deprived of unknown quantities of admirable work by the misplaced
kindness, and the positive unkindness, of Queen Charlotte. Some have
agreed with him, some have differed with him. Some, in one of the
natural if uncritical revulsions, have questioned whether even _Evelina_
is a very remarkable book. Some, with human respect for the great names
of its early admirers, have passed it over gingerly--not exactly as
willing to wound, but as quite afraid or reluctant to strike. Nay,
actual critical evaluations of the novel-values of Miss Burney's four
attempts in novel-writing are very rare. I dare say there are other
people who have read _The Wanderer_ through: but I never met any one who
had done so except (to quote Rossetti) myself: and I could not bring
myself, even on this occasion, to read it again. I doubt whether very
many now living have read _Camilla_. Even _Cecilia_ requires an effort,
and does not repay that effort very well. Only _Evelina_ itself is
legible and relegible--for reasons which will be given presently. Yet
_Cecilia_ was written shortly after _Evelina_, under the same stimulus
of abundant and genial society, with no pressure except that of friendly
encouragement and perhaps assistance, and long before the supposed
blight of royal favour and royal exigences came upon its author. When
_Camilla_ was published she had been relieved from these exigences,
though not from that favour, for five years: and was a thoroughly happy
woman, rejoicing in husband and child. Even when the impossible
_Wanderer_ was concocted, she had had ample leisure, had as yet incurred
none of her later domestic sorrows, and was assured of lavish recompense
for her (it must be said) absolutely worthless labours. Why this steady
declension, with which, considering the character of _Cecilia_, the
court sojourn can have had nothing to do? And admitting it, why still
uphold, as the present writer does uphold, _Evelina_ as one of the
_points de repere_ of the English novel? Both questions shall be
answered in their order.

Frances Burney must have been, as we see not merely from external
testimony, but from the infallible witness of her own diary, a most
engaging person to any one who could get over her shyness and her
prudery:[12] but she was only in a very limited sense a gifted one.
Macaulay grants her a "fine understanding;" but even his own article
contradicts the statement, which is merely one of his exaggerations for
the sake of poi