Between 1774 and 1780 the Strawberry Hill Press still now and then showed signs of vitality. In 1775, it printed as a loose sheet some verses by Charles James Fox,—celebrating, as Amoret, that lover of the Whigs, the beautiful Mrs. Crewe,—and three hundred copies of an Eclogue by Mr. Fitzpatrick,[173] entitled Dorinda, which contains the couplet,—
'And oh! what Bliss, when each alike is pleas'd,
the Hand that squeezes, and the Hand that's squeez'd.'
These were followed, in 1778, by the Sleep Walker, a comedy from the French of Madame du Deffand's friend Pont de Veyle, translated by Lady Craven, afterwards Margravine of Anspach, and played for a charitable purpose at Newbury. A year later came the vindication of his conduct to Chatterton, already mentioned at pp. [196-200]; and after this a sheet of verse by Mr. Charles Miller to Lady Horatia Waldegrave,[174] a daughter of the Duchess of Gloucester by her first husband. The last work of any importance was the fourth volume of the Anecdotes of Painting, which had been printed as far back as 1770, but was not issued until Oct., 1780. This delay, the Advertisement informs us, arose 'from motives of tenderness.' The author was 'unwilling [he says] to utter even gentle censures, which might wound the affections, or offend the prejudices, of those related to the persons whom truth forbad him to commend beyond their merits.'[175] But despite his unwillingness to 'dispense universal panegyric,' and the limitation of his theme to living professors, he manages, in the same Advertisement, to distribute a fair amount of praise to some of his particular favourites. Of H. W. Bunbury, the husband of Goldsmith's 'Little Comedy,' he says that he is the 'second Hogarth,' and the 'first imitator who ever fully equalled his original,'—which is sheer extravagance. He lauds the miniature copying of Lady Lucan, as almost depreciating the 'exquisite works' of the artists she follows,—to wit, Cooper and the Olivers; and he speaks of Lady Di. Beauclerk's drawings as 'not only inspired by Shakespeare's insight into nature, but by the graces and taste of Grecian artists.' After this, the comparison of Mrs. Damer with Bernini seems almost tame.
Yet her works 'from the life are not inferior to the antique, and those ... were not more like.' One can scarcely blame Walpole severely for this hearty backing of the friends who had added so much to the attractions of his Gothic castle; but the value of his criticisms, in many other instances sound enough, is certainly impaired by his loyalty to the old-new practice of 'log-rolling.'
Lady Di. Beauclerk, whose illustrations to Dryden's Fables are still a frequent item in second-hand catalogues, has a personal connection with Strawberry through the curious little closet bearing her name, which, with the assistance of Mr. Essex, a Gothic architect from Cambridge, Walpole in 1776-8 managed to tuck in between the Cabinet and the Round Tower. It was built on purpose to hold the 'seven incomparable drawings,' executed in a fortnight, which her Ladyship prepared, to illustrate The Mysterious Mother. These were the designs to which he refers in the Anecdotes of Painting, and, in a letter to Mann, says could not be surpassed by Guido and Salvator Rosa. They were hung on Indian blue damask, in frames of black and gold; and Clive's friend, Miss Pope, the actress, when she dined at Strawberry, was affected by them to such a degree that she shed tears, although she did not know the story,—an anecdote which may be regarded either as a genuine compliment to Lady Di., or a merely histrionic tribute to her entertainer. 'The drawings,' Walpole says, 'do not shock and disgust, like their original, the tragedy;' but they were not to be shown to the profane. They were, nevertheless, probably exhibited pretty freely, as a copy of the play, carefully annotated in MS. by the author, and bound in blue leather to match the hangings, was always kept in a drawer of one of the tables, for the purpose of explaining them.[176] Walpole afterwards added one or two curiosities to this closet. It contained, according to the last edition of the Catalogue, a head in basalt of Jupiter Serapis, and a book of Psalms illuminated by Giulio Clovio, the latter purchased for £168 at the Duchess of Portland's sale in May, 1786. There was also a portrait by Powell, after Reynolds, of Lady Di. herself, who lived for some time at Twickenham in a house now known as Little Marble Hill, many of the rooms of which she decorated with her own performances. These were apparently the efforts which prompted the already mentioned postscript to the Parish Register of Twickenham:
"Here Genius in a later hour
Selected its sequester'd bow'r,
And threw around the verdant room