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