“Nay, Sir,” replied she, composedly, “if you do not like it, I am sure I won’t.”
And he protested, that though he offered her every proof of twisting, twitching, and twirling that she pleased, she calmly continued painting, without heeding his appeal for the hairy honours of his head; and only coolly repeating, “I suppose, then, I must not call it a wig?”
MRS. BROOKES.
Mrs. Brookes, authoress of “Lady Julia Mandeville,” &c., having become a joint proprietor of the Opera House with Mr. and Mrs. Yates, earnestly coveted the acquaintance of Dr. Burney; in which, of course, was included the benefit of his musical opinions, his skill, and his counsel.
Mrs. Brookes had much to combat in order to receive the justice due to her from the world; for nature had not been more kind in her mental, than hard in her corporeal gifts. She was short, broad, crooked, ill-featured, and ill-favoured; and she had a cast of the eye that made it seem looking every way rather than that which she meant for its direction. Nevertheless, she always ultimately obtained the consideration that she merited. She was free from pretension, and extremely good-natured. All of assumption, by which she might have claimed literary rank, from the higher and graver part of her works, was wholly set aside in conversation; where, however different in grace and appearance, she was as flowing, as cheerful, and as natural in dialogue, as her own popular and pleasing “Rosina.”[51]
MISS REID.
Miss Reid, the Rosalba of Britain, who, in crayons, had a grace and a softness of colouring rarely surpassed, was a visitor likewise at the house, whose works and whose person were almost divertingly, as was remarked by Mr. Twining, at variance with one another; for while the works were all loveliness, their author was saturnine, cold, taciturn; absent to an extreme; awkward and full of mischances in every motion; ill-accoutred, even beyond negligence, in her dress; and plain enough to produce, grotesquely, an effect that was almost picturesque.
Yet, with all this outward lack of allurement, her heart was kind, her temper was humane, and her friendships were zealous. But she had met with some misfortunes in early life that had embittered her existence, and kept it always wavering, in a miserable balance, between heartless apathy, and pining discontent.