Two days afterwards came the King’s birthday, and Miss Burney was well enough to enjoy a lively scene—the last that she was to witness at Court:
“At dinner Mrs. Schwellenberg presided, attired magnificently. Miss Goldsworthy, Mrs. Stainforth, Messrs. de Luc and Stanhope dined with us; and, while we were still eating fruit, the Duke of Clarence entered. He was just risen from the King’s table, and waiting for his equipage to go home and prepare for the ball. To give you an idea of the energy of his Royal Highness’s language, I ought to set apart a general objection to writing, or rather intimating, certain forcible words, and beg leave to show you, in genuine colours, a royal sailor. We all rose, of course, upon his entrance, and the two gentlemen placed themselves behind their chairs, while the footmen left the room; but he ordered us all to sit down, and called the men back to hand about some wine. He was in exceeding high spirits, and in the utmost good humour. He placed himself at the head of the table, next Mrs. Schwellenberg, and looked remarkably well, gay, and full of sport and mischief, yet clever withal as well as comical. ‘Well, this is the first day I have ever dined with the King at St. James’s on his birthday. Pray, have you all drunk his Majesty’s health?’ ‘No, your Roy’l Highness: your Roy’l Highness might make dem do dat,’ said Mrs. Schwellenberg. ‘O, by —— will I! Here, you (to the footman); bring champagne! I’ll drink the King’s health again, if I die for it! Yet, I have done pretty well already: so has the King, I promise you! I believe his Majesty was never taken such good care of before. We have kept his spirits up, I promise you; we have enabled him to go through his fatigues: and I should have done more still, but for the ball and Mary—I have promised to dance with Mary!’ Princess Mary made her first appearance at Court to-day: she looked most interesting and unaffectedly lovely: she is a sweet creature, and perhaps, in point of beauty, the first of this truly beautiful race, of which Princess Mary may be called pendant to the Prince of Wales. Champagne being now brought for the Duke, he ordered it all round. When it came to me, I whispered to Westerhaults to carry it on: the Duke slapped his hands violently on the table, and called out, ‘O, by ——, you shall drink it!’ There was no resisting this. We all stood up, and the Duke sonorously gave the royal toast.”
The indefatigable diarist, says Thackeray, continues for pages reporting H.R.H.’s conversation, and indicating, with a humour not unworthy of the clever little author of ‘Evelina,’ the increasing excitement of the young Sailor Prince, who drank more and more champagne, stopped old Mrs. Schwellenberg’s remonstrances by kissing her hand, and telling her to shut her potato-trap, and who did not keep ‘sober for Mary.’ Mary had to find another partner that night, for the royal William Henry could not keep his legs. When the Princess afterwards told Miss Burney of her brother’s condition at the ball, and Fanny accounted for it by relating what had passed at the attendants’ dinner-table, she found that she had been anticipated by the Duke himself. ‘Oh!’ cried the Princess; ‘he told me of it himself the next morning, and said: “You may think how far I was gone, for I kissed the Schwellenberg’s hand!”’ The lady saluted was duly sensible of the honour paid her. ‘Dat Prince Villiam,’ she observed to her junior—‘oders de Duke of Clarence—bin raelly ver merry—oders vat you call tipsy.’
Mademoiselle Jacobi,[[106]] Fanny’s destined successor, arrived in the first days of July, and the prison door was now thrown open. Miss Burney imagined that, as the day of her discharge approached, the Queen’s manner to her became rather less cordial, and betokened an inward feeling that the invalided servant ought, at every hazard, to have remained with her employer. This, we believe, is a common opinion among mistresses in all ranks of life, when called upon to surrender a trusted dependent. The King, with that weakness which the better-half always despises, was disposed to be much more indulgent. As if to compensate for his consort’s vexation, he showed himself increasingly courteous and kind at every meeting, making opportunities to talk over Boswell’s book, which had recently appeared, and listening to Fanny’s anecdotes of Johnson with the utmost complacency and interest. The Princesses did not conceal their sorrow at the impending change. ‘Indeed,’ says the Diary, ‘the most flattering marks of attention meet me from all quarters. Mrs. Schwellenberg has been forced to town by ill-health; she was very friendly, even affectionate, in going!’ And before the hour of parting arrived, the light cloud passed away from her Majesty’s face. It has been asked, Why should she have grieved at losing an attendant, who, as the Queen used to complain, could never tie the bow of her royal necklace without tying her royal hair in with it? But, in Miss Burney, Queen Charlotte was losing much more than an unskilful tire-woman, or a nervous reader, who, as we know on the same unimpeachable authority, ‘had the misfortune of reading rather low.’ She was losing one whom she declared to be ‘true as gold,’ and who had a much larger share of mind than commonly fell to the official lot; a familiar friend who was as far as possible from being a learned lady, and yet capable of entertaining her mistress with clever and stimulating talk such as her Majesty loved. No retiring pension had been asked for in the petition for leave to resign, and when the subject was mentioned by the Queen, the petitioner hastened to disavow all claim and expectation of that kind. She found, however, that the question of what the occasion demanded had been already considered and decided. Though the term of service had been short, the character of the servant, and the notorious failure of her health, made it imperative that she should receive some provision. The Queen therefore announced her intention of continuing to her second Robe-Keeper in retirement one-half of the annual salary which had been paid to her in office. ‘It is but her due,’ said the King. ‘She has given up five years of her pen.’[[107]] Two days after this matter was settled, Miss Burney took leave of the Royal Family. Emotional as one of her own heroines, she could not control her feelings in bidding farewell to the Queen, and was unable even to look at the King when he came to say ‘Good-bye.’ She quitted the Court on July 7, 1791, having been a member of the royal house-hold for five years all but ten days. Burke recalled the satisfaction with which he had hailed her appointment; and, owning that he had never been more mistaken in his life, observed that the story of those five years would have furnished Johnson with another vivid illustration for his ‘Vanity of Human Wishes.’
[102]. “His coffin was re-opened at the request of the Jessamy Bride, that a lock might be cut from his hair. It was in Mrs. Gwynn’s possession when she died, after nearly seventy years.”—Forster’s “Goldsmith.”
[103]. James, seventh Earl of Salisbury, was advanced in August, 1789, to the title of Marquis.
[104]. In 1785, Mr. Pitt introduced an increase in the tax paid on men-servants, when they were kept by bachelors.
[105]. Diary, vol. ii., p. 581.
[106]. Macaulay asserts that, shortly after her release, Miss Burney “visited her old dungeon, and found her successor already far on the way to the grave, and kept to strict duty, from morning till midnight, with a sprained ankle, and a nervous fever.” This is a strange misstatement. Mademoiselle Jacobi had leave of absence to nurse her sprain: it was not “in the old dungeon” that Miss Burney saw her on the occasion referred to, but in a small room at Brompton, where she was sitting with her leg on bolsters, and unable to put her foot to the ground. Fanny, in January, 1792, took a turn of duty at St. James’s, by the Queen’s request, because “Mademoiselle Jacobi was still lame.” Diary, vol. iii., pp. 385-87. However, we read afterwards that, towards the end of 1797, Mademoiselle Jacobi “retired to Germany, ill and dissatisfied with everything in England.” She, as well as Miss Burney, received a pension.