m
all the powers which afterwards produced Evelina and Cecilia, the
quickness in catching every odd peculiarity of character and manner, the
skill in grouping, the humour, often richly comic, sometimes even
farcical.

Fanny's propensity to novel-writing had for a time been kept down. It
now rose up stronger than ever. The heroes and heroines of the tales
which had perished in the flames, were still present to the eye of her
mind. One favourite story, in particular, haunted her imagination. It
was about a certain Caroline Evelyn, a beautiful damsel who made an
unfortunate love match, and died, leaving an infant daughter. Frances
began to imagine to herself the various scenes, tragic and comic,
through which the poor motherless girl, highly connected on one side,
meanly connected on the other, might have to pass. A crowd of unreal
beings, good and bad, grave and ludicrous, surrounded the pretty, timid,
young orphan; a coarse sea-captain; an ugly insolent fop, blazing in a
superb court-dress; another fop, as ugly and as insolent, but lodged on
Snow Hill, and tricked out in second-hand finery for the Hampstead ball;
an old woman, all wrinkles and rouge, flirting her fan with the air of a
Miss of seventeen, and screaming in a dialect made up of vulgar French
and vulgar English; a poet lean and ragged, with a broad Scotch accent.
By degrees these shadows acquired stronger and stronger consistence: the
impulse which urged Frances to write became irresistible; and the result
was the history of Evelina.

Then came, naturally enough, a wish, mingled with many fears, to appear
before the public; for, timid as Frances was, and bashful, and
altogether unaccustomed to hear her own praises, it is clear that she
wanted neither a strong passion for distinction, nor a just confidence
in her own powers. Her scheme was to become, if possible, a candidate
for fame without running any risk of disgrace. She had no money to bear
the expense of printing. It was therefore necessary that some bookseller
should be induced to take the risk; and such a bookseller was not
readily found. Dodsley refused even to look at the manuscript unless he
were trusted with the name of the author. A publisher in Fleet Street,
named Lowndes, was more complaisant. Some correspondence took place
between this person and Miss Burney, who took the name of Grafton, and
desired that the letters addressed to her might be left at the Orange
Coffee-House. But, before the b