Note 66 — Chapter V

Miss Burney’s account is confirmed in every important particular by Walpole, who states that he had his information from Mrs. Delany’s own mouth: Walpole to Lady Ossory, September 17, 1785. Lady Llanover, who edited the ‘Delany Correspondence,’ is wroth that the thankful recipient of all this minute bounty should be accused of having been helped in her housekeeping by the Duchess of Portland. In the ‘Memoirs of Dr. Burney’ (vol. iii., p. 50), it is stated that the Duchess, who visited at Mrs. Delany’s nearly every evening, contrived to assist the ménage, without offending her hostess by the offer of money. If Madame d’Arblay erred in this statement—and Lady Llanover by no means satisfies us that she did err—surely the mistake was a most venial one. But Lady Llanover’s outraged dignity fumes through hundreds of pages in feeble sneers at Fanny’s low origin, and still more feeble attempts to convict her of inaccuracy. Noblesse oblige.