“Miss Thrale seems just verging on her teens. She is certainly handsome, and her beauty is of a peculiar sort; fair, round, firm, and cherubimical; with its chief charm exactly where lies the mother’s failure—namely, in the mouth. She is reckoned cold and proud; but I believe her to be merely shy and reserved; you, however, would have liked her, and called her a girl of fashion; for she was very silent, but very observant; and never looked tired, though she never uttered a syllable.
“Miss Owen, who is a relation of Mrs. Thrale’s, is good-humoured and sensible enough. She is a sort of butt, and as such is a general favourite; though she is a willing, and not a mean butt; for she is a woman of family and fortune. But those sort of characters are prodigiously popular, from their facility of giving liberty of speech to the wit and pleasantry of others, without risking for themselves any return of the ‘retort courteous.’
“Mr. Seward, who seems to be quite at home among them, appears to be a penetrating, polite, and agreeable young man. Mrs. Thrale says of him, that he does good to every body, but speaks well of nobody.
“The conversation was supported with a great deal of vivacity, as usual when il Signor Padrone is at home; but I can write you none of it, as I was still in the same twitter, twitter, twitter, I have acknowledged, to see Dr. Johnson. Nothing could have heightened my impatience—unless Pope could have been brought to life again—or, perhaps, Shakespeare!
“This confab. was broken up by a duet between your Hettina and, for the first time to company-listeners, Suzette; who, however, escaped much fright, for she soon found she had no musical critics to encounter in Mrs. Thrale and Mr. Seward, or Miss Owen; who know not a flat from a sharp, nor a crotchet from a quaver. But every knowledge is not given to every body—except to two gentle wights of my acquaintance; the one commonly hight il Padre, and the other il Dadda. Do you know any such sort of people, Sir?
“Well, in the midst of this performance, and before the second movement was come to a close,—Dr. Johnson was announced!
“Now, my dear Mr. Crisp, if you like a description of emotions and sensations—but I know you treat them all as burlesque—so let’s proceed.