FANNY BURNEY
Stn,—Your reviewer says Macaulay did not explain how the style of the author of Evelina degenerated into "the worst ever known among men," or how, as a Court official, Miss Burney declined into "something fit for her place." Macaulay, however, did explain both. Her writing became laboured and tiresome because "in an evil hour" she took Johnson for her model, and did not imitate him well. As for her wretched experience as Keeper of the Queen's Robes, Macaulay said she changed for the worse because she had accepted "a slavery worse than that of the body "; associated "only with spirits long tamed and broken in "; and was accustomed to judge every event by its effect on the King and Queen, every personality according to the royal likings and prejudices. It would be hard to offer more satisfying
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