ill been what she was before her father induced her to take the
most fatal step of her life, we can easily imagine what pleasure she
would have derived from a visit to the noblest of English cities. She
might, indeed, have been forced to travel in a hack chaise, and might
not have worn so fine a gown of Chambery gauze as that in which she
tottered after the royal party; but with what delight would she have
then paced the cloisters of Magdalene, compared the antique gloom of
Merton with the splendor of Christ Church, and looked down from the dome
of the Radcliffe Library on the magnificent sea of turrets and
battlements below! How gladly would learned men have laid aside for a
few hours Pindar's Odes and Aristotle's Ethics, to escort the author of
Cecilia from college to college! What neat little banquets would she
have found set out in their monastic cells! With what eagerness would
pictures, medals, and illuminated missals have been brought forth from
the most mysterious cabinets for her amusement! How much she would have
had to hear and to tell about Johnson, as she walked over Pembroke, and
about Reynolds, in the antechapel of New College! But these indulgences
were not for one who had sold herself into bondage.

About eighteen months after the visit to Oxford, another event
diversified the wearisome life which Frances led at court. Warren
Hastings was brought to the bar of the House of Peers. The Queen and
Princesses were present when the trial commenced, and Miss Burney was
permitted to attend. During the subsequent proceedings a day rule for
the same purpose was occasionally granted to her; for the Queen took the
strongest interest in the trial, and when she could not go herself to
Westminster Hall, liked to receive a report of what had passed from a
person who had singular powers of observation, and who was, moreover,
acquainted with some of the most distinguished managers. The portion of
the Diary which relates to this celebrated proceeding is lively and
picturesque. Yet we read it, we own, with pain; for it seems to us to
prove that the fine understanding of Frances Burney was beginning to
feel the pernicious influence of a mode of life which is as incompatible
with health of mind as the air of the Pontine marshes with health of
body. From the first day she espouses the cause of Hastings with a
presumptuous vehemence and acrimony quite inconsistent with the modesty
and suavity of her ordinary deportment. She shu