Mary Delany

She was the niece of George Granville, Lord Lansdowne, who in his youth exchanged verses and compliments with Edmund Waller, and who was among the first to applaud the opening genius of Pope, She had married Dr. Delaney, a man known to his contemporaries as a profound scholar and an eloquent preacher, but remembered in our time chiefly as one of that small circle in which the fierce spirit of Swift, tortured by disappointed ambition, by remorse, and by the approaches of madness, sought for amusement and repose.

Doctor Delany had long been dead.

His widow nobly descended, eminently accomplished, and retaining in spite of the infirmities of advanced age, the vigour of her faculties and the serenity of her temper, enjoyed and deserved the favour of the royal family.

She had a pension of three hundred a year, and a house at Windsor belonging to the Crown had been fitted up for her accommodation.