The society which assembled at that lady’s mansion was elegant and high
bred, yet entertaining and diversified. As Mrs. Delany chose to sustain
her own house, that she might associate without constraint with her
own family, the generous Duchess of Portland would not make a point of
persuading her to sojourn at Whitehall; preferring the sacrifice of her
own ease and comfort, in quitting that noble residence nearly every
evening, to lessening those of her tenderly loved companion.
And here her good sense repaid the goodness of her heart; for she
saw, from time to time, without formality, introduction, or even the
_etiquettes_ of condescension, sundry persons moving in a less exalted
sphere than her own, yet who, as she was a spirited observer of life
and manners, afforded an agreeable variety in the current intercourse
of the day: and from any thing inelegantly inferior, Mrs. Delany, from
her rank in the world, and still more from her good principles and good
taste, was inviolably exempt.
Many of the most favoured of this peculiar assemblage had already
passed away, before Dr. Burney had been honoured with admission.
Amongst those yet remaining, who belonged equally to both these ladies,
were, the Countess of Bute, wife to the early favourite of his Majesty,
George the Third, and the famous Lady Mary Wortley Montague’s daughter;
a person of first-rate understanding, and possessing a large share of
the ready wit, freed from the keen sarcasm and dauntless spirit of
raillery of her renowned mother.
And she was occasionally accompanied by Lady Louisa Stuart, her
accomplished daughter; who inherited only the better part, namely,
sense, taste, and amiability, from any of her progenitors.
The Countess of Bristol, still a strikingly fine woman, and, though
no longer young, still pleasingly interesting; with her engaging and
charming daughter, Lady Louisa Harvey,[8] not seldom formed the party.
The “high-bred, elegant Boscawen,” the everyway honourable widow of the
gallant Admiral, was peculiarly a favourite of Mrs. Delany, for equal
excellence in character, conduct, and abilities.
The old Earl of Guilford, high in all the wit, spirit, and politeness
that he transmitted to his favoured and numerous race, was always
gladly welcomed.
Lady Wallingford, the unhappy widow of a gaming Lord, and the ruined
daughter, though born heiress of the richest speculator of Europe, the
famous South Sea Law, was at this time reduced to aid her existence
by being a pensioner of her feeling friend, Mrs. Delany! by whom this
unfortunate, but very respectable lady, was always distinguished with
assiduous attention, both from her misfortunes and the obligations
under which they forced her to labour. She was extremely well bred,
though mournfully taciturn. She was uniformly habited in black silk,
and in full dress; wearing a hoop, long ruffles, a winged cap, and all
the stately formality of attire of the times, that even then were past;
which, however, in its ceremonial, seemed suited with the rank to which
she had risen; and in its gloom to the distress into which she had
fallen.
Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Chapone, from time to time, spent and enlightened
a day with this inestimable Mrs. Delany; who was connected more
intimately still with Mrs. Montague.
The celebrated Horace Walpole was a frequent visitor, from possessing
enough of genuine taste to delight in Mrs. Delany, and of spirit and
fashion for paying his court to the Duchess Dowager of Portland. He was
enchanted, also, to recreate his quaint humour by mingling occasionally
with persons who, from being little known to him, excited his ever busy
curiosity; which was restlessly seeking fresh food, with a devouring
voracity that made it ever freshly required. And it was observed,
that Mr. Walpole was nowhere more agreeable or more brilliant than in
St. James’s Place; where he was polite and gay, though irrepressibly
sarcastic; and good-humoured and entertaining, though always covertly
epigrammatical.
Owen Cambridge and Soame Jenyns appeared, also, in this society; and
were as fully capable to appreciate the excellences of Mrs. Delany,
as she, in return, was to enjoy their playful wit, and well-seasoned
raillery.
The elegant, polished Mr. Smelt, was peculiarly suited both to the
taste and the situation of Mrs. Delany; with the first there was
congeniality of mind; with the second, there was the similarity of each
being a chosen, though untitled favourite of both King and Queen.
Mr. and Mrs. Locke were latterly added to this set; which they were
truly formed to draw to a climax of social perfection.
But a lamented, though not personal or family event, which occurred
at the end of this summer, must here be recorded, with some detail
of circumstance; as it proved, in its consequences, by no means
unimportant to the history of Dr. Burney.
The venerable Mrs. Delany was suddenly bereft of the right noble friend
who was the delight of her life, the Duchess Dowager of Portland. That
honoured and honourable lady had quitted town for her dowry mansion
of Bulstrode Park. Thither she had just most courteously invited this
Memorialist; who had spent with her Grace and her beloved friend, at
the fine dwelling of the former at Whitehall, nearly the last evening
of their sojourn in town, to arrange this intended summer junction.
A letter of Mrs. Delany’s dictation had afterwards followed to St.
Martin’s-street, fixing a day on which a carriage, consigned by her
Grace to Mrs. Delany’s service, was to fetch the new visitor. But,
on the succeeding morning, a far different epistle, written by the
Amanuensis of Mrs. Delany, brought the mournful counter-tidings of the
seizure, illness, and decease, of the valuable, generous, and charming
mistress of Bulstrode Park.
Mrs. Delany, as soon as possible, was removed back to St. James’s
Place; in a grief the most touchingly profound, though the most
edifyingly resigned.
This was a loss for which, as Mrs. Delany was fifteen years the
senior, no human calculation had prepared; and what other has the
human Mathematician? Her condition in life, therefore, as well as her
heart, was assailed by this privation; and however inferior to the
latter was the former consideration, the conflict of afflicted feelings
with discomfitted affairs, could not but be doubly oppressive: for
though from the Duchess no pecuniary loan was accepted by Mrs. Delany,
unnumbered were the little auxiliaries to domestic economy which her
Grace found means to convey to St. James’s Place.
But now, even the house in that place, though already small for the
splendid persons who frequently sought there to pay their respects to
the Duchess, as well as to Mrs. Delany, became too expensive for her
means of supporting its establishment.
The friendship of the high-minded Duchess for Mrs. Delany had been an
honour to herself and to her sex, in its refinement as well as in its
liberality. Her superior rank she held as a bauble, her superior wealth
as dross, save as they might be made subservient towards equalizing in
condition the chosen companion, with whom in affection all was already
parallel.
To see them together, offered a view of human excellence delightful to
contemplate. They endeared existence to each other, and only what was
participated seemed to be enjoyed by either. And they each possessed so
much understanding, cultivation, taste, and spirit, that their mutual
desire to procure and to give pleasure to each other, operated not
less as a spur to their improvement, even at this late period of life,
than as a delight to their affections. In sentiment and opinion their
converse had the most unrestrained openness; but in manner, a superior
respect in Mrs. Delany was never to be vanquished by the utmost
equalizing efforts of the Duchess: it was a respect of the heart,
grafted upon that of the old school; and every struggle to dislodge it
only proved, by its failure, the unshakeable firmness of its basis.
The Duchess, therefore, was forced to content herself with wearing an
easy cheerfulness of freedom, that flung off all appearance of seeming
aware of this reverence; but which she accompanied with a cherishing
delicacy, that made her watchful of every turn of countenance, every
modulation of voice, and every movement or gesture, that might indicate
any species of desire for something new, altered, or any way attainable
for the advantage or pleasure of the friend whom she most loved to
honour.
What a blank was a breach such as this of an intercourse so tender, and
at an age so advanced! Religion alone could make it supportable; and
to that alone can be attributed the patient sweetness with which Mrs.
Delany met every consolation that could be offered to her by her still
existing ties, Lady Bute, Lady Bristol, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Sandford,
&c. &c. &c.
But most eager amongst them, from the energy of her attachment, forth
rushed her latest, newest, and last chosen friend, who, in another day
or two, would have been at her side, on the very moment of this heavy
deprivation. Fearfully, nevertheless, she came, every other consoler
having priority of almost every species to plead for preference: but
those chords of unison, which in sympathy alone include every claim,
discarding, as dissonance, whatever would break in upon their harmony,
had here struck from heart to heart with responsive tenderness; and
what of merit preponderated in the scales of one, was balanced into
fair equilibrium by venerating devotion in the other.
Upon first receiving the melancholy intelligence of the broken-up
meeting at Bulstrode Park, Dr. Burney had taken his much-grieved
daughter with him to Chesington; where, with all its bereavements, he
repaired, to go on with his History; but, with a kindness which always
led him to participate in the calls of affection, he no sooner learned
that her presence would be acceptable to Mrs. Delany, than he spared
his amanuensis from his side and his work, and instantly lent her his
carriage to convey her back to town, and to the house of that afflicted
lady; whose tenderly open-armed, though tearful reception, was as
gratifying to the feelings of her deeply-attached guest, as the grief
that she witnessed was saddening.
The Doctor permitted her now to take up her abode in this house of
mourning; where she had the heart-felt satisfaction to find herself
not only soothing to the admirable friend, by whom so late in life,
but so warmly in love, she had been taken to the bosom; but empowered
to relieve some of her cares by being intrusted to overlook, examine,
and read to her letters and manuscripts of every description; and to
select, destroy, or arrange the long-hoarded mass. She even began
revising and continuing a manuscript memoir of the early days of Mrs.
Delany; but, as it could be proceeded with only in moments of unbroken
_tête à tête_, it never was finished.
Meanwhile, when the tidings of the death of the Duchess Dowager of
Portland reached their Majesties, their first thought, after their
immediate grief at her departure, was of Mrs. Delany; and when they
found that the Duchess, from a natural expectation of being herself the
longest liver, had taken no measures to soften off the worldly part, at
least, of this separation, the King, with most benevolent munificence,
resolved to supply the deficiency which a failure of foresight alone,
he was sure, had occasioned in a friend of such anxious fondness. He
completely, therefore, and even minutely fitted up for Mrs. Delany
a house at Windsor, near the Castle; and settled a pension of three
hundred pounds a-year upon her for life; to enable her to still keep
her house in town, that she might repair thither every winter, for the
pleasure of enjoying the society of her old friends.
The grateful heart of Mrs. Delany overflowed at her eyes at marks so
attentive, as well as beneficent, of kindness and goodness in her
Sovereigns; for well she felt convinced that the Queen had a mental
share and influence in these royal offerings.
To Windsor, thus invited, Mrs. Delany now went; and this Memorialist,
lightened of a thousand apprehensions by this cheer to the feelings
of her honoured friend, returned to Dr. Burney, in Surrey. A letter
speedily followed her, with an account that the good King himself,
having issued orders to be apprized when Mrs. Delany entered the town
of Windsor, had repaired to her newly allotted house, there, in person,
to give her welcome. Overcome by such condescension, she flung herself
upon her knees before him, to express a sense of his graciousness for
which she could find no words.
Their Majesties almost immediately visited her in person; an honour
which they frequently repeated: and they condescendingly sent to
her, alternately, all their royal daughters. And, as soon as she was
recovered from her fatigues, they invited her to their evening concerts
at the Upper Lodge, in which, at that time, they sojourned.[9]