The manuscript comedy does not appear to have been shown to Dr. Johnson. This was not for want of encouragement. He was extremely willing to read it, or have it read to him, but desired that his opinion should be taken before that of Murphy, who was to judge of the stage effect, and as the latter had already offered his services, the scrupulous author felt that this could not be. Fanny continued to grow in favour with Johnson. His expressions of affection became stronger, his eulogy of her novel more unmeasured.
“I know,” he said on one occasion, “none like her, nor do I believe there is, or there ever was, a man who could write such a book so young.”
“I suppose,” said Mrs. Thrale, “Pope was no older than Miss Burney when he wrote ‘Windsor Forest;’[[45]] and I suppose ‘Windsor Forest’ is equal to ‘Evelina!’”
‘Windsor Forest,’ though, according to Pope himself, it was in part written at the age of sixteen, was finished and published when the poet was twenty-five. But Johnson would by no means allow that ‘Windsor Forest’ was so remarkable a work as ‘Evelina.’ The latter, he said, seemed a work that should result from long experience and deep and intimate knowledge of the world; yet it had been written without either.
“Miss Burney,” added the sage, “is a real wonder. What she is, she is intuitively. Dr. Burney told me she had had the fewest advantages of any of his daughters, from some peculiar circumstances. And such has been her timidity, that he himself had not any suspicion of her powers.”
About this time, Johnson began teaching his favourite Latin, an attention with which she would gladly have dispensed, thinking it an injury to be considered a learned lady.
In the autumn of this year, Miss Burney accompanied the Thrales to Tunbridge Wells, and thence to Brighton. Her Diary contains some lively sketches of incidents on the Pantiles and the Steyne, for which we cannot find space. At Brighton she encountered Sir Fretful Plagiary:
“‘It has been,’ said Mrs. Thrale warmly, ‘all I could do not to affront Mr. Cumberland to-night!’
“‘Oh, I hope not!’ cried I; ‘I would not have you for the world!’
“‘Why, I have refrained; but with great difficulty!’