Footnotes.

[1] By the second marriage.

[2] Now the Honourable Mrs. Robinson.

[3] The Doctor’s eldest daughter.

[4] This early celebrated performer, now in the decline of life, after losing her health, and nearly out-living her friends, is reduced, not by faults but misfortunes, to a state of pecuniary difficulties, through which she must long since have sunk, but for the generous succour of some personages as high in benevolence as in rank.[5] Should this appeal awaken some new commiserators of talents and integrity, bowed down by years and distress, they will find, in a small apartment, No. 58, in Great Portland-street, a feeble, but most interesting person, who is truly deserving of every kind impulse she may excite.

[5] She is assisted, occasionally, by many noble ladies; but the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe is her most active patron.

[6] Pacchiorotti had not yet visited England.

[7] Afterwards Lord Cardigan.

[8] Afterwards Lord Malmsbury.

[9] Afterwards Bishop of Durham.

[10] Now Viscountess Keith.

[11] See Correspondence.

[12] This has reference wholly to Bolt Court, where he constantly retained his home: at Streatham, continually as he there resided, it was always as a guest.

[13] Afterwards Mrs. Phillips.

[14] The present Mrs. Broome.

[15] Mrs. Burney, of Bath.

[16] Now Viscountess Keith.

[17] Afterwards Author of Biographiana.

[18] His fifth daughter, Sarah Harriet, was then a child.

[19] His nephew and heir, he sent over to London to be educated.

[20] See Correspondence.

[21] This was written in the year 1828.

[22] The first volume of this work was nearly printed, when the Editor had the grief of hearing that Sir Walter Scott was no more. In the general sorrow that his loss has spread throughout the British Empire, she presumes not to speak of her own: but she cannot persuade herself to annul the little tribute, by which she had meant to demonstrate to him her sense of the vivacity with which he had sought out her dwelling; invited her to the hospitality of his daughters at Abbotsford; and courteously, nay, eagerly, offered to do the honours of Scotland to her himself, from that celebrated abode.

In a subsequent visit with which he honoured and delighted her in the following year, she produced to him the scraps of documents and fragments which she had collected from ancient diaries and letters, in consequence of his inquiries. Pleased he looked; but told her that what already she had related, already—to use his own word—he had “noted;” adding, “And most particularly, I have not forgotten your mulberry tree!”

This little history, however, was so appropriately his own, and was written so expressly with a view to its dedication, that still, with veneration—though with sadness instead of gladness—she leaves the brief exordium of her intended homage in its original state.—And the less reluctantly, as the companion of his kindness and his interrogatories will still—she hopes—accept, and not unwillingly, his own share in the small offering.

[23] Edward Burney, Esq., of Clipstone-street.

[24] See Correspondence.

[25] Sir Walter Scott was then a child.

[26] Now Viscountess Keith.

[27] The Editor, at the date of this letter, knew not that the club to which Dr. Johnson alluded, was that which was denominated his own,—or The Literary Club.

[28] Afterwards Lord Ashburton.

[29] Afterwards Sir William Weller Pepys.

[30] Afterwards Lord Sheffield.

[31] Now Mrs. Alison, of Edinburgh.

[32] Translator of Tacitus.

[33] Dr. Johnson told this to the Editor.

[34] Dr. Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women.

[35] This was so strongly observed by Mrs. Maling, mother to the Dowager Countess of Mulgrave, that she has often exclaimed to this Memorialist, “Why did not Sir Joshua Reynolds paint Dr. Johnson when he was speaking to Dr. Burney or to you?”

[36] Dr. Lawrence, Sir Richard Jebb, Dr. Warren, Sir Lucas Pepys.

[37] By the Countess of Tankerville.

[38] Afterwards George the Fourth.

[39] Cecilia.

[40] Miss Susanna Burney, afterwards Mrs. Phillips.

[41] Miss Palmer.

[42] Now Marquis of Stafford.

[43] Now Viscountess Keith.

[44] Afterward Marquis of Lansdowne, who first rented Mrs. Thrale’s house at Streatham.

[45] Sir William Weller Pepys, when he was eighty-four years of age, told this Memorialist that he was the only male member then remaining of the original set; and that Mrs. Hannah More was the only remaining female.

[46] This only treats of the Blue Meetings; not of the general assemblies of Montagu House, which were conducted like all others in the circles of high life.

[47] Every May-day, Mrs. Montagu gave an annual breakfast in the front of her new mansion, of roast beef and plum pudding, to all the chimney sweepers of the Metropolis.

[48] It was here, at Mrs. Montagu’s, that Doctor Burney had the happiness to see open to this Memorialist an acquaintance with Mr. and Mrs. Locke, which led, almost magically, to an intercourse that formed,—and still forms, one of the first felicities of her life.

[49] Now Countess of Cork.

[50] The present Memorialist surprised him, one day, so palpably employed in such an investigation, that, seeing her startled, he looked almost ashamed; but, frankly laughing at the silent detection, he cried: “When do you come to sit to me? I am quite ready!” making a motion with his hand as if advancing it with a pencil to a canvass: “All prepared!” intimating that he had settled in his thoughts the disposition of her portrait.

[51] The means for charitable contributions upon so liberal a scale as those of Sir W. W. Pepys, may, perhaps, be deduced, by analogy, from his wise and rare spirit of calculation: how to live with the Greater and the Richer, and yet escape either the risk of ruin, or the charge of meanness. “When I think it right,” said he, in a visit which he made to this Memorialist, after walking, and alone, at eighty-five, from Gloucester-place to Bolton-street, about three weeks before his death, “When I think it right, whether for the good of my excellent children, or for my own pleasure,—or for my little personal dignity, to invite some wealthy Noble to dine with me, I make it a point not to starve my family, or my poor pensioners, for a year afterwards, by emulating his lordship’s, or his grace’s, table-fare. I give, therefore, but a few dishes, and two small courses; all my care is, that every thing shall be well served, and the best of its kind. And when we sit down, I frankly tell them my plan; upon which my guests, more flattered by that implied acknowledgment of their superior rank and rent-roll, than they could possibly be by any attempt at emulation; and happy to find that they shall make no breach in my domestic economy and comfort, immediately fall to, with an appetite that would surprise you! and that gives me the greatest gratification. I do not suppose that they anywhere make a more hearty meal.”

[52] Mr. Cambridge was a potent contributor to the periodical paper called The World; for which Mr. Jenyns, also, occasionally wrote.

[53] Swift’s Long-Eared Letter.

[54] Now Mrs. Alison, of Edinburgh.

[55] Daughter of John Granville, Esq., and niece of Pope’s Granville, the then Lord Lansdowne, “of every Muse the Friend.”

[56] See Sir Walter Scott’s Life of Swift.

[57] This invaluable unique work has lately been purchased by —— Hall, Esq.; a son-in-law of Mrs. Delany’s favourite niece, Mrs. Waddington.

[58] Since Lord Rokeby.

[59] Mrs. Montagu.

[60] Now Mrs. Agnew, the amanuensis and attendant of Mrs. Delany.

[61] Miss Larolles, now, would say eleven or twelve.

[62] Mrs. Burney, of Bath.

[63] Charlotte, now Mrs. Broome; the youngest daughter, Sarah Harriet, was still a child.

[64] See Correspondence.

[65] M. Berquin, some years later, was nominated preceptor to the unfortunate Louis XVII., but was soon dismissed by the inhuman monsters who possessed themselves of the person of that crownless orphan King.

[66] See Correspondence.

[67] Now Madame Adelaide, sister to Louis Philippe.

[68] Madame de Genlis, in her Memoirs, mentions this appointment in terms of less dignity.

[69] This maladie du pays has pursued and annoyed her through life; except when incidentally surprised away by peculiar persons, or circumstances.

[70] “Mr. Bewley, for more than twenty years, supplied the editor of the Monthly Review with an examination of innumerable works in science, and articles of foreign literature, written with a force, spirit, candour, and, when the subject afforded opportunity, humour, not often found in critical discussions.”

[71] Now Mrs. Broome.

[72] This bore reference to an expression of Dr. Johnson’s, upon hearing that Mrs. Montagu resented his Life of Lord Lyttleton.

The Diary Letter to Susannah, whence these two billets are copied, finishes with this paragraph.

“Our dear father, as eager as myself that our most reverenced Dr. Johnson should not be hurt or offended, spared me the coach, and to Bolt Court I went in the evening: and with outspread arms of parental greeting to mark my welcome, was I received. Nobody was there but our brother Charles and Mr. Sastres: and Dr. Johnson, repeatedly thanking me for coming, was, if possible, more instructive, entertaining, and exquisitely fertile than ever; and so full of amenity, and talked so affectionately of our father, that neither Charles nor I could tell how to come away. While he, in return, soothed by exercising his noble faculties with natural, unexcited good-humour and pleasantry, would have kept us, I believe, to this moment—

“You have no objection, I think, my Susan, to a small touch of hyperbole?——

if the coachman and the horses had been as well entertained as ourselves.”

[73] By Edward Burney, Esq., of Clipstone-street.

[74] Hester Lynch Salusbury, Mrs. Thrale, was lineally descended from Adam of Saltsburg, who came over to England with the Conqueror.

[75] The late Sir Thomas Lawrence, in speaking of Norbury Park to this editor, while he was painting his matchless picture of Mrs. Locke, senior, in 1826, said “I have seen much of the world since I was first admitted to Norbury Park,—but I have never seen another Mr. Locke!”

[76] This, also, was the opinion of Sir Thomas Lawrence.

[77] Miss Port, now Mrs. Waddington of Llanover House.

[78] Afterwards George IV.