Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/331

Rh she knew would in the highest degree add to the happiness of her own life. Her grace succeeded in her solicitations. Mrs. Delany now passed her time between London and Bulstrode. On the death of the duchess dowager of Portland, the king, who had frequently seen and honoured her with his notice at Bulstrode, assigned her for a summer residence the use of a house completely furnished, in St. Alban's-street, Windsor, adjoining to the entrance of the castle; and, that the having two houses on her hands might not produce any inconvenience with regard to the expence of her living, his majesty, as a farther mark of his royal favour, conferred on her a pension of three hundred pounds a-year. On the 15th of April, 1788, after a short indisposition, she died at her house in St. James's-place, having nearly completed the 88th year of her age. The circumstance that has principally entitled Mrs. Delany to a place in this Dictionary, is her skill in painting, and in other ingenious arts, one of which was entirely her own. With respect to painting, she was late in her application to it. She did not learn to draw till she was more than thirty years of age, when she put herself under the instruction of Goupy, a fashionable master of that time, and much employed by Frederick, Prince of Wales. To oil painting she did not take till she was past forty. So strong was her passion for this art, that she has frequently been known to employ herself in it, day after day, from six o'clock in the morning till dinner time, allowing only a short interval for breakfast. She was principally a copyist, but a very fine one. The only considerable original work of hers in oil, was the raising of Lazarus, in the possession of her friend lady Bute. The number of pictures painted by her, considering how late it was in life before she applied herself to the