sang her
best for Dr. Burney without a fee; and in the company of Dr. Burney even
the haughty and eccentric Gabrielli constrained herself to behave with
civility. It was thus in his power to give, with scarcely any expense,
concerts equal to those of the aristocracy. On such occasions the quiet
street in which he lived was blocked up by coroneted chariots, and his
little drawing-room was crowded with peers, peeresses, ministers, and
ambassadors. On one evening, of which we happen to have a full account,
there were present Lord Mulgrave, Lord Bruce, Lord and Lady Edgecumbe,
Lord Barrington from the War Office, Lord Sandwich from the Admiralty,
Lord Ashburnham, with his gold key dangling from his pocket, and the
French Ambassador, M. de Guignes, renowned for his fine person and for
his success in gallantry. But the great show of the night was the
Russian Ambassador, Count Orloff, whose gigantic figure was all in a
blaze with jewels, and in whose demeanor the untamed ferocity of the
Scythian might be discerned through a thin varnish of French politeness.
As he stalked about the small parlor, brushing the ceiling with his
toupee, the girls whispered to each other, with mingled admiration and
horror, that he was the favored lover of his august mistress; that he
had borne the chief part in the revolution to which she owed her throne;
and that his huge hands, now glittering with diamond rings, had given
the last squeeze to the windpipe of her unfortunate husband.

With such illustrious guests as these were mingled all the most
remarkable specimens of the race of lions, a kind of game which is
hunted in London every spring with more than Meltonian ardor and
perseverance. Bruce, who had washed down steaks cut from living oxen
with water from the fountains of the Nile, came to swagger and talk
about his travels. Omai lisped broken English, and made all the
assembled musicians hold their ears by howling Otaheitean love songs,
such as those with which Oberea charmed her Opano.

With the literary and fashionable society, which occasionally met under
Dr. Burney's roof, Frances can scarcely be said to have mingled. She was
not a musician, and could therefore bear no part in the concerts. She
was shy almost to awkwardness, and scarcely ever joined in the
conversation. The slightest remark from a stranger disconcerted her; and
even the old friends of her father who tried to draw her out could
seldom extract more than a Yes or a No. Her