its uncongeniality, she tells how by degrees some interesting and pleasant people sought him out. And then she adds:

"But while amongst the male inhabitants of the town Mr. Burney associated with many whose understandings, and some few whose tastes, met his own; his wife, amongst the females, was less happy, though not more fastidious. She found them occupied almost exclusively in seeking who should be earliest in importing from London what was newest and most fashionable in attire, or in vying with each other in giving and receiving splendid repasts, and in struggling to make their every rotation become more and more luxurious. . . Such almost universally is the inheritance bequeathed from mother to daughter in small towns at a distance from the metropolis, where there are few suspensive (sic) subjects or pursuits of interest, ambition, or literature, that can enlist either imagination or instruction into conversation."

There were, however, two ladies who made agreeable exceptions to the rule of dulness-Mrs. Stephen Allen and Miss Dorothy Young.

"Mrs. Stephen Allen was the wife of a wine merchant of considerable fortune, and of very worthy character. She was the most celebrated beauty of Lynn, and might have been so of a much larger district, for her beauty was high, commanding, and truly uncommon; and her understanding bore the same description. She had wit at will; spirits the most vivacious and entertaining; and from a passionate fondness for reading she had collected stores of knowledge which she was always able and nothing loath' to display."

Miss Young was no less virtuous and cultivated, but she was plain and deformed. The closest friendship subsisted between these two ladies, and Esther Burney soon made a third in the alliance. Mrs. Allen used to say that it was upon her pattern that she endeavoured to form her own character, and Dorothy Young devoted herself to Esther's children, acting the part of volunteer nurse whenever there was occasion. Madame D'Arblay dwells with grateful tenderness on the recollection of her rare unselfishness, and mentions that when her mother came to die, she named Dolly Young to her husband as the best second mother he could give their children. Dr. Burney, however, preferred a pretty wife, and after waiting six years, during which time Mrs. Allen became a widow, he married her instead. But Dolly remained a loved and valued friend.

After a residence of nine or ten years in Lynn, during which Mr. Burney's health re-established itself, it became the opinion of his friends that he should return to London. The new start was made in Poland Street. Madame D'Arblay dwells with especial pride and tenderness on the details of the work, and the pleasures and the friendships of the first year after the return to London. Her father's reputation as a teacher of music was now at its height, and his time was crowded with profitable engagements. In the second year her mother died of inflammation of the lungs, and Mr. Burney was left with a family of four girls and two boys. He made up his mind to send his girls, two at a time, to a school at Paris, and, for various reasons, Hester, the

eldest, and Susannah, the third daughter, were chosen to go first. Fanny was kept at home, partly on account of a delicate chest, which made her father always fearful that she should be carried off, like her mother, by consumption. It was intended that she should go later. But circumstances changed, and she remained at home altogether, and got, it has always been said, less regular education than any of the sisters.

The Garricks were the most intimate friends of the Burneys at this time. Their villa at Hampton was the father's frequent resort from Saturday to Monday; Mrs. Garrick's box at Drury Lane was constantly occupied by the Burney children, who watched every new performance of their friend with a sense of personal responsibility; and every part of the house in Poland Street was familiar with the presence of Garrick himself, who was as glad to romp with the children as to talk with the father, and always ready to act for the entertainment of all or any of the household. During the years spent at Lynn, Burney had lost sight of Mr. Crisp, but a chance meeting now brought them together again. Mr. Crisp had passed in the interval through the changes of fortune and temper that Macaulay has described in the essay on Madame D'Arblay. After the failure of his play in 1754, he had left London, and fitted himself up a villa at Hampton, where he purposed to spend the remainder of his life. But finding his income overtaxed by the constant demands his friends made upon his hospitality, he sold the villa, and buried himself in

corner of an old house called Chesington Hall, of which the master, Christopher Hamilton, was impoverished like himself. He carefully concealed his hiding-place from all the world, and determined to be a recluse for the rest of his days. The secret was, however, told to Burney, and as there was still one thing-music-for which Mr. Crisp thought it worth while to stay in London during several weeks of every year, the friends were in no danger of losing one another again. Whenever Mr. Crisp was in town, he almost lived at the Burneys' house, where the children called him "Daddy," and loved him almost as much as their real father. Later on, Mr. Hamilton died, and his sister turned Chesington into a boarding. house, of which Mr. Crisp was a constant inmate. His sister, Mrs. Gast, also came to live there; and a certain Miss Kitty Cooke, who was niece to Miss Hamilton, took a practical part in the housekeeping. A closet in Mr. Crisp's apartment was set aside for Dr. Burney, who used it as a country retreat, and Fanny, who was always Mr. Crisp's favourite, was a frequent guest at the house. Miss Kitty Cooke was the kindest of hostesses to her. She was a lady of much homelier type than most of Fanny's friends, and when "Evelina" was astonishing the literary world, her simple criticisms amused the author considerably, and sometimes proved more helpful than those

of the learned. When Burney married Mrs. Allen, which he did. secretly in order to avoid gossip, Mr. Crisp found a snug farm-house on Chesington Common, within a mile-and-a-half of the Hall, for the pair to pass their honeymoon in. It is pleasant to be explicitly told by Madame D'Arblay that this marriage was entirely agreeable to "the younger members of both families," and to find Burney's old friends gathering in unbroken circle round the new mistress of his house.

"

Burney's second marriage took place in 1767. In 1769 he took his degree as Doctor of Music at Oxford. A little later he began to think seriously of writing a History of Music; and, in order to collect material, he started in June, 1770, for a tour through France and Italy. "From the month of June, 1770, to that of January, 1771," says his daughter, "the life of Dr. Burney is narrated by himself in his Tour to France and Italy.'" It was during these months of her father's absence that Fanny began to put into shape the story of "Evelina." She had long indulged a habit of desultory and secret writing, and, as everybody knows, a cherished MS., called the "History of Caroline Evelyn," was burnt in her fifteenth year, when a resolution was taken to write no more. But the writing impulse was strong, and, by-and-by, she could not refrain from jotting down the adventures of Caroline Evelyn's daughter. While her father was abroad, she wrote much of this new history in a scrappy and disconnected way. But on his return she had to put away her own work and help in his. For several months she was almost continually engaged in writing, from his dictation and notes, the record of his tour. This done, Dr. Burney started on a second tour through Germany and the Netherlands, and Fanny was once more mistress of her time and pen. Some changes of residence were taking place at this time. First the house in Poland Street was given up for a larger and pleasanter one in Queen Square. But there were difficulties about the titles of the new house, and a second move became necessary. It was then that the house in St. Martin's Street was purchased. The situation, judging by Madame D'Arblay's account, was not pleasanter then than it is now. But it had its compensations. It was delightful to Dr. Burney to know that it had been lived in by Sir Isaac Newton, and it was a recommendation to all the family that it was near to Sir Joshua Reynolds' house in Leicester Square. The change from Queen Square to St. Martin's Street was made while Dr. Burney was in Germany, and there was an interval during which Mrs. Burney and the daughters lived at Lynn and at Chesington. At Chesington, Fanny finished the rough writing of "Evelina." Dr. Burney's second return from the Continent was followed by a severe rheumatic illness, which made him more than ever dependent on his daughters. And until the end of the year 1774, when the first volume of the History of Music was completed,

Fanny had no time to herself. But while she worked for her father and saw her handwriting turning into print, the idea grew upon her that her story would look well in print also, and as soon as she was free she determined to copy it in feigned hand, so as to escape recognition by the printers, and offer it to Dodsley. Dodsley declined even to look at the anonymous MS., and it was offered to Mr. Lowndes, of Fleet Street, who purchased it for the sum of £20.

Some excellent letters from Fanny to Mr. Crisp, written at this time, and printed in the Memoirs of Dr. Burney, give a vivid picture of the animated family and social life in the midst of which the publication of "Evelina" was secretly arranged. Her great themes are the visits of Garrick, the concerts at her father's house, the beginnings of the Streatham acquaintance. She knew Streatham well by report before she was introduced there as the author of "the best novel since Smollett." Her father had been invited in the course of 1776 to teach harmony to Miss Thrale. The lessons, as lessons, were a failure, for music was not very much cared for in the house, and Mrs. Thrale, who found Dr. Burney excellent company, used to interrupt her daughter's studies to discuss literature and politics with the tutor; and Dr. Burney, after a brief resistance, resigned himself to the pleasant irregularity, and sang the praises of Mrs. Thrale very heartily in St. Martin's Street. With Johnson he had long had a slight acquaintance, which now quickly ripened into warm friendship.

Out of many pages tempting to transcribe, I choose Fanny's account of the first visit of Dr. Johnson and Mrs. Thrale to her father's house In all the Diary I do not think there is anything quite so good as the clear cutting of this first impression of the group of which she was soon to be a distinguished member :

:

"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 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 handsome, her complexion very fair; she has the embonpoint 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, she is full of spirit, remarkably gay, and extremely agreeable. 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 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.

"Miss Thrale seems just verging on her teens. She is certainly handsome, and her beauty is of a peculiar sort; fair, round, firm, and cherubimical, with its chief charm exactly where lies the mother's failure, namely, in the mouth. She is reckoned cold and proud; but I believe her to be merely shy and

reserved; you, however, would have liked her, and called her a girl of fashion, for she was very silent, but very observant, and never looked tired, though she never uttered a syllable."

The sisters, Hester and Susan, play a duet, very nervously at first, but with gathering courage as they realize that the visitors are not critical. Fanny is in "a twitter, twitter, twitter," to see Dr. Johnson, who arrives in good time :

". . . . Dr. Johnson was announced! Everybody rose to do him honour, and he returned the attention with the most formal courtesy. 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 him one eye-for they say he cannot see with the other-made a grave nod, and gave a dignified motion with one hand, in silent approvance of the proceeding.

"But now, my dear Mr. 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 forwards; his feet are never a moment quiet, and his whole great person looked often as if it were going to roll itself, quite voluntarily, from his chair to the floor.

"His dress, considering the times, and that he had meant to put on all his best becomes-for he was engaged to dine with a very fine party at Mrs. Montague's was as much out of the common road as his figure. He had a 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 work upon them, till poor Hetty and Susan hardly knew how to play on for fear of touching his phiz; er, which was harder still, how to keep their countenances.

"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 or a courtly salute, but a good, real, substantial, and very loud kiss. Everybody was obliged to stroke their chins that they might hide their mouths.

66

He

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. pored over them, shelf by shelf, almost brushing them with his eyelashes from near examination. At last, fixing upon something that happened to hit kis fancy, he took it down, and, standing aloof from the company, which he 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."