“_Mr. Sheridan_: No, no; but what are you about at home? However, it is not a fair question, so I won’t press it. “Yet he looked very inquisitive; but I was glad to get off without any downright answer. “_Sir Joshua_: Anything in the dialogue way, I think, she must succeed in; and I am sure invention will not be wanting. “_Mr. Sheridan_: No, indeed; I think, and say, she should write a comedy. “_Sir Joshua_: I am sure I think so; and hope she will. “I could only answer by incredulous exclamations. “‘Consider,’ continued Sir Joshua, ‘you have already had all the applause and fame you can have given you in the closet; but the acclamation of a theatre will be new to you.’ “And then he put down his trumpet, and began a violent clapping of his hands. “I actually shook from head to foot! I felt myself already in Drury Lane, amidst the hubbub of a first night. “‘Oh no!’ cried I; ‘there may be a noise, but it will be just the reverse.’ And I returned his salute with a hissing. “Mr. Sheridan joined Sir Joshua very warmly. “‘Oh, sir!’ cried I; ‘you should not run on so—you don’t know what mischief you may do!’ “_Mr. Sheridan_: I wish I may—I shall be very glad to be accessory.” We gather from the remarks made by Mrs. Cholmondeley and Sheridan in the preceding extracts that Miss Burney at this time looked much younger than she really was. With her low stature, slight figure, and timid air, she did not seem quite the woman. Probably this youthful appearance may have helped to set afloat the rumour which confounded the age of her heroine with her own. An unmarried lady of six-and-twenty could hardly be expected to enter a formal plea of not guilty to the charge of being only a girl; yet we shall see presently that Mrs. Thrale was pretty well informed as to the number of Fanny’s years. Some readers may be tempted to think that, with all her coyness, she was enraptured by the pursuit of her admirers. This is only to say that she was a woman. We must remember, moreover, that the Diary which betrays her feelings was not written with any design of publication, but consisted of private letters, addressed chiefly to her sister Susan, and intended to be shown to no one out of her own family, save her attached Daddy Crisp. ‘If,’ says Macaulay very fairly, ‘she recorded with minute diligence all the compliments, delicate and coarse, which she heard wherever she turned, she recorded them for the eyes of two or three persons who had loved her from infancy, who had loved her in obscurity, and to whom her fame gave the purest and most exquisite delight. Nothing can be more unjust than to confound these outpourings of a kind heart, sure of perfect sympathy, with the egotism of a blue stocking, who prates to all who come near her about her own novel or her own volume of sonnets.’ ----- Footnote 31: