From circumstances peculiarly fortunate with regard to the time of their operation, some solace opened to Dr. Burney for himself, and still more to his parental kindness for this Memorialist, in this season of disappointment and deprivation, from a beginning intercourse which now took place for both, with the fairest model of female excellence of the days that were passed, Mrs. Delany.[55]

Such were the words by which Mrs. Delany had been pictured to this Memorialist by Mr. Burke, at Miss Moncton’s assembly; and such was the impression of her character under which this connexion was begun by Dr. Burney.

The proposition for an acquaintance, and the negotiation for its commencement between the parties, had been committed, by Mrs. Delany herself, to Mrs. Chapone; whose literary endowments stood not higher, either in public or in private estimation, than the virtues of her mind, and the goodness of her heart. Both were evinced by her popular writings for the female sex, at a time when its education, whether from Timidity or Indolence, required a spur, far more certainly than its cynic traducers can prove that now, from Ambition or Temerity, it calls for a bridle.

As Dr. Burney could not make an early visit, and Mrs. Delany could not receive a late one, Mrs. Chapone was commissioned to engage the daughter to a quiet dinner; and the Doctor to join the party in the evening.

This was assented to with the utmost pleasure, both father and daughter being stimulated in curiosity and expectance by Mr. Crisp, who had formerly known and admired Mrs. Delany, and had been a favourite with her bosom friend, the Dowager Duchess of Portland; and with some other of her elegant associates.

As this venerable lady still lives in the memoirs and correspondence of Dean Swift,[56] an account of this interview, abridged from a letter to Mr. Crisp, will not, perhaps, be unwillingly received, as a genuine picture of an aged lady of rare accomplishments, and high-bred manners, of olden times; who had strikingly been distinguished by Dean Swift, and was now energetically esteemed by Mr. Burke.

Under the wing of the respectable Mrs. Chapone, this Memorialist was first conveyed to the dwelling of Mrs. Delany in St. James’s Place.

Mrs. Delany was alone; but the moment her guests were announced, with an eagerness that seemed forgetful of her years, and that denoted the most flattering pleasure, she advanced to the door of her apartment to receive them.

Mrs. Chapone presented to her by name the Memorialist, whose hand she took with almost youthful vivacity, saying: “Miss Burney must pardon me if I give her an old-fashioned reception; for I know nothing new!” And she kindly saluted her.

With a grace of manner the most striking, she then placed Mrs. Chapone on the sofa, and led the Memorialist to a chair next to her own, saying: “Can you forgive, Miss Burney, the very great liberty I have taken of asking you to my little dinner? But you could not come in the morning; and I wished so impatiently to see one from whom I have received such very extraordinary pleasure, that I could not bear to put it off to another day: for I have no days, now, to throw away! And if I waited for the evening, I might, perhaps, have company. And I hear so ill in mixt society, that I cannot, as I wish to do, attend to more than one at a time; for age, now, is making me more stupid even than I am by nature. And how grieved and mortified I should have been to have known I had Miss Burney in the room, and not to have heard what she said!”

Tone, manner, and look, so impressively marked the sincerity of this humility, as to render it,—her time of life, her high estimation in the world, and her rare acquirements considered,—as touching as it was unexpected to her new guest.

Mrs. Delany still was tall, though some of her height was probably lost. Not much, however, for she was remarkably upright. There were little remains of beauty left in feature; but benevolence, softness, piety, and sense, were all, as conversation brought them into play, depicted in her face, with a sweetness of look and manner, that, notwithstanding her years, were nearly fascinating.

The report generally spread of her being blind, added surprise to pleasure at such active personal civilities in receiving her visitors. Blind, however, she palpably was not. She was neither led about the room, nor afraid of making any false step, or mistake; and the turn of her head to those whom she meant to address, was constantly right. The expression, also, of her still pleasing, though dim eyes, told no sightless tale; but, on the contrary, manifested that she had by no means lost the view of the countenance any more than of the presence of her company.

But the fine perception by which, formerly, she had drawn, painted, cut out, worked, and read, was obscured; and of all those accomplishments in which she had excelled, she was utterly deprived.

Of their former possession, however, there were ample proofs to demonstrate their value; her apartments were hung round with pictures of her own painting, beautifully designed and delightfully coloured; and ornaments of her own execution of striking elegance, in cuttings and variegated stained paper, embellished her chimney-piece; partly copied from antique studies, partly of fanciful invention; but all equally in the chaste style of true and refined good taste.

At the request of Mrs. Chapone, she instantly and unaffectedly brought forth a volume of her newly-invented Mosaic flower-work; an art of her own creation; consisting of staining paper of all possible colours, and then cutting it into strips, so finely and delicately, that when pasted on a dark ground, in accordance to the flower it was to produce, it had the appearance of a beautiful painting; except that it rose to the sight with a still richer effect: and this art Mrs. Delany had invented at seventy-five years of age![57]

It was so long, she said, after its suggestion, before she brought her work into any system, that in the first year she finished only two flowers: but in the second she accomplished sixteen; and in the third, one hundred and sixty. And after that, many more. They were all from nature, the fresh gathered, or still growing plant, being placed immediately before her for imitation. Her collection consisted of whatever was most choice and rare in flowers, plants, and weeds; or, more properly speaking, field flowers; for, as Thomson ingeniously says, it is the “dull incurious” alone who stigmatise these native offsprings of Flora by the degrading title of weeds.

Her plan had been to finish one thousand, for a complete herbal; but its progress had been stopped short, by the feebleness of her sight, when she was within only twenty of her original scheme.

She had always marked the spot whence she took, or received, her model, with the date of the year on the corner of each flower, in different coloured letters; “but the last year,” she meekly said, “when I found my eyes becoming weaker and weaker, and threatening to fail me before my plan could be completed, I cut out my initials, M. D., in white, for I fancied myself nearly working in my winding sheet!”

There was something in her smile at this melancholy speech that blended so much cheerfulness with resignation, as to render it, to the Memorialist, extremely affecting.

Mrs. Chapone inquired whether her eyes had been injured by any cold?

Instantly, at the question, recalling her spirits, “No, no!” she replied; “nothing has attacked them but my reigning malady, old age!—’Tis, however, only what we are all striving to obtain! And I, for one, have found it a very comfortable state. Yesterday, nevertheless, my peculiar infirmity was rather distressing to me. I received a note from young Mr. Montagu,[58] written in the name of his aunt,[59] that required an immediate answer. But how could I give it to what I could not even read? My good Astley[60] was, by great chance, gone abroad; and my housemaid can neither write nor read; and my man happened to be in disgrace, so I could not do him such a favour [smiling] as to be obliged to him! I resolved, therefore, to try, once more, to read myself; and I hunted out my old long-laid-by magnifier. But it would not do! it was all in vain!

I then ferretted out a larger glass; and with that, I had the great satisfaction to make out the first word,—but before I could get at the second, even the first became a blank! My eyes, however, have served me so long and so well, that I should be very ungrateful to quarrel with them. I then, luckily, recollected that my cook is a scholar! So I sent for her, and we made out the billet together—which, indeed, deserved a much better answer than I, or my cook either, scholar as she is, could bestow. But my dear niece will be with me ere long, and then I shall not be quite such a bankrupt to my correspondents.”

Bankrupt, indeed, was she not, to gaiety, to good-humour, or to polished love of giving pleasure to her social circle, any more than to keeping pace with her correspondents.

When Mrs. Chapone mentioned, with much regret, that a previous evening engagement must force her away at half-past seven o’clock, “Half-past seven?” Mrs. Delany repeated, with an arch smile; “O fie! fie! Mrs. Chapone! why Miss Larolles would not for the world go anywhere before eight or nine!”[61]

And when the Memorialist, astonished as well as diverted at such a sally from Mrs. Delany, yet desirous, from embarrassment, not to seem to have noticed it, turned to look at some of the pictures, and stopped at a charming portrait of Madame de SavignÉ, to remark its expressive mixture of sweetness, intelligence, and vivacity, the smile of Mrs. Delany became yet archer, as she sportively said, “Yes!—she looks very—enjouÉe, as Captain Aresby would say.”

This was not a speech to lessen, or meant to lessen, either surprise or amusement in the Memorialist, who, nevertheless, quietly continued her examination of the pictures; till she stopped at a portrait that struck her to have an air of spirit and genius, that induced her to inquire whom it represented.

Mrs. Delany did not mention the name, but only answered, “I don’t know how it is, Mrs. Chapone, but I can never, of late, look at that picture without thinking of poor Belfield.”

This was heard with a real start—though certainly not of pain! But that Mrs. Delany, at her very advanced time of life, eighty-three, should thus have personified to herself the characters of a book so recently published, mingled in its pleasure nearly as much astonishment as gratification.

Mrs. Delany—still clear-sighted to countenance, at least—seemed to read her thoughts, and, kindly taking her hand, smilingly said: “You must forgive us, Miss Burney! it is not quite a propriety, I own, to talk of these people before you; but we don’t know how to speak at all, now, without naming them, they run so in our heads!”

Early in the evening, they were joined by Mrs. Delany’s beloved and loving friend, the Duchess Dowager of Portland; a lady who, though not as exquisitely pleasing, any more than as interesting by age as Mrs. Delany,—who, born with the century, was now in her 83d year, had yet a physiognomy that, when lighted up by any discourse in which she took a part from personal feelings, was singularly expressive of sweetness, sense, and dignity; three words that exactly formed the description of her manners; which were not merely free from pride, but free, also, from its mortifying deputy, affability.

Mrs. Delany, that pattern of the old school in high politeness, was now, it is probable, in the sphere whence Mr. Burke had signalized her by that character; for her reception of the Duchess of Portland, and her conduct to that noble friend, strikingly displayed the self-possession that good taste with good breeding can bestow, even upon the most timid mind, in doing the honours of home to a superior.

She welcomed her Grace with as much respectful ceremony as if this had been a first visit; to manifest that, what in its origin, she had taken as an honour, she had so much true humility as to hold to be rather more than less so in its continuance; yet she constantly exerted a spirit, in pronouncing her opposing or concurring sentiments, in the conversation that ensued, that shewed as dignified an independence of character, as it marked a sincerity as well as happiness of friendship, in the society of her elevated guest.

The Memorialist was presented to her Grace, who came with the expectation of meeting her, in the most gentle and flattering terms by Mrs. Delany; and she was received with kindness rather than goodness. The watchful regard of the Duchess for Mrs. Delany, soon pointed out the marked partiality which that revered lady was already conceiving for her new visitor; and the Duchess, pleased to abet, as salubrious, every cheering propensity in her beloved friend, immediately disposed herself to second it with the most obliging alacrity.

Mrs. Delany, gratified by this apparent approvance, then started the subject of the recent publication, with a glow of pleasure that, though she uttered her favouring opinions with the most unaffected, the chastest simplicity, made the “eloquent blood” rush at every flattering sentence into her pale, soft, aged cheeks, as if her years had been as juvenile as her ideas, and her kindness.

Animated by the animation of her friend, the Duchess gaily increased it by her own; and the warm-hearted Mrs. Chapone still augmented its energy, by her benignant delight that she had brought such a scene to bear for her young companion: while all three sportively united in talking of the characters in the publication, as if speaking of persons and incidents of their own peculiar knowledge.

On the first pause upon a theme which, though unavoidably embarrassing, could not, in hands of such noble courtesy, that knew how to make flattery subservient to elegance, and praise to delicacy, be seriously distressing; the deeply honoured, though confused object of so much condescension, seized the vacant moment for starting the name of Mr. Crisp.

Nothing could better propitiate the introduction which Dr. Burney desired for himself to the correspondent of Dean Swift, and the quondam acquaintance of his early monitor, Mr. Crisp, than bringing this latter upon the scene.

The Duchess now took the lead in the discourse, and was charmed to hear tidings of a former friend, who had been missed so long in the world as to be thought lost. She inquired minutely into his actual way of life, his health and his welfare; and whether he retained his fondness and high taste for all the polite arts.

To the Memorialist this was a topic to give a flow of spirits, that spontaneously banished the reserve and silence with strangers of which she stood generally accused: and her history of the patriarchal attachment of Mr. Crisp to Dr. Burney, and its benevolent extension to every part of his family, while it revived Mr. Crisp to the memories and regard of the Duchess and of Mrs. Delany, stimulated their wishes to know the man—Dr. Burney—who alone, of all the original connexions of Mr. Crisp, had preserved such power over his affections, as to be a welcome inmate to his almost hermetically closed retreat.

And the account of Chesington Hall, its insulated and lonely position, its dilapidated state, its nearly inaccessible roads, its quaint old pictures, and straight long garden paths; was as curious and amusing to Mrs. Chapone, who was spiritedly awake to whatever was romantic or uncommon, as the description of the chief of the domain was interesting to those who had known him when he was as eminently a man of the world, as he was now become, singularly, the recluse of a village.

Such was the basis of the intercourse that thenceforward took place between Dr. Burney and the admirable Mrs. Delany; who was not, from her feminine and elegant character, and her skill in the arts, more to the taste of Dr. Burney, than he had the honour to be to her’s, from his varied acquirements, and his unstrained readiness to bring them forth in social meetings. While his daughter, who thus, by chance, was the happy instrument of this junction, reaped from it a delight that was soon exalted to even bosom felicity, from the indulgent partiality with which that graceful pattern of olden times met, received, and cherished the reverential attachment which she inspired; and which imperceptibly graduated into a mutual, a trusting, a sacred friendship; as soothing, from his share in its formation, to her honoured Mr. Crisp, as it was delighting to Dr. Burney from its seasonable mitigation of the loss, the disappointment, the breaking up of Streatham.