New scenes, and of deeper interest, presented themselves ere long. A lovely female, in the bloom of youth, equally high in a double celebrity, the most rarely accorded to her sex, of beauty and of wit, and exquisite in her possession of both, made an assault upon the eyes, the understanding, and the heart of Mr. Greville; so potent in its first attack, and so varied in its after stages, that, little as he felt at that time disposed to barter his boundless liberty, his desultory pursuits, and his brilliant, though indefinite expectations, for a bondage so narrow, so derogatory to the swing of his wild will, as that of marriage appeared to him; he was caught by so many charms, entangled in so many inducements, and inflamed by such a whirl of passions, that he soon almost involuntarily surrendered to the
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besieger; not absolutely at discretion, but very unequivocally from resistless impulse.
This lady was Miss Fanny Macartney, the third daughter of Mr. Macartney, a gentleman of large fortune, and of an ancient Irish family.
In Horace Walpole’s Beauties, Miss Fanny Macartney was the Flora.
In Greville’s Maxims, Characters, and Reflections, she was also Flora, contrasted with Camilla, who was meant for Mrs. Garrick.
Miss Fanny Macartney was of a character which, at least in its latter stages, seems to demand two pencils to delineate; so diversely was it understood, or appreciated.
To many she passed for being pedantic, sarcastic, and supercilious: as such, she affrighted the timid, who shrunk into silence; and braved the bold, to whom she allowed no quarter. The latter, in truth, seemed to stimulate exertions which brought her faculties into play; and which—besides creating admiration in all who escaped her shafts—appeared to offer to herself a mental exercise, useful to her health, and agreeable to her spirits.
Her understanding was truly masculine; not from being harsh or rough, but from depth, soundness, and
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capacity; yet her fine small features, and the whole style of her beauty, looked as if meant by Nature for the most feminine delicacy: but her voice, which had something in it of a croak; and her manner, latterly at least, of sitting, which was that of lounging completely at her ease, in such curves as she found most commodious, with her head alone upright; and her eyes commonly fixed, with an expression rather alarming than flattering, in examination of some object that caught her attention; probably caused, as they naturally excited, the hard general notion to her disadvantage above mentioned.
This notion, nevertheless, though almost universally harboured in the circle of her public acquaintance, was nearly reversed in the smaller circles that came more in contact with her feelings. By this last must be understood, solely, the few who were happy enough to possess her favour; and to them she was a treasure of ideas and of variety. The keenness of her satire yielded its asperity to the zest of her good-humour, and the kindness of her heart. Her noble indifference to superior rank, if placed in opposition to superior merit; and her delight in comparing notes with those with whom she desired to balance opinions, established her, in her own
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elected set, as one of the first of women. And though the fame of her beauty must pass away in the same oblivious rotation which has withered that of her rival contemporaries, the fame of her intellect must ever live, while sensibility may be linked with poetry, and the Ode to In............