Anne Home Hunter and her friends / [Jane M. Oppenheimer].

  • Oppenheimer, Jane M. (Jane Marion), 1911-1996.
Date:
[1946]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Anne Home Hunter and her friends / [Jane M. Oppenheimer]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/20 (page 441)
    Excuse my giving you this trouble, dear Sir, and believe me with most true regard Your most obedient Humble servant, ORFORD.23 Anne, for her part, did not sever her ties with Walpole after her hus¬ band’s death, as we know from his note of i June 1795: “lord orford is extremely obliged to Mrs. Dickenson for treating him with these very pretty and interesting lines of Mrs. Hunter, to whom he begs a thousand affectionate compliments.”24 Walpole’s personal affection for Anne sheds interesting light on the characters of both. Walpole’s respect for her talents is not, however, the only measure we have of her literary abilities. She published two volumes of her writings, the Poems, dedicated to her son John Banks Hunter, published first in 1802, later to pass through a second edition, and the Sports of the Genii, published in 1804. The latter was dedicated “to the memory of Susan Macdonald, eldest daughter of the Right Honourable Archibald Macdonald, Lord Chief Baron of England, and the Right Honourable Lady Louisa Macdonald; who died at Lisbon, where she went for the recovery of her health, March, 1803, in the zzd year of her age.”26 According to the introduction to the Sports of the Genii, the volume took its “rise from the beautiful groups of winged boys which filled the portfolio of Miss Macdonald, who was in the habit of im¬ agining and sketching them with the greatest facility.”26 Anne’s connec¬ tions with the Macdonalds were clearly close ones. Her friendship with Lady Louisa has been noted above by Walpole. It was Sir Archibald who, as Lord Chief Baron, helped William Eden, first Baron Auckland, in pro¬ curing the King’s Bounty for Anne when John died; from 1797 until 1802 she lived within a few doors of him in Duke Street, and she owned an enamel portrait of him by Bone, copied from an oil at Oxford, which she bequeathed in her will to his daughter. Her words, however, were on the lips of more than those who read her ,J Ibid., 15. 229-30. u Ibid. 15. 345. Mrs. Dickenson was Mary Hamilton Dickenson, a grand-daughter of the third Duke of Hamilton, an assistant sub- governess to the young daughters of George III, and a friend of various members of the bluestocking group, including Hannah A4ore and Mrs. Delany. Je Hunter, Sports of the Genii, dedication, n,p. The dedicatory plate was drawn by Masquerier, who painted Anne Hunter’s por¬ trait and perhaps that of her daughter, Lady Campbell. These portraits are reproduced by Peachey, A Memoir of William & John Hunter, facing p. 236 and p. 242. They are not reproduced here because it has been im¬ possible to locate the present owner of the copyright of Peachey’s book. 28 Hunter, op. cit., introduction, n.p.