“A Brangton, Sir?” repeated Mr. Boswell, with earnestness; “What is a Brangton, Sir?”
“Where have you lived, Sir,” cried the Doctor, laughing, “and what company have you kept, not to know that?”
Mr. Boswell now, doubly curious, yet always apprehensive of falling into some disgrace with Dr. Johnson, said, in a low tone, which he knew the Doctor could not hear, to Mrs. Thrale: “Pray, Ma’am, what’s a Brangton?—Do me the favour to tell me?—Is it some animal hereabouts?”
Mrs. Thrale only heartily laughed, but without answering: as she saw one of her guests uneasily fearful of an explanation. But Mr. Seward cried, “I’ll tell you, Boswell,—I’ll tell you!—if you will walk with me into the paddock: only let us wait till the table is cleared; or I shall be taken for a Brangton, too!”
They soon went off together; and Mr. Boswell, no doubt, was fully informed of the road that had led to the usurpation by which he had thus been annoyed. But the Brangton fabricator took care to mount to her chamber ere they returned; and did not come down till Mr. Boswell was gone.
ANNA WILLIAMS.
Dr. Burney had no greater enjoyment of the little leisure he could tear from his work and his profession, than that which he could dedicate to Dr. Johnson; and he now, at the Doctor’s most earnest invitation, carried this Memorialist to Bolt Court, to pay a visit to the blind poetess, Anna Williams.
They were received by Dr. Johnson with a kindness that irradiated his austere and studious features into the most pleased and pleasing benignity. Such, indeed, was the gentleness, as well as warmth, of his partiality for this father and daughter, that their sight seemed to give him a new physiognomy.[35]
It was in the apartment—a parlour—dedicated to Mrs. Williams, that the Doctor was in this ready attendance to play the part of the master of the ceremonies, in presenting his new guest to his ancient friend and ally. Anna Williams had been a favourite of his wife, in whose life-time she had frequently resided under his roof. The merit of her poetical talents, and the misfortune of her blindness, are generally known; to these were now super-added sickness, age, and infirmity: yet such was the spirit of her character, that to make a new acquaintance thus rather singularly circumstanced, seemed to her almost an event of moment; and she had incessantly solicited the Doctor to bring it to bear.