The society which assembled at that lady’s mansion was elegant and high bred, yet entertaining and diversified. As Mrs. Delany chose to sustain her own house, that she might associate without constraint with her own family, the generous Duchess of Portland would not make a point of persuading her to sojourn at Whitehall; preferring the sacrifice of her own ease and comfort, in quitting that noble residence nearly every evening, to lessening those of her tenderly loved companion.

And here her good sense repaid the goodness of her heart; for she saw, from time to time, without formality, introduction, or even the etiquettes of condescension, sundry persons moving in a less exalted sphere than her own, yet who, as she was a spirited observer of life and manners, afforded an agreeable variety in the current intercourse of the day: and from any thing inelegantly inferior, Mrs. Delany, from her rank in the world, and still more from her good principles and good taste, was inviolably exempt.

Many of the most favoured of this peculiar assemblage had already passed away, before Dr. Burney had been honoured with admission. Amongst those yet remaining, who belonged equally to both these ladies, were, the Countess of Bute, wife to the early favourite of his Majesty, George the Third, and the famous Lady Mary Wortley Montague’s daughter; a person of first-rate understanding, and possessing a large share of the ready wit, freed from the keen sarcasm and dauntless spirit of raillery of her renowned mother.

And she was occasionally accompanied by Lady Louisa Stuart, her accomplished daughter; who inherited only the better part, namely, sense, taste, and amiability, from any of her progenitors.

The Countess of Bristol, still a strikingly fine woman, and, though no longer young, still pleasingly interesting; with her engaging and charming daughter, Lady Louisa Harvey,[8] not seldom formed the party.

The “high-bred, elegant Boscawen,” the everyway honourable widow of the gallant Admiral, was peculiarly a favourite of Mrs. Delany, for equal excellence in character, conduct, and abilities.

The old Earl of Guilford, high in all the wit, spirit, and politeness that he transmitted to his favoured and numerous race, was always gladly welcomed.

Lady Wallingford, the unhappy widow of a gaming Lord, and the ruined daughter, though born heiress of the richest speculator of Europe, the famous South Sea Law, was at this time reduced to aid her existence by being a pensioner of her feeling friend, Mrs. Delany! by whom this unfortunate, but very respectable lady, was always distinguished with assiduous attention, both from her misfortunes and the obligations under which they forced her to labour. She was extremely well bred, though mournfully taciturn. She was uniformly habited in black silk, and in full dress; wearing a hoop, long ruffles, a winged cap, and all the stately formality of attire of the times, that even then were past; which, however, in its ceremonial, seemed suited with the rank to which she had risen; and in its gloom to the distress into which she had fallen.

Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Chapone, from time to time, spent and enlightened a day with this inestimable Mrs. Delany; who was connected more intimately still with Mrs. Montague.

The celebrated Horace Walpole was a frequent visitor, from possessing enough of genuine taste to delight in Mrs. Delany, and of spirit and fashion for paying his court to the Duchess Dowager of Portland. He was enchanted, also, to recreate his quaint humour by mingling occasionally with persons who, from being little known to him, excited his ever busy curiosity; which was restlessly seeking fresh food, with a devouring voracity that made it ever freshly required. And it was observed, that Mr. Walpole was nowhere more agreeable or more brilliant than in St. James’s Place; where he was polite and gay, though irrepressibly sarcastic; and good-humoured and entertaining, though always covertly epigrammatical.

Owen Cambridge and Soame Jenyns appeared, also, in this society; and were as fully capable to appreciate the excellences of Mrs. Delany, as she, in return, was to enjoy their playful wit, and well-seasoned raillery.

The elegant, polished Mr. Smelt, was peculiarly suited both to the taste and the situation of Mrs. Delany; with the first there was congeniality of mind; with the second, there was the similarity of each being a chosen, though untitled favourite of both King and Queen.

Mr. and Mrs. Locke were latterly added to this set; which they were truly formed to draw to a climax of social perfection.

But a lamented, though not personal or family event, which occurred at the end of this summer, must here be recorded, with some detail of circumstance; as it proved, in its consequences, by no means unimportant to the history of Dr. Burney.

The venerable Mrs. Delany was suddenly bereft of the right noble friend who was the delight of her life, the Duchess Dowager of Portland. That honoured and honourable lady had quitted town for her dowry mansion of Bulstrode Park. Thither she had just most courteously invited this Memorialist; who had spent with her Grace and her beloved friend, at the fine dwelling of the former at Whitehall, nearly the last evening of their sojourn in town, to arrange this intended summer junction. A letter of Mrs. Delany’s dictation had afterwards followed to St. Martin’s-street, fixing a day on which a carriage, consigned by her Grace to Mrs. Delany’s service, was to fetch the new visitor. But, on the succeeding morning, a far different epistle, written by the Amanuensis of Mrs. Delany, brought the mournful counter-tidings of the seizure, illness, and decease, of the valuable, generous, and charming mistress of Bulstrode Park.

Mrs. Delany, as soon as possible, was removed back to St. James’s Place; in a grief the most touchingly profound, though the most edifyingly resigned.

This was a loss for which, as Mrs. Delany was fifteen years the senior, no human calculation had prepared; and what other has the human Mathematician? Her condition in life, therefore, as well as her heart, was assailed by this privation; and however inferior to the latter was the former consideration, the conflict of afflicted feelings with discomfitted affairs, could not but be doubly oppressive: for though from the Duchess no pecuniary loan was accepted by Mrs. Delany, unnumbered were the little auxiliaries to domestic economy which her Grace found means to convey to St. James’s Place.

But now, even the house in that place, though already small for the splendid persons who frequently sought there to pay their respects to the Duchess, as well as to Mrs. Delany, became too expensive for her means of supporting its establishment.

The friendship of the high-minded Duchess for Mrs. Delany had been an honour to herself and to her sex, in its refinement as well as in its liberality. Her superior rank she held as a bauble, her superior wealth as dross, save as they might be made subservient towards equalizing in condition the chosen companion, with whom in affection all was already parallel.

To see them together, offered a view of human excellence delightful to contemplate. They endeared existence to each other, and only what was participated seemed to be enjoyed by either. And they each possessed so much understanding, cultivation, taste, and spirit, that their mutual desire to procure and to give pleasure to each other, operated not less as a spur to their improvement, even at this late period of life, than as a delight to their affections. In sentiment and opinion their converse had the most unrestrained openness; but in manner, a superior respect in Mrs. Delany was never to be vanquished by the utmost equalizing efforts of the Duchess: it was a respect of the heart, grafted upon that of the old school; and every struggle to dislodge it only proved, by its failure, the unshakeable firmness of its basis. The Duchess, therefore, was forced to content herself with wearing an easy cheerfulness of freedom, that flung off all appearance of seeming aware of this reverence; but which she accompanied with a cherishing delicacy, that made her watchful of every turn of countenance, every modulation of voice, and every movement or gesture, that might indicate any species of desire for something new, altered, or any way attainable for the advantage or pleasure of the friend whom she most loved to honour.

What a blank was a breach such as this of an intercourse so tender, and at an age so advanced! Religion alone could make it supportable; and to that alone can be attributed the patient sweetness with which Mrs. Delany met every consolation that could be offered to her by her still existing ties, Lady Bute, Lady Bristol, Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Sandford, &c. &c. &c.

But most eager amongst them, from the energy of her attachment, forth rushed her latest, newest, and last chosen friend, who, in another day or two, would have been at her side, on the very moment of this heavy deprivation. Fearfully, nevertheless, she came, every other consoler having priority of almost every species to plead for preference: but those chords of unison, which in sympathy alone include every claim, discarding, as dissonance, whatever would break in upon their harmony, had here struck from heart to heart with responsive tenderness; and what of merit preponderated in the scales of one, was balanced into fair equilibrium by venerating devotion in the other.

Upon first receiving the melancholy intelligence of the broken-up meeting at Bulstrode Park, Dr. Burney had taken his much-grieved daughter with him to Chesington; where, with all its bereavements, he repaired, to go on with his History; but, with a kindness which always led him to participate in the calls of affection, he no sooner learned that her presence would be acceptable to Mrs. Delany, than he spared his amanuensis from his side and his work, and instantly lent her his carriage to convey her back to town, and to the house of that afflicted lady; whose tenderly open-armed, though tearful reception, was as gratifying to the feelings of her deeply-attached guest, as the grief that she witnessed was saddening.

The Doctor permitted her now to take up her abode in this house of mourning; where she had the heart-felt satisfaction to find herself not only soothing to the admirable friend, by whom so late in life, but so warmly in love, she had been taken to the bosom; but empowered to relieve some of her cares by being intrusted to overlook, examine, and read to her letters and manuscripts of every description; and to select, destroy, or arrange the long-hoarded mass. She even began revising and continuing a manuscript memoir of the early days of Mrs. Delany; but, as it could be proceeded with only in moments of unbroken tÊte À tÊte, it never was finished.

Meanwhile, when the tidings of the death of the Duchess Dowager of Portland reached their Majesties, their first thought, after their immediate grief at her departure, was of Mrs. Delany; and when they found that the Duchess, from a natural expectation of being herself the longest liver, had taken no measures to soften off the worldly part, at least, of this separation, the King, with most benevolent munificence, resolved to supply the deficiency which a failure of foresight alone, he was sure, had occasioned in a friend of such anxious fondness. He completely, therefore, and even minutely fitted up for Mrs. Delany a house at Windsor, near the Castle; and settled a pension of three hundred pounds a-year upon her for life; to enable her to still keep her house in town, that she might repair thither every winter, for the pleasure of enjoying the society of her old friends.

The grateful heart of Mrs. Delany overflowed at her eyes at marks so attentive, as well as beneficent, of kindness and goodness in her Sovereigns; for well she felt convinced that the Queen had a mental share and influence in these royal offerings.

To Windsor, thus invited, Mrs. Delany now went; and this Memorialist, lightened of a thousand apprehensions by this cheer to the feelings of her honoured friend, returned to Dr. Burney, in Surrey. A letter speedily followed her, with an account that the good King himself, having issued orders to be apprized when Mrs. Delany entered the town of Windsor, had repaired to her newly allotted house, there, in person, to give her welcome. Overcome by such condescension, she flung herself upon her knees before him, to express a sense of his graciousness for which she could find no words.

Their Majesties almost immediately visited her in person; an honour which they frequently repeated: and they condescendingly sent to her, alternately, all their royal daughters. And, as soon as she was recovered from her fatigues, they invited her to their evening concerts at the Upper Lodge, in which, at that time, they sojourned.[9]