on partly by mental irritation, confined him to his retreat, he was desirous of having a glimpse of that gay and brilliant world from which he was exiled, and he pressed Fannikin to send him full accounts of her father’s evening parties.  A few of her letters to him have been published; and it is impossible to read them without discerning in them all the powers which afterwards produced “Evelina” and “Cecilia”; the quickness in catching every odd peculiarity of character and manner; the skill in grouping; the humour, often richly comic, sometimes even farcical.

Fanny’s propensity to novel-writing had for a time been kept down.  It now rose up stronger than ever.  The heroes and heroines of the tales which had perished in the flames were still present to the eye of her mind.  One favourite story, in particular, haunted her imagination.  It was about a certain Caroline Evelyn, a beautiful damsel who made an unfortunate love match and died, leaving an infant daughter.  Frances began to image to herself the various scenes, tragic and comic, through which the poor motherless girl, highly connected on one side, meanly connected on the other, might have to pass.  A crowd of unreal beings, good and bad, grave and ludicrous, surrounded the pretty, timid young orphan ; a coarse sea captain ; an ugly, insolent fop, blazing in a superb court dress ; another fop, as ugly and as insolent, but lodged on Snow-hill and tricked out in second-hand finery for the Hampstead ball; an old woman,

Page Xxiv

wrinkles and rouge, flirting her fan with the air of a miss of seventeen and screaming in a dialect made up of vulgar French and vulgar English; a poet, lean and ragged, with a broad Scotch accent.  By degrees these shadows acquired stronger and stronger consistence ; the impulse which urged Frances to write became irresistible; and the result was the “History of Evelina.”

Then came, naturally enough, a wish, mingled with many fears, to appear before the public ; for, timid as Frances was, and bashful, and altogether unaccustomed to hear her own praises, it is clear that she wanted neither a strong passion for distinction, nor a just confidence in her own powers.  Her scheme was to become, if possible, a candidate for fame without running any risk of disgrace.  She had not money to bear the expense of printing.  It was therefore necessary that some bookseller should be induced to take the risk; and such a bookseller was not readily found.  Dodsley refused even to look at the manuscript unless he were intrusted with the name of the author.  A publisher in Fleet-street, named Lowndes, was more complaisant.  Some correspondence took place between this person and Miss Burney, who took the name of Grafton, and desired that the letters addressed to her might be left at the Orange Coffee-house.  But, before the bargain was finally struck, Fanny thought it her duty to obtain her father’s consent.  She told him that she had written a book, that she