Mr. Twining, when in town, which was only for a week or two every year, loved not to pass even a day without bestowing a few minutes of it upon a house at which he was always hailed with delight.
But Mr. Crisp, though unalterably he maintained that first place in the heart of Dr. Burney, to which priority of every species entitled him, had become subject to such frequent fits of the gout, that to London he was almost lost: he dreaded sleeping even a night from Chesington, which now was his nearly unbroken residence.
The learned and venerable Mr. Latrobe, and his two sons, each of them men of genius, though of different characters, were frequent in their visits, and amongst the Doctor’s warmest admirers; and, in the study of the German language and literature, amongst his most useful friends.
The elegant translator of Tasso, Mr. Hoole, and his erudite and poetical son, the Rev. Samuel Hoole,[46] to form whose characters worth and modesty went hand in hand, were often of the social circle.
The Doctor’s two literary Italian friends, Martinelli and Baretti, were occasional visitors; and by the rapidity of their elocution, the exuberance of their gestures, and the distortion of their features, upon even the most trivial contradiction, always gave to the Doctor a divertingly national reminiscence of the Italian, or Volcanic, portion of his tours.
Mr. Nollekens, the eminent sculptor, was one of the travelled acquaintances of Dr. Burney, with whom he had frequently assorted while in Italy; and with whom now, and through life, he kept up the connexion then formed.
Nollekens was one of those who shewed, in the most distinct point of view, the possible division of partial from general talent. He was uncultivated and under-bred; his conversation was without mark; his sentiments were common; and his language was even laughably vulgar; yet his works belong to an art of transcendant sublimity, and are beautiful with elegance and taste.
MR. BRUCE.
But more peculiarly this new residence was opened by the distinction of a new acquaintance, who was then as much the immediate lion of the day, as had been the last new acquaintance, Omiah, who had closed the annals of the residence in Queen-Square.