DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61291#0073
OUR ILLUSTRATIONS
5i
distinction,” and Mrs. Tickell’s own raptures
over it are fully justified. In a letter to Mrs.
Sheridan, dated November 2nd, 1785, she says :
“When I came home last night I found our
picture come home from Gainsborough very
much improved and freshened up. My father
and mother are quite in raptures over it. Indeed
it is, in my opinion, the best and handsomest of
you that I have ever seen.”
It must have been during the earlier part ot
Gainsborough’s residence at Bath that he first
met Eliza Linley, the future Mrs. Sheridan.
She was the daughter of a Doctor of Music, of
whom Dr. Burney said that, “having a large
family, he pointed his studies to music, and
became the first master of the day.” His children
were “ a nest of nightingales ”; and Fanny
Burney, writing in 1773, declares that he “bound
his daughter Eliza as his apprentice till she
was twenty-one, and insisted on her working
out her time.” From the age of eight or nine
years she was celebrated for her beauty, and
used to sell her father’s benefit tickets at the
door of the Pump-room at Bath, reaping a rich
harvest as she gracefully held out her little
basket.
In 1771 she was betrothed, without being
5i
distinction,” and Mrs. Tickell’s own raptures
over it are fully justified. In a letter to Mrs.
Sheridan, dated November 2nd, 1785, she says :
“When I came home last night I found our
picture come home from Gainsborough very
much improved and freshened up. My father
and mother are quite in raptures over it. Indeed
it is, in my opinion, the best and handsomest of
you that I have ever seen.”
It must have been during the earlier part ot
Gainsborough’s residence at Bath that he first
met Eliza Linley, the future Mrs. Sheridan.
She was the daughter of a Doctor of Music, of
whom Dr. Burney said that, “having a large
family, he pointed his studies to music, and
became the first master of the day.” His children
were “ a nest of nightingales ”; and Fanny
Burney, writing in 1773, declares that he “bound
his daughter Eliza as his apprentice till she
was twenty-one, and insisted on her working
out her time.” From the age of eight or nine
years she was celebrated for her beauty, and
used to sell her father’s benefit tickets at the
door of the Pump-room at Bath, reaping a rich
harvest as she gracefully held out her little
basket.
In 1771 she was betrothed, without being