He had, indeed, as he had written to Boswell, been very unwell, and had come to Oxford for change of air, "struggling with so much infirmity of body, and such strong impressions of the fragility of life that death, whenever it appears, fills me with melancholy."
The Doctor must have looked as he does in the fine portrait of him by Reynolds, that hangs in Pembroke College, a most pathetic and noble production, in the wonderful combination of the clumsy, massive form with the tokens of mighty intellect, and the lines of constant suffering. The bright-eyed merry little woman, who talked to him fearlessly, and at thirty-seven seemed a mere girl to the man of seventy-three, must have been a great relief to his spirits.
Great mirth went on with the Kennicotts. Each of the party had a nickname. Dr. Kennicott was the Elephant, his wife the Dromedary, her sister the Antelope, and Miss More the Rhinoceros. Soon after leaving them she wrote, as a parody on the lengthy notes appended at that time to each single line of text:—
"Dear Dromy,
"Pray send word if Ante is come, and also how Ele does, to your very affectionate
"Rhiney."
"Notes on the above epistle by a commentator of the latter end of the nineteenth century.
