great French lady to the doctor “that your daughter is in A situation where she is never allowed a holiday?” HoraceWalpole wrote to Frances to express his sympathy.  Boswell, boiling over with good-natured rage, almost forced an entrance into the palace to see her.  “My dear ma’am, why do you stay?  It won’t do, ma’am - you must resign.  We can put up with it no longer.  Some very violent measures, I assure you, will be taken.  We shall address Dr. Burney in a body.”  Burke and Reynolds, though less noisy, were zealous in the same cause.  Windham spoke to Dr. Burney, but found him still irresolute.  “I will set the club upon him,” cried Windham; “Miss Burney has some very true admirers there, and I am sure they will eagerly assist.”  Indeed, the Burney family seem to have been apprehensive that some public affront, such as the doctor’s unpardonable folly, to use the mildest term had richly deserved, would be put upon’him.  The medical men spoke out, and plainly told him that his daughter must resign or die.

At last paternal affection, medical authority, and the voice of all London crying shame, triumphed over Dr. Burney’s love of courts.  He determined that Frances should write a letter of resignation.  It was with difficulty that, though her life was at stake, she mustered spirit to put the paper into the queen’s hands.  “I could not,” so runs the “Diary “summon courage to present my memorial-my heart always failed me from seeing the queen’s entire freedom from such an expectation.  For though I was frequently so ill in her presence that I could hardly stand, I saw she concluded me, while life remained, inevitably hers.”

At last, with a trembling hand, the paper was delivered.  Then came the storm.  Juno, as in the A_neid, delegated the work of vengeance to Alecto.  The queen was calm and gentle, but Madame Schwellenberg raved like a maniac in the incurable ward of Bedlam ! Such insolence!  Such ingratitude!  Such folly !  Would Miss Burneybring utter destruction on herself and her family ?  Would she throw away the inestimable advantages of royal protection ?  Would she part with privileges which, once relinquished, could never be regained " It was idle to talk of health and life.  If people could not live in the palace, the best thing that could befall them was to die in it.  The resignation was not accepted.  The language of the medical men became stronger and stronger.  Dr. Burney’s parental fears were fully roused; and he explicitly declared, in a letter meant to be shown to the queen, that his daughter must retire.  The Schwellenberg raged like a wild cat.  “A scene almost horrible ensued,” says Miss Burney.  “She was too much enraged for disguise, and uttered the most furious expressions of indignant contempt at our proceedings.  I am sure she would gladly have confined us both in the Bastille, had England such a misery, as a fit place to bring us to ourselves, from a daring so outrageous against imperial wishes.”  This passage deserves notice, as being the only one in Page xliii