part of 1792, her father was ill and occupied with his ailments; and by the time he was able to think of other things, Fanny had ceased to prepare for coming before the public. Her tragedies slept in her desk for three years: when, at the end of that period, the earliest of them, which had been begun at Kew and finished at Windsor, was put on the stage, it was produced without revision, and failed—as, no doubt, it would have done under any circumstances. As Miss Burney’s strength returned, she seems to have fallen back into the indolent life of visiting and party-going which she was leading when she joined the Royal Household. She saw once more the failing Sir Joshua, who had worked at her deliverance as if she had been his own daughter; though he passed from the scene before she found an opportunity of thanking him for his exertions. She attended a great public breakfast given by Mrs. Montagu, whose famous Feather Room and dining-room were thronged by hundreds of guests, and looked like a full Ranelagh by daylight. At this entertainment she met Mrs. Hastings, whose splendid dress, loaded with ornaments, gave her the appearance of an Indian princess. At another breakfast Fanny encountered Boswell, who had excited her displeasure by his revelation of Johnson’s infirmities, and who provoked her again by telling anecdotes of the great Samuel, and acting them with open buffoonery. During the Session, she spent much of her time at the Hastings trial, listening to the defence conducted by Law, Dallas, and Plomer, and rallying Windham on the sarcasms aimed by Law at the heated rhetoric of Burke. The great orator himself she rarely encountered on these occasions. In June, 1792, however, she spent a day with him at Mrs. Crewe’s house on Hampstead Hill. “The villa at Hampstead is small, but commodious. We were received by Mrs. 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.... 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. Her son was with her. He is just of age, and looks like her elder brother! he is a heavy, old-looking young man. He is going to China with Lord Macartney.[108] “My former friend, young Burke, was also there. I was glad to renew acquaintance with him; though I could see some little strangeness in him: this, however, completely wore off before the day was over. Soon after entered Mrs. Burke, Miss French, a niece, and Mr. Richard Burke, the comic, humorous, bold, queer brother of _the_ Mr. Burke.... Mrs. Burke was just what I have always seen her, soft, gentle, reasonable, and obliging; and we met, I think, upon as good terms as if so many years had not parted us.