A day or two after this conversation, Fanny and her father left Liberty Hall, as Mr. Crisp was pleased to designate his retreat. Arrived at the verge of our own heroine’s entrance into the world, we shall not stop to discuss the question how far she was entitled to the fame she had so rapidly won, nor shall we engage in any criticism of the work by which she had acquired it. We may assent to the admission of an admirer that the society depicted in Evelina is made up of unreal beings. What else could be expected from a fiction designed in immature youth, executed, like patchwork, at intervals, and put together, at last, without advice from any experienced person? Real or unreal, however, the characters in the novel were vivid enough to interest strongly those of the writer’s contemporaries who were most familiar with the world and human nature. In the conversations which we are about to extract will be found numerous allusions to personages who, though fictitious, are, at any rate, as substantial for us as most of the talkers, who have long since passed into the region of shadows. We may leave to Miss Burney the task of introducing her friends; she mentions the creations of her brain without a word of explanation, because she knew that the few eyes and ears for which her Diary was intended were as well acquainted with them as herself. It therefore devolves on us to indicate the chief actors in Evelina to our readers. We have the honour to present: Madame Duval, Evelina’s low-bred grandmother from Paris, interlarding her illiterate English with an incessant _Ma foi!_ and other French interjections; Captain Mirvan, a fair specimen of the coarse naval officer of that time;[37] the Branghtons, a vulgar family living on Snow Hill; Mr. Smith, a Holborn beau, lodging with the Branghtons. Add to these, Lord Orville, the hero, and Sir Clement Willoughby, the villain of the piece; Mr. Lovel, a fop; Lady Louisa, a languishing dame of quality; Sir John Belmont, the heroine’s father; M. Du Bois, a Frenchman in attendance on Madame Duval; and Mr. Macartney, a starving Scotch poet. Of the last two, the author conferred on the former the maiden name of her grandmother; on the latter, the maiden-name of her god-mother, Mrs. Greville. We will give Fanny’s account of her first dinner at Streatham in the words of her Diary: “When we were summoned to dinner, Mrs. Thrale made my father and me sit on each side of her. I said that I hoped I did not take Dr. Johnson’s place;—for he had not yet appeared. ‘No,’ answered Mrs. Thrale, ‘he will sit by you, which I am sure will give him great pleasure.’ Soon after we were seated, this great man entered. I have so true a veneration for him, that the very sight of him inspires me with delight and reverence, notwithstanding the cruel infirmities to which he is subject; for he has almost perpetual convulsive movements, either of his hands, lips, feet, or knees, and sometimes of all together.