Et votre "chronologie,"' &c.
Hénault was for many years deaf; and, during the whole of his life, disagreeable. There was something farcical in the old man's receptions on his death-bed; whilst, amongst the rest of the company came Madame du Deffand, a blind old woman of seventy, who, bawling in his ear, aroused the lethargic man, by inquiring after a former rival of hers, Madame de Castelmaron—about whom he went on babbling until death stopped his voice.
She was seventy years of age when Horace Walpole, at fifty, became her passion. She was poor and disreputable, and even the high position of having been mistress to the regent could not save her from being decried by a large portion of that society which centered round the bel esprit. 'She was,' observes the biographer of Horace Walpole (the lamented author of the 'Crescent and the Cross,') 'always gay, always charming—everything but a Christian.' The loss of her eyesight did not impair the remains of her beauty; her replies, her compliments, were brilliant; even from one whose best organs of expression were mute.
A frequent guest at her suppers, Walpole's kindness, real or pretended, soon made inroads on a heart still susceptible. The ever-green passions of this venerable sinner threw out fresh shoots; and she became enamoured of the attentive and admired Englishman. Horace was susceptible of ridicule: there his somewhat icy heart was easily touched. Partly in vanity, partly in playfulness, he encouraged the sentimental-exaggeration of his correspondent; but, becoming afraid of the world's laughter, ended by reproving her warmth, and by chilling, under the refrigerating influence of his cautions, all the romance of the octogenarian.
In later days, however, after his solicitude—partly soothed by the return of his letters to Madame du Deffand, partly by her death—had completely subsided, a happier friendship was permitted to solace his now increasing infirmities, as well as to enhance his social pleasures.
It was during the year 1788, when he was living in retirement at Strawberry, that his auspicious friendship was formed. The only grain of ambition he had left he declared was to believe himself forgotten; that was 'the thread that had run through his life;' 'so true,' he adds, 'except the folly of being an author, has been what I said last year to the Prince' (afterwards George IV.), 'when he asked me "If I was a Freemason," I replied, "No sir; I never was anything."'
Lady Charleville told him that some of her friends had been to see Strawberry. 'Lord!' cried one lady, 'who is that Mr. Walpole?' 'Lord!' cried a second; 'don't you know the great epicure, Mr. Walpole?' 'Who?' cried the first,—'great epicure! you mean the antiquarian.' 'Surely,' adds Horace, 'this anecdote may take its place in the chapter of local fame.'
But he reverts to his new acquisition—the acquaintance of the Miss Berrys, who had accidentally taken a house next to his at Strawberry Hill. Their story, he adds, was a curious one: their descent Scotch; their grandfather had an estate of £5,000 a year, but disinherited his son on account of his marrying a woman with no fortune. She died, and the grandfather, wishing for an heir-male, pressed the widower to marry again: he refused; and said he would devote himself to the education of his two daughters. The second son generously gave up £8oo a year to his brother, and the two motherless girls were taken to the Continent, whence they returned the 'best informed and most perfect creatures that Horace Walpole ever saw at their age.'
Sensible, natural, frank, their conversation proved most agreeable to a man who was sated of grand society, and sick of vanity until he had indulged in vexation of spirit. He discovered by chance only—for there was no pedantry in these truly well-educated women—that the eldest understood Latin, and 'was a perfect Frenchwoman in her language. Then the youngest drew well; and copied one of Lady Di Beauclerk's pictures, 'The Gipsies,' though she had never attempted colours before. Then, as to looks: Mary, the eldest, had a sweet face, the more interesting from being pale; with fine dark eyes that were lighted up when she spoke. Agnes, the younger, was 'hardly to be called handsome, but almost;' with an agreeable sensible countenance. It is remarkable that women thus delineated—not beauties, yet not plain—are always the most fascinating to men. The sisters doted on each other: Mary taking the lead in society. 'I must even tell you,' Horace wrote to the Countess of Ossory, 'that they dress within the bounds of fashion, but without the excrescences and balconies with which modern hoydens overwhelm and barricade their persons.' (One would almost have supposed that Horace had lived in the days of crinoline.')
The first night that Horace met the two sisters, he refused to be introduced to them: having heard so much of them that he concluded they would be 'all pretension.' The second night that he met them, he sat next Mary, and found her an 'angel both inside and out.' He did not know which he liked best; but Mary's face, which was formed for a sentimental novel, or, still more, for genteel comedy, riveted him, he owned. Mr. Berry, the father, was a little 'merry man with a round face,' whom no one would have suspected of sacrificing 'all for love, and the world well lost.' This delightful family visited him every Sunday evening; the region of wickenham being too 'proclamatory' for cards to be introduced on the seventh day, conversation was tried instead; thankful, indeed, was Horace, for the 'pearls,' as he styled them, thus thrown in his path. His two 'Strawberries,' as he christened them, were henceforth the theme of every letter. He had set up a printing-press many years previously at Strawberry, and on taking the young ladies to see it, he remembered the gallantry of his former days, and they found these stanzas in type:—