These were first published in the Miscellaneous Works of 1837, iv. 132–3, having been communicated to the editor by Major-General Sir H. E. Bunbury, Bart., the son of Henry William Bunbury, the well-known comic artist, and husband of Catherine Horneck, the ‘Little Comedy’ to whom Goldsmith refers. Dr. Baker, to whose house the poet was invited, was Dr. (afterwards Sir George) Baker, 1722–1809. He was Sir Joshua’s doctor; and in 1776 became physician to George III, whom he attended during his illness of 1788–9. He is often mentioned by Fanny Burney and Hannah More.
[Horneck,] i.e. Mrs. Hannah Horneck—the ‘Plymouth Beauty’—widow of Captain Kane William Horneck, grandson of Dr. Anthony Horneck of the Savoy, mentioned in Evelyn’s Diary, for whose Happy Ascetick, 1724, Hogarth designed a frontispiece. Mrs. Horneck died in 1803. Like Sir Joshua, the Hornecks came from Devonshire; and through him, had made the acquaintance of Goldsmith.
[Nesbitt.] Mr. Nesbitt was the husband of one of Mr. Thrale’s handsome sisters. He was a member of the Devonshire Club, and twice (1759–61) sat to Reynolds, with whom he was intimate. He died in 1779, and his widow married a Mr. Scott.
[Kauffmann.] Angelica Kauffmann, the artist, 1741–1807. She had come to London in 1766. At the close of 1767 she had been cajoled into a marriage with an impostor, Count de Horn, and had separated from him in 1768. In 1769 she painted a ‘weak and uncharacteristic’ portrait of Reynolds for Mr. Parker of Saltram (afterwards Baron Boringdon), which is now in the possession of the Earl of Morley. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in the winter of 1876, and is the portrait referred to at l. 44 below.
[the Jessamy Bride.] This was Goldsmith’s pet-name for Mary, the elder Miss Horneck. After Goldsmith’s death she married Colonel F. E. Gwyn (1779). She survived until 1840. ‘Her own picture with a turban,’ painted by Reynolds, was left to her in his will (Works by Malone, 2nd ed., 1798, p. cxviii). She was also painted by Romney and Hoppner. ‘Jessamy,’ or ‘jessimy,’ with its suggestion of jasmine flowers, seems in eighteenth-century parlance to have stood for ‘dandified,’ ‘superfine,’ ‘delicate,’ and the whole name was probably coined after the model of some of the titles to Darly’s prints, then common in all the shops.
[The Reynoldses two,] i.e. Sir Joshua and his sister, Miss Reynolds.
[Little Comedy’s face.] ‘Little Comedy’ was Goldsmith’s name for the younger Miss Horneck, Catherine, and already engaged to H. W. Bunbury (v. supra), to whom she was married in 1771. She died in 1799, and had also been painted by Reynolds.
[the Captain in lace.] This was Charles Horneck, Mrs. Horneck’s son, an officer in the Foot-guards. He afterwards became a general, and died in 1804. (See note, p. 247, l. 31.)
[to-day’s Advertiser.] The lines referred to are said by Prior to have been as follows:—
While fair Angelica, with matchless grace,
Paints Conway’s lovely form and Stanhope’s face;
Our hearts to beauty willing homage pay,
We praise, admire, and gaze our souls away.
But when the likeness she hath done for thee,
O Reynolds! with astonishment we see,
Forced to submit, with all our pride we own,
Such strength, such harmony, excell’d by none,
And thou art rivall’d by thyself alone.