for the censure of Miss Burney falls alike on Pitt and Fox, on majority and minority.She is angry with the House of Commons for presuming to inquire whether the King was mad or not, and whether there was a chance of his recovering his senses."A melancholy day," she writes; "news bad both at home and, abroad.At home the dear unhappy king still worse; abroad new examinations voted of the physicians.Good heavens! what an insult does this seem from Parliamentary power, to investigate and bring forth to the world every circumstance of such a malady as is ever held sacred to secrecy in the most private families! How indignant we all feel here, no words can say." It is proper to observe, that the motion which roused all this indignation at Kew was made by Mr.Pitt himself.We see, therefore, that the loyalty of the Minister, who was then generally regarded as the most heroic champion of his Prince, was lukewarm indeed when compared with the boiling zeal which filled the pages of the backstairs and the women of the bedchamber.Of the Regency Bill, Pitt's own bill, Miss Burney speaks with horror."I shuddered," she says, to hear it named."And again, "Oh, how dreadful will be the day when that unhappy bill takes place! I cannot approve the plan of it." The truth is that Mr.Pitt, whether a wise and upright statesman or not, was a statesman; and whatever motives he might have for imposing restrictions on the regent, felt that in some way or other there must be some provision made for the execution of some part of the kingly office, or that no government would be left in the country.But this was a matter of which the household never thought.It never occurred, as far as we can see, to the Exons and Keepers of the Robes, that it was necessary that there should be somewhere or other a power in the State to pass laws, to preserve order, to pardon criminals, to fill up offices, to negotiate with foreign governments, to command the army and navy.
Nay, these enlightened politicians, and Miss Burney among the rest, seem to have thought that any person who considered the subject with reference to the public interest, showed himself to be a bad-hearted man.Nobody wonders at this in a gentleman usher; but it is melancholy to see genius sinking into such debasement.
During more than two years after the King's recovery, Frances dragged on a miserable existence at the palace.The consolations which had for a time mitigated the wretchedness of servitude were one by one withdrawn.Mrs.Delany, whose society had been a great resource when the Court was at Windsor, was now dead.One of the gentlemen of the royal establishment, Colonel Digby, appears to have been a man of sense, of taste, of some reading, and of prepossessing manners.Agreeable associates were scarce in the prison house, and he and Miss Burney therefore naturally became attached to each other.She owns that she valued him as a friend;and it would not have been strange if his attentions had led her to entertain for him a sentiment warmer than friendship.He quitted the Court, and married in a way which astonished Miss Burney greatly, and which evidently wounded her feelings, and lowered him in her esteem.The palace grew duller and duller;Madame Schwellenberg became more and more savage and insolent;and now the health of poor Frances began to give way; and all who saw her pale face, her emaciated figure, and her feeble walk, predicted that her sufferings would soon be over.
