Fanny Burney

“ Every possible obstacle has been thrown in our way—every art of government has been at work to impede us—nothing has been left untried to obstruct us—every check and clog of power and influence.”
“Not by him,” cried I, looking at poor Mr. Hastings; “he has raised no impediments—he has been wholly careless."117 “Come,” cried he, with energy, “come and hear Burke!—Come but and hear him!—’tis an eloquence irresistible!—a torrent that sweeps all before it with the force of a whirlwind! It will Cure You, indeed, of your prepossession, but it will give you truth and right in its place. ”

“ A great deal of honour, to be sure, to serve a queen, and all that: but I dare say a lady’s-maid could do it better,—though to be called about a queen, as I say, is a great deal of honour: but, for my part, I should not like it; because to be always obliged to go to a person, whether one was in the humour or not, and to get up in a morning, if one was never so sleepy!—dear! it must be a mighty hurry-skurry life! you don’t look at all fit for it, to judge by appearances, for all its great honour, and all that. ”

“ I assured her majesty it was rather when I could, as any reading Mrs. Schwellenberg had heard must wholly have been better or worse according to my spirits, as she had justly seemed to suggest.
The moment coffee was over the Princess Elizabeth came for me. I found her majesty knotting, the princess royal drawing, Princess Augusta spinning, and Lady Courtown I believe in the same employment, but I saw none of them perfectly well.
“Come, Miss Burney,” cried the queen, “how are your spirits?—How is your voice?”
“She says, ma’am,” cried the kind Princess Elizabeth, “she shall do her best!” ”

“ He looked very hard at the two strangers, but made us all sit, very civilly, and drew a chair for himself, and began to discourse with the most unbounded openness and careless ease, of everything that Occurred to him.
Mrs. Schwellenberg said she had pitied him for the grief he must have felt at the news of the king’s illness: “Yes,” cried he, “I was very sorry, for his majesty, very sorry indeed, no man loves the king better; of that be assured, but all sailors love their king. And I felt for the queen, too,—I did, faith. I was horridly agitated when I saw the king first. ”

“ I have a small old bed-chamber, but a large and commodious parlour, in which the gentlemen join Miss Planta and me to breakfast and to drink tea. They dine at the royal table. We are to remain here some days.
During the king’s dinner, which was in a parlour looking into the garden, he permitted the people to come to the window; and their delight and rapture in seeing their monarch at table, with the evident hungry feeling it occasioned, made a contrast of admiration and deprivation, truly comic. They crowded, however, so excessively, that this can be permitted them no more. ”

“ Lady Elizabeth, Miss Goldsworthy, and myself attended her; she went to an apartment in the same row, but to which there Was no entrance except by its own door. It consisted of only two rooms, a bed-chamber and a dressing-room. They are appropriated to the lady-in-waiting, when she is here.
At the entrance into this new habitation the poor wretched queen once more gave way to a perfect agony of grief and affliction; while the words “What will become of me! What will become of me!” uttered with the most piercing lamentation, struck deep and hard into all our hearts. ”

“ My dearest father, all kindness and goodness, yet all alarm, thought time could never be more favourable; and when next I saw him at Chelsea, I wrote a second memorial to enclose the original one. With a beating heart, and every pulse throbbing, I returned thus armed to the Queen’s house.
Mrs. Schwellenberg sent for me to her room. I could hardly articulate a word to her. My agitation was so great that I was compelled to acknowledge something very awful was impending in my affairs, and to beg she would make no present inquiries. ”

“ Crewe with much kindness. The room was rather dark, and she had a veil to her bonnet, half down, and with this aid she looked still in a full blaze of beauty. I was wholly astonished. Her bloom, perfectly natural, is as high as that of Augusta Locke when in her best looks, and the form of her face is so exquisitely perfect that my eye never Met it without fresh admiration. She is certainly, in my eyes, the most completely a beauty of any woman I ever saw. I know not, even now, any female in her first youth who could bear the comparison. She uglifies everything near her. ”

“ Do you rob, sir? Do you take what is not your own, but others’, sir, because your man is frightened?”
“O yes, ma’am! We military men take all we can get!”
“What! in the king’s house, Sir!”
“Why then, ma’am, what business had it in my bed? My room’s my castle: nobody has a right there. My bed must be my treasury; and here they put me a thing into it big enough to be a bed itself.”——
“O! vell! (much alarmed) it might be my bed-case, then!” (Whenever Mrs. Schwellenberg travels, she carries her bed in a large black leather case, behind her servants’ carriage.) “Very likely, ma’am.” ”

“ Hastings had filled him, he looked again around the court, and pointed out several of the principal characters present, with arch and striking remarks upon each of them, all uttered with high spirit, but none with ill-nature.
“Pitt,” cried he, “is not here!—a noble stroke that for the annals of his administration! A trial is brought on by the whole House of Commons in a body, and he is absent at the very opening! However,” added he, with a very meaning laugh, “I’m glad of it, for ’tis to his eternal disgrace!”
Mercy! thought I, what a friend to kindness is party! ”

“ To what the change is owing I cannot conjecture; but I do all that in me lies 306 to support it, preferring the entire sacrifice of every moment, from our dinner to twelve at night, to her harshness and horrors. Nevertheless, a lassitude of existence creeps sensibly upon me.
Colonel Manners, however, for the short half-hour of tea-time, is irresistibly diverting. He continues my constant friend and neighbour, and, while he affects to play off the coadjutrix to advantage, he nods at me, to draw forth my laughter or approbation, with the most alarming undisguise. ”

“ Burke appeared, accompanied by Mr. Elliot. He shook hands with my father as soon as he had paid his devoirs to Mrs. Crewe, but he returned my curtsey with so distant a bow, that I concluded myself quite lost with him, from my evident solicitude in poor Mr. Hastings’s cause. I could not wish that less obvious, thinking as I think of it; but I felt infinitely grieved to lose the favour of a man whom in all other articles, I so much venerate, and whom, Indeed, I esteem and admire as the very first man of true genius now living in this Country. ”

“ After a short and dismal meal we immediately parted: she to wait in the apartments of the princesses above-stairs, in case of being wanted; I to my own solitary parlour.
The Prince of Wales and Duke of York stayed here all the day, and were so often in and out of the queen’s rooms that no one could enter them but by order. The same etiquette is observed when the princes are with the queen as when the king is there-no interruption whatever is made. I now, therefore, lost my only consolation at this calamitous time, that of attending my poor royal mistress. ”

“ THE KING COMPLAINS OF WANT OF SLEEP.
Nov. 1.—Our king does not advance in amendment; he grows so weak that he walks like a gouty man, yet has such spirits that he has talked away his voice, and is so hoarse it is painful to hear him. The queen is evidently in great uneasiness. God send him better!
She read to me to-day a lecture of Hunter’s. During the reading, twice, at pathetic passages, my poor queen shed tears. “How nervous I am?” she cried; “I am quite a fool! Don’t you think so?”
“No, ma’am,” was all I dared answer. ”

“ All astonished and impatient, Lady Elizabeth was sent out on inquiries. She returned, and said Dr. Warren was gone.
“Run! stop him!” was the queen’s next order. “Let him but let me know what I am to do.”
Poor, poor queen! how I wept to hear those words!
Abashed and distressed, poor Lady Elizabeth returned. She had seen Colonel Goldsworthy, and heard Dr. Warren,-with the other two physicians, had left the house too far to be recalled they were gone over to the Castle, to the Prince of Wales.
I think a deeper blow I have never witnessed. Already to become but second, even for the king! ”

“ The king immediately raised his opera-glass to look at me, laughing heartily—the queen’s presently took the same direction—all the princesses looked up, and all the attendants, and all the maids of honour!
I protest I was never more at a loss what to do with myself: nobody was in the front row with me but Miss Goldsworthy, who instantly seeing how I was disconcerted, prudently and good-naturedly forbore taking any notice of me. I sat as far back as I could, and kept my fan against the exposed profile for the rest of the night, never once leaning forward, nor using my glass. ”

“ Nov. 22.—When I went for my morning inquiries, Colonel Manners came out to me. He could give me no precise account, as the sitters-up had not yet left the king, but he feared the night had been bad. We mutually bewailed the mournful state of the house. He is a very good creature at heart, though as unformed as if he had just left Eton or Westminster. But he loves his master with a true and faithful heart, and is almost as ready to die as to live for him, if any service of that risk was proposed to him.
While the queen’s hair was dressing, though only for a close cap, I was sent again. ”

“ He had been in waiting, he said, himself, ever since a quarter after five o’clock in the morning, at which time he showed himself under the king’s window, and walked before the house till six! I was beginning to express my compassion for this harass, but he interrupted me with shrewdly saying,
“O, this will save future fatigue, for it will establish me such a character for early rising and punctuality, that I may now do as I will: ‘tis amazing what privileges a man obtains for taking liberties, when once his character is established for taking none.” ”

“ The queen would not permit me to take that office, though most gladly I would have taken any that would have kept me about her. But she does; not think my strength sufficient. She allowed me however to stay with her till she was in bed, which I had never done till now; I never, indeed, had even seen her in her bed-room till the day before. She has always had the kindness and delicacy, to dismiss me from her dressing-room as soon as I have assisted her with her night-clothes; the wardrobe-woman then was summoned, and I regularly made my courtesy. ”

“ Higher gaiety and greater happiness many and many periods of my life have at different times afforded me; but a tranquillity more perfect has only, I think, been lent to me in Norbury park, where, added to all else that could soothe and attract, every affection of my heart could be expanded and indulged. But what have I to do with a comparison no longer cherished but by memory.
The time I have mentioned being past, Miss Planta returned from her walk, and we adjourned to the little parlour, where I made tea, and then I equipped myself for the play. ”

“ While I was dressing, Mr. Fairly rapped at my door. I sent out Goter, who brought me his compliments, and, if it would not be inconvenient to me, he and his son would have the pleasure of dining with me.
I answered, I should be very glad of their company, as would Miss Planta. Miss Goldsworthy had now arranged herself with the Lady Waldegraves.
Our dinner was as pleasant as a dinner at such a season could be. Mr. Fairly holds cheerfulness as a duty in the midst of every affliction that can admit it ”

“ I shall say nothing of the queen’s birthday, but that I had a most beautiful trimming worked me for it by Miss Cambridge, who half fatigued herself to death, for the kind pleasure that I should have my decorations from her hands. If in some points my lot has been unenviable, what a constant solace, what sweet and soft amends, do I find and feel in the almost unexampled union of kindness and excellence in my chosen friends! ”

“ There is nothing to describe in the walks: they are straight, clay, and sided by common trees, without any rich foliage, or one beautiful opening. The meadows, and all the country around, are far preferable: yet here everybody meets. All the D’Oyley party came, and Miss Planta slipped away.
The king and queen walked in the same state as on the Terrace at Windsor, followed by the three princesses and their attendants. Everybody stopped and stood up as they passed, or as they stopped themselves to speak to any of the company. ”

“ WINDHAM AFFECTS TO COMMISERATE HASTINGS.
Again he was going: but glancing his eyes once more down upon Mr. Hastings, he almost sighed—he fetched, at least, a deep breath, while he exclaimed with strong emotion, “What a place for a man to stand in to hear what he has to hear!—’tis almost too much!”
It would not be easy to tell you how touching at such a time was the smallest concession from an avowed opponent, and I could not help exclaiming again, “O, Mr. Windham, you must not be so liberal!” ”

“ Miss Goldsworthy, turning round, said, “‘Tis Miss Burney, ma’am.”
She leaned her head forward, and in a most soft manner, said, “Miss Burney, how are you?”
Deeply affected, I hastened up to her, but, in trying to speak, burst into an irresistible torrent of tears.
My dearest friends, I do it at this moment again, and can hardly write for them; yet I wish you to know all this piercing history right.
She looked like death—colourless and wan; but nature is infectious; the tears gushed from her own eyes, and a perfect agony of weeping ensued, which, once begun, she could not stop ”