In the summer of this year, 1785, came over from France the celebrated
Comtesse de Genlis. Dr. Burney and his second daughter were almost
immediately invited, at the express desire of the Countess, to meet,
and pass a day with her, at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds. His
niece, Miss Palmer,[6] Sir Abraham and Lady Hume, Lord Palmerston, and
some others, were of the party.
Madame de Genlis must then have been about thirty-five years of age;
but the whole of her appearance was nearly ten years younger. Her
face, without positive beauty, had the most winning agreeability; her
figure was remarkably elegant, her attire was chastly simple: her air
was reserved, and her demeanour was dignified. Her language had the
same flowing perspicuity, and animated variety, by which it is marked
in the best of her works; and her discourse was full of intelligence,
yet wholly free from presumption or obtrusion. Dr. Burney was forcibly
struck with her, and his daughter was enchanted.
Almost as numerous as her works, and almost as diversified, were the
characters which had preceded this celebrated lady to England. None,
however, of the calumnious sort had reached the ears of the Doctor
previously to this meeting; and though some had buzzed about these of
the Memorialist, they were vague; and she had willingly, from the charm
of such superior talents, believed them unfounded; even before the
witchery of personal partiality drove them wholly from the field: for
from her sight, her manners, and her conversation, not an idea could
elicit that was not instinctively in her favour.
Unconstrained, therefore, was the impulsive regard with which this
illustrious foreigner inspired both; and which, gently, but pointedly,
it was her evident aim to increase. She made a visit the next day to
the Memorialist, whose society she sought with a flattering earnestness
and a spirited grace that, coupled with her rare attractions, made a
straightforward and most animating conquest of her charmed votary.
Madame de Genlis had already been at Windsor, where, through the medium
of Madame de la Fìte, she had been honoured with a private audience
of the Queen: and the energetic respect with which she spoke of her
Majesty, was one of the strongest incentives to the loyal heart of Dr.
Burney for encouraging this rising connexion.
Madame de Genlis had presented, she said, to the Queen the sacred
dramas which she had dedicated to her Serene Highness the Duchess of
Orleans; adding, that she had brought over only two copies of that
work, of which the second was destined for _Mademoiselle Burney!_ to
whom, with a billet of elegance nearly heightened into expressions of
friendship, it was shortly conveyed.
The Memorialist was at a loss how to make acknowledgments for this
obliging offering, as she would have held any return in kind to savour
rather of vanity than of gratitude. Dr. Burney, however, relieved her
embarrassment, by permitting her to be the bearer of his own History
of Music, as far as it had then been published. This Madame de Genlis
received with infinite grace and pleasure; for while capable of
treating luminously almost every subject that occurred, she had an air,
a look, a smile, that gave consequence, transiently, to every thing she
said or did.
She had then by her side, and fondly under her wing, a little girl
whom she called Pamela,[7] who was most attractively lovely, and whom
she had imbibed with a species of enthusiasm for the Memorialist, so
potent and so eccentric, that when, during the visit at Sir Joshua
Reynolds’, Madame de Genlis said, “_Pamela, voilà Mademoiselle
Burney!_” the animated little person rushed hastily forward, and
prostrated herself upon one knee before the astonished, almost
confounded object of her notice; who, though covered with a confusion
half distressing, half ridiculous, observed in every motion and
attitude of the really enchanting little creature, a picturesque beauty
of effect, and a magic allurement in her fine cast up eyes, that she
could not but wish to see perpetuated by Sir Joshua.
On the day that Dr. Burney left his card in Portland-place, for a
parting visit to Madame de Genlis, previously to her quitting London,
he left there, also, the Memorialist; who, by appointment, was to pass
the morning with that lady. This same witching little being was then
capitally aiding and abetting in a preconcerted manoeuvre, with
which Madame de Genlis not a little surprised her guest. This was by
detaining her, through a thousand varying contrivances, all for a while
unsuspected, in a particular position; while a painter, whom Madame
de Genlis mentioned as being with her by chance, and who appeared
to be amusing himself with sketching some fancies of his own, was
clandestinely taking a portrait of the visitor.
However flattered by the desire of its possession in so celebrated a
personage, that visitor had already, and decidedly, refused sitting for
it, not alone to Madame de Genlis, but to various other kind demanders,
from a rooted dislike of being exhibited. And when she discovered what
was going forward, much vexed and disconcerted, she would have quitted
her seat, and fled the premises: but the adroit little charmer had
again recourse to her graceful prostration; and, again casting up her
beautifully picturesque eyes, pleaded the cause and wishes of Madame
de Genlis, whom she called _Maman_, with an eloquence and a pathos so
singular and so captivating, that the Memorialist, though she would
not sit quietly still, nor voluntarily favour the painter’s artifice,
could only have put in practice a peremptory and determined flight, by
trampling upon the urgent, clinging, impassioned little suppliant.
This was the last day’s intercourse of Madame de Genlis with Dr. Burney
and the Memorialist. Circumstances, soon afterwards, suddenly parted
them; and circumstances never again brought them together.