Oh ! of my life at once the source and joy! Accept the tribute, but forget the lay. The rapid success of "Evelina" made the public curious to discover the anonymous author; and the proud father unable to contain the secret, hurried to Mrs. Thrale's villa, and proclaimed his daughter to be the triumphant unknown. Forthwith the news was conveyed from set to set throughout the metropolis; the journals enlarged upon the intelligence; and Miss Fanny Burney became a notoriety of the first water. Her good looks, her elegant little figure, and the piquant expression of her accurate and delicate features, contributed in no way to damp the admiration of those who were so lucky as to gain an introduction to her. Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Montague, and all those gifted women, the last receding ones of whom we have considered with more humour than reverence, but with no disrespect, received her with open arms; and Samuel Johnson commenced a violent flirtation with her, that ended only on his deathbed, when in a weak but earnest voice, he implored in French "the little Burney' he loved so much, to pray to God for him. The doctor chuckled over her, smacked his huge lips with the sound of a carter's whip upon her soft pink cheeks, vowed she was a better writer than Fielding, and offered her a thousand gallantries, that were sufficiently grotesque at the moment of their performance, but looked wondrous well the next day, when the fair coquette noted them down in her journal. In the Morning Herald for March 12, 1782, there appeared the following lines, which obtained no little celebrity and approval: ADVICE TO THE HERALD. Herald, wherefore thus proclaim Hannah More's pathetic pen, Painting high th' impassioned soene ; Skill'd with art and sense t' impart Who makes each rising art her care, What a world do these lines introduce us to! And they are not less interesting because they were from the pen of Dr. Burney. Amongst the distinguished friends Miss Burney made after arriving at an enviable reputation was Swift's friend, Mrs. Delany, who resided at Windsor under the protection of the court to which she had been officially attached. This venerable and imposing old lady, with her massive footman, and in her house hard by the royal door, was the humble friend to whom George III. and his queen were condescendingly kind, just in the same way that most kindly people in the quiet, middle ranks have some old almshouse goodey, or picturesque pensioner, on whom they lavish their benevolence, and display their capacity for a life of Christian humility. Through this lady's goodness Miss Burney was introduced to royalty, and was, in the year 1786, when she was in or near her thirty-fifth year, advanced to the dignity of maid of honour to Queen Charlotte, with a salary of £200 a-year, a footman, and a coach between her and her companion. The particulars of her career in this exalted position may be learnt by any who will wade through the seven tedious volumes of "Madame d'Arblay's Diary and Letters." Those who, unacquainted with courts behind the scenes, read these seven tomes for the first time, will be strangely enlightened on a few points, and will open their eyes with astonishment at discovering what a life of base servitude and indignity, and of stiff, starch, gloomy stupidity that of a maid of honour is, or may be—at least was in the virtuous court of Queen Charlotte. What with clumsy arrogance and ignorant self-sufficiency (such as in these days could not be found in the Claptonian villas of London shopkeepers), inane twaddle given as the best specimens of royal conversation, the petty feuds of the equerries and the ladies, the squabbles of the hangers-on upon the royal establishment, such students will find enough to make them rejoice that their destinies were not cast within the domestic circle of the most illustrious family in Britain. While Miss Burney remained under the royal roof, her life was a sufficiently wretched one. She had to rise early, very so as to be dressed to the turn of cuff, by the time she was summoned to the Queen's apartments; and it was frequently late at night 'ere her royal mistress retired to rest, and set her at liberty. The everlasting dressing and undressing the three daily toilettes-were, as she rightly observed, to be called "toil," and no little toil; the long hours of standing in the Queen's room, and the coarse-unspeakably coarse-treatment she met with from Mrs. Schwellenberg, her superior in office, and the Queen's pet associate, made the new maid of honour, who was accustomed to be caressed in the most polished society of London, dissatisfied with her lot. At first she was much hurt by the menial character of her position, the being rung for when she was wanted, the being sternly regarded by the queenly gaze when she was a minute too late (just as she herself might reprove her own maid for inattention), the being expected to receive a new dress because "she wasn't rich!" Perhaps Fanny thought of the position her own maid had occupied at home, and contrasted it with that in which she herself was placed; and perhaps felt that she herself might have been a more merciful mistress, and saw that even a servant's ankles are human ankles, and may ache with being stood upon, although it is contrary to etiquette for a court attendant to sit unasked in the presence of royalty. But there was a hardship in Fanny's case which made it differ from the lot of those born and reared in servile ranks; she had to be flayed without being used to it. She had been accustomed to her full enjoyment of bed, and now she was compelled to rise at six o'clock-just as our Betty has to do-to sweep out our parlour and light the fire; she had been accustomed to much adulation and attention in society, even from "the great," now she had to enter a lady's presence who regarded her, and treated her, with that galling "want of thought" that selfish indifference (far more insulting than any direct contumely), which is too often the atmosphere in which servants have to pass their lives. It was all well that she checked her impatience by saying, "I am a little nobody-and my mistress is the QUEEN!" the self-reproof was put to flight by the republican sentiment, even through her deep adoration of royalty, "I am a ladyrecognized as an ornament to my sex-and Queen as she is, what more can she be!" But the maid of honour had one great aid towards making such a life endurable: she had an amount of veneration for kings, queens, and princes, indeed for any. thing endowed with the slightest savour of royalty, that made her at times regard the very curses of her position as blessings. By this happy tendency of her mind, she was enabled to clothe the unattractive exterior of her mistress, with a subtle something-which she called 'queenly grace'-that far surpassed those elements of loveliness which have imprinted the antique Venuses on the minds of all who have bebeld them. The "what-what's," and prosy restlessness of good King George's life were the outpour ings of an anointed teacher worthy the attention of all future ages; the noisy drunkenness of the Duke of Clarence was princely humour, and the way in which his royal highness clapped the footmen on their backs, demanded more champagne, and ordered in a stentorian voice Mrs. Schwellenberg to hold her potato-jaw, were high-bred pleasantries. It was long ere the timid maiden, verging towards forty years of age, could utter the most brief remark to Her Majesty without a nervous rising in her throat, and when she was so audacious as to prefer some simple petition-that she might take tea with a friend, or have a relation to dinner-it was her custom to get behind the royal chair, so that her confusion on originating a topic of conversation might not be visible to the royal gaze. Of the adulation which the authoress (timid as she was) found courage to bestow on the queen, the verses written |