self for the loss of Burke’s and Windham’s society by joining in the “celestial colloquy sublime” of his majesty’s equerries.

And what was the consideration for which she was to sell herself to this slavery?  A peerage in her own right?  A pension of two thousand a-year for life?  A seventy-four for her brother in the navy?  A deanery for her brother in the church?  Not so.  The price at which she was valued was her board, her lodging, the attendance of a man-servant, and two hundred pounds a-year.

The man who, even when hard pressed by hunger, sells his birthright for a mess of pottage, is unwise.  But what shall we say of him who parts with his birthright and does not get even the pottage in return ?  It is not necessary to inquire whether opulence be an adequate compensation for the sacrifice of bodily and mental freedom ; for Frances Burney paid for leave to be a prisoner and a menial.  It was evidently understood as one of the terms of her engagement, that, while she was a member of the royal household, she was not to appear before the public as an author; and, even had there been no such understanding, her avocations were such as left her no leisure for any considerable intellectual effort.  That her place was incompatible with her literary pursuits was indeed frankly acknowledged by the king when she resigned.  “She had given up,” he said, “five years of her pen.”  That during those five years she might, without painful exertion, without any exertion that would not have been a pleasure, have earned enough to buy an annuity for life much larger than the precarious salary which she received at Court, is quite certain.  The same income, too, which in St. Martin’sstreet would have afforded her every comfort, must have been found scanty at St. James’s.  We cannot venture to speak confidently of the price of millinery and jewellery; but we are greatly deceived if a lady, who had to attend Queen Charlotte on many public occasions, could possibly save a farthing out of a salary of two hundred a-year.  The principle of the arrangement was, in short, simply this, that Frances Burney should become a slave, and should be rewarded by being made a beggar.

With what object their majesties brought her to their palace, we must own ourselves unable to conceive.  Their object could not be to encourage her literary exertions; for they took her from a situation in which it was almost certain that she would write and put her into a situation in which it was impossible for her to write.  Their object could not be to promote her pecuniary interest for they took her from a situation where she was likely to becom rich, and put her into a situation in which she could not but continue poor.  Their object could not be to obtain an eminentl useful waiting-maid; for it is clear that, though Miss Burney was the only woman of her time who could have described the death of Harrel,(18) thousands might have been found more expert in tying