66

little while without speaking, and then, sud-
denly, but very gently, said, Will you read a
paper while I work?"
I was quite
"consternated!" I had not
then the smallest expectation of such a request.
I said nothing, and held the book unopened.
"She took it from me, and pointed out the
place where I should begin. She is reading
them regularly through, for the first time. I
had no choice: I was forced to obey; but my
voice was less obedient than my will, and it be
came so husky, and so unmanageable, that no-
thing more unpleasant could be heard. The
paper was a curious one enough-all concerning
a court favourite. I could hardly rejoice when
my task was over, from my consciousness how
ill it was performed. The Queen talked of the
paper, but forbore saying anything of any sort
about the reader. I am sorry, however, to have
done so ill.'-Vol. iii., pp. 117-119.

The mortification of Miss Burney at the Queen's having' forborne to say anything of any sort about the reader' is obvious; but we suspect that it had a more serious and permanent effect on her temper and prospects, by dissipating all the hopes in which she had indulged of being elevated from the menial service of keeper of the robes to the higher and more lady-like duty of Reader. When she found that she really was to be Mrs. Schwellenberg's deputy, and like all other deputies subordinate to her principal-her vexation took a permanent shape and colour. She had not learned from honest Dogberry that, an two ride of a horse, one must ride behind,' and henceforward the struggle between her place and her pride made her, we have no doubt, exceedingly uncomfortable to herself and others.

and very few attendants, it was the King's pleasure to live very much in the style of a country gentleman, riding a great deal, hunting, farming, superintending his workmen, &c. The royal ladies lived in the same unceremonious fashion: drove out and paid visits in the mornings, and read and worked round the tea-table in the evenings, while the King chatted, or played backgammon with the equerry in waiting, commonly his only attendant. There was also generally music, of which the audience was the royal family and their very small suite, now and then an occasional visitor, and a few persons like Mrs. Delany, who might be called private friends. Every now and then this domestic circle, but on a still smaller scale, was, for a little variety and change of air for the royal children, removed to Kew:

'You will perceive the Kew life is different from the Windsor. As there are no early prayers, the Queen rises later; and as there is no form or ceremony here of any sort, her dress is plain, and the hour for the second toilette extremely uncertain. The Royal family are here always in so very retired a way, that they live has not even an equerry with him, nor the as the simplest country gentlefolks. The King Queen any lady to attend her when she goes her airings.'-Vol. iii., p. 37.

Once or twice a-week the King, and less frequently the Queen, would come to London, either for public business or for levees and drawing-rooms. To this regular and simple style of life their Majesties added early hours and strict punctuality; and living, as they did, in small houses and in so private a way, they received few visitors themselves, and expected-not unreasonably-that in this respect they should be imitated by their attendants. Miss Burney— (who, no doubt, regretted the gross flattery of other circles, and had been regaling herself with the idea of playing lioness in a royal den)-was very much disposed to infringe this rule, and it required some gentle hints from the Queen herself to bring her into discipline on this and some other points; for she had a wonderful alacrity at getting into petty scrapes, partly from ignorance, and partly from presumption. Miss Burney's ordinary duties may be compressed into the following summary :—

At this period their Majesties' residence at Windsor was in a plain barrack-looking house, called the Queen's Lodge, erected a little to the south-eastward of the Castle, by Sir William Chambers, for George III., but fortunately demolished in the recent improvements. It is due to the memory of the Sovereign and the architect to say, that this excrescence, of which both the style and the position were, with reference to the Castle, exceedingly incongruous, was never meant to be permanent; but the Castle was not habitable for the royal family, nor capable of being made so at any - reasonable expense, nor within any reasonable time; and George III., designing to restore it gradually, and wishing in the 'I rise at six o'clock, dress in a morningmeanwhile to have the pleasure of living gown and cap, and wait my first summons [to at Windsor, ran up, as we have understood, the Queen], which is at all times from seven to this lodge for a temporary residence, with near eight, but commonly in the exact half-hour between them.... The Queen never sends for the obvious intention of removing it when me till her hair is dressed: this, in a morning, the Castle should be completed. In this is always done by her wardrobe-woman, Mrs. house, with very limited accommodation | Thielky, a German, but who speaks English

the equerry, whoever he is, comes to tea constantly, and with him any gentleman that the King or Queen may have invited for the evening; and when tea is over he conducts them and goes himself to the concert-room. This is commonly about nine o'clock. From that time, if Mrs. Schwellenberg is alone, I never quit her for a minute till I come to my little supper at near eleven. Between eleven and twelve my last summons usually takes place, earlier and later time then spent with the Queen; half an hour, I believe, is seldom exceeded. I then come back, and after doing whatever I can to forward my dress for the next morning, I go to bed-and to sleep, too, believe me: the early rising, and a long day's attention to new affairs and occupations, cause a fatigue so bodily that nothing mental stands against it, and to sleep I fall the moment I have put out my candle and laid down my head.'—Vol. iii., pp. 27-31.

perfectly well. Mrs. Schwellenberg, since the first week, has never come down in a morning at all. The Queen's dress is finished by Mrs. Thielky and myself. No maid ever enters the room while the Queen is in it. Mrs. Thielky hands the things to me, and I put them on. By eight o'clock, or a little after, for she is extremely expeditious, she is dressed. She then goes out to join the King, and be joined by the princesses, and they all proceed to the King's chapel in the castle, to prayers, attended by the gover-occasionally. Twenty minutes is the customary nesses of the princesses and the King's equerry. Various others at times attend; but only these indispensably. I then return to my own room to breakfast: I make this meal the most pleasant part of the day; I have a book for my companion, and I allow myself an hour for it... At nine o'clock I send off my breakfast-things, and relinquish my book, to make a serious and steady examination of everything I have upon my hands in the way of business-in which preparations for dress are always included, not for the present day alone, but for the court-days, which require a particular dress; for the next arriving birth- Miss Burney contrived to make herself—or day of any of the royal family, every one of which requires new apparel; for Kew, where at least says that she was made-exceedingthe dress is plainest; and for going on here,ly miserable; and we have little doubt that where the dress is very pleasant to me, requiring no show nor finery, but merely to be neat, not inelegant, and moderately fashionable. That over, I have my time at my own disposal till a quarter before twelve, except on Wednesdays and Saturdays, when I have it only to a quarter be

These are the materials out of which

she did make herself exceedingly ridiculous and disagreeable to her companions. Her grand grievance is the domineering spirit and tyrannical oppression of Mrs. Schwellenberg. We can easily believe that this fore eleven.... These times mentioned call me good lady, the Queen's countrywoman and to the irksome and quick-returning labours of the oldest friend and favourite-and now grown toilette. The hour advanced on the Wednes- old, sickly, and probably peevish--was not days and Saturdays is for curling and craping particularly pleased at the introduction of a the hair, which it now requires twice a-week. young English authoress in the place of her A quarter before one is the usual time for the old German associate, Mrs. Haggerdorn; Queen to begin dressing for the day. Mrs. and particularly as the new-comer's awkSchwellenberg then constantly attends; so do I; Mrs. Thielky, of course, at all times. We help wardness, ignorance, and dissatisfaction at her off with her gown, and on with her powder- her subordinate situation created additional ing-things, then the hair-dresser is admitted: trouble and a species of annoyance which she generally reads the newspapers during that had never before broken the even tenour of operation. When she observes that I have run Mrs. Schwellenberg's life. But, on the othto her but half-dressed, she constantly gives me er hand, we think it is clear that Miss Burleave to return and finish as soon as she is seatney's personal pretensions forced Mrs. ed. If she is grave, and reads steadily on, she Schwellenberg into something of a hostile dismisses me, whether I am dressed or not; but at all times she never forgets to send me away vindication of her own position and the etiwhile she is powdering, with a consideration not quette of her office: take for instance--the to spoil my clothes that one would not expect be- most frequent and fruitful cause of dissatislonged to her high station. Neither does faction to Miss Burney---the supreme comshe detain me without making a point of read-mand exercised by Mrs. Schwellenberg at ing here and there some little paragraph aloud. ... Few minutes elapse ere I am again summoned. I find her then always removed to her state dressing-room, if any room in this private mansion can have the epithet of state; there in a very short time, her dress is finished. She then says she won't detain me, and I hear and see no more of her till bed-time.... At five we have dinner. Mrs. Schwellenberg and I meet in the eating-room.... When we have dined we go upstairs to her apartment, which is directly over mine. Here we have coffee till the terracing is over; this is at about eight o'clock. Our tête-à-tête then finishes, and we come down again to the eating-room. There

the dinner and tea tables. In those days no invited to dine at the royal table-but there gentleman and very few ladies were ever was a regular and well-appointed table kept nominally for Mrs. Schwellenberg, but in reality for her and her assistant, and such attendants and occasional visitors as their Majes ties-and particularly the Queen-might invite or cause to be invited to it. A similar table for the equerries was more specially filled by the King's invitation; and the guests at both tables were in the habit of meeting at tea in Mrs. Schwellenberg's

apartments, where his Majesty would often | belonged to her predecessor, by entertaincondescend to walk in, and invite some of ing her own visitors in the King's house, the party (but never persons of Mrs. and by acting in a way which she confessSchwellenberg's or Miss Burney's rank) ed must have been so offensive' to Mrs. to the music or drawing room. In the Schwellenberg, who had begun very civilQueen's first offer to Miss Burney her place ly and attentively. Yet, before she had. at this table was clearly marked :— completed seven full days in office we find her writing,

'No sooner did I find that my coadjutrix ceased to speak of returning to Windsor, and that I became, by that means, the presidentess of the And she had previously, on this the dinner and tea table, than I formed a grand devery first evening of her residence, attempt-sign-no other than to obtain to my own use the ed a still higher stretch of independence disposal of my evenings. instead of accompanying Mrs. Schwellenberg into the tea-room, as her predecessor had always done and as all the rest of the company did, she ordered tea in her own room for herself and a visitor, who had called to congratulate her on her appoint

as had belonged to two invalid old ladies, glad | bête noire, 'old Madam Schwellenberg,' of company, and without a single connexion who, after all, really seems to have treated to draw them from home.'-Vol. iii., pp. 171, her young associate's very perverse pro

172.

In vain did the gentlemen assemble every evening as usual-in vain did they regularly tend their compliments to Miss Burney, to say that they were come to tea, and waiting for her.'

'I determined not to notice this; and consequently, the first time Mrs. Delany was not well enough to give me her valuable society at the lodge, I went to her house, and spent the evening there, without sending any message to the equerries, as any apology must imply a right on their part that must involve me in future con

finement.

This I did three or four times, always with so much success as to gain my point for the moment, but never with such happy consequences as to ensure it me for the time to come; since every next meeting showed an air of pique, and since every evening had still, unremittingly, the same message for John.'-Vol. iii., pp. 172,

173.

This kind of proceeding went on for several days, till at last it produced a direct remonstrance from Col. Goldsworthy, the King's first equerry, on the part of himself and the rest; and then Miss Burney discovered as she says-that her own footman, who had so regularly announced that the gentlemen were waiting for her, had also previously announced to the gentlemen that she was waiting for them. We can hardly believe this-for though the footman may have delivered the routine message the first evening in the usual way, yet when both he and the gentlemen found that the lady was not waiting, and that the lady never came, it seems scarcely possible that such a mistake could have been repeated night after night; but, be that as it may, it

does not alter the substance of the

case.

Miss Burney, according to her own statement, formed a grand design' of assuming a personal authority where she had none, and of innovating on an established usage of the King's family in a most offensive way; and it seems to us, that her whole temper and deportment were on all occasions marked with different shades of the same perversity and impertinence.

These miserable tracasseries may seem to our readers--as indeed they are--very paltry and tedious; but they form so large a feature in the book, and develope so clearly the author's character, that we cannot, in justice to all parties, omit to place them in what we consider their proper light; and with this object we shall say a few words more on the subject of Miss Burney's

ceedings with considerable forbearancefor Miss Burney, with all her avowed malevolence towards Mrs. Schwellenberg, acknowledges several instances of civility and kindness from her, particularly at first; while, on the other hand, she specifies but one single cause of complaint, and we may be assured that if she had more to tell it would not have been suppressed. But that specific complaint is, it must be owned, a serious one. In one of the journeys from Windsor to town, Mrs. Schwellenberg and Miss Burney being in the royal coach appropriated to their use, with Miss Planta and Mr. De Luc, two other of the attendants, Mrs. Schwellenberg desired that one of the glasses should be down-no very unreasonable wish with four people in a coach-but unfortunately she preferred its being down at Miss Burney's side; and we must say that, considering Mrs. Schwellenberg's age, ill health, and relative rank, and her long 'presidency' in that coach, her wishes ought to have prevailed. But Miss Burney's eyes were weak, and the cold air was exceedingly uncomfortable to her. Mr. De Luc first pulled up the glass for her relief, but Mrs. Schwellenberg objected to that-Mr. De Luc then goodnaturedly proposed that Miss Burney should change places with Miss Planta, who sat opposite to Mrs Schwellenberg, and consequently on the sheltered side;' to this all agreed except Miss Burney, who told them- brieflythat is, angrily-that she was always sick in riding backwards.' (vol. iii., p. 460.) The elegance of the fact and of the phrase is worthy rather of Miss Branghton than Erelina. We suspect, however, that it was not so much the fear of sickness as the supposed loss of dignity from 'riding backwards,' that operated on Miss Burney; and we cannot but smile at the haut-en-bas style in which she always affects on all occasions to treat Miss Planta, who had been the governess, and was now the companion, of the elder Princesses, and therefore, we believe, inofficial station, as she certainly was in good manners, good sense, good nature, and everything-except self-opinion-at least the equal of the second keeper of the robes. This adventure of the coach-glass is made the occasion of much harsh language and malignant insinuation against poor Mrs. Schwellenberg, which would not be worth our notice, except as affording additional proofs of the style of exaggeration and mis

representation in which the Memoirs are generally written.

It would be insufferably tedious to wade through a tithe of the blunders, squabbles, complaints, and miseries in which Miss Burney contrived by her own vanity and vulgarity to involve herself-but there is one transaction of so peculiar and prominent an aspect, that we cannot pass it over with the contempt that its intrinsic absurdity would deserve.

the sacrifice of a little accuracy-as a heroine of romance who touched the heart, or turned the head of every man who approached her. Her innate propensity was to make mountains of mole-hills. That is a leading defect in her novels, and is still more prominent in these memoirs; and though we do not accuse her of downright fabrication, we see that she frequently inflates and discolours her anecdotes into something very like falsehood;--and this Amongst the Queen's attendants--a observation--true as it is of the whole frequent guest at the table and companion work-applies with peculiar force to this in the coach-was a gentleman whom Miss individual story of Mr. Giffardier, for we Burney chooses to call Mr. Turbulent, but have here positive proof from her own pen whose real designation was the Reverend of serious inaccuracy on her part. She Charles Giffardier,* French reader to the professes-be it observed-to write a diary Queen and Princesses, and very much in in letters to her sister-which are dethe favour and confidence of all those illus-spatched as soon as the sheet is full: such trious ladies. With him Miss 'Burney a diary, we need hardly say, can tell the managed very early in their acquaintance story only of to-day or yesterday, but never to get into a series of most extraordinary of to-morrow. Now the first distinct mendiscussions and perplexities, amounting to tion of Mr. Turbulent is on the 4th Novempassionate transports on his part and awk- ber, 1786, when he dined as a new comer, ward indecision and embarrassment on and by the Queen's command, at the table, hers. If we gave implicit credit to her and then she adds1 statements we must believe that Mr. Giffardier, though a beneficed clergyman, and in 'Shall I introduce to you this gentleman such the highest confidence of Queen Charlotte, as I now think him at once? or wait to let his was lax in his moral views and unsteady the same manner that it did to me? I wish I character open itself to you by degrees, and in in his religious principles, and, though a could hear you answer! So capital a part as married man, violently enamoured of Miss you will find him destined to play hereafter Fanny, who represents herself as so aston-in my concerns, I mean, sooner or later, to the ished and awed by the turbulence of the best of my power, to make you fully acquainted man's language and deportment, that she with him.'-Vol. iii., p. 207. had not courage to disentangle herself from his visits. We need hardly remark, that if her wishes to do so had been sincere, a

to

single word, a single look-situated as the
parties were-would have sufficed
silence any
Mr. Turbulent that ever lived.
Nor can we understand on what principles
of good faith or good taste she should have
thought herself justified in thus elaborately
recording for circulation and publication
so much idle, and, as she affects to have
thought it, offensive trash. But idle and
dull as, in her representation, it certainly
is, it clearly was not to her-whatever she
may say - offensive: it flattered her amour-
propre more than it alarmed her prudery-
she received it with a sentimental flutter
as a homage to her attractions, and she
was delighted-as she had been in the
Crutchley and some other affairs-at the
opportunity of exhibiting herself-even at

*So he was commonly called, but his name correctly written was, we believe, De Guiffardière. He had a prebendal stall at Salisbury, and was vicar of Newington and rector of Berkhampstead.

Here is manifest inaccuracy and selfcontradiction. She confounds 'now' and

hereafter,' and betrays, clumsily enough, that the pretended Diary' was-in this instance at least-dressed up at a subsequent period, when the novelist chose to metamorphose poor Mr. Giffardier into a hero, destined to play so capital a part in

her concerns.'

And such a part! We know not how to describe it; for Miss Burney's style of narrative unites the contradictory qualities of being too diffuse to be extracted, and too obscure to be abridged. In fact, we can very seldom make out what her squabbles with Mr. Turbulent were about. The two main points seem to have been his anxiety that Miss Burney (Mrs. Schwellenberg being absent) should invite Colonel Greville, the equerry in waiting and a particular favourite of his own, to the tea-table, and that he himself wished for more of the enchanting conversation and company of Miss Burney than it seems she chose to allow him. These very ordinary matters are discussed between the parties in a style