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GeneralPaoli.

(Fanny Burney to Mr. crisp.)
Oct. 15, 1782.

.....I am very sorry you could not come to Streatham at the time
Mrs. Thrale hoped to see you, for when shall we be likely to meet
there again?   You would have been much pleased, I am sure, by
meeting with General Paoli,’ who spent the day there, and was
extremely communicative and agreeable.   I had seen him in large
companies, but was never made known to him before; nevertheless,
he conversed with me as if well acquainted not only with myself,
but my connexions,—­inquiring of me when I had last seen Mrs.
Montagu? and calling Sir Joshua Reynolds, when he spoke of him,
my friend.   He is a very pleasing man, tall and genteel in his
person, remarkably well bred, and very mild and soft in his
manners.

I will try to give you a little specimen of his conversation, because I know you love to hear particulars of all out-of-theway persons.  His English is blundering but not unpretty.  Speaking of his first acquaintance with Mr. Boswell,—­

“He came,” he said, “to my country, and he fetched me some letter of recommending him; but I was of the belief he

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might be an impostor, and I supposed, in my minte, he was an espy; for I look away from him, and in a moment I look to him again, and I behold his tablets.  Oh! he was to the work of writing down all I say!  Indeed I was angry.  But soon I discover he was no impostor and no espy; and I only find I was myself the monster he had come to discern.  Oh,-is a very good man!  I love him indeed; so cheerful! so gay! so pleasant! but at the first, oh!  I was indeed angry.”

After this he told us a story of an expectation he had of being robbed, and of the protection he found from a very large dog that he is very fond of. "

I walk out,” he said, “in the night; I go towards the field; I behold a man—­oh, ugly one!  I proceed—­he follow; I go on—­he address me.  ‘You have one dog,’ he says.  ‘Yes,’ say I to him.  ‘Is a fierce dog?’ he says; ‘is he fiery?’ ‘Yes,’ reply I, ’he can bite.’  ‘I would not attack in the night,’ says he, ’a house to have such dog in it.’  Then I conclude he was a breaker” so I turn to him—–­oh, very rough! not gentle—­and I say, very fierce, ‘He shall destroy you, if you are ten!’”

Afterwards, speaking of the Irish giant, who is now shown in town, he said,-

“He is so large I am as a baby!  I look at him—­oh!  I find myself so little as a child!  Indeed, my indignation it rises when I see him hold up his hand so high.  I am as nothing; and I find myself in the power of a man who fetches from me half a crown.”

This language, which is all spoke very pompously by him, sounds comical from himself, though I know not how it may read.

(136 Sir Philip Jennings Clerke.-Ed,

(137) Mauritius Lowe, a natural son of Lord Southwell.  He sent a large picture of the Deluge to the Royal Academy in 1783, and was so distressed at its rejection, that Johnson compassionately wrote to Sirjoshua Reynolds in his behalf, entreating that the verdict might be re-considered.  His intercession was successful, and the picture was admitted.  We know nothing of Mr. Lowe’s work.-Ed.