer thus reluctantly accepted. "With what object," he says, "their Majesties brought her to their palace it is difficult to conceive. Their object could not have been to encourage her literary exertions ... to promote her pecuniary interest to obtain an eminently useful waiting maid." And then, having made up his mind that none of the objects for which her appointment was not made were fulfilled, he comes to the conclusion that the appointment was a thorough mistake. He would have done better to peruse the work more carefully, with a view to discovering the "object" which he had avowedly missed. To an attentive reader it is obvious that, unreasonable as the arrangement may appear to us, there was neither delusion nor disappointment on either side. Else why were both parties so reluctant to end it? Miss Burney, as we have already seen, from the moment at which the post was offered her, hated the very thought of it. She not only dreaded servitude, she despised etiquette. Previously to her appointment she wrote a little paper satirizing the impropriety of so much as stirring in the queen's presence. Life at court could hardly prove more irksome than she expected; and if her relations with a few of the inmates were disagreeable, those with her Majesty and the princesses must have surpassed her expectations. So she bore up bravely in the course which she had adopted, and which she maintained from the first, not for her own but for her father's sake. Had it not been for an occurrence to be noticed presently, the tie between kindly sovereign and devoted subject might probably have continued for life, and Mrs. Delany's protégée have become a worthy successor in royal favor to that truly estimable lady. With regard to the queen also, one would think that a less penetrating spirit than Macaulay's could pierce the very slight mystery underlying this simple tale. The consort, like other people when they want a servant, naturally thought less of the servant's interests than of her own. She certainly could not have been captivated by the skill in attiring of one who probably had never in her life dressed any one but herself. What she did want we can see from the manner in which she treated her attendant. She evidently wished to have about her a "gentlewoman," as the phrase then was, full of life and talent, active-minded and accustomed to good English society, in fact, a charming contrast to the old Haggerdorns and Schwellenbergs of whose ignorance and common ideas she was doubtless weary. Now here was exactly the person required, a pretty, amiable, and well-mannered lady, lively and clever, already welcomed by the best sets, and making herself quite at home among them; one, moreover, who had a mind so far above that of court underlings in general as to be conscious that though a slave she was not all a slave, that it was possible to exceed in servility, and that to treat "the royals "as a kind of superhuman beings was an error. Many a queen must have desiderated such a companion, but not many can have found it in their lady's maid. When thus found however, she was invaluable. Thrice daily summoned as a matter of course, she was always at hand when wanted. And so humble was her station that the favor shown her could excite but little jealousy. Her position therefore at court was something perfectly unique. As we read, the truth gradually dawns upon us, that not one of royalty's chosen companions could have been half so useful or half so much trusted as this lowly friend. The ladies of the bedchamber and the maids of honor were in residence but a portion of the year, and there was much of state and ceremony in their relations to their royal After this her health began to fail. "Cerbera," too, became more ill-tempered than ever, while even the " Magnolia" and the princess royal were sometimes a little dry. She bore up for another year and a half, and then wrote her resignation, which she kept by her for six months longer. At the end of another half-year " the prison was open, and Frances was free." mistress. It was in fact Miss Burney | walk for the first time since last October. whom the queen constantly consulted Ten minutes in Kew Gardens are all the about matters whether of importance or time I have spent out of doors since the of amusement. If accurate information middle of that month," i.e., for about fifabout Warren Hastings's trial was wanted, teen weeks. if there was need of some one to bring daily reports of the king's health, or to have interviews with his physicians, none would serve the turn but she. And in like manner, when a fine old pair of gloves was to be given to Lord Harcourt, or a few adroit compliments on the queenly déshabille were felt to be opportune, recourse was had to the same quarter, with a readiness which in itself sufficed to show how great was the confidence there reposed. Never has there been a history the meaning of which was more completely on the surface. The only puzzle about it is that any sensible person should have thought it one. To expose fully all the reviewer's sophisms would be to copy out great part of the second and third volumes of the memoirs. Enough has, I think, been said to show his utter perverseness when he professes not to comprehend "what pleasure the queen can have found in having Miss Burney about her; " enough also to show how absurdly he describes her as "employed only in mixing snuff and sticking pins," or as being "now and then in the course of five years asked to read aloud or to write a copy of verses." Leaving those who wish for further information on such matters to seek it in her lively book, I will conclude these remarks on Macaulay's shortcomings in these strictures by mentioning two more instances in which he seems singularly at fault. "Now and then," he says, "poor Frances might console herself ... by joining in the celestial colloquy sublime' of his Majesty's equerries." So far then as man, or rather woman, disposed, the "knot tied " in July, 1786, was destined to be permanent, both parties being resolved that it should never be loosed. It was loosed in the end simply because the attendant's health completely broke down. And the original cause of her failure in health was, it would appear, not the trials and fatigues of her post, serious as they were, still less any weariness of it. She was becoming more reconciled and inured to her career, when an event occurred the effect of which on every inhabitant of the castle was even more disturbing than could have been supposed. The whole routine of daily life was necessarily broken up so long as George III.'s attack of insanity lasted. Every person connected with his family or his household must have been thoroughly unsettled, full of public and private apprehensions during the whole of that period. These results, and the cessation of all entertainments, were inevitable. But it would hardly occur to us that access to the And further, with regard to one equerry palace must, so far as was possible, be de- in particular, “Mr. Fairly," as she calls nied to externs, "because," as the queen him. By way of magnifying her afflictions, said, "everybody takes away something "the counsel against Croker states that of bad news with him. Nor should we "Colonel Digby . . . and Miss Burney imagine that habits of daily exercise need. . . became attached to each other," so be suspended for months together in con- as to suggest "a sentiment warmer than sequence of such a calamity. Yet so it was. Our diarist herself, instead of continuing her daily walks, was suddenly reduced to a state of almost total confinement within doors. Her record on January 27th, 1789, is : “Sir Lucas [Pepys] declared that my confinement menaced my health, and charged me to walk out and take air and exercise very sedulously, if I would avoid an illness. I took an hour's Now and then, indeed! Can any one have perused these volumes, however cursorily, without perceiving that, when matters were going on regularly, she was expected to receive the equerries at tea every evening of her life, and was always trying to escape from them? friendship. He quitted the court and married in a way which astonished" her "greatly, and which evidently wounded her feelings and lowered him in her esteem." Who would suppose from such a sentence that the colonel's second wife was respectable and well-connected, of very pleasing manners, and thoroughly friendly with the diarist? All this she was; yet it is true that in one sense he |