Lady Mary Duncan, the great patroness of Pacchierotti, was one of the
most singular females of her day, for parts utterly uncultivated, and
mother-wit completely untrammelled by the etiquettes of custom. She
singled out Dr. Burney from her passion for his art; and attached
herself to his friendship from her esteem for his character; joined to
their entire sympathy in taste, feeling, and judgment, upon the merits
of Pacchierotti.
This lady displayed in conversation a fund of humour, comic and
fantastic in the extreme, and more than bordering upon the burlesque,
through the extraordinary grimaces with which she enforced her meaning;
and the risible abruptness of a quick transition from the sternest
authority to the most facetious good fellowship, with which she
frequently altered the expression of her countenance while in debate.
Her general language was a jargon entirely her own, and so enveloped
with strange phrases, ludicrously ungrammatical, that it was hardly
intelligible, till an exordium or two gave some insight into its
peculiarities: but then it commonly unfolded into sound, and even
sagacious panegyric of some favourite; or sharp sarcasm, and
extravagant mimicry, upon some one who had incurred her displeasure.
Her wrath, however, once promulgated, seemed to operate by its
utterance as a vent that disburthened her mind of all its angry
workings; and led her cordially to join her laugh with that of her
hearers; without either inquiry, or care, whether that laugh were at
her sayings or at herself.
She was constantly dressed according to the costume of her early days,
in a hoop, with a long pointed stomacher and long pointed ruffles;
and a fly cap. She had a manly courage, a manly stamp, and a manly
hard-featured face: but her heart was as invariably generous and good,
as her manners were original and grotesque.
“EVELINA: