"AN EXTRAORDINARY MAN 



isor Castle. That * man should be "wretched" 

 and " in danger of who had eetabliahed himself 



at Bath and wan making a large income there, 1 poinU 

 to something more serious than the could realise or 

 wished to repeat Probably the equerries knew about 

 it, and, without revealing secrete, gave her an indis- 

 tinct Lira that something was or had been seriously 

 wrong. 



the very end of 1786, Miss Burney is still in 

 rapture*: "This morning my dear father carried me 

 t<> Ih llerachel. That great and very extraordinary 

 man received us almost with open arms. He is very 

 fond of my father, who is one of the council of the 

 Royal Society this year, as well as himself." The 

 fondness and hip must have been common- 



place, when, twelve years later, Dr. Burney did not 

 know that Dr. Henchel had been married for ten 

 years, and was the father of a son six years of age. 

 But the young lady's admiration known no abatement 

 months after, it rises to, M Dr. Uerschcl is a 

 delightful man ; so unassuming with his great know- 

 ledge, so willing to dispense it to the ignorant, and 



eerful and easy in his general manners that, were 

 he no g< would be impossible not to remark 



him as a pleasing and sensible man." Miss Burney s 

 picture is not over-coloured, according to the evidence 



her eye-witnesses. She was then thirty-four yean 

 of age, and seven years after married a French emi- 

 grant, without fortune and without prospects. En- 

 thusiasm such as she showed for William Henchel, 



p. 331, " WM called ftora hi* lucrative employment at 



Bath." 





