n--dare not desire her
to touch the bell, lest she should think herself injured--lest she
should forsooth appear in the character of Miss Neville, and I in
that of the widow Bromley. See Murphy's 'Know Your Own Mind.'"

"Fanny Burney has kept her room here in my house seven days, with a
fever or something that she called a fever; I gave her every medicine
and every slop with my own hand; took away her dirty cups, spoons,
&c.; moved her tables: in short, was doctor, and nurse and maid--for
I did not like the servants should have additional trouble lest they
should hate her for it. And now,--with the true gratitude of a wit,
she tells me that the world thinks the better of me for my civilities
to her. It does? does it?"

"Miss Burney was much admired at Bath (1780); the puppy-men said,
'She had such a drooping air and such a timid intelligence;' or, 'a
timid air,' I think it was,' and a drooping intelligence;' never sure
was such a collection of pedantry and affectation as rilled Bath when
we were on that spot. How everything else and everybody set off my
gallant bishop. 'Quantum lenta solent inter viburna Cupressi.' Of all
the people I ever heard read verse in my whole life, the best, the
most perfect reader, is the Bishop of Peterboro' (Hinchcliffe.)"[1]

[Footnote 1: In a marginal note on Boswell, she says: "The people (in
1783) did read shamefully. Yet Mr. Lee, the poet, many years before
Johnson was born, read so gracefully, the players would not accept
his tragedies till they had heard them from other lips: his own (they
said) sweetened all which proceeded from them." Speaker Onslow
equally was celebrated for his manner of reading.]

"_July 1st_, 1780.--Mrs. Byron, who really loves me, was disgusted at
Miss Burney's carriage to me, who have been such a friend and
benefactress to her: not an article of dress, not a ticket for public
places, not a thing in the world that she could not command from me:
yet always insolent, always pining for home, always preferring the
mode of life in St. Martin's Street to all I could do for her. She is
a saucy-spirited little puss to be sure, but I love her dearly for
all that; and I fancy she has a real regard for me, if she did not
think it beneath the dignity of a wit, or of what she values
more--the dignity of Dr. Burnett's daughter--to indulge it. Such
dignity! the Lady Louisa of Leicester Square![1] In good time!"

[Footnote 1: Alluding to a character in "Evelina."]

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