The plot of _Cecilia_, like that of _Evelina_, is so arranged as to present different classes of society. _Cecilia_ has three guardians, with one of whom she must live during her minority. First she visits Mr. Harrel, a gay, fashionable man, a spendthrift and a gambler, who lives in a fashionable house in Portman Square, where Cecilia, during a constant round of festivities, meets the fashionable people of London. Next she visits Mr. Briggs in the City, "a short thick, sturdy man, with very small keen black eyes, a square face, a dark complexion, and a snub nose." He was so miserly that when Cecilia asked for pen, ink, and a sheet of paper, he gave her a slate and pencil, as he supposed she had nothing of consequence to say. He was as sparing of his words as of his money, and used the same elliptical sentences in his speech as Dickens afterwards put into the mouth of Alfred Jingle, the famous character in _Pickwick Papers_. He thus advises Cecilia in regard to her lovers: "Take care of sharpers; don't trust shoe-buckles, nothing but Bristol stones! tricks in all things. A fine gentleman sharp as another man. Never give your heart to a gold-topped cane, nothing but brass gilt over. Cheats everywhere: fleece you in a year; won't leave you a groat. But one way to be safe,--bring 'em all to me." Lastly she visits Mr. Delvile, her third guardian, a man of family, who despised both the men associated with him as trustees of Cecilia; he lived in such gloomy state in his magnificent old house in St. James's Square that it inspired awe, and repressed all pleasure. Pride in their birth and prejudice against all parvenus were the faults of Mr. and Mrs. Delvile. Besides these characters, there were many others whose names were for a long time familiar in every household. Sir Robert Floyer was as vain as Mr. Smith. Mr. Meadows was constantly bored to death; it was insufferable exertion to talk to a quiet woman, and a talkative one put him into a fever. At the opera the solos depressed him and the full orchestra fatigued him. He yawned while ladies were talking to him, and after he had begged them to repeat what they had said, forgot to listen. "I am tired to death! tired of everything," was his constant expression. In his critical essay on Madame D'Arblay, Fanny Burney's married name, under which her later works were published, Macaulay has thus dealt with her treatment of character: