Except in the presence of her young grand-niece Mary Port,[65] Mrs. Delany’s house had little charm of liveliness. The chief persons that frequented it belonged to the same generation as the Duchess of Portland, who spent most of her evenings there. A sombre figure in that peculiar assembly was Lady Wallingford, the impoverished widow of a gaming peer, and a daughter of the speculator Law. This lady, who never opened her lips, invariably appeared in full mourning dress, wearing a black silk robe, a hoop, long ruffles, a winged cap, and other appendages of an attire that even then was obsolete. Another visitor was the Countess of Bute, wife of George III.’s early favourite, and daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. The elderly wit Horace Walpole often joined a circle in which his old-fashioned pleasantry was still received with the old applause. Fanny, who had met him elsewhere, thought that he never showed to such advantage as when surrounded by those stately dowagers. And while Horace, and most of the other callers, had, more or less, the air of having outlived their age, the lady to whom they paid their respects had passed the better portion of her life in a still more remote period. She encouraged Miss Burney to turn over Swift’s letters to her; and her most interesting anecdotes related to the days of the Dean, and Pope, and Young. Perhaps it was, in part, some memory of the time when she herself had shared the talk of men of letters, that made her take to the young writer who had done more to raise the literary credit of women than Mrs. Montagu, or Hannah More, or the whole tribe of blue-stockings united. The admired of Johnson, Burke and Reynolds was both a more entertaining guest, and a greater ornament to her drawing-room, than the respectable Mrs. Chapone, the learned Mrs. Carter, or even ‘the high-bred, elegant’ Mrs. Boscawen. And, whatever may have been said at a later date by distant connections of Mrs. Delany, soured by a peevish family pride which _she_ disdained, her own published letters prove that she not merely appreciated Fanny’s talents, but understood and valued her character. At one time she declares that ‘Evelina’ and ‘Cecilia,’ excellent as she finds them, are their author’s meanest praise, and goes on to extol ‘her admirable understanding, tender affection and sweetness of manners;’ after three years’ experience she writes of her companion: ‘Her extreme diffidence of herself, notwithstanding her great genius, and the applause she has met with, adds lustre to all her excellences, and all improve on acquaintance.’ It is scarcely too much to say that the correspondence in which these lines occur would never have been printed but for Miss Burney. The love and esteem expressed in her Diary have almost alone saved Mrs. Delany’s name from utter oblivion; it would be strange indeed had such regard gone unrequited by its object.