On Dr. Willis’s personal appearance, Mr. Cole says, in a letter to Mr. Steevens, “When I knew him first, about 35 years ago, he had more the appearance of a mumping beggar than of a gentleman; and the most like resemblance of his figure that I can recollect among old prints, is that of Old Hobson the Cambridge carrier. He then, as always, was dressed in an old slouched hat, more brown than black, a weather-beaten large wig, three or four old-fashioned coats, all tied round by a leathern belt, and over all an old blue cloak, lined with black fustian, which he told me he had new made when he was elected member for the town of Buckingham about 1707.” Cole retained affection for his memory: he adds “I have still by me as relics, this cloak and belt, which I purchased of his servant.” Cole’s letter with this account he consented that Mr. Steevens should allow Mr. Nichols to use, adding that he gave the permission “on a presumption, that there was nothing disrespectful to the memory of Mr. Willis, for what I said I don’t recollect.” On this, Mr. Nichols remarks, “The disrespect was certainly levelled at the mere external foibles of the respectable antiquary, whose goodness of heart, and general spirit of philanthropy were amply sufficient to bear him out in those whimsical peculiarities of dress, which were irresistible sources of ridicule.”
Cole, however, may be suspected to have somewhat exaggerated, when he so generalized his description of Dr. Willis, as to affirm that “he had more the appearance of a mumping beggar than of a gentleman.” Miss Talbot, of whom it was said by the duchess of Somerset to lady Luxborough, “she censures nobody, she despises nobody, and whilst her own life is a pattern of goodness, she does not exclaim with bitterness against vice,” seems, in her letter to the lady of quality [before] cited, to have painted Dr. Willis to the life. She says, “With one of the honestest hearts in the world, he has one of the oddest heads that ever dropped out of the moon. Extremely well versed in coins, he knows hardly any thing of mankind, and you may judge what kind of education such an one is likely to give to four girls, who have had no female directress to polish their behaviour, or any other habitation than a great rambling mansion-house in a country village.”
It must be allowed, notwithstanding, to the credit of Mr. Cole, that she adds, “He is the dirtiest creature in the world;” but then, with such a character from the mouth of a fine lady, the sex and breeding of the affirmant must be taken into the account, especially as she assigns her reasons. “It is quite disagreeable,” she says, “to sit by him at table: yet he makes one suit of clothes serve him at least two years, and then his great coat has been transmitted down, I believe, from generation to generation, ever since Noah.” Thus there may be something on the score of want of fashion in her estimate.
Miss Talbot’s account of Dr. Willis’s daughters is admirable. “Browne distinguishes his four daughters into the lions and the lambs. The lambs are very good and very insipid; they were in town about ten days, that ended the beginning of last week; and now the lions have succeeded them, who have a little spirit of rebellion, that makes them infinitely more agreeable than their sober sisters. The lambs went to every church Browne pleased every day; the lions came to St. James’s church on St. George’s day, (which to Browne was downright heresy, for reasons just related.) The lambs thought of no higher entertainment than going to see some collections of shells; the lions would see every thing, and go every where. The lambs dined here one day, were thought good awkward girls, and then were laid out of our thoughts for ever. The lions dined with us on Sunday, and were so extremely diverting, that we spent all yesterday morning, and are engaged to spend all this, in entertaining them, and going to a comedy, that, I think, has no ill-nature in it; for the simplicity of these girls has nothing blameable in it, and the contemplation of such unassisted nature is infinitely amusing. They follow Miss Jenny’s rule, of never being strange in a strange place; yet in them this is not boldness.” Miss Talbot says, she could give “a thousand traits of the lions,” but she merely adds, “I wondered to have heard no remarks on the prince and princess; their remarks on every thing else are admirable. As they sat in the drawing-room before dinner, one of them called to Mr. Secker, ‘I wish you would give me a glass of sack!’ The bishop of Oxford (Secker) came in, and one of them broke out very abruptly, ‘But we heard every word of the sermon where we sat; and a very good sermon it was,’ added she, with a decisive nod. The bishop of Gloucester gave them tickets to go to a play; and one of them took great pains to repeat to him, till he heard it, ‘I would not rob you, but I know you are very rich, and can afford it; for I ben’t covetous, indeed I an’t covetous.’ Poor girls! their father will make them go out of town to-morrow, and they begged very hard that we would all join in entreating him to let them stay a fortnight, as their younger sisters have done; but all our entreaties were in vain, and to-morrow the poor lions return to their den in the stage-coach. Indeed, in his birth-day tie-wig he looked so like ‘the father’ in the farce Mrs. Secker was so diverted with, that I wished a thousand times for the invention of Scapin and I would have made no scruple of assuming the character, and inspiring my friends with the laudable spirit of rebellion. I have picked out some of the dullest of their traits to tell you. They pressed us extremely to come and breakfast with them at their lodgings, four inches square, in Chapel-street, at eight o’clock in the morning, and bring a stay-maker and the bishop of Gloucester with us. We put off the engagement till eleven, sent the stay-maker to measure them at nine, and Mrs. Secker and I went and found the ladies quite undressed; so that, instead of taking them to Kensington Gardens, as we promised, we were forced, for want of time, to content ourselves with carrying them round Grosvenor-square into the Ring, where, for want of better amusement, they were fain to fall upon the basket of dirty sweetmeats and cakes that an old woman is always teizing you with there, which they had nearly despatched in a couple of rounds. It were endless to tell you all that has inexpressibly diverted me in their behaviour and conversation.”
Mr. Nichols contents himself with calling Miss Talbot’s letter “a very pleasant one”—it is delightfully pleasant: that its description may not be received in an ill sense, he carefully remarks, that “it would be thought highly satirical in any body else,” but he roguishly affirms that “Dr. Taylor could tell a thousand such stories of Browne Willis and his family;” and then he selects another. “In the summer of 1740, after Mr. Baker’s death, his executor came to take possession of the effects, and lived for some time in his chambers at college. Here Browne Willis waited upon him to see some of the MSS. or books; and after a long visit, to find and examine what he wanted, the old bed-maker of the rooms came in; when the gentleman said, ‘What noise was that I heard just as you opened the door?’ (he had heard the rustling of silk)—‘Oh!’ says Browne Willis, ‘it is only one of my daughters that I left on the staircase. This, we may suppose, was a lamb, by her patient waiting; else a lion would have been better able to resist any petty rudenesses.’” Afterwards we have another “trait” of the same kind: “Once after long teasing, the young ladies prevailed on him to give them a London jaunt; unluckily the lodgings were (unknown to them) at an undertaker’s, the irregular and late hours of whose business was not very agreeable to the young ladies: but they comforted themselves with the thoughts of the pleasure they should have during their stay in town; when to their great surprise and grief, as soon as they had got their breakfast, the old family coach rumbled to the door, and the father bid them get in, as he had done the business about which he came to town.” Poor girls!