[98]. ‘Buckingham Papers,’ vol. ii., p. 104; ‘Auckland Correspondence,’ vol. ii., pp. 251, 289.
[99]. Diary, vol. iii., p. 163.
[100]. Many stories have been told of the deranged King having been brutally treated by this man Ernst, who is said on one occasion to have thrown the patient violently down, exclaiming to the attendants, ‘There is your King for you!’ But Ernst, who was a Page of the Back Stairs, received a pension on his retirement. It seems probable, therefore, that Ernst’s supposed brutality was, as Miss Burney suggests, an illusion of the King’s malady.
[101]. Wraxall’s Posthumous Memoirs, vol. iii., pp. 369, 370.
CHAPTER X.
Royal Visit to Weymouth—Lyndhurst—Village Loyalty—Arrival at Weymouth—Bathing to Music—Mrs. Gwynn—Mrs. Siddons—The Royal Party at the Rooms—First Sight of Mr. Pitt—The Marquis of Salisbury—Royal Tour—Visit to Longleat—Mrs. Delany—Bishop Ken—Tottenham Park—Return to Windsor—Progress of the French Revolution—Colonel Digby’s Marriage—Miss Burney’s Situation—A Senator—Tax on Bachelors—Reading to the Queen—Miss Burney’s Melancholy—Proposal for her Retirement—Her Tedious Solitude—Her Literary Inactivity—Her Declining Health—A Friendly Cabal—Windham and the Literary Club—James Boswell—Miss Burney’s Memorial to the Queen—Leave of Absence Proposed—The Queen and Mrs. Schwellenberg—Serious Illness of Miss Burney—Discussions on her Retirement—A Day at the Hastings Trial—The Defence—A Lively Scene—The Duke of Clarence—Parting with the Royal Family—Miss Burney receives a Pension—Her Final Retirement.
On the 25th of June the Court set out on a progress from Windsor to Weymouth. Miss Burney and Miss Planta, as was usual on these occasions, were of the suite; the Schwellenberg, as usual, remained behind. ‘The crowds increased as we advanced, and at Winchester the town was one head.’ At Romsey, on the steps of the Town Hall, a band of musicians, some in coarse brown coats and red neckcloths, some even in smock-frocks, made a chorus of ‘God save the King,’ in which a throng of spectators joined with shouts that rent the air. ‘Carriages of all sorts lined the roadside—chariots, chaises, landaus, carts, waggons, whiskies, gigs, phaetons—mixed and intermixed, filled within and surrounded without by faces all glee and delight.’ On the verge of the New Forest the King was met by a party of foresters, habited in green, with bows and bugles, who, according to ancient custom, presented him with a pair of milk-white greyhounds, wearing silver collars, and led by silken cords.
Arrived at Lyndhurst, he drove to the old hunting-seat of Charles II., then tenanted by the Duke of Gloucester. “It is a straggling, inconvenient old house,” writes Fanny, “but delightfully situated in a village—looking, indeed, at present, like a populous town, from the amazing concourse of people that have crowded into it.... During the King’s dinner, which was in a parlour looking into the garden, he permitted the people to come to the window; and their delight and rapture in seeing their monarch at table, with the evident hungry feeling it occasioned, made a contrast of admiration and deprivation truly comic. They crowded, however, so excessively, that this can be permitted no more. They broke down all the paling, and much of the hedges, and some of the windows, and all by eagerness and multitude, for they were perfectly civil and well-behaved.... We continued at Lyndhurst five days.... On the Sunday we all went to the parish church; and after the service, instead of a psalm, imagine our surprise to hear the whole congregation join in ‘God save the King!’ Misplaced as this was in a church, its intent was so kind, loyal, and affectionate, that I believe there was not a dry eye amongst either singers or hearers.”
On the 30th of June the royal party quitted Lyndhurst, and arrived at Weymouth in the course of the evening. ‘The journey was one scene of festivity and rejoicing.’ The change of air, the bustle of travelling, the beauty of the summer landscapes, the loyalty of the population, had restored Fanny’s tone, and brought back the glow she had experienced at the time of the King’s convalescence. Her enthusiasm lent a touch of enchantment to everything she saw. Salisbury and Blandford welcomed their sovereign with displays and acclamations that fairly carried her away. At Dorchester the windows and roofs of the quaint old houses seemed packed with eager faces. ‘Girls, with chaplets, beautiful young creatures, strewed the entrance of various villages with flowers.’