‘Here beauty displays her high plumes to our view,
Here all her bright feathers are shown;
Though none of them wave on the tresses of Crewe,
She yet to each heart gives the ton.’
The personal beauty, wit and cleverness of this accomplished woman appear to have distinguished her to the end. Sixteen years had passed between this event and Miss Burney’s visit to her at Hampstead, and this is how the author of ‘Evelina’ describes her: ‘We were received by Mrs. Crewe with much kindness. The room was rather dark, and she had a veil to her bonnet half down, and with this aid she looked still in a full blaze of beauty. She is certainly in my eye the most complete beauty of any woman I ever saw.’ Later on she had better opportunities of noticing her fair hostess, and her verdict is still, ‘I know not even now any female’ (horrid word!) ‘in her first youth who could bear the comparison. Her bloom perfectly natural, and the form of her face so exquisitely perfect’ that the eyes of the observant Fanny never met it without fresh admiration. ‘She is certainly in my eyes,’ she repeats, ‘the most perfect beauty of a woman I ever saw: she uglifies everything near her.’ No wonder we find the gallants of the day, amongst others Fox, writing adulatory verses to her. This unity of opinion as to the many graces of this lovely woman suggests a character as perfect as her face, and we do not wonder that men of such a diversity of personal qualities and political opinions should be attracted by her as Burke and his brother, who were dining with her on the occasion referred to, and Lords Loughborough and Erskine, who joined them in their walk afterwards. Fox’s poem is too long to quote, but the first verse will show the spirit of it:
‘Where the loveliest expression to features is joined,
By Nature’s most delicate pencil designed;
Where blushes unbidden, and smiles without art,
Speak the softness and feeling that dwell in the heart;
Where in manner enchanting no blemish we trace,