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But his reputation was still obscure; and his connections did not develop into intimacies. He lived as a recluse and avoided society. His introduction to great people at Bowood had apparently rather increased than softened his shyness. The little circle of intimates, Romilly and Wilson and his own brother, must have satisfied his needs for social intercourse.
"Miss Berry," the elder of the famous sisters who began by fascinating Horace Walpole and ended by charming Thackeray: "Donna Agnes" was the younger. In the second letter the "hotel" is his new parsonage in Somerset: "Bowood," Lord Lansdowne's Wiltshire house, a great Whig rallying place. I suppose "Sea-shore Calcott" is Sir A. W. Calcott the painter.
During her brilliant fortnight at Bowood where, besides Madame de Stael, her Albertine, M. de Stael, and Count Palmella, there were the Romillys, the Macintoshes, Mr. Ward, Mr. Rogers, and M. Dumont if it had not been for chess-playing, music, and dancing between times, poor human nature never could have borne the strain of attention and admiration. Jan. 1, 1814.
At Inverary he would not let Boswell call before dinner lest it should look like fishing for an invitation; and when he dined there the next day and sat next the Duke, he did not refrain, even in that Whig holy of holies, from chaffing about one of the Campbells who "had been bred a violent Whig but afterwards kept better company and became a Tory"! So once, when he dined at Bowood with Lord Shelburne he refused to repeat a story at the request of his host, saying that he would not be dragged in as story-teller to the company.
In the Dresden Gallery there is 'A Jewish Cemetery, 'full of melancholy. Three of Ruysdael's fine waterfalls are in the National Gallery. Of two very grand storms which he painted one is in the Louvre, the other in the collection of the Marquis of Lansdowne at Bowood. There are many of Ruysdael's pictures in England.
He now rapidly formed an intimacy with Bentham, who went to stay at Bowood in the autumn of 1781.
It argues no political bias to maintain that, in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, Toryism offered to its neophytes no educational opportunities equal to those which a young Whig enjoyed at Chatsworth and Bowood and Woburn and Holland House. Here the best traditions of the previous century were constantly reinforced by accessions of fresh intellect.
Morgann of Johnson and himself, and that the scene has been wrongly transferred from Wickham to Bowood. The same writer says that it was between Derrick and Boyce not Derrick and Smart that Johnson, in the story that follows, could not settle the precedency. See ante, i. 124, 394. See ante, i. 397.
Breakfast is very pleasant in this house, and the two good sisters look so neat and cheerful. Oct 15. We went to see Mrs. Barbauld at Stoke Newington. She was gratified by our visit, and very kind and agreeable. BOWOOD, Nov. 3, 1818. We have just returned to dear Bowood.
Bowles, the poet, or as Lord Byron calls him, the sonneteer; she admired his sonnets, and his Spirit of Maritime Discovery, and ranked him high as an English genius. In riding to Bowood he fell, and sprained his shoulder, but still came on. Lord Lansdowne alluded to this in presenting him to Madame de Stael before dinner in the midst of the listening circle.
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