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Royal Tunbridge Wells
coterie, went to Tunbridge Wells in 1761, eagerly looking forward to meeting her friend Mrs. Montagu. " How we shall enjoy our-selves ! " she wrote from Deal, on June 27 of that year. " The very thought of it does me good; you may judge what I have to hope from the reality." Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Vesey— the latter once the object of Laurence Sterne's adoration—were there in 1775, and Mrs. Vesey again so late as 1787. In the following year Lady Anne Lindsay, the author of Auld Robin Gray was there, and was described by Sheridan's sister Betsy, who was at the watering-place with her father, as being " so bedevilled by dress, I should not have known her. She wore a thick muslin rondeau cap covering the hair, a ' Gypsey ' hat of black and white chip circles, a black and white spotted petticoat, and over it a black cloth great-coat and a thin muslin neckerchief."
Malone was at " The Wells " in 1792, but the person next in importance to Johnson and Richardson in the literary hierarchy was Fanny Burney, who, in company with the Thrales, stayed there in October 1779, en route for Brighton. " The Sussex Hotel, where we lived," she wrote, " is situated at the 108 |
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