KEW IN FAVOUR 55 



of Wales had written in chalk over each room 

 the name of its occupant. Everybody had to 

 put up with the discomfort of being crowded 

 together in that ill -furnished mansion. The 

 only good rooms were given up to the King, 

 those above being left empty that he might not 

 be disturbed. Part of the household overflowed 

 into the Prince of Wales's house opposite ; the 

 younger children being lodged in their usual 

 quarters on Kew Green. Pent up closely with 

 "the Schwellenberg," Miss Burney had her full 

 share of troubles ; but her womanly devotion 

 rose to the occasion, and she declares that " not 

 even the 20,000 prize in the lottery could, at 

 this time, draw me from this melancholy scene." 

 She had the satisfaction of being employed, 

 every morning, to carry the physicians' report 

 to the Queen, who, by her enemies, was accused 

 of doctoring those bulletins to give the most 

 favourable view of symptoms on which, for 

 once, doctors differed. 



The Prince of Wales and his partisans 

 listened rather to those big-wigs of the profes- 

 sion that were most gravely shaken over a case 

 they did not understand. They perhaps agreed 

 best in looking askance on an outsider called in 



