Life, however, still smiled upon her.  Domestic happiness, friendship, independence, leisure, letters, all these things were hers; and she flung them all away.

Among the distinguished persons to whom Miss Burney had been introduced, none appears to have stood higher in her regard than Mrs. Delany.  This lady was an interesting and venerable

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relic of a past age.  She was the niece of George Granville, Lord Lansdowne, who, in his youth, exchanged verses and compliments with Edmun Waller, and who was among the first to applaud the opening talents of Pope.  She had married Dr. Delany, a man known to his contemporaries as a profound scholar and eloquent preacher, but remembered in our time chiefly as one of that small circle in which the fierce spirit of Swift, tortured by disappointed ambition, by remorse, and by the approaches of madness, sought for amusement and repose.  Dr. Delany had long been dead.  His widow, nobly descended, eminently accomplished, and retaining, in spite of the infirmities of advanced age, the vigour of her faculties, and the serenity of her temper, enjoyed and deserved the favour of the royal family.  She had a pension of three hundred a-year; and a house at Windsor, belonging to the crown, had been fitted up for her accommodation.  At this house, the king and queen sometimes called, and found a very natural pleasure in thus catching an occasional glimpse of the private life of English families.

In December, 1785, Miss Burney was on a visit to Mrs. Delany at Windsor.  The dinner was over.  The old lady was taking a nap.  Her grandniece, a little girl of seven, was playing at some Christmas game with the visitors, when the door opened, and a stout gentleman entered unannounced, with a star on his breast, and “What? what? what?” in his mouth.  A cry of “The king!” was set up.  A general scampering followed.  Miss Burney owns that she could not have been more terrified if she had seen a ghost.  But Mrs. Delany came forward to pay her duty to her royal friend, and the disturbance was quieted.  Frances was then presented, and underwent a long examination and crossexamination about all that she had written, and all that she meant to write.  The queen soon made her appearance, and his majesty repeated, for the benefit of his consort, the information which he had extracted from Miss Burney.  The good nature of the royal pair might have softened even the authors of the “Probationary Odes,"(17) and could not but be delightful to a young lady who had been brought up a Tory.  In a few days the visit was repeated.  Miss Burney was more at ease than before.  His majesty, instead of seeking for information, condescended to impart it, and passed sentence on many great writers, English and foreign.  Voltairehe pronounced a monster.  Rousseau he liked rather better.  “But was there ever,” he cried, " such stuff as great part of Shakspeare?  Only one must not say so.  But what think you?  What?  Is there not sad stuff?  What?  What?”