Mrs. Chapone, too, had her own coteries, which, though not sought
by the young, and, perhaps, fled from by the gay, were rational,
instructive, and social; and it was not with self-approbation that they
could ever be deserted. But the search of greater gaiety, and higher
fashion, rarely awaits that award.
The meetings, in truth, at her dwelling, from her palpable and organic
deficiency in health and strength for their sustenance, though they
never lacked of sense or taste, always wanted spirit; a want which
cast over them a damp that made the same interlocutors, who elsewhere
grouped audiences around them from their fame as discoursers, appear
to be assembled here merely for the grave purpose of performing a duty.
Yet here were to be seen Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Carter, Hannah More, the
clever family of the Burroughs, the classically lively Sir William
Pepys, and the ingenious and virtuous Mrs. Barbauld.
But though the dignity of her mind demanded, as it deserved, the
respect of some return to the visits which her love of society induced
her to pay, it was a _tête à tête_ alone that gave pleasure to the
intercourse with Mrs. Chapone: her sound understanding, her sagacious
observations, her turn to humour, and the candour of her affectionate
nature, all then came into play without effort: and her ease of mind,
when freed from the trammels of doing the honours of reception, seemed
to soften off, even to herself, her corporeal infirmities. It was thus
that she struck Dr. Burney with the sense of her worth; and seemed
portraying in herself the original example whence the precepts had
been drawn, for forming the unsophisticated female character that are
displayed in the author’s Letters on the improvement of the mind.