Windham spoke to Dr.Burney; but found him still irresolute."Iwill set the club upon him," cried Windham; "Miss Burney has some very true admirers there, and I am sure they will eagerly assist." Indeed the Burney family seem to have been apprehensive that some public affront such as the Doctor's unpardonable folly, to use the mildest term, had richly deserved, would be put upon him.The medical men spoke out, and plainly told him that his daughter must resign or die.
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.It was with difficulty that, though her life was at stake, she mustered spirit to put the paper into the Queen's hands."I could not," so runs the Diary, "summon courage to present my memorial; my heart always failed me from seeing the Queen's entire freedom from such an expectation.For though I was frequently so ill in her presence that I could hardly stand, Isaw she concluded me, while life remained, inevitably hers."At last with a trembling hand the paper was delivered.Then came the storm.Juno, as in the Aeneid, delegated the work of vengeance to Alecto.The Queen was calm and gentle; but Madame Schwellenberg raved like a maniac in the incurable ward of Bedlam! Such insolence! Such ingratitude! Such folly! Would Miss Burney bring utter destruction on herself and her family? Would she throw away the inestimable advantage of royal protection?
Would she part with privileges which, once relinquished, could never be regained? It was idle to talk of health and life.If people could not live in the palace, the best thing that could befall them was to die in it.The resignation was not accepted.
The language of the medical men became stronger and stronger.Dr.
Burney's parental fears were fully roused; and he explicitly declared, in a letter meant to be shown to the Queen, that his daughter must retire.The Schwellenberg raged like a wild cat."Ascene almost horrible ensued," says Miss Burney."She was too much enraged for disguise, and uttered the most furious expressions of indignant contempt at our proceedings.I am sure she would gladly have confined us both in the Bastile, had England such a misery, as a fit place to bring us to ourselves, from a daring so outrageous against imperial wishes." This passage deserves notice, as being the only one in the Diary, so far as we have observed, which shows Miss Burney to have been aware that she was a native of a free country, that she could not be pressed for a waiting-maid against her will, and that she had just as good a right to live, if she chose, in Saint Martin's Street, as Queen Charlotte had to live at Saint James's.
The Queen promised that, after the next birthday, Miss Burney should be set at liberty.But the promise was ill kept; and her Majesty showed displeasure at being reminded of it.At length Frances was informed that in a fortnight her attendance should cease."I heard this," she says, "with a fearful presentiment Ishould surely never go through another fortnight, in so weak and languishing and painful a state of health....As the time of separation approached, the Queen's cordiality rather diminished, and traces of internal displeasure appeared sometimes, arising from an opinion I ought rather to have struggled on, live or die, than to quit her.Yet I am sure she saw how poor was my own chance, except by a change in the mode of life, and at least ceased to wonder, though she could not approve." Sweet Queen!
What noble candour, to admit that the undutifulness of people, who did not think the honour of adjusting her tuckers worth the sacrifice of their own lives, was, though highly criminal, not altogether unnatural!
We perfectly understand her Majesty's contempt for the lives of others where her own pleasure was concerned.But what pleasure she can have found in having Miss Burney about her, it is not so easy to comprehend.That Miss Burney was an eminently skilful keeper of the robes is not very probable.Few women, indeed, had paid less attention to dress.Now and then, in the course of five years, she had been asked to read aloud or to write a copy of verses.But better readers might easily have been found: and her verses were worse than even the Poet Laureate's Birthday Odes.
Perhaps that economy, which was among her Majesty's most conspicuous virtues, had something to do with her conduct on this occasion.Miss Burney had never hinted that she expected a retiring pension; and indeed would gladly have given the little that she had for freedom.But her Majesty knew what the public thought, and what became her own dignity.She could not for very shame suffer a woman of distinguished genius, who had quitted a lucrative career to wait on her, who had served her faithfully for a pittance during five years, and whose constitution had been impaired by labour and watching, to leave the Courts without some mark of royal liberality.George the Third, who, on all occasions where Miss Burney was concerned, seems to have behaved like an honest, good-natured gentleman, felt this, and said plainly that she was entitled to a provision.
At length, in return for all the misery which she had undergone, and for the health which she had sacrificed, an annuity of one hundred pounds was granted to her, dependent on the Queen's pleasure.
Then the prison was opened, and Frances was free once more.
Johnson, as Burke observed, might have added a striking page to his poem on the Vanity of Human Wishes, if he had lived to see his little Burney as she went into the palace and as she came out of it.
