Chapter 21

Princess Elizabeth frequently addressed me with great sweetness but the prince only with curious eyes. Do not, however, understand that his looks were either haughty or impertinent far from it ; they were curious, however, in the extreme.

COLONEL MANNERS'S BEATING.

Colonel Manners made me laugh as If I had been at a farce, by his history of the late Westminster election, in which Lord John Townshend conquered Lord Hood. Colonel Manners is a most eager and active partisan on the side of the government, but so indiscreet, that he almost regularly gets his head broke at every contested election; and he relates it as a thing of course. I inquired if he pursued his musical studies, so happily begun with Colonel Wellbred? "Why," answered he, "not much, because of the election; but the thing is, to get an ear: however, I think I have got one, because I know a tune when I hear it, if it's one that I've heard before a good many times so I think that's a proof. but I can never get asked to a concert, and that keeps me a little behind."

"Perhaps," cried I, "your friends conclude you have music enough in your three months' waiting to satisfy you for all the year?"

"O, ma'am, as to that, I'd just as lief hear so many pots and pans rattled together; one noise is just as well as another to me."

I asked him whether his electioneering with so much activity did not make his mother, Lady Robert, a little uneasy?--N.B. She is a methodist.

"O, it does her a great deal of good," cried he;"for I could never get her to meddle before ; but when I'd had my head broke, it provoked her so, she went about herself canvassing among the good people,--and she got us twenty votes."

"So then," cried Colonel Goldsworthy, "there are twenty good people in the world? That's your calculation, is it?"

Mr. Fisher, who just then came in, and knew nothing of what had passed, starting the election, said to Colonel Manners, "So, sir, you have been beat, I hear!"

He meant only his party ; but his person having shared the same fate, occasioned a violent shout among the rest at this innocent speech, and its innocent answer - for Colonel Man-

Page 213 ners, looking only a little surprised, simply said, "Yes, I was beat, a little."

"A little, sir?" exclaimed Mr. Fisher, "no, a great deal you were shamefully beat--thrashed thoroughly." In the midst of a violent second shout, Colonel Manners only said, "Well, I always hated all that party, and now I hate them worse than ever."

"Ay, that I'll be bound for you," cried Colonel Goldsworthy.

"Yes for having been so drubbed by them," cried Mr. Fisher.

As I now, through all his good humour, saw Colonel Manners colour a little, I said in a low voice to Mr. Fisher, "Pray is it in innocence, or in malice, that you use these terms."

I saw his innocence by his surprise, and I whispered him the literal state of all he said; he was quite shocked, and coloured in his turn, apologising instantly to Colonel Manners, and protesting he had never heard of his personal ill usage, but only meant the defeat of his party.

MR. FAIRLY IS DISCUSSED BY HIS BROTHER EQUERRIES. Everybody was full of Mr. Fairly's appointment, and spoke of it with pleasure. General Budé had seen him in town, where he had remained some days, to take the oaths, I believe, necessary for his place. General Budé has long been intimate with him, and spoke of his character exactly as it has appeared to me; and Colonel Goldsworthy, who was at Westminster with him, declared he believed a better man did not exist. "This, in particular," cried General Budé, "I must say of Fairly: whatever he thinks right he pursues straightforward and I believe there is not a sacrifice upon earth that he would not make, rather than turn a moment out of the path that he had an opinion it was his duty to keep in."

They talked a good deal of his late lady; none of them knew her but very slightly, as she was remarkably reserved. "More than reserved," cried General Budé, "she was quite cold. Yet she loved London and public life, and Fairly never had any taste for them; in that they were very mal assortis, but in all other things very happy."

"Yes," cried Colonel Goldsworthy, "and how shall we give praise enough to a man that would be happy himself, and make

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his wife so too, for all that difference of opinion ? for it was all his management, and good address, and good temper. I hardly know such another man."

General Budé then related many circumstances of his most exemplary conduct during the illness of his poor suffering wife, and after her loss; everybody, indeed, upon the occasion of this new appointment, has broke forth to do justice to his deserving it. Mrs. Ariana Egerton, who came twice to drink tea with me on my being sensa Cerbera, told me that her brother-in-law, Colonel Masters, who had served with him at Gibraltar, protested there was not an officer in the army of a nobler and higher character, both professional and personal.

She asked me a thousand questions of what I thought about Miss Fuzilier? She dislikes her so very much, she cannot bear to think of her becoming Mrs. Fairly. She has met with some marks of contempt from her in their official meetings at St. James's, that cannot be pardoned. Miss Fuziller, indeed, seemed to me formerly, when I used to meet her in company, to have an uncertainty of disposition that made her like two persons; now haughty, silent, and supercilious--and then gentle, composed, and interesting. She Is, however, very little liked, the worst being always what most spreads abroad.

BARON TRENCK: MR. TURBULENT"S RAILLERY.

Sept. 1.-Peace to the manes of the poor slaughtered partridges!

I finished this morning the "Memoirs of Baron Trenck," which have given me a great deal of entertainment; I mean in the first volume, the second containing not more matter than might fill four pages. But the singular hardiness, gallantry, ferocity, and ingenuity of this copy of the knights of ancient times, who has happened to be born since his proper epoch, have wonderfully drawn me on, and I could not rest without finishing his adventures. They are reported to be chiefly of his own invention; but I really find an air of self-belief in his relations, that inclines me to think he has but narrated what he had persuaded himself was true. His ill-usage is such as to raise the utmost indignation in every reader and if it really affected his memory and imagination, and became thence the parent of some few embellishments and episodes, I can neither wonder nor feel the interest of his narrative diminished.

Sept. 2.-Mr. Turbulent was in high rage that I was utterly

Page 215 invisible since my return from Cheltenham; he protested he had called seven times at my door without gaining admission, and never was able to get in but when " Dr. Shepherd had led the way.

He next began a mysterious attack upon the proceedings of Cheltenham. He had heard, he said, strange stories of flirtations there. I could not doubt what he meant, but I would not seem to understand him: first, because I know not from whom he has been picking up this food for his busy spirit, since no one there appeared collecting it for him ; and secondly, because I would not degrade an acquaintance which I must hope will prove as permanent as it is honourable, by conceiving the word flirtation to be possibly connected with it.

By every opportunity, in the course of the day, he renewed this obscure raillery; but I never would second it, either by question or retort, and therefore it cannot but die away unmeaningly as it was born. Some effect, however, it seems to have had upon him, who has withdrawn all his own heroics, while endeavouring to develop what I have received elsewhere.

AMIABLE MRS. SCHWELLENBERG AGAIN.

Sept. 4.-To-day there was a Drawing-room, and I had the blessing of my dearest father while it lasted; but not solus; he was accompanied by my mother; and my dear Esther and her little innocent Sophy spent part of the time with us. I am to be god-mother to the two little ones, Esther's and James's. Heaven bless them!

We returned to Kew to a late dinner; and, indeed, I had one of the severest evenings I ever passed, where my heart took no share in unkindness and injustice. I was wearied in the extreme, as I always am on these drawing-room days, which begin with full hair-dressing at six o'clock in the morning, and hardly ever allow any breakfast time, and certainly only standing, except while frizzing, till the drawing-room commences; and then two journeys in that decked condition--and then another dressing, with three dressing attendances--and a dinner at near seven o'clock.

Yet, not having power to be very amusing after all this, I was sternly asked by Mrs. Schwellenberg, "For what I did not talk?"

I answered simply, "Because I was tired."

"You tired!--what have you done? when I used to do so much more- -you tired! what have you to do but to be happy:

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--have you the laces to buy? have you the wardrobe to part? have you--you tired? Vell, what will become next, when you have every happiness!--you might not be tired. No, I can't bear It."

This, and so much more than it would be possible to write, all uttered with a haughtiness and contempt that the lowest servant could not have brooked receiving, awoke me pretty completely, though before I was scarce able to keep my eyelids a moment open; but so sick I turned, that indeed it was neither patience nor effort that enabled me to hear her; I had literally hardly strength, mental or bodily, to have answered her. Every happiness mine!--O gracious heaven! thought I, and is this the companion of my leisure--the associate of my life! Ah, my dear friends, I will not now go on--I turn sick again.

A ROYAL JOKE.

Sept. 29.-The birth-day of our lovely eldest princess. It happens to be also the birth-day of Miss Goldsworthy; and her majesty, in a sportive humour, bid me, as soon as she was dressed, go and bring down the two "Michaelmas geese." I told the message to the Princess Augusta, who repeated It in its proper words. I attended them to the queen's dressing- room, and there had the pleasure to see the cadeaux presentations. The birth-days in this house are made extremely interesting at the moment, by the reciprocations of presents and congratulations in this affectionate family. Were they but attended with less of toil (I hate to add ette, for I am sure it is not little toil), I should like them amazingly.

COLONEL GOLDSWORTHY'S BREACH OF ETIQUETTE. Mrs. Schwellenberg has become both colder and fiercer. I cannot now even meet her eyes-they are almost terrifying. Nothing upon earth having passed between us, nor the most remote subject of offence having occurred, I have only one thing on which to rest my conjectures, for the cause of this newly-awakened evil spirit, and this is from the gentlemen. They had all of late been so wearied that they could not submit even for a quarter of an hour to her society : they had swallowed a dish of tea and quitted the room all in five minutes, and Colonel Goldsworthy in particular, when without any companion in his waiting, had actually always fallen asleep,

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even during that short interval, or at least shut his eyes, to save himself the toil of speaking.

This she brooked very ill, but I was esteemed innocent, and therefore made, occasionally, the confidant of her complaints. But lately, that she has been ill, and kept upstairs every night, she has always desired me to come to her as soon as tea was over, which, she observed, "need not keep me five minutes." On the contrary, however, the tea is now at least an hour, and often more.

I have been constantly received with reproaches for not coming sooner, and compelled to declare I had not been sooner at liberty. This has occasioned a deep and visible resentment, all against them, yet vented upon me, not in acknowledged displeasure--pride there interfered--but in constant ill-humour, ill-breeding, and ill-will.

At length, however, she has broken out into one inquiry, which, if favourably answered, might have appeased all; but truth was too strongly in the way. A few evenings after her confinement she very gravely said, "Colonel Goldsworthy always sleeps with me! sleeps he with you the same?"

In the midst of all my irksome discomfort, it was with difficulty I could keep my countenance at this question, which I was forced to negative.

The next evening she repeated it. "Vell, sleeps he yet with you- -Colonel Goldsworthy?"

"Not yet, ma'am," I hesitatingly answered.

"O! ver vell! he will sleep with nobody but me! O, i von't come down."

And a little after she added, "I believe he vill marry you."

"I believe not, ma'am," I answered.

And then, very gravely,, she proposed him to me, saying he only wanted a little encouragement, for he was always declaring he wished for a wife, and yet wanted no fortune-" so for what won't you not have him?"

I assured her we were both perfectly well satisfied apart, and equally free from any thoughts of each other.

"Then for what," she cried, "won't you have Dr. Shepherd?" She Is now in the utmost haste to dispose of me! And then she added she had been told that Dr. Shepherd would marry me!

She is an amazing woman ! Alas, I might have told her I knew too well what it was to be tied to a companion ill-assorted and unbeloved, where I could not help myself, to

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make any such experiment as a volunteer!

If she asks me any more about Colonel Goldsworthy and his sleeping, I think I will answer I am too near-sighted to be sure if he is awake or not!

However, I cannot but take this stroke concerning the table extremely ill; for though amongst things of the very least consequence in itself, it is more openly designed as an affront than any step that has been taken with me yet.

I have given the colonel a hint, however,-that he may keep awake in future. . . .

ILLNESS OF MRS. SCHWELLENBERG.

Oct. 2.-Mrs. Schwellenberg, very ill indeed, took leave of the queen at St. James's, to set off for Weymouth, in company with Mrs. Hastings. I was really very sorry for her; she was truly in a situation Of suffering, from bodily pain, the most pitiable. I thought, as I looked at her, that if the ill-humours I so often experience could relieve her, I would consent to bear them unrepining, in preference to seeing or knowing her so ill. But it is just the contrary; spleen and ill-temper only aggravate disease, and while they involve others in temporary participation of their misery, twine it around themselves in bandages almost stationary. She was civil, too, poor woman. I suppose when absent she could not well tell why she had ever been otherwise.

GENERAL GRENVILLE'S REGIMENT AT DRILL.

Oct. 9.-I go on now pretty well; and I am so much acquainted with my party, that when no strangers are added, I begin to mind nothing but the first entree of my male visitants. My royal mistress is all sweetness to me; Miss Planta is most kind and friendly; General Budé is ever the same, and ever what I do not wish to alter; Colonel Goldsworthy seems coming round to good-humour; and even General Grenville begins to grow sociable. He has quitted the corner into which he used to cast his long figure, merely to yawn and lounge ; and though yawn and lounge he does still, and must, I believe, to the end of the chapter, he yet does it in society, and mixes between it loud sudden laughter at what is occasionally said, and even here and there a question relative to what is going forward. Nay-yesterday he even seated himself at the tea

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table, and amused himself by playing with my work-box, and making sundry inquiries about its contents.

Oct. 10.-This evening, most unwittingly, I put my new neighbour's good-humour somewhat to the test. He asked me whether I had walked out in the morning? Yes, I answered, I always walked. "And in the Little park?" cried he. Yes, I said, and to Old Windsor, and round the park wall, and along the banks of the Thames, and almost to Beaumont Lodge, and in the avenue of the Great park, and in short, in all the vicinage of Windsor. "But in the Little park?" he cried.

Still I did not understand him, but plainly answered, "Yes, this morning,; and indeed many mornings."

"But did you see nothing--remark nothing there?

No, not that I recollect, except some soldiers drilling." You never heard such a laugh as now broke forth from all for, alas for my poor eyes, there had been in the Little park General Grenville's whole regiment, with all his officers, and himself at their head! Fortunately it is reckoned one of the finest in the king's service : this I mentioned, adding that else I could never again appear before him.

He affected to be vehemently affronted, but hardly knew how, even in joke, to appear so ; and all the rest helped the matter on, by saying that they should know now how to distinguish his regiment, which henceforth must always be called " the drill."

The truth is, as soon as I perceived a few red-coats I had turned another way, to avoid being marched at, and therefore their number and splendour had all been thrown away upon me.

(278) "Cerbera" was Fanny's not inappropriate name for Mrs. Schwellenberg.-ED.

(279) By William Falconer, born at Edinburgh in 1730. His poem, "The Shipwreck," was suggested by his own experience at sea, and was first published in 1762. Falconer sailed for Bengal in 1769, the vessel touched at the Cape in December, and was never heard of more.-ED.

(280) In the "European Magazine" for May 1788, appeared an article from the pen of Baretti, headed "On Signora Piozzi's publication of Dr. Johnson's Letters, Stricture the First." It is filled with coarse, personal abuse of the lady, whom the author terms "the frontless female, who goes now by the mean appellation of Piozzi." "Stricture the Second," in the same tone, appeared the following month, and the "Third," which closed the series, in August of the same year. In the last number Baretti comments, with excessive bitterness, on Mrs. Piozzi's second marriage.-ED.

(281) "Original Love-letters between a Lady of Quality and a Person of Inferior Station." Dublin, 1784. Though by no means devoid of "nonsense and romance," the little book is not altogether undeserving of Colonel Digby's encomium. The story is very slight, and concludes, quite unnecessarily and rather unexpectedly, with the death of the gentleman, just as his good fortune seems assured.-ED.

(282) Robert Raikes, who was born at Gloucester in 1735, was a printer and the son of a printer. His father was proprietor of the "Gloucester journal." In conjunction with the Rev. Mr. Stocks, Raikes founded the institution of Sunday Schools in 1781. He died at Gloucester in 1811.-ED.

(283) "Cui Bono? or, an Inquiry what Benefits can arise either to the English or the Americans, the French, Spaniards, or Dutch, from the greatest victories, or successes, in the present War, being a Series of Letters, addressed to Monsieur Necker, late Controller- General of the Finances of France," By Josiah Tucker, D.D., published at Gloucester, 1781. The pamphlet was written in the advocacy of a general peace, and attracted much attention. The third edition appeared in 1782.-ED,

(284) Fanny alludes to an old adventure of Baretti's. He was accosted in the Haymarket by a prostitute, October 6, 1769. The woman was importunate, and the irritable Italian struck her on the hand; upon which three men came up and attacked him. He then drew a dagger in self defence, and mortally wounded one of his assailants. Baretti was tried at the Old Bailey for murder, October 20, and acquitted; Johnson, Burke, and Garrick appearing as witnesses to his character.-ED.

(285) With all Fanny's partiality for the "sweet queen," the evidences of that sweet creature's selfishness keep turning up in a very disagreeable manner-ED.

(286)) "The Country Girl," Which is still occasionally performed, is an adaptation by Garrick of one of the most brilliant, and most indecent, of Restoration comedies--Wycherley's "Country Wife." Mrs. Jordan played the part of "Peggy," the "Margery Punchwife" of Wycherley's play. It was in this part that she made her first appearance in London, at Drury Lane, October 18, 1785. She was one of the most admired actresses of her time. Genest, who saw her, writes of her, "As an actress she never had a superior in her proper line Mrs. Jordan's Country Girl, Romp, Miss Hoyden, and all characters of that description were exquisite--in breeches parts no actress can be put in competition with her but Mrs. Woffington, and to Mrs. Woffington she was as superior in point of voice as Mrs. Woffington was superior to her in beauty" (viii. p. 430). Mrs. Jordan died at St. Cloud, July 5, 1816, aged fifty. There is an admirable portrait of her by Romney in the character of the "Country Girl."-ED.

(287) See ante, vol. i., p. 151.-ED.

(288) Fanny's cousin, the son of Dr. Burney's brother, Richard Burney of Worcester.-ED.

(289) The poem in question is the "Ode to the Evening Star," the fifteenth of the first hook of Odes. Mr. Akenside, having paid his tear on fair Olympia's virgin tomb, roams in quest of Philomela's bower, and desires the evening star to send its golden ray to guide him. it is pretty, however. The first stanza runs as follows:--

"To night retired, the queen of heaven With young Endymion strays; And now to Hesper it is given Awhile to rule the vacant sky, Till she shall to her lamp supply A stream of lighter rays."-ED.

(290) Joseph jérome le Français de Lalande, one of the most distinguished of French astronomers. He was born in 1732, and died in 1807.-ED.

(291) Silly: insipid.

(292) 'Tis too much honour."

(293) "'Tis very troublesome, but one must say pretty things to ladies."

Page 220 SECTION 14 (1788-9.)

THE KING'S ILLNESS.

[Fanny's vivid account of the king's illness, from the autumn of 1788 to the spring of 1789, needs no recommendation to the reader. It requires only to be supplemented by a very brief sketch of the consequent proceedings in Parliament, which excited so much foolish indignation in the royal household, and in Fanny herself. That she should display more feeling than judgment under circumstances so affecting, was, perhaps, only to be expected, but it is none the less evident, from certain passages in the " Diary, that the tainted Court atmosphere had already clouded, to some extent, her naturally clear understanding. The insanity of a sovereign is, to her, a purely private and personal matter, with respect to which the only business of the public is to offer up prayers for his majesty's speedy recovery. That ministers should take steps to provide for the performance of the royal functions in government, during the period of the king's incapacity, is an act of effrontery at which she wants words to express her indignation. Mrs. Schwellenberg, who thought it treason to say that the King was ever at all indisposed, was scarcely more unreasonable in this particular than Miss Fanny Burney, who shuddered, with sentimental horror, at the mention of a Regency Bill.

About the commencement of November, 1788, there was no longer any doubt as to the serious nature of the king's malady. At the meeting of Parliament the prime minister, Mr. Pitt, Moved that a committee be appointed to examine the physicians attendant upon his majesty. This motion was agreed to, and on the 10th of December the report of the committee was laid upon the table of the House. The physicians agreed that his Majesty was then totally incapable of attending to public business. They agreed also in holding Out strong hopes of his ultimate recovery, but none of them would venture to give any opinion as to the probable duration of his derangement. Upon this, Mr. Pitt