The Memorialist was presented to her Grace, who came with the expectation of meeting her, in the most gentle and flattering terms by Mrs. Delany; and she was received with kindness rather than goodness. The watchful regard of the Duchess for Mrs. Delany, soon pointed out the marked partiality which that revered lady was already conceiving for her new visitor; and the Duchess, pleased to abet, as salubrious, every cheering propensity in her beloved friend, immediately disposed herself to second it with the most obliging alacrity.
Mrs. Delany, gratified by this apparent approvance, then started the subject of the recent publication, with a glow of pleasure that, though she uttered her favouring opinions with the most unaffected, the chastest simplicity, made the “eloquent blood” rush at every flattering sentence into her pale, soft, aged cheeks, as if her years had been as juvenile as her ideas, and her kindness.
Animated by the animation of her friend, the Duchess gaily increased it by her own; and the warm-hearted Mrs. Chapone still augmented its energy, by her benignant delight that she had brought such a scene to bear for her young companion: while all three sportively united in talking of the characters in the publication, as if speaking of persons and incidents of their own peculiar knowledge.
On the first pause upon a theme which, though unavoidably embarrassing, could not, in hands of such noble courtesy, that knew how to make flattery subservient to elegance, and praise to delicacy, be seriously distressing; the deeply honoured, though confused object of so much condescension, seized the vacant moment for starting the name of Mr. Crisp.
Nothing could better propitiate the introduction which Dr. Burney desired for himself to the correspondent of Dean Swift, and the quondam acquaintance of his early monitor, Mr. Crisp, than bringing this latter upon the scene.
The Duchess now took the lead in the discourse, and was charmed to hear tidings of a former friend, who had been missed so long in the world as to be thought lost. She inquired minutely into his actual way of life, his health and his welfare; and whether he retained his fondness and high taste for all the polite arts.
To the Memorialist this was a topic to give a flow of spirits, that spontaneously banished the reserve and silence with strangers of which she stood generally accused: and her history of the patriarchal attachment of Mr. Crisp to Dr. Burney, and its benevolent extension to every part of his family, while it revived Mr. Crisp to the memories and regard of the Duchess and of Mrs. Delany, stimulated their wishes to know the man—Dr. Burney—who alone, of all the original connexions of Mr. Crisp, had preserved such power over his affections, as to be a welcome inmate to his almost hermetically closed retreat.
And the account of Chesington Hall, its insulated and lonely position, its dilapidated state, its nearly inaccessible roads, its quaint old pictures, and straight long garden paths; was as curious and amusing to Mrs. Chapone, who was spiritedly awake to whatever was romantic or uncommon, as the description of the chief of the domain was interesting to those who had known him when he was as eminently a man of the world, as he was now become, singularly, the recluse of a village.
Such was the basis of the intercourse that thenceforward took place between Dr. Burney and the admirable Mrs. Delany; who was not, from her feminine and elegant character, and her skill in the arts, more to the taste of Dr. Burney, than he had the honour to be to her’s, from his varied acquirements, and his unstrained readiness to bring them forth in social meetings. While his daughter, who thus, by chance, was the happy instrument of this junction, reaped from it a delight that was soon exalted to even bosom felicity, from the indulgent partiality with which that graceful pattern of olden times met, received, and cherished the reverential attachment which she inspired; and which imperceptibly graduated into a mutual, a trusting, a sacred friendship; as soothing, from his share in its formation, to her honoured Mr. Crisp, as it was delighting to Dr. Burney from its seasonable mitigation of the loss, the disappointment, the breaking up of Streatham.