264 HOME LIFE IN LONDON CHAP. 



at Warrington, a girl of seventeen years, spirited, warm- 

 tempered and impulsive ; and all the sights and interests 

 of London were new to her. Much company, she tells 

 us, came to her uncle's house ; there were often guests 

 to breakfast, and on certain days this meal was especially 

 open to medical visitors and others. Dr. Lettsom, then 

 a young man entering upon practice, was a frequent 

 caller. He was fond of the young ladies, and often 

 escorted them to view the sights of the town, but they 

 smiled at his foibles, which were rather apparent. The 

 two nieces must have been attractive girls, for we read 

 of many young men coming in and out, freely criticised 

 by the pen of the diarist, who tells of the airs of a young 

 fop with his lily-white handkerchief, and of others who 

 were sensible, ill-mannered or stupid. Visitors of a 

 different sort were travelling ministers of the Friends, 

 such as Catherine Pay ton, of whom we are told " she 

 condescended to speak to me ; the divinity which sits 

 upon her countenance " not hindering her from proving 

 a cheerful companion. 



The Fothergills moved in the best Quaker society in 

 the city, then full of the residences of merchants. They 

 visited David Barclay in his fine house in Cheapside, with 

 his consort and lovely daughter Agatha. The Gurneys, 

 the Bevans of Plow Court, John Eliot of Bartholomew 

 Close, Abraham Gray of Newgate Street, the Capel 

 Hanburys of Mark Lane, the Corbyns of Bartholomew 

 Square, the Fosters of Bromley and the Beaufoys of 

 Cuper's Bridge were among their friends, and our young 

 critic passes her ready judgment on all, blaming here and 

 praising there, as she thinks fit. 



But neither young nor old are to be compared with 

 her uncle, the doctor. " He received me," she writes, 

 " with that cheerful benignity which is his peculiar 

 character." Fothergill was at this date fifty-seven years 

 of age, and in the full tide of his influence and fame. 



She died in 1834. MS. Testimonies, vi. 76, Frds. Ref. Lib. A letter from 

 Betty Fothergill to Priscilla Pitts (12.8.1770), describing her journey home, 

 is among the Dimsdale MSS. See also H. F. Chorley, Autobiography, 1873. 



