When I was in London the first time Lord Radstock introduced me to Mrs
Emmerson she has been known as a very
pretty woman & [it] is not a miss still
& a woman's pretty face is often very dangerous to her common
sense for the notion she has received
in her young days throws affectation about her feelings which she has not got shot of yet for she fancys that her friends are admirers
of her person as a matter of course & act accordingly which happens in the eyes of a stranger as
delicious enough but the grotesque
wears off on becoming acquainted with better qualities & better qualities she certainly has to
counter ballance them
She at once woud [be] the best friend I found & my expectations are looking no further
then correspondence with me early in my public life & grew pretty thick as it went on I fancyd it a pretty [thing] to correspond
with a lady & by degrees I grew up
into an admirer sometimes foolishly
when I could not account for what I did & I then after requested her
portrait & then I reccollect
ridiculously enough alluding to Lord
Nelsons Lady Hamilton she sent it
& flattered my vanity in return It was beautifully drawn by Behnes the
sculptor But bye & bye my
knowledge of the world weakened my romantic feelings I gave up in friendship & lost in
flattery
afterwards she took to patronizing one of Colridges who had written a visionary ode on Beauty in
Knights Quarterly Magazine in whom she discovered much genius she called him On that strike one of the first Lyne poets in England --
she soon wisht for her picture agen & I readily agreed to part with
it for the artificial flower of folly
had run to seed
Pet MS B3 p82
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