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what sleeping out of town might do for him. And then, with a smile, but a smile of more sadness than mirth!-he added: "I remember that my wife, when she was near her end, poor woman!-was also advised to sleep out of town: and when she was carried to the lodging that had been prepared for her, she complained that the staircase was in very bad condition; for the plaster was beaten off the walls in many places. "O!" said the man of the house, "that's nothing; it's only the knocks against it of the coffins of the poor souls that have died in the lodging." He forced a faint laugh at the man's brutal honesty; but it was a laugh of ill-disguised, though checked, secret anguish. I felt inexpressibly shocked, both by the perspective and retrospective view of this relation; but, desirous to confine my words to the literal story, I only exclaimed against the man's unfeeling absurdily in making so unnecessary a confession. "True!" he cried; "such a confession to a person then mounting his stairs for the recovery of her health-or, rather, for the preservation of her life, contains, indeed, more absurdity than we can well lay our account to."

We talked then of poor Mrs. Thrale' (she had now become Mrs. Piozzi) but only for a moment-for I saw him so greatly moved, and with such severity of displeasure, that I hastened to start another subject; and he solemnly enjoined me to mention that no more!

I gave him concisely the history of the Bristol milk-woman,* who is at present zealously patronized by the benevolent Hannah More. I expressed my surprise at the reports generally in circulation, that the first authors that the milk-woman read, if not the only ones, were Milton and Young. "I find it difficult," I added, "to conceive how Milton and Young could be the first authors with any reader. Could a child understand them? And grown persons, who have never read, are, in literature, children still." "Doubtless," he answered. "But there is nothing so little comprehended as what is Genius. They give it to all, when it can be but a part. The milk-woman had surely begun with some ballad-Chevy Chase or the Children in the Wood. Genius is, in fact, knowing the use of tools. But there must be tools, or how use them? A man who has spent all his life in this room, will give a very poor account of what is contained in the next." "Certainly, Sir; and yet there is such a thing as invention? Shakspeare could never have seen a Caliban ?" "No; but he had seen a man, and knew how to vary him to a monster. A person, who could draw a monstrous cow, must know first what a cow is commonly; or how can he tell that to give her an ass's head, or an elephant's tusk, will make her monstrous? Suppose you show me a man, who is a very expert carpenter, and that an admiring stander-by, looking at some of his works, exclaims, O! he was born a carpenter! What would have become of that birth right, if he had never seen any wood ?" Presently, dwelling on this idea, he went on :-" Let two men, one with genius, the other with none, look together at an overturned waggon; he who has no genius will think of the waggon only as he then sees * Ann Yearsley. See Southey's Essay on Uneducated Poets.'

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it-that is to say, overturned-and walk on: he who has genius will give it a glance of examination, that will paint it to his imagination such as it was previously to its being overturned; and when it was standing still; and when it was in motion; and when it was heavy loaded; and when it was empty: but both alike must see the waggon to think of it at all."

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The pleasure with which I listened to his illustration now animated him on; and he talked upon this milk-woman, and upon a once as famous shoemaker;* and then mounted his spirits and his subject to our immortal Shakspeare, flowing and glowing on, with as much wit and truth of criticism and judgment, as ever yet I have heard him display. Delightfully bright are his faculties, though the poor, infirm, shaken machine that contains them seems alarmingly giving way! And soon, exhilarated as he became by the pleasure of bestowing pleasure, I saw a palpable increase of suffering in the midst of his sallies; I offered, therefore, to go into the next room, there to wait for the carriage; an offer which, for the first time! he did not oppose; but taking, and most affectionately pressing, both my hands, "Be not," he said, in a voice of even melting kindness and concern, "be not longer in coming again for my letting you go now!" I eagerly assured him I would come the sooner, and was running off; but he called me back, and in a solemn voice, and a manner the most energetic, said, "Remember me in your prayers !"-vol. iii. p. 2-7.

Of Dr. Burney's interview with their Majesties George III. and Queen Charlotte, when admitted to the honour of presenting them with his account of the Commemoration of Handel, we have the following report :

'He found their Majesties together, without any attendants or any state, in the library; where he presented both to the King and to the Queen a copy of his Commemoration. They had the appearance of being in a serene tête-à-tête, that bore every mark of frank and cheerful intercourse. His reception was the most gracious; and they both seemed eager to look at his offerings, which they instantly opened and examined. "You have made, Dr. Burney," said his Majesty, “a much more considerable book of this Commemoration than I had expected; or, perhaps, than you had expected yourself?" "Yes, Sire," he answered; "the subject grew upon me as I proceeded, and a continual accumulation of materials rendered it almost daily more interesting." His Majesty then detailed his opinion of the various performers; and said that one thing only had discredited the business, and that was the inharmonious manner in which one of the bass singers had sung his part; which had really been more like a man groaning in a fit of the cholic, than singing an air. The Doctor laughingly agreed that such sort of execution certainly more resembled a convulsive noise, proceeding from some one in torture, than any species of harmony; and

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Mr. Woodhouse. See Southey's Essay on Uneducated Poets,' or our review of that work in No. lxxxvii.

that,

that, therefore, as he could not speak of that singer favourably in his account, he had been wholly silent on his subject; as had been his practice in other similar instances. The Queen seemed perfectly to understand, and much to approve, the motive for this mild method of treating want of abilities and powers to please, where the will was good, and where the labour had been gratuitous. The King expressed much admiration that the full fortes of so vast a band, in accompanying the singers, had never been too loud, even for a single voice; when it might so naturally have been expected that the accompaniments even of the softest pianos, in such plenitude, would have been overpowering to all vocal solos. He had talked, he said, both with musical people and with philosophers upon the subject; but none of them could assign a reason, or account for so astonishing a fact.

Something, then, bringing forth the name of Shakspeare, the Doctor mentioned a translation of his plays by Professor Eichenberg. The King, laughing, exclaimed, "The Germans translate Shakspeare! why we don't understand him ourselves: how should foreigners?" The Queen replied, that she thought Eichenberg had rendered the soliloquies very exactly. "Aye;" answered the King, "that is because, in those serious speeches, there are none of those puns, quibbles, and peculiar idioms of Shakspeare and his times, for which there are no equivalents in other languages."-vol. iii. p. 17-20.

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Our readers will agree with us in thinking, that his Majesty gave a very ingenious critical solution of a difficulty generally acknowledged, but never, that we remember, better explained. Ducis conveys to a French audience some idea of the heroic passages of Hamlet, and Rowe has not much deteriorated Andromaque; but no Frenchman has ever ventured on The Merry Wives of Windsor,' and no Englishman on Les Plaideurs; and of all the contrasts we have met with in the performances of the same writer, we know none more extraordinary than that presented in the excellence, the wonderful excellence, of Schlegel's translations of the tragic parts-and the crude poverty of his attempts on the comic vein of Shakspeare.

Shortly after this interview, the place of Master of the King's Band again became vacant, and Dr. Burney was advised to present himself to his Majesty's notice on the terrace of Windsor Castle, and to take his daughter with him. The following is the somewhat clumsy description of a scene of affectionate and easy intercourse between a British sovereign and his people, now vanished, never, we fear, to return :

'When the hour came for the evening walk on the Terrace, Dr. Burney took the arm of Dr. Lind; and Mrs. Delany consigned his daughter' (Madame d'Arblay) to the charge of Lady Louisa Clayton, a sister of Lady Charlotte Finch, Governess of the Princesses. All the Royal Family were already on the Terrace. The King and Queen,

and

and the Prince of Mecklenburgh, her Majesty's brother, walked together; followed by a procession of the six lovely young Princesses, and some of the Princes; exhibiting a gay and striking appearance of one of the finest families in the world. Everywhere as they advanced, the crowd drew back against the walls on each side, making a double hedge for their passage: after which, the mass re-united behind, to follow.

When the King and Queen approached towards the party of Lady Louisa Clayton, her ladyship most kindly placed by her own side the Memorialist; without which attention she had been certainly unnoticed; for the moment their Majesties were in sight, she instinctively looked down, and drew her hat over her face. The courage with which their graciousness had invested her in the interviews at Mrs. Delany's, where she was seen by them through their own courtesy, and at their own desire, all failed her here-where she came with personal, or, rather, filial views, and felt terrified lest they might appear to be presumptuous. The Doctor was annoyed by the same feeling; and looked so conscious and embarrassed, that though he attained the honour of a bow from the King, and a curtsey from the Queen, every time they passed him, he involuntarily hung back, without the smallest attempt at even looking for further notice. Thus, and almost laughably, each of them, after coming so far merely with the hope of being recognized, might have gone back to their cells, without raising a surmise that they had ever quitted them, but for the considerate kindness of Lady Louisa Clayton; who, in taking under her own wing the Memorialist, gave her a post of honour too conspicuous to be unremarked. And, as soon as the Queen had stopped, and spoken to Lady Louisa in general terms, her Majesty, in a whisper, demanded, "Who is with you, Lady Louisa?" And when Lady Louisa answered, "Miss Burney, Ma'am," her Majesty smilingly stepped nearer, with gentle and condescending inquiries. The King, then, having finished his discourse with some other party, repeated the same question to Lady Louisa; and, having received the same answer, immediately addressed himself to the Memorialist, to ask whether she were come to Windsor to make any stay? "No, Sir; not now." "I was sure," cried the Queen, "she was not come to stay, by seeing her father, who has so little time." "And when shall you come again," said the King, "to Windsor?" "Very soon-I hope, Sir!" "And-andand-" added he, half-laughing, and hesitating significantly, while he flourished his hand and fingers as if wielding a pen; "pray-how goes on the Muse?" To this she only answered by laughing also; but he would not be so evaded, and repeated the interrogatory. She then replied, "Not at all, Sir!" "No?-but why?-why not?" "I am afraid, Sir!" she stammered. "And why?" repeated he, surprised: "Of what are you afraid?—of what?"-vol. iii. p. 74-77. To this and some similar questions, repeated with gentle civility by the King, Miss Burney was still unable to find any answer or even evasion, which is a little surprising when we

recollect

recollect that she was now thirty-four years old, and had been brought to the spot for the special purpose of being noticed. Her diffidence, however, did her no injury with the good King and Queen; the place of Master of the Band had been given away, but they consoled the Doctor, and gratified their own desire of patronizing merit, by conferring on the Doctor's second daughter' herself, the place of Keeper of the Robes to her Majesty. We wish we could find space for the interesting, though long and confused, account given of the condescension and goodness with which the whole Royal Family honoured Miss Burney, whose chief, if not sole, recommendations to their favour were her literary merits and her personal manners*. She held this office for a few years, but was forced by ill health to resign it, and was, after she had done so, still treated with a benignity which made her feel that, though no longer a servant, she was looked upon as almost a friend.

But we must hasten to a conclusion, and have only room to extract the following:

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Charles Fox being mentioned, Mrs. Crewe told us that lately, upon his being shewn a passage upon some subject that, erst, he had warmly opposed, in Mr. Burke's book, but which, in the event, had made its own justification, he very candidly said, "Well, Burke is right! -but Burke is often right-only he is right too soon!" "Had Fox seen some things in that book," answered Mr. Burke," as soon, he would at this moment, in all probability, be first minister of this country.” "What!' cried Mrs. Crewe, "with Pitt? No, no!-Pitt won't go out; and Charles Fox will never make a coalition with Pitt." “And why not?" said Mr. Burke, drily, almost severely, "why not that coalition, as well as other coalitions?" Nobody tried to answer this. The remembrance of Mr. Fox with Lord North, Mr. Pitt with Lord Rockingham, &c., rose too forcibly to every mind; and Mrs. Crewe looked abashed. “Charles Fox, however," said Mr. Burke, after this pause, " can never, internally, like this French Revolution. He is" -he stopped for a word, and then added, " entangled!-but, in himself, if he could find no other objection to it, he has, at least, too much taste for such a revolution."

Mr. Richard Burke then narrated, very comically, various censures that had reached his ears upon his brother, concerning his last and most popular work; accusing him of being the abettor of despots, because he had been shocked at the imprisonment of the King of

*Madame d'Arblay hints more than once, that she was indebted for the notice of their Majesties to the romance' and 'eccentricity of her first opening adventure into life, meaning the circumstances attending the publication of Evelina.' It is clear that her Royal patrons partook of the general opinion that this work had been produced in extreme youth. Had it been known that the author had completed her twenty-fifth year before Evelina,' and her thirtieth before Cecilia,' came forth, there would, we presume to think, have appeared nothing at all 'romantic' in the matter,

France!

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