“What think you was her answer? An arch little smile, and a nearer approach, with her lips pouted out to kiss me. I could not resist so innocent an invitation; but the moment I had accepted it, I was half afraid it might seem, in so public a place, an improper liberty: however, there was no help for it. She then took my fan, and having looked at it on both sides, gravely returned it me, saying, ‘O! a brown fan!’”
[61]. ‘It is pronounced like Rembrandt, but, as I told her, it does not look older than she is, but older than she does.’—Walpole to Mason, February 14, 1782.
[62]. The editor of Mrs. Delany’s ‘Correspondence,’ having a grudge against Madame d’Arblay, labours to prove that the Duchess of Portland cannot have been present at this interview. The supposed proof consists in showing from some old letters that the Duchess did not read ‘Evelina’ for nearly twelve months after the date spoken of. But this is nothing to the purpose. ‘Evelina’ does not appear to have been mentioned when its author was introduced to Miss Delany. The conversation recorded to have passed related wholly to ‘Cecilia.’
[63]. Memoirs, vol. ii., p. 313.
[64]. The courtier-bishop Hurd described Mrs. Delany as a lady ‘of great politeness and ingenuity, and of an unaffected piety.’
[65]. Georgina Mary Ann Port (called ‘Mary’ by her great-aunt) was born on September 16, 1771. Her father having outrun his means, she was taken by Mrs. Delany, who brought her up to the age of sixteen. Not long after the death of her protectress, she married Mr. Benjamin Waddington, of Llanover. She died on January 19, 1850.
[66]. Miss Burney’s account is confirmed in every important particular by Walpole, who states that he had his information from Mrs. Delany’s own mouth: Walpole to Lady Ossory, September 17, 1785. Lady Llanover, who edited the ‘Delany Correspondence,’ is wroth that the thankful recipient of all this minute bounty should be accused of having been helped in her housekeeping by the Duchess of Portland. In the ‘Memoirs of Dr. Burney’ (vol. iii., p. 50), it is stated that the Duchess, who visited at Mrs. Delany’s nearly every evening, contrived to assist the ménage, without offending her hostess by the offer of money. If Madame d’Arblay erred in this statement—and Lady Llanover by no means satisfies us that she did err—surely the mistake was a most venial one. But Lady Llanover’s outraged dignity fumes through hundreds of pages in feeble sneers at Fanny’s low origin, and still more feeble attempts to convict her of inaccuracy. Noblesse oblige.
[67]. The Probationary Odes for the Laureateship appeared in 1785, after the appointment of Thomas Warton to that office, on the vacancy occasioned by the death of William Whitehead.
[68]. Charlotte, b. 1766, d. 1828, m. King of Wurtemberg; Augusta, b. 1768, d. 1840 (unm.); Elizabeth, b. 1770, d. 1840, m. Landgrave of Hesse Homburg; Mary, b. 1776, d. 1840, m. her cousin, the Duke of Gloucester; Sophia, b. 1777, d. 1848 (unm.); Amelia, b. 1783, d. 1810 (unm.).