expression was not sufficient to keep her works up to the mark when the vivacity of the first spontaneous impulse should be spent. She might have overcome this disadvantage by laborious training of her talent; but for this she had no inclination, or at any rate not inclination enough to conquer her fears of the contemporary prejudice against learned women. Even in the house of Mrs. Thrale, she describes herself as hiding a book under a chair-cushion, so as not to be caught in the unfeminine act of reading; and when Johnson began to teach her Latin, she was weak enough to back out of the lessons, fearing that they would win her the reputation of a blue-stocking. Johnson liked her none the less for her timidity, and neither need we. But it is as well to remember these things when apportioning the blame for her falling away from literature. She used her literary talent first as an outlet for her surplus wit and wisdom, and next as a means of making money; but she had not sufficient love of literature to induce her to sacrifice to it a jot of even conventional esteem. MARY ELIZABETH CHRISTIE: ‘Miss Burney’s Novels,’ in _Contemporary Review_, December, 1882. * * * * * [Sidenote: Frances’ ill health.] The health of poor Frances began to give way; and all who saw her pale face, her emaciated figure, and her feeble walk, predicted that her sufferings would soon be over. Frances uniformly speaks of her royal mistress and of the princesses with respect and affection. The princesses ... were, we doubt not, most amiable women. But “the sweet queen,” as she is constantly called in these volumes, is not by any means an object of admiration to us.... She seems to have been utterly regardless of the comfort, the health, the life of her attendants, when her own convenience was concerned. Weak, feverish, hardly able to stand, Frances had still to rise before seven, in order to dress the sweet queen, and sit up till midnight, in order to undress the sweet queen.... The whisper that she was in a decline spread through the court. The pains in her side became so severe that she was forced to crawl from the card-table of the old fury to whom she was tethered, three or four times in an evening, for the purpose of taking harts-horn. Had she been a negro slave, a humane planter would have excused her from work. But her majesty showed no mercy. Thrice a day the accursed bell still rang.... Horace Walpole wrote to Frances to express his sympathy. Boswell, boiling over with good-natured rage, almost forced an entrance into the palace to see her. Burke and Reynolds, though less noisy, were zealous in the same cause. Windham spoke to Dr. Burney.... At last paternal affection, medical authority, and the voice of all London crying shame, triumphed over Dr. Burney’s love of courts. He determined that Frances should write a letter of resignation.... In return for all the misery which she had undergone,