It is commonly about three o’clock when I am thus set at large. And I have then two hours quite at my own disposal; but, in the natural course of things, not a moment after! At five, we have dinner. Mrs. Schwellenberg and I are commonly _tête-à-tête_: when there is anybody added, it is from her invitation only. When we have dined, we go up stairs to her apartment, which is directly over mine. Here we have coffee till the _terracing_ is over: this is at about eight o’clock. Our _tête-à-tête_ then finishes, and we come down again to the eating-room. There the equerry, whoever he is, comes to tea constantly, and with him any gentleman that the king or queen may have invited for the evening; and when tea is over, he conducts them, and goes himself, to the concert-room. This is commonly about nine o’clock. From that time, if Mrs. Schwellenberg is alone, I never quit her for a minute, till I come to my little supper at near eleven. Between eleven and twelve my last summons usually takes place, earlier and later occasionally. Twenty minutes is the customary time then spent with the queen: half an hour, I believe, is seldom exceeded. I then come back, and after doing whatever I can to forward my dress for the next morning, I go to bed and to sleep, too, believe me, the moment I have put out my candle and laid down my head. FRANCES BURNEY: ‘Diary and Letters.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: An explanatory analysis.] The ‘Diary’ reveals an exceptionally warm heart and a disposition very strangely compounded of good sense and sensitiveness, quick impulse and persistent loyalty, strong powers of judgment coupled with an almost morbid self-distrust, and tastes so simple and domestic that, in spite of all her friends felt at the time, and critics have written since, about the years she wasted at court, it is difficult to escape the conviction that wherever Frances Burney’s lot had fallen, her quick womanly sympathies and active interest in the affairs of life would have hindered her from giving her best time and energy to literary work. She might have found a happier slavery, perhaps, in her father’s house or in a home of her own than in the royal household, but a slave to other people’s whims and fancies, as well as to their tempers and serious necessities, she would probably have been wherever she had lived, for the simple reason that she was above all things affectionate, and cared more for the goodwill of those about her than for any other worldly consideration. She wrote ‘Evelina’ because the world amused her, and she was too shy to say in any other way how much it amused her. She wrote ‘Cecilia’ because the world told her it was amused by her, and that she could make her fortune by going on amusing it. But even in this second book there were indications that the natural spring was pretty nearly exhausted, while a deterioration of style betrayed the fact that her mastery of the means of literary