It cannot fairly be said that, during the preceding four years, Miss Burney had been debarred from literary work. The conditions of her lot were hard, and it may have been one of them that she should publish nothing while in the Queen’s service; but she certainly had enjoyed considerable leisure for composition. Witness the full and carefully-written journal which she had kept during the greater part of her tenure of office. Perhaps the frequent interruptions to which she was liable hindered her from concentrating her thoughts on the production of a regular narrative. Indefatigable as she was with her pen, we can see that she was far less strenuous when much intellectual exertion was required. When she was offered her post, her Muse was at a standstill, as she told the King; and since she entered the household, she had written nothing capable of being printed, except two or three small copies of verses not worth printing, and the rough draft of a tragedy. She had begun this tragedy during the King’s illness, in order to distract her attention; and after laying it aside for sixteen months, she resumed her task in the spring of 1790, and completed the play in August. Well or ill done, she was pleased, she told her sisters, to have done something ‘at last—she who had so long lived in all ways as nothing.’ In the early part of this year the newspapers announced, as they had done several times before, that the distinguished novelist, who had so long been silent, had at length finished a new tale ready for the press. As often as this rumour appeared, a flutter of apprehension ran through the ante-rooms of the Upper and Lower Lodges. Fanny’s genius for seizing the points of a character, and presenting them in a ludicrous light, could not fail to be recognised wherever she went. Years before, the fiery Baretti had warned her that if she dared to put him in a book, she should feel the effects of an Italian’s vengeance.[105] Joseph Baretti, who had stilettoed his man, and who lived to libel Mrs. Piozzi, was the very person to fulfil a promise of this kind. But for his threat, his tempting eccentricities might have exposed him to considerable peril. But the carpet-knights and waiting-women of Windsor stood in no immediate danger. ‘There is a new book coming out, and we shall all be in it!’ exclaimed the conscience-stricken Mr. Turbulent. The colonels frowned, bit their lips, and tried not to look uncomfortable. ‘Well, anybody’s welcome to me and my character!’ cried poor Miss Planta, whom Fanny used to patronize. ‘Never mind! she’s very humane!’ observed one of the Willises, well aware that, whoever else might suffer, he and his family were exempt from ridicule. Miss Burney smiled demurely at the tributes paid to her power. Full well she knew that, so far as the characters of her colleagues were worth preserving, she had them all safe, under lock and key, in her Diary. But not a line of the dreaded novel had been written. The passion, which possessed her