Saturday, Dec- 3-This morning we had better news of the princess - and Mrs. Delany went again to the Lodge in the evenin, to the queen.  When Mrs. Delany returned, she confirmed the good accounts of the Princess Elizabeth’s amendment.  She had told the queen I was going to-morrow to Thames Ditton, for a week; and was asked many questions about my coming back, which the queen said she was sure I 295

should be glad to do from Mrs. Walsingham to Mrs. Delany.  O most penetrating queen!

She gratified Mrs. Delany by many kind speeches, of being sorry I was going, and glad I was returning, and so forth.  Mrs. Delany then told her I had been reading “The Clandestine Marriage” to her, which the queen had recommended, and she thanked her majesty for the very great pleasure she had received from it.

“O then,” cried the queen, “if Miss Burney reads to you, what a pleasure you must have to make her read her own works!”

Mrs. Delany laughed, and exclaimed,

“O ma’am! read her own works!—­your majesty has no notion of Miss Burney!  I believe she would as soon die!”

This, of course, led to a great deal of discussion, in the midst of which the queen said,

“Do you know Dr. Burney, Mrs. Delany?

 “Yes, ma’am, extremely well,” answered Mrs. Delany.

“I think him,” said the queen, “a very agreeable and entertaining man.”

There, my dear father! said I not well just now, O most penetrating queen?

So here ends my Windsor journal, part the first.  Tomorrow morning I go for my week to Thames Ditton.

An anticipated royal interview.

Windsor, Wednesday, Dec. 14-Yesterday I returned to my dear Mrs. Delany, from Thames Ditton, and had the great concern of finding her very unwell.  Mr. Bernard Dewes, one of her nephews, and his little girl, a sweet child of seven years old, were with her, and, of course, Miss Port.  She had been hurried, though only with pleasure, and her emotion, first in receiving, and next in entertaining them, had brought on a little fever.

She revived in the afternoon, and I had the pleasure of reading to her a play of Shakspeare’s, that she had not heard for forty years, and which I had never read since I was a child,—­“The Comedy of Errors;”—­and we found in it all the entertainment belonging to an excellent farce, and all the objections belonging to an indifferent play but the spirit with which she enters into every part of everything she hears, gives a sort of theatric effect to whatever is read to her; and my spirits rise in her presence, with the joy of exciting hers. 296

But I am now obliged, by what follows, to confess a little discussion I have had with my dear Mrs. Delany, almost all the time I spent with her at first, and now again upon my return, relative to the royal interview, so long in expectation.