Mr. Greville, now, was assuming a new character—that of an author; and he printed a work which he had long had in agitation, entitled “Maxims, Characters, and Reflections, Moral, Serious, and Entertaining;” a title that seemed to announce that England, in its turn, was now to produce, in a man of family and fashion, a La Bruyere, or a La Rochefoucaul. And Mr. Greville, in fact, waited for a similar fame with dignity rather than anxiety, because with expectation unclogged by doubt.
With Mrs. Greville, also, Mr. Burney kept up an equal, or more than equal, intercourse, for their minds were invariably in unison.
The following copy remains of a burlesque rhyming billet-doux, written by Mr. Burney in his old dramatic character of Will Fribble, and addressed to Mrs. Greville in that of Miss Biddy Bellair, upon her going abroad.
“WILLIAM FRIBBLE, ESQ.
“TO HER WHO WAS ONCE MISS BIDDY BELLAIR.
“Greeting.
“No boisterous hackney coachman clown,
No frisky fair nymph of the town
E’er wore so insolent a brow