of his play. Frances Burney he regarded as his daughter. He
called her his Fannikin; and she in return called him her dear
Daddy. In truth, he seems to have done much more than her real
father for the development of her intellect ; for though he was a
bad poet, he was a scholar, a thinker, and an excellent
counsellor. He was particularly fond of Dr. Burney's concerts.
They had indeed, been commenced at his suggestion, and when he
visited London he constantly attended them. But when he grew
old, and when gout, brought on partly by mental irritation,
confined him to his retreat, he was desirous of having a glimpse
of that gay and brilliant world from which he was exiled, and he
pressed Fannikin to send him full accounts of her father's
evening parties. A few of her letters to him have been
published; and it is impossible to read them without discerning
in them 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
image 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