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crimes is perfectly true.  But his services and his crimes were equally unknown to the lady who so confidently asserted his perfect innocence, and imputed to his accusers—­that is to say, to all the greatest men of all parties in the state-not merely error, but gross injustice and barbarity.

She had, it is true, occasionally seen Mr. Hastings, and had found his manners and conversation agreeable.  But surely she could not be so weak as to infer from the gentleness of his deportment in a drawing-room that he was incapable of committing a great state crime under the influence of ambition and revenge.  A silly Miss, fresh from a boarding- school, might fall into such a mistake ; but the woman who had drawn the character of Mr. Monckton(19) should have known better.

The truth is that she had been too long at Court.  She was sinking into a slavery worse than that of the body.  The iron was beginning to enter into the soul.  Accustomed during many months to watch the eye of a mistress, to receive with boundless gratitude the slightest mark of royal condescension, to feel wretched at every symptom of royal displeasure, to associate only with spirits long tamed and broken in, she was degeneratin- into something fit for her place.  Queen Charlotte was a violent partisan of Hastings, had received presents from him, and had so far departed from the severity of her virtue as to lend her countenance to his wife, whose conduct had certainly been as reprehensible as that of any of the frail beauties who were then rigidly excluded from the English Court.  The king, it was well known, took the same side.  To the king and queen, all the members of the household looked submissively for guidance.  The impeachment, therefore, was an atrocious persecution ; the managers were rascals ; the defendant was the most deserving and the worst used man in the kingdom.  This was the cant of the whole palace, from gold stick in waiting down to the tabledeckers and yeomen of the silver scullery; and Miss Burney canted like the rest, though in livelier tones and with less bitter feelings.

The account which she has given of the king’s illness contains much excellent narrative and description, and will, we think, be more valued by the historians of a future age than any equal portion of Pepys’ or Evelyn’s " Diaries.”  That account shows also how affectionate and compassionate her nature was, But it shows also, we must say, that her way of life was rapidly impairing her powers of reasoning and her sense of justice.  We do not mean to discuss, in this place, the question whether the views of Mr. Pitt or those of ’Mr. Fox respecting the regency were the more correct.  It is, indeed, quite needless to discuss that question ; for the censure of Miss Burney falls alike on Pitt and Fox, on majority and minority.  She is angry with the House of Commons for presuming to inquire whether the king was mad or

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