An education, however, which to most girls would have been useless, but which suited Fanny’s mind better than elaborate culture, was in constant progress during her passage from childhood to womanhood.  The great book of human nature was turned over before her.  Her father’s social position was very peculiar.  He belonged in fortune and station to the middle class.  His daughters seemed to have been suffered to mix freely with those whom butlers and waiting-maids call vulgar.  We are told that they were in the habit of playing with the children of a wigmaker who lived in the adjoining house.  Yet few nobles could assemble in the most stately mansions of Grosvenor-square or St. James’s-square a society so various and so brilliant as was sometimes to be found in Dr. Burney’s cabin.  His mind, though

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not very powerful or capacious, was restlessly active ; and, in the intervals of his professional pursuits, he had contrived to lay up much miscellaneous information.  His attainments, the suavity of his temper and the general simplicity of his manners had obtained for him ready admission to the first literary circles.  While he was still at Lynn, he had won Johnson’s heart by sounding with honest zeal the praises of the “English Dictionary.”  In London, the two friends met frequently and agreed most harmoniously.  One tie, indeed, was wanting to their mutual attachment.  Burney loved his own art passionately, and Johnson just knew the bell of St. Clement’s church from the organ.  Theyhad, however, many topics in common; and on winter nights their conversations were sometimes prolonged till the fire had gone out and the candles had burned away to the wicks.  Burney’sadmiration of the powers which had produced “Rasselas” and “The Rambler” bordered on idolatry.  He gave a singular proof of this at his first visit to Johnson’s ill-furnished garret.  The master of the apartment was not at home.  The enthusiastic visitor looked about for some relic which he could carry away, but he could see nothing lighter than the chairs and the fireirons.  At last he discovered an old broom, tore some bristles from the stump, wrapped them in silver paper, and departed as happy as Louis ix. when the holy nail of St. Denis was found.(6) Johnson, on the other hand, condescended to growl out that Burney was an honest fellow, a man whom it was impossible not to like.

Garrick, too, was a frequent visitor in Poland-street and St. Martin’s-street.  That wonderful actor loved the society of children, partly from good nature and partly from vanity.  The ecstasies of mirth and terror, which his gestures and play of countenance never failed to produce in a nursery, flattered him quite as much as the applause of mature critics.  He often exhibited all his powers of mimicry for the amusement of the little Burneys, awed them by shuddering and crouching as if he saw a ghost, scared them by raving like a maniac in St. Luke’s, and then at once became an auctioneer, a chimney-sweeper or an old woman, and made them laugh till the tears ran down their cheeks.