As to the MS., I am in no hurry for it. Besides, it ought not to come till I have prepared an ovation, and the honours of conquest for it. The only bad thing in this affair is, that I cannot take the comfort of my poor friend Dabbler, by calling you a crabbed fellow, because you write with almost more kindness than ever; neither can I (though I try hard) persuade myself that you have not a grain of taste in your whole composition. This, however, seriously I do believe,—that when my two daddies put their heads together to concert for me that hissing, groaning, catcalling epistle they sent me they felt as sorry for poor little Miss Bayes as she could possibly do for herself. You see I do not attempt to repay your frankness with the art of pretended carelessness. But though somewhat disconcerted just now, I will promise not to let my vexation live out another day. I shall not browse upon it, but, on the contrary, drive it out of my thoughts, by filling them up with things almost as good of other people’s. Our Hettina is much better; but pray don’t keep Mr. B. beyond Wednesday, for Mrs. Thrale makes a point of my returning to Streatham on Tuesday, unless, which God forbid, poor Hetty should be worse again. Adieu, my dear daddy, I won’t be mortified, and I won’t be _downed_,— but I will be proud to find I have, out of my own family, as well as in it, a friend who loves me well enough to speak plain truth to me. Always do thus, and always you shall be tried by, Your much obliged And most affectionate, FRANCES BURNEY.” The manuscript comedy does not appear to have been shown to Dr. Johnson. This was not for want of encouragement. He was extremely willing to read it, or have it read to him, but desired that his opinion should be taken before that of Murphy, who was to judge of the stage effect, and as the latter had already offered his services, the scrupulous author felt that this could not be. Fanny continued to grow in favour with Johnson. His expressions of affection became stronger, his eulogy of her novel more unmeasured. “I know,” he said on one occasion, “none like her, nor do I believe there is, or there ever was, a _man_ who could write such a book so young.” “I suppose,” said Mrs. Thrale, “Pope was no older than Miss Burney when he wrote ‘Windsor Forest;’[45] and I suppose ‘Windsor Forest’ is equal to ‘Evelina!’” ‘Windsor Forest,’ though, according to Pope himself, it was in part written at the age of sixteen, was finished and published when the poet was twenty-five. But Johnson would by no means allow that ‘Windsor Forest’ was so remarkable a work as ‘Evelina.’ The latter, he said, seemed a work that should result from long experience and deep and intimate knowledge of the world; yet it had been written without either.