ceiling with his toupee, the girls whispered to each other, with
mingled admiration and borror, that he was the favoured lover of
his august mistress; that be 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 ardour
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. Ornai 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.(7) She was not a musician, and could therefore bear no
part in the concerts. She was shy almost to awkward-

Page xviii

ness, and she 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 figure was small, her face
not distinguished by beauty. She was therefore suffered to
withdraw quietly to the background, and, unobserved herself, to