“We found they were both daughters of our hostess, and born and bred at Devizes. We were extremely pleased with them, and made them a long visit, which I wished to have been longer. But though those pretty girls struck us so much, the wonder of the family was yet to be produced. This was their brother, a most lovely boy of ten years of age, who seems to be not merely the wonder of their family, but of the times, for his astonishing skill in drawing.[48] They protest he has never had any instruction, yet showed us some of his productions that were really beautiful. Those that were copies were delightful—those of his own composition amazing, though far inferior. I was equally struck with the boy and his works. “We found that he had been taken to town, and that all the painters had been very kind to him, and Sir Joshua Reynolds had pronounced him, the mother said, the most promising genius he had ever met with. Mr. Hoare[49] has been so charmed with this sweet boy’s drawings that he intends sending him to Italy with his own son. “This house was full of books, as well as paintings, drawings, and music; and all the family seem not only ingenious and industrious, but amiable; added to which, they are strikingly handsome.” A chief topic of conversation at this time in Bath was Lady Miller’s vase at Batheaston. Horace Walpole mentions this vase, and the use to which it was put: ‘They hold a Parnassus-fair every Thursday, give out rhymes and themes, and all the flux at Bath contend for the prizes. A Roman vase, dressed with pink ribbons and myrtles, receives the poetry, which is drawn out every festival. Six judges of these Olympic games retire, and select the brightest composition.’ Fanny met Lady Miller, whom she describes with her usual candour: ‘Lady Miller is a round, plump, coarse-looking dame of about forty, and while all her aim is to appear an elegant woman of fashion, all her success is to seem an ordinary woman in very common life, with fine clothes on. Her habits are bustling, her air is mock-important, and her manners very inelegant.’ In the midst of a round of gaieties, the Thrale party attended a reception at Batheaston. The rooms were crowded; but it being now June, the business of the vase was over for that season, and the sacred vessel itself had been removed. On returning to their lodging, they received the news of the Gordon Riots. Next morning Mrs. Thrale had letters acquainting her that her town-house had been three times attacked, but saved by the Guards, with the children, plate, and valuables, which were removed. Streatham had also been threatened and emptied of all its furniture. The same day a Bath newspaper denounced Mr. Thrale as a papist. The brewer was now in a critical state of health, and it became necessary to remove him without exciting his alarm. Miss Burney was employed to break the matter to him, and obtained his consent to an immediate departure.