[Footnote 1: By the second marriage.]
[Footnote 2: Now the Honourable Mrs. Robinson.]
[Footnote 3: The Doctor’s eldest daughter.]
[Footnote 4: This early celebrated performer, now in the decline of
life, after losing her health, and nearly out-living her friends,
is reduced, not by faults but misfortunes, to a state of pecuniary
difficulties, through which she must long since have sunk, but for
the generous succour of some personages as high in benevolence as in
rank.[5] Should this appeal awaken some new commiserators of talents
and integrity, bowed down by years and distress, they will find, in a
small apartment, No. 58, in Great Portland-street, a feeble, but most
interesting person, who is truly deserving of every kind impulse she
may excite.]
[Footnote 5: She is assisted, occasionally, by many noble ladies; but
the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe is her most active patron.]
[Footnote 6: Pacchiorotti had not yet visited England.]
[Footnote 7: Afterwards Lord Cardigan.]
[Footnote 8: Afterwards Lord Malmsbury.]
[Footnote 9: Afterwards Bishop of Durham.]
[Footnote 10: Now Viscountess Keith.]
[Footnote 11: See Correspondence.]
[Footnote 12: This has reference wholly to Bolt Court, where he
constantly retained his home: at Streatham, continually as he there
resided, it was always as a guest.]
[Footnote 13: Afterwards Mrs. Phillips.]
[Footnote 14: The present Mrs. Broome.]
[Footnote 15: Mrs. Burney, of Bath.]
[Footnote 16: Now Viscountess Keith.]
[Footnote 17: Afterwards Author of Biographiana.]
[Footnote 18: His fifth daughter, Sarah Harriet, was then a child.]
[Footnote 19: His nephew and heir, he sent over to London to be
educated.]
[Footnote 20: See Correspondence.]
[Footnote 21: This was written in the year 1828.]
[Footnote 22: The first volume of this work was nearly printed, when
the Editor had the grief of hearing that Sir Walter Scott was no
more. In the general sorrow that his loss has spread throughout the
British Empire, she presumes not to speak of her own: but she cannot
persuade herself to annul the little tribute, by which she had meant to
demonstrate to him her sense of the vivacity with which he had sought
out her dwelling; invited her to the hospitality of his daughters at
Abbotsford; and courteously, nay, eagerly, offered to do the honours of
Scotland to her himself, from that celebrated abode.
In a subsequent visit with which he honoured and delighted her in
the following year, she produced to him the scraps of documents and
fragments which she had collected from ancient diaries and letters, in
consequence of his inquiries. Pleased he looked; but told her that what
already she had related, already—to use his own word—he had “noted;”
adding, “And most particularly, I have not forgotten your mulberry
tree!”
This little history, however, was so appropriately his own, and was
written so expressly with a view to its dedication, that still, with
veneration—though with sadness instead of gladness—she leaves the
brief exordium of her intended homage in its original state.—And
the less reluctantly, as the companion of his kindness and his
interrogatories will still—she hopes—accept, and not unwillingly, his
own share in the small offering.]
[Footnote 23: Edward Burney, Esq., of Clipstone-street.]
[Footnote 24: See Correspondence.]
[Footnote 25: Sir Walter Scott was then a child.]
[Footnote 26: Now Viscountess Keith.]
[Footnote 27: The Editor, at the date of this letter, knew not that the
club to which Dr. Johnson alluded, was that which was denominated his
own,—or The Literary Club.]
[Footnote 28: Afterwards Lord Ashburton.]
[Footnote 29: Afterwards Sir William Weller Pepys.]
[Footnote 30: Afterwards Lord Sheffield.]
[Footnote 31: Now Mrs. Alison, of Edinburgh.]
[Footnote 32: Translator of Tacitus.]
[Footnote 33: Dr. Johnson told this to the Editor.]
[Footnote 34: Dr. Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women.]
[Footnote 35: This was so strongly observed by Mrs. Maling, mother to
the Dowager Countess of Mulgrave, that she has often exclaimed to this
Memorialist, “Why did not Sir Joshua Reynolds paint Dr. Johnson when he
was speaking to Dr. Burney or to you?”]
[Footnote 36: Dr. Lawrence, Sir Richard Jebb, Dr. Warren, Sir Lucas
Pepys.]
[Footnote 37: By the Countess of Tankerville.]
[Footnote 38: Afterwards George the Fourth.]
[Footnote 39: Cecilia.]
[Footnote 40: Miss Susanna Burney, afterwards Mrs. Phillips.]
[Footnote 41: Miss Palmer.]
[Footnote 42: Now Marquis of Stafford.]
[Footnote 43: Now Viscountess Keith.]
[Footnote 44: Afterward Marquis of Lansdowne, who first rented Mrs.
Thrale’s house at Streatham.]
[Footnote 45: Sir William Weller Pepys, when he was eighty-four years
of age, told this Memorialist that he was the only male member then
remaining of the original set; and that Mrs. Hannah More was the only
remaining female.]
[Footnote 46: This only treats of the Blue Meetings; not of the general
assemblies of Montagu House, which were conducted like all others in
the circles of high life.]
[Footnote 47: Every May-day, Mrs. Montagu gave an annual breakfast in
the front of her new mansion, of roast beef and plum pudding, to all
the chimney sweepers of the Metropolis.]
[Footnote 48: It was here, at Mrs. Montagu’s, that Doctor Burney had
the happiness to see open to this Memorialist an acquaintance with Mr.
and Mrs. Locke, which led, almost magically, to an intercourse that
formed,—and still forms, one of the first felicities of her life.]
[Footnote 49: Now Countess of Cork.]
[Footnote 50: The present Memorialist surprised him, one day, so
palpably employed in such an investigation, that, seeing her startled,
he looked almost ashamed; but, frankly laughing at the silent
detection, he cried: “When do you come to sit to me? I am quite ready!”
making a motion with his hand as if advancing it with a pencil to a
canvass: “All prepared!” intimating that he had settled in his thoughts
the disposition of her portrait.]
[Footnote 51: The means for charitable contributions upon so liberal
a scale as those of Sir W. W. Pepys, may, perhaps, be deduced, by
analogy, from his wise and rare spirit of calculation: how to live
with the Greater and the Richer, and yet escape either the risk of
ruin, or the charge of meanness. “When I think it right,” said he, in
a visit which he made to this Memorialist, after walking, and alone,
at eighty-five, from Gloucester-place to Bolton-street, about three
weeks before his death, “When I think it right, whether for the good
of my excellent children, or for my own pleasure,—or for my little
personal dignity, to invite some wealthy Noble to dine with me, I make
it a point not to starve my family, or my poor pensioners, for a year
afterwards, by emulating his lordship’s, or his grace’s, table-fare.
I give, therefore, but a few dishes, and two small courses; all my
care is, that every thing shall be well served, and the best of its
kind. And when we sit down, I frankly tell them my plan; upon which
my guests, more flattered by that implied acknowledgment of their
superior rank and rent-roll, than they could possibly be by any attempt
at emulation; and happy to find that they shall make no breach in my
domestic economy and comfort, immediately fall to, with an appetite
that would surprise you! and that gives me the greatest gratification.
I do not suppose that they anywhere make a more hearty meal.”]
[Footnote 52: Mr. Cambridge was a potent contributor to the periodical
paper called The World; for which Mr. Jenyns, also, occasionally wrote.]
[Footnote 53: Swift’s Long-Eared Letter.]
[Footnote 54: Now Mrs. Alison, of Edinburgh.]
[Footnote 55: Daughter of John Granville, Esq., and niece of Pope’s
Granville, the then Lord Lansdowne, “of every Muse the Friend.”]
[Footnote 56: See Sir Walter Scott’s Life of Swift.]
[Footnote 57: This invaluable _unique_ work has lately been purchased
by —— Hall, Esq.; a son-in-law of Mrs. Delany’s favourite niece, Mrs.
Waddington.]
[Footnote 58: Since Lord Rokeby.]
[Footnote 59: Mrs. Montagu.]
[Footnote 60: Now Mrs. Agnew, the amanuensis and attendant of Mrs.
Delany.]
[Footnote 61: Miss Larolles, now, would say eleven or twelve.]
[Footnote 62: Mrs. Burney, of Bath.]
[Footnote 63: Charlotte, now Mrs. Broome; the young_est_ daughter,
Sarah Harriet, was still a child.]
[Footnote 64: See Correspondence.]
[Footnote 65: M. Berquin, some years later, was nominated preceptor
to the unfortunate Louis XVII., but was soon dismissed by the inhuman
monsters who possessed themselves of the person of that crownless
orphan King.]
[Footnote 66: See Correspondence.]
[Footnote 67: Now Madame Adelaide, sister to Louis Philippe.]
[Footnote 68: Madame de Genlis, in her Memoirs, mentions this
appointment in terms of less dignity.]
[Footnote 69: This _maladie du pays_ has pursued and annoyed her
through life; except when incidentally surprised away by peculiar
persons, or circumstances.]
[Footnote 70: “Mr. Bewley, for more than twenty years, supplied the
editor of the Monthly Review with an examination of innumerable works
in science, and articles of foreign literature, written with a force,
spirit, candour, and, when the subject afforded opportunity, humour,
not often found in critical discussions.”]
[Footnote 71: Now Mrs. Broome.]
[Footnote 72: This bore reference to an expression of Dr. Johnson’s,
upon hearing that Mrs. Montagu resented his Life of Lord Lyttleton.
The Diary Letter to Susannah, whence these two billets are copied,
finishes with this paragraph.
“Our dear father, as eager as myself that our most reverenced Dr.
Johnson should not be hurt or offended, spared me the coach, and to
Bolt Court I went in the evening: and with outspread arms of parental
greeting to mark my welcome, was I received. Nobody was there but our
brother Charles and Mr. Sastres: and Dr. Johnson, repeatedly thanking
me for coming, was, if possible, more instructive, entertaining, and
exquisitely fertile than ever; and so full of amenity, and talked so
affectionately of our father, that neither Charles nor I could tell
how to come away. While he, in return, soothed by exercising his noble
faculties with natural, unexcited good-humour and pleasantry, would
have kept us, I believe, to this moment—
“You have no objection, I think, my Susan, to a small touch of
hyperbole?——
if the coachman and the horses had been as well entertained as
ourselves.”]
[Footnote 73: By Edward Burney, Esq., of Clipstone-street.]
[Footnote 74: Hester Lynch Salusbury, Mrs. Thrale, was lineally
descended from Adam of Saltsburg, who came over to England with the
Conqueror.]
[Footnote 75: The late Sir Thomas Lawrence, in speaking of Norbury Park
to this editor, while he was painting his matchless picture of Mrs.
Locke, senior, in 1826, said “I have seen much of the world since I
was first admitted to Norbury Park,—but I have never seen another Mr.
Locke!”]
[Footnote 76: This, also, was the opinion of Sir Thomas Lawrence.]
[Footnote 77: Miss Port, now Mrs. Waddington of Llanover House.]
[Footnote 78: Afterwards George IV.]