A chief topic of conversation at this time in Bath was Lady Miller’s vase at Batheaston. Horace Walpole mentions this vase, and the use to which it was put: ‘They hold a Parnassus-fair every Thursday, give out rhymes and themes, and all the flux at Bath contend for the prizes. A Roman vase, dressed with pink ribbons and myrtles, receives the poetry, which is drawn out every festival. Six judges of these Olympic games retire, and select the brightest composition.’ Fanny met Lady Miller, whom she describes with her usual candour: ‘Lady Miller is a round, plump, coarse-looking dame of about forty, and while all her aim is to appear an elegant woman of fashion, all her success is to seem an ordinary woman in very common life, with fine clothes on. Her habits are bustling, her air is mock-important, and her manners very inelegant.’ In the midst of a round of gaieties, the Thrale party attended a reception at Batheaston. The rooms were crowded; but it being now June, the business of the vase was over for that season, and the sacred vessel itself had been removed. On returning to their lodging, they received the news of the Gordon Riots. Next morning Mrs. Thrale had letters acquainting her that her town-house had been three times attacked, but saved by the Guards, with the children, plate, and valuables, which were removed. Streatham had also been threatened and emptied of all its furniture. The same day a Bath newspaper denounced Mr. Thrale as a papist. The brewer was now in a critical state of health, and it became necessary to remove him without exciting his alarm. Miss Burney was employed to break the matter to him, and obtained his consent to an immediate departure. Arriving at Salisbury on the 11th of June, they were reassured by information that order had been restored in London, and Lord George Gordon sent to the Tower. In London the friends parted, and Fanny returned to her father’s house. Johnson met her at Sir Joshua’s a few days after, and mention being made of a house in Grub Street that had been destroyed by the mob, proposed that they should go there together, and visit the seats of their progenitors.
The latter part of this year, and part of 1781, were spent by Miss Burney chiefly in writing ‘Cecilia.’ While thus occupied she passed most of her time at Chesington. In February, 1781, she writes from that place to Mrs. Thrale: “I think I shall always hate this book, which has kept me so long away from you, as much as I shall always love ‘Evelina,’ which first comfortably introduced me to you.” Shortly after the date of this letter, the writer returned home, apparently for the purpose of meeting the Thrales, who were fixed for the winter in Grosvenor Square. She found them engaged in giving parties to half London. In the midst of their entertainments Mr. Thrale died suddenly from a stroke of apoplexy. Fanny could not desert her friend in such trouble. So soon as the widow could bear any society, she summoned her young companion to Streatham, and kept her there, with hardly an interval, till the summer was over. It does not appear that Fanny was at all averse to be detained, but so long a stay was not to her advantage. Her hostess, of course, was much engrossed by the late brewer’s affairs. Dr. Johnson, as one of the executors, was similarly employed; and though Miss Burney, from time to time, saw something of him, as well as of his co-executors, Mr. Cator[[50]] and Mr. Crutchley,[[51]] she met with little in the narrowed and secluded household to compensate her for her loss of time. If she busied herself at all with ‘Cecilia’ during this period, she seems to have accomplished very little. At any rate, both her fathers became impatient of her inaction. Prompted from Chesington, Dr. Burney would have recalled his daughter, but found himself powerless against the self-willed little lady of Thrale Hall. The more resolute Crisp then took the field in person,[[52]] and in spite of his infirmities, repaired to Streatham, whence he carried off the captive authoress, and straightway consigned her to what he called the Doctor’s Conjuring Closet, at his own abode. There Fanny was held to her task till the beginning of 1782, when she was called home to be present at the marriage of her sister Susan to Captain Phillips; after which Dr. Burney kept her stationary in St. Martin’s Street till she had written the word ‘Finis’ on the last proof-sheet of ‘Cecilia.’
However, when the new novel was fairly in the printer’s hands, the author was again seen in London society. At a party, given by a Mrs. Paradise, she was introduced to a sister of her craft:
“Mrs. Paradise, leaning over the Kirwans and Charlotte, who hardly got a seat all night for the crowd, said she begged to speak to me. I squeezed my great person out, and she then said:
“‘Miss Burney, Lady Say and Sele desires the honour of being introduced to you.’
“Her ladyship stood by her side. She seems pretty near fifty—at least turned forty; her head was full of feathers, flowers, jewels, and gew-gaws, and as high as Lady Archer’s; her dress was trimmed with beads, silver, Persian sashes, and all sort of fine fancies; her face is thin and fiery, and her whole manner spoke a lady all alive.
“‘Miss Burney,’ cried she, with great quickness, and a look all curiosity, ‘I am very happy to see you; I have longed to see you a great while; I have read your performance, and I am quite delighted with it. I think it’s the most elegant novel I ever read in my life. Such a style! I am quite surprised at it. I can’t think where you got so much invention!’
“‘You may believe this was a reception not to make me very loquacious. I did not know which way to turn my head.
“‘I must introduce you,’ continued her ladyship, ‘to my sister; she’ll be quite delighted to see you. She has written a novel herself; so you are sister authoresses. A most elegant thing it is, I assure you; almost as pretty as yours, only not quite so elegant. She has written two novels, only one is not so pretty as the other. But I shall insist upon your seeing them. One is in letters, like yours, only yours is prettiest; it’s called the “Mausoleum of Julia!”’
“What unfeeling things, thought I, are my sisters! I’m sure I never heard them go about thus praising me!