Page:Hannah More (1887 Charlotte Mary Yonge British).djvu/191

Rh Thomas Acland, the other for Mr. Lovell Gwatkin, whose family had been her friends from early youth. A sweet-faced, bright-eyed old woman is shown, small and spare, of the fairy godmother type, in the close cap, with the frilled chin-stay and double ruffle then held to be appropriate to advanced age, but still with much of the life and fire of the sprightly young woman with powdered curls pourtrayed by Opie more than forty years before, in the merry days of Hampton and the Bas Bleu.

The last remnants of those days were passing fast away. Mrs. Vesey, the Sylph, had long since died, after long failure of intellect; Mrs. Montague had died in 1800, Mrs. Boscawen some years later; and Mrs. More had lived to read with sad interest the memoirs not only of Johnson and Horace Walpole, but of Elizabeth Carter. And in the October of 1821 she wrote:—

"I was much affected yesterday with a report of the death of my ancient and valued friend, Mrs. Garrick. She was in her hundredth year. I spent above twenty winters under her roof, and gratefully remember not only their personal kindness but my first introduction through them into a society remarkable for rank, literature, and talents. Whatever was most distinguished in either was to be found at their table. He was the very soul of conversation."

Sir William Pepys was the last remnant of these