of passion on one side and prudery on the | all the circumstances of his situation, and the other, of which one or two passages-the impossibility of his meaning to give me cause shortest and least unintelligible we for gravity. find--will give our readers a more than sufficient specimen : can Mr. Turbulent became now every journey more and more violent in his behaviour. He no longer sued for leave to bring in his Colonel [Greville,] who constantly sent in his own name to ask it, and invariably preserved that delicacy, good-breeding, and earnestness to oblige, which could not but secure the welcome he requested.' -Vol. iii., p. 347. Then why did she make such difficulties about it, if not to keep up her discussions with Mr. Turbulent? She proceeds : We were travelling to Windsor-Mr. Turbulent, Miss Planta, and myself the former in the highest spirits, and extremely entertaining, relating various anecdotes of his former life, and gallantly protesting he was content to close the scene, by devoting himself to the service of the ladies then present. All this for a while did mighty well, and I was foremost to enter into the spirit of his rhodomontading; but I drew a little back when he said we did not live half enough together during these journeys, and desired he might come to breakfast with me. Why should we not," he cried, "all live together? I hate to breakfast alone. What time do you rise ?" "At six o'clock," cried I. "Well, I shall wait upon you then-call you, no doubt, for you can never be really up then. Shall I call you? Will you give me leave?" 6.66 I shall certainly be punctual to six o'clock. If I should rap at your door to-morrow morning early, should you be very angry?-can you be very angry?" An unfortunate idea this, both for him and for me, and somewhat resembling poor Mrs. Vesey's, which she expressed once in the opening of a letter to me in these words:-"You look as if you could forgive a liberty! I fear Mr. Turbulent thought so too. His vehemence upon the eternal subject of his colonel lasted during the whole journey; and when we arrived at Windsor he followed me to my room, uttering such high-flown compliments, mixed with such bitter reproaches, that sometimes I was almost tempted to be quite serious with him, especially as that manner which had already so little pleased me, returned, and with double force, so as to rise at times to a pitch of gallantry in his professions of devotion and complaints of ill-usage that would have called for some very effectual exertion to subdue and crush, had I not considered All his murmurs at the weariness of these winter journeys, and all his misanthropical humours, were now vanished. He protested he when he got into my room upon our arrival, he longed for the return of the Windsor days; and detained me in a sort of conversation hard to describe, of good-humoured raillery and sport, mixed with flighty praise and protestations, till I was regularly obliged to force him away, by assurances that he would disgrace me, by making me inevitably too late to be dressed for the Queen. Nevertheless, till this evening, to which I am now coming, I was altogether much amused with him, and though sometimes for a moment startled, it was only for a moment, and I felt afterwards constantly ashamed I had been startled at all. 'I must now, rather reluctantly I own, come to recite a quarrel, a very serious quarrel, in which I have been involved with my most extraordinary fellow-traveller. One evening at Windsor Miss Planta left the room while I was winding some silk. I was content to stay and finish my skein, though my remaining compa nion was in a humour too flighty to induce me to continue with him a moment longer. Indeed I had avoided pretty successfully all têteà-têtes with him since the time when his eccentric genius led to such eccentric conduct in our long conference in the last month. This time, however, when I had done my work, he protested I should stay and chat with him. I pleaded business-letters-hurry-all in vain; he would listen to nothing, and when I offered to move, was so tumultuous in his opposition that I was obliged to re-seat myself to appease him. A flow of compliments followed, every one of which I liked less and less; but his spirits seemed uncontrollable, and, I suppose, ran away with all that ought to check them. I laughed and rallied as long as I possibly could, and tried to keep him in order, by not seeming to suppose he wanted aid for that purpose; yet still, every time I tried to rise, he stopped me, and uttered at last such expressions of homage -so like what Shakspeare says of the schoolboy who makes "a sonnet on his mistress' eyebrow," which is always his favourite theme that I told him his real compliment was all to my temper, in imagining it could brook such mockery. This brought him once more on his knees, with such a volley of asseverations of his sincerity, uttered with such fervour and violence, that I really felt uneasy, and used every possible means to get away from him, rallying him, however, all the time, and disguising the consciousness I felt of my inability to quit him. More and more vehement, however, he grew, till I could be no longer passive, but forcibly rising, protested I would not stay another minute. But you may easily imagine my astonishment and provocation, when, hastily rising himself, he violently seized hold of me, and compelled me to return to my chair, with a Shakspeare talks no such nonsense. force and a freedom that gave me as much sur- | Princess Augusta, (vol prise as offence. iii., p. 339,) which must have opened any eyes but those of so All now became serious. Raillery, good- incorrigible an egotist. Twenty times she humour, and even pretended ease and unconcern, were at an end. The positive displeasure I felt seems to have suspected what every one I made positively known; and the voice, manelse saw, that it was all a mauvaise plaisanner, and looks with which I insisted upon an terie; but the delight of being worshipped immediate release were so changed from what soon overcame these gleams of common he had ever heard or observed in me before, sense, and she gladly relapsed into the that I saw him quite thunderstruck with the flattering conviction that she had inspired alteration; and, all his own violence subsiding, a passion! In short, this grand affair, which he begged my pardon with the mildest humility. He had made me too angry to grant it, so tormented her and wearies her readers, and I only desired him to let me instantly go to was from beginning to end a mere mystifimy own room. He ceased all personal opposi- cation-the occasional amusement of the tion; but, going to the door, planted himself gentleman, but an obstinate and cherished before it, and said, "Not in wrath! I cannot let self-delusion on the part of the lady. you go away in wrath!" You must, sir," Some readers may be disposed to think cried I," for I am in wrath!" He began a that we have given more space to the exthousand apologies, and as many promises of the most submissive behaviour in future; but I posure of Miss Burney's vanity and absurdstopped them all with a peremptory declaration ity than so trivial a subject deserves; but that every minute he detained me made me but be it recollected that the work is of considthe more seriously angry. His vehemence now erable pretension, and that if it be not now all changed into strong alarm, and he opened reduced to its proper value, it may become the door, profoundly bowing, but not speaking, hereafter a kind of authority in the history as I passed him. I am sure I need not dwell upon the uncomof manners, and may injuriously affect the fortable sensations I felt in a check so rude and reputation of persons whose talents it deviolent to the gaiety and entertainment of an preciates, and whose conduct it misrepreacquaintance which had promised me my best sents. Is it, for example, not our duty to amusement during our winter campaigns. I show that a clergyman honoured with the was now to begin upon quite a new system, and, intimate confidence of good Queen Charinstead of encouraging, as hitherto I had done, lotte, and employed by her in the educaeverything that could lead to vivacity and spirit, I was fain to determine upon the most distant and even forbidding demeanour, with the only life of our parties, that he might not again forget himself.'-Vol. iii., pp. 347-351. tion of her royal daughters, was not such a profligate madman as Miss Burney's Mr. Turbulent? There is, indeed, as we have already admitted, no great harm done. She generally deals in very trivial concerns, and And this is the shortest specimen we can the tomb has closed over most of those give! Nothing, indeed, can equal the that are mentioned; but we have still stupid and prolix solemnity with which she amongst us a few amiable and honoured surlabours all the details of this affair, except vivors, who, as well as the friends and rethe incredible blindness which prevented latives of the departed, have too much her seeing the explanation of the enigma, reason to complain of these foolish gossip-Mr. Giffardier was all the while only ings. As the succeeding volumes reach laughing at her. The truth is, that he was later times, this inconvenience is likely to a very worthy man, and as incapable, from become more serious; we therefore hasten temper and principle, of indulging, as to enter our protest against it, and to warn Miss Burney was of exciting, any irregu- the editor of a difficulty-we might almost lar transports. But he was somewhat of a call it a danger-which she does not appear humorist-a kind of Yorick-fond of fon-sufficiently to appreciate. a ready manufacturer of practical jokes But though the larger portion of the and ridiculous stories, with which, within work, as far as it has gone, is of this worththe limits of becoming mirth,' even the less and vexatious character, we readily queen and the princesses would sometimes admit that there are some few episodes of condescend to be amused: and it is quite a better description. In the short-alas, clear that he soon saw and seized the op- very short!-intervals in which Miss Burportunity of entertaining himself with the ney's amour-propre is permitted to slumaffectations, assumptions, and absurdities ber, we pick up some amusing details of of this foolish little woman, who persisted the state of society sixty years ago, and in taking it all au grand sérieux, though some interesting anecdotes of remarkable she herself records many similar instances persons. But even these passages are of Mr. Giffardier's style of pleasantry, par- written so much in the style of the 'Préticularly a scene played by him before the lcieuses Ridicules,' and are spun out with such incompressible prolixity, that we con- It is really, whatever hypercritics may think, a pleasure to praise. It has been a most reluctant and painful duty to expose, as we have done, the style and temper of Miss Burney, and we are glad, whenever we can with any colour of truth, to say something favourable to her memoirs; and this we can venture to do in the very few passages in which her personal vanity has permitted her to see clearly and to breathe freely. Amongst her equals or those only a little above her in society, she is captious, perverse, pompous, and, we believe, deceit ful; she is always striving to be something which she is not; but with her royal master and mistress her position was so clearly defined and so incapable of flights and fancies, that she was, as it were, pinned down to the reality, and it would seem as if the simplicity and dignity of their personal character inspired Miss Burney with short gleams of corresponding sobriety, both of feeling and description; not that she is not very ready to bestow her tediousness' on kings and princes, as well as on her 'even Christian,' but she has discretion or rever ence enough to restrain her fabulous ver bosity within stricter limits than she thought necessary for Mr. Crutchley or Mr. Turbulent, or even Dr. Johnson. Ladies now a days will hardly understand the dependence of our grandmothers on hair-dressers. Miss Burney's first attempt at doing the duties of her office, unassisted by Mrs. Schwellenberg, was in waiting on the Queen in a visit, first to Nuneham Courtney, the seat of Lord Harcourt, and thence to Oxford, in the summer of 1786. She was exceedingly disturbed at the absence of that degree of personal attention on the part of the noble ladies of the family, to which she, forgetting the humble character in which she appeared there, thought herself entitled, and we have long pages of the ridiculous miseries which she inflicted on herself in consequence of these imaginary indignities; but the following distress was, in those days of powder and pomatum, of a more real, though hardly less ludicrous character: 'My next difficulty was for a hair-dresser. Nuneham is three or four miles from Oxford; and I had neither maid to dress, nor man to seek a dresser. I could only apply to Mrs. Thielky, and she made it her business to prevail with one of the royal footmen to get me a messenger, to order a hair-dresser from Oxford at six o'clock in the morning.. 6 August 13th.-At six o'clock my hairdresser, to my great satisfaction, arrived. Full two hours was he at work, yet was I not finished, when Swarthy, the Queen's hair-dresser, came rapping at my door, to tell me her Majesty's hair was done, and she was waiting for me. I hurried as fast as I could, and ran down without any cap. She smiled at sight of my hasty attire, and said I should not be distressed about a hair-dresser the next day, but employ Swarthy's assistant, as soon as he had done with the Princesses: "You should have had him," she added, "to-day, if I had known you wanted him.' When her Majesty was dressed, all but the hat, she sent for the three Princesses; and the King came also. I felt very foolish with my uncovered head; but it was somewhat the less awkward, from its being very much a custom, in the Royal Family, to go without caps; though none that appear before them use such a freedom. 'As soon as the hat was on,-"Now, Miss Burney," said the Queen, "I won't keep you, you had better go and dress too."-Vol. iii., Pp. 89, 90. This was the more good-natured on the part of the Queen, for Miss Burney had the habitual misfortune of being always in a hurry and generally too late for her duty, and here we see she consoled herself for her negligence by a circumstance that would have additionally distressed a really modest person; she found herself, by this accident, dressed as the Royal Ladies sometimes were, and as 'no one else took the freedom to be. She seerns, as we before hinted, to have tried the Queen's patience in a variety of ways. Could it be believed that, one day when Mrs. Schwellenberg's absence enabled 'the sweet Queen' to gratify Miss Burney with the object of her ambition, the presidency of the table,' by desiring her to invite a German clergyman to dinner, she did it by a verbal message through the same footman whose blunders she has often experienced, and who, on this occasion, as ignorant as she was negligent, conveyed it to a wrong person? This produced a series of embar rassments to all the parties, which the Queen had the trouble of setting right by desiring Mrs. Schwellenberg (who had fortunately returned that evening) to invite the proper gentleman for the next day. At this and similar mixtures of neglect and blunder her Majesty only smiled, or some times, when they seemed likely to lead to | as you have not, it will be the safest way to let graver conseqences, condescended to set it alone. You may easily say, without giving her right. Miss Burney, it must be added her any offence, that you are now too much enhad the grace to be very sensible of all gaged to find time for entering into any new this kindness on the part of her Majesty, correspondence." and records it with a gratitude which would be amiable if it were not spoiled by the affectations of all sorts with which it is, to use a vulgar, but therefore most appropriate term, interlarded. Here and there we find more important traits of her Majesty's character. Some common friends of Miss Burney and Madame de Genlis wished to establish a regular correspondence between them; Mrs. Delany's good sense saw the danger, in Miss Burney's situation, of such confidential intercourse with a lady of Madame de Genlis's very public and peculiar position, and advised Miss Burney to submit the matter to the Queen. 'An opportunity offered the next morning, for the Queen again commanded me to follow her into her saloon; and there she was so gentle and so gracious, that I ventured to speak of Madame de Genlis. as I was able, and I felt the honour its reliance 'I thanked her for this open advice as well upon my prudence did me, as well as the kindness of permitting such an excuse to be made. The Queen talked on then of Madame de Genlis with the utmost frankness; she admired her as much as I had done myself, but had been she thought it unsafe and indiscreet to form any so assaulted with tales to her disadvantage, that connection with her. Against her own judg ment, she had herself been almost tormented into granting her a private audience, from the imprudent vehemence of one of Madame de G.'s friends here, with whom she felt herself but little pleased for what she had done, and diciousness, would lose all power of exerting who, I plainly saw, from that unfortunate inju any influence in future. Having thus unreservedly explained herself, she finished the subject, and has never started it since. But she looked the whole time with a marked approbation of my applying to her. Poor Madame de Genlis! how I grieve at the cloud which hovers over so much merit, too bright to be hid, but not to be obscured!'-Vol. iii., pp. 127-129. We have made this long extract not only because it relates to that very remarkable woman Madame de Genlis, but as contrasting the simple and concise good sense of the Queen with the verbosity and inflation, bordering on nonsense, of the literary attendant. The following is a pleasant picture: 'With many pauses, and continual hesitation, I then told her that I had been earnestly pressed by Madame de Genlis to correspond with her; that I admired her with all my heart, and, with all my heart, believed all good of her; but that, nevertheless, my personal knowledge of her was too slight to make me wish so intimate an intercourse, which I had carefully shunned upon all occasions but those where my affection as well as my admiration had been interested; though I felt such a request from such a woman as Madame de Genlis as an honour, and there- Sunday, August 6th. The private conduct fore not to be declined without some reason of the Royal Family is all so good, so exemstronger than my own general reluctance to pro-plary, that it is with the greatest pleasure I posals of that sort; and I found her unhappily, and I really and sincerely believed undeservedly, encircled with such powerful enemies, and accused with so much confidence of having voluntarily provoked them, that I could not, even in my own mind, settle if it were right to connect myself with her so closely, till I could procure information more positive in her favour, in order to answer the attacks of those who asperse her, and who would highly blame me for entering into a correspondence with a character not more unquestionably known to me. I had been desirous to wait, suspended, till this fuller knowledge might be brought about; but I was now solicited into a decision by M. Argant, who was immediately going to her, and who must either take her a letter from me, or show her, by taking none, that I was bent upon refusing her request. take, from time to time, occasion to give my Susan some traits of it. This morning, before church, Miss Planta was sent to me by the Queen for some snuff, to be mixed as before; when I had prepared it I carried it, as directed, to her Majesty's dressing-room. I turned round the lock, for that, not rapping at the door, is the mode of begging admission; and she called out to me to come in. I found her reading aloud some religious book, but I could not discover what, to the three eldest Princesses. Miss Planta was in waiting. She continued after my entrance, only mentioning to me that the snuff might be put in a box upon the table. I did not execute my task very expeditiously; for I was glad of this opportunity of witnessing the maternal piety with which she enforced, in voice and expression, every sentence that contained any lesson that might be useful, to her Royal daughters. She reads extremely well, with great force, clearness, and meaning.'-Vol. iii., The Queen heard me with the greatest attention, and then said, "Have you yet writ to p. 57. her?" No, I said. "I will speak to you then," cried she, "very honestly; if you have not yet And this is a touching one :writ, I think it better you should not write. If you had begun, it would be best to go on; but VOL. LXX. 20 'December 24th.-When I attended the And we have good reason to know that the following estimate of her Majesty's understanding is perfectly just :- an Queen to-day after church, she kept me with she certainly repressed all approach to her the whole morning, and spoke with more familiarity and confidence; she rarely openness and trust upon various matters than I had yet observed. Chiefly the subject was the spoke to her beyond a few necessary words, and appears on the whole to have been— unhappy and frail Lady C. The Queen had known her all her life, and particularly interest-, we had almost said-shy of her. Whether ed herself in all her proceedings: she had fre- this arose from Miss Burney's station, or quently received her in private, and had taken her manners-or her reputation as pains as well as pleasure in showing a marked, author-or a suspicion that she might be a useful, and a partial regard for her. What a keeping a diary-we cannot say; but the disappointment, what a shock, then, did she not fact is, we think, very evident—and in one receive by her fall! She spoke of the whole view we regret it.-We have already extransaction, gave me her character, her story, her situation-all at large; and at last, in speak-pressed our disapprobation of publishing ing of her utter ruin and all its horrors, the tears private conversations, but the little Miss ran down her face, and she held her handker- Burney has told us of the Queen is so chief to her eyes some time before she could dry amiable that we cannot but wish that, since them.'--Vol. iii., p. 250, 251. she did break the ice, she had had more to tell. In truth, nothing can be more charming than the whole domestic character of her Majesty-her tender and affectionate reverence for the King-her fond, yet judicious, treatment of her children-her indulgent consideration and kindness towards her attendants-her high scale of morals— her unvarying good temper-her plain yet elegant manners-her terse and appropriate style of conversation-her sound good sense-her prudence-her patienceher piety-her dignified deportment :—all which, on proper occasions, gave lustre even to her exalted station; and were accompanied by a real simplicity of taste and feeling that would have made her happy and respectable if she had been but a curate's wife. Every one knows historically the general excellence of her character, but Miss Burney saw the Queen in some of the details of her private life; and every line in which her majesty is mentioned, gives proof of some one or other of her admirable and amiable qualities. It is no great compliment to the practical exercise of English liberty, that this illustrious lady-one not only of the most illustrious but the most virtuous, benevolent, and blameless of women-was during her whole life the object of libels and obloquy, under which a weaker mind would have sunk-against which a more ambitious spirit would have revolted; but which her meek dignity and conscious rectitude had the magnanimity to disregard, and the happiness to outlive. 'The Queen was unremittingly sweet and gracious, never making me sensible of any insufficiency from my single attendance; which, to me, was an opportunity the most favourable in the world for becoming more intimately acquainted with her mind and understanding For the excellency of her mind I was fully prepared; the testimony of the nation at large could not be unfaithful; but the depth and soundness of her understanding surprised me: good sense I expected; to that alone she could owe the even tenour of her conduct, universally approved, though examined and judged by the watchful eye of multitudes. But I had not imagined that, shut up in the confined limits of a court, she could have acquired any but the most superficial knowledge of the world, and the most partial insight into character. But I find now I have only done justice to her disposition, not to her parts, which are truly of that superior order that makes sagacity intuitively supply the place of experience. In the course of this month I spent much time quite alone with her, and never once quitted her presence without fresh admiration of her talents. There are few points I have observed with more pleasure in her than all that concerns the office which brings me to her in this private and confidential manner. All that breaks from her, in our tête-à-têtes, upon the subject of dress, is both edifying and amiable. She equips herself for the drawing-room with all the attention in her power; she neglects nothing that she thinks becoming to her appearance upon those occasions, and is sensibly conscious that her high station makes her attire in public a matter of business. As such, she submits to it without murmuring; but a yet stronger consciousness of the real futility of such mere outward grandeur bursts from her, involuntarily, the moment the sacrifice is made, and she can never refuse herself the satisfaction of expressing her contentment to put on a quiet undress.'--Vol. iii., pp. 169, 170. Much the same may be said of the KING; every additional light which time throws on his public or his private character raises him in our esteem and reverence; but it was long before he was justly appreciated. He had a hurried utterance--particularly in his youth, and when addressing stranAlthough the Queen treated Miss Burgers-which made an unfavourable imney, as she seems to have done everybody, pression; and the eh? ch? and what? with great kindness and condescension, what? which were in truth only symptoms |