In a
marginal note on one of the printed letters in which Johnson writes:
"Mrs. Davenant says you regain your health,"--she remarks: "Mrs.
Davenant neither knew nor cared, as she wanted her brother Harry
Cotton to marry Lady Keith, and I offered my estate with her. Miss
Thrale said she wished to have nothing to do either with my family or
my fortune. They were all cruel and all insulting." Her fits of
irritation and despondency never lasted long.
Her mode of bringing up her adopted nephew was more in accordance
with her ultimate liberality, than with her early intentions or
professions of teaching him to "work his way among our islanders."
Instead of suffering him to travel to and from the University by
coach, she insisted on his travelling post; and she is said to have
remarked to the mother of a Welsh baronet, who was similarly anxious
for the comfort and dignity of her heir, "Other people's children are
baked in coarse common pie dishes, ours in patty-pans."
She was misreported, or afterwards improved upon the thought; for, in
June 1810, she writes to Dr. Gray: "He is a boy of excellent
principle. Education at a private school has an effect like baking
loaves in a tin. The bread is more insipid, but it comes out _clean_;
and Mr. Gray laughed, when at breakfast this morning, our undercrusts
suggested the comparison."
In the Conway Notes, she says:
"Had we vexations enough? We had certainly many pleasures. The house
in Wales was beautiful, and the Boy was beautiful too.
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