In the summer of this year, 1785, came over from France the celebrated Comtesse de Genlis. Dr. Burney and his second daughter were almost immediately invited, at the express desire of the Countess, to meet, and pass a day with her, at the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds. His niece, Miss Palmer,[6] Sir Abraham and Lady Hume, Lord Palmerston, and some others, were of the party.

Madame de Genlis must then have been about thirty-five years of age; but the whole of her appearance was nearly ten years younger. Her face, without positive beauty, had the most winning agreeability; her figure was remarkably elegant, her attire was chastly simple: her air was reserved, and her demeanour was dignified. Her language had the same flowing perspicuity, and animated variety, by which it is marked in the best of her works; and her discourse was full of intelligence, yet wholly free from presumption or obtrusion. Dr. Burney was forcibly struck with her, and his daughter was enchanted.

Almost as numerous as her works, and almost as diversified, were the characters which had preceded this celebrated lady to England. None, however, of the calumnious sort had reached the ears of the Doctor previously to this meeting; and though some had buzzed about these of the Memorialist, they were vague; and she had willingly, from the charm of such superior talents, believed them unfounded; even before the witchery of personal partiality drove them wholly from the field: for from her sight, her manners, and her conversation, not an idea could elicit that was not instinctively in her favour.

Unconstrained, therefore, was the impulsive regard with which this illustrious foreigner inspired both; and which, gently, but pointedly, it was her evident aim to increase. She made a visit the next day to the Memorialist, whose society she sought with a flattering earnestness and a spirited grace that, coupled with her rare attractions, made a straightforward and most animating conquest of her charmed votary.

Madame de Genlis had already been at Windsor, where, through the medium of Madame de la FÌte, she had been honoured with a private audience of the Queen: and the energetic respect with which she spoke of her Majesty, was one of the strongest incentives to the loyal heart of Dr. Burney for encouraging this rising connexion.

Madame de Genlis had presented, she said, to the Queen the sacred dramas which she had dedicated to her Serene Highness the Duchess of Orleans; adding, that she had brought over only two copies of that work, of which the second was destined for Mademoiselle Burney! to whom, with a billet of elegance nearly heightened into expressions of friendship, it was shortly conveyed.

The Memorialist was at a loss how to make acknowledgments for this obliging offering, as she would have held any return in kind to savour rather of vanity than of gratitude. Dr. Burney, however, relieved her embarrassment, by permitting her to be the bearer of his own History of Music, as far as it had then been published. This Madame de Genlis received with infinite grace and pleasure; for while capable of treating luminously almost every subject that occurred, she had an air, a look, a smile, that gave consequence, transiently, to every thing she said or did.

She had then by her side, and fondly under her wing, a little girl whom she called Pamela,[7] who was most attractively lovely, and whom she had imbibed with a species of enthusiasm for the Memorialist, so potent and so eccentric, that when, during the visit at Sir Joshua Reynolds’, Madame de Genlis said, “Pamela, voilÀ Mademoiselle Burney!” the animated little person rushed hastily forward, and prostrated herself upon one knee before the astonished, almost confounded object of her notice; who, though covered with a confusion half distressing, half ridiculous, observed in every motion and attitude of the really enchanting little creature, a picturesque beauty of effect, and a magic allurement in her fine cast up eyes, that she could not but wish to see perpetuated by Sir Joshua.

On the day that Dr. Burney left his card in Portland-place, for a parting visit to Madame de Genlis, previously to her quitting London, he left there, also, the Memorialist; who, by appointment, was to pass the morning with that lady. This same witching little being was then capitally aiding and abetting in a preconcerted manoeuvre, with which Madame de Genlis not a little surprised her guest. This was by detaining her, through a thousand varying contrivances, all for a while unsuspected, in a particular position; while a painter, whom Madame de Genlis mentioned as being with her by chance, and who appeared to be amusing himself with sketching some fancies of his own, was clandestinely taking a portrait of the visitor.

However flattered by the desire of its possession in so celebrated a personage, that visitor had already, and decidedly, refused sitting for it, not alone to Madame de Genlis, but to various other kind demanders, from a rooted dislike of being exhibited. And when she discovered what was going forward, much vexed and disconcerted, she would have quitted her seat, and fled the premises: but the adroit little charmer had again recourse to her graceful prostration; and, again casting up her beautifully picturesque eyes, pleaded the cause and wishes of Madame de Genlis, whom she called Maman, with an eloquence and a pathos so singular and so captivating, that the Memorialist, though she would not sit quietly still, nor voluntarily favour the painter’s artifice, could only have put in practice a peremptory and determined flight, by trampling upon the urgent, clinging, impassioned little suppliant.

This was the last day’s intercourse of Madame de Genlis with Dr. Burney and the Memorialist. Circumstances, soon afterwards, suddenly parted them; and circumstances never again brought them together.