Reynolds was as ever the centre of a charming circle. Miss Burney, the author of "Evelina," liked his countenance and manners; the former she pronounced "expressive, soft, and sensible; the latter, gentle, unassuming, and engaging." Hannah More, too, was greatly pleased with the distinguished painter. "Foremost among the beauties of this brilliant time," says Leslie, "was Sir Joshua's pet in childhood, now the irresistible young queen of _ton_, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. She effaced all her rivals, Walpole tells us, without being a beauty. 'Her youth, figure, glowing good-nature, sense, lively modesty, and modest familiarity make her a phenomenon.' The young duchess was now sitting to him in the full flush of her triumph as arbitress of fashion, the most brilliant of the gay throng who danced and played the nights away at the Ladies' Club, masqueraded at the Pantheon, and promenaded at Ranelagh. Marie Antoinette herself had scarcely a gayer, more devoted, and more obsequious court. It was this beautiful young duchess who set the fashion of the feather headdresses, now a mark for all the witlings of the time. Sir Joshua has painted her in her new-fashioned plumes, in the full-length now at Spencer House.... "Another beautiful sitter of this year was Eliza, the youthful wife of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The young couple were now emerging from the first difficulties of their married life. Her exquisite and delicate loveliness, all the more fascinating for the tender sadness which seemed, as a contemporary describes it, to project over her the shadow of early death; her sweet voice, and the pathetic expression of her singing; the timid and touching grace of her air and deportment, had won universal admiration for Eliza Ann Linley. From the days when, a girl of nine, she stood with her little basket at the pump-room door, timidly offering the tickets for her father's benefit concerts, to those when in her teens she was the belle of the Bath assemblies, none could resist her beseeching grace. Lovers and wooers flocked about her; Richard Walter Long, the Wiltshire miser, laid his thousands at her feet....