Madame d'Arblay, called her ‘the fairest model of female excellence of the days that were passed.’ She was fairly educated, and her flower mosaic was astonishing for a lady of over seventy. But the letters are chiefly interesting as specimens of the commonplace gossip of good society in the eighteenth century. A little literature then went a long way in a woman, and Mrs. Delany was treated as an intellectual equal by Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Chapone, Mrs. Carter, and the other respectable females of literary tastes. Even Horace Walpole speaks of her with respect. Her portrait was twice painted by Opie, for George III and for Lady Bute. The former picture was placed at Hampton Court.
[Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs. Delany, ed. by Lady Llanover, 1st series, 3 vols. 1861, 2nd series, 3 vols. 1862; Gent. Mag. for 1788, pp. 371, 462; Nichols's Anecd. iv. 715; Biog. Brit. (information from George Keats and Mrs. Delany's nephew, Court Dewes); Letters of Mrs. Delany to Mrs. Frances Hamilton, from 1779 to 1788, 1820; Mme. d'Arblay's Diary; Memoirs of Dr. Burney, ii. 300–14, iii. 45–62, 103–5; Walpole's Letters; Swift's Works.]
DELANY, PATRICK (1685?–1768), divine, was born in Ireland in 1685 or 1686. His father was servant to an Irish judge, Sir John Russell, and afterwards held a small farm. Patrick Delany obtained a sizarship at Trinity College, Dublin. He took the usual degrees, was elected to a junior, and then to a senior fellowship, and was tutor of the college. We are told that Sir Constantine Phipps, the Irish chancellor, intended to give him some preferment, but Phipps lost office upon the death of Queen Anne. Delany was a popular preacher and tutor, and is said to have made from 900l. to 1,000l. a year by his pupils. When Swift settled in Dublin after Queen Anne's death, Delany became one of his intimates. Delany and Sheridan joined with Swift in the composition of various trifles, though Delany maintained his dignity more than Swift's other companions. The intimacy had begun before 10 Nov. 1718, the date of some verses addressed by Swift to Delany praising his conversational powers, and requesting him to advise Sheridan to keep his jests within the bounds of politeness. He shared Swift's political prejudices. In 1724 he supported some students who had been expelled by the provost, and defended their case in a college sermon. He was compelled to apologise to the provost. In 1725 he had been presented to the parish of St. John's in Dublin. Archbishop Boulter [q. v.] successfully resisted his application for a dispensation to hold this living with his fellowship. Boulter's letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury upon this occasion shows that Delany was thought to have a dangerous influence in the college against the government. In 1727 Lord Carteret became lord-lieutenant, and was on friendly terms with Swift, who urged the claims to preferment of his friend Delany. In the same year Delany was presented by the university to a small living in the north, and Lord Carteret gave him the chancellorship of Christ Church. In 1729 Carteret also gave him a prebend in St. Patrick's, and in 1730 he became chancellor of St. Patrick's. Delany, however, had been extravagant, and his whole income was little over 300l. a year. In a poetical epistle to Lord Carteret (about 1729) he still asks for further preferment. Swift had a temporary coolness with Delany, whom he thought too much of a courtier. Some of Swift's poems at this time take Delany to task for his vanity, extravagance, subservience, and jealousy of Sheridan (see Swift's poems of 1729), but the coolness passed off. Delany afterwards annoyed Swift by inducing him to patronise the Pilkingtons, who turned out badly; but they continued to be on good terms, and Swift calls Delany (to Barber, March 1737–8) the ‘most eminent preacher we have.’ In the same year Delany published a periodical called the ‘Tribune,’ which ran through twenty numbers. He had become reconciled to Boulter, who in 1731 gave him an introduction to Bishop Gibson, calling him one of ‘our most celebrated preachers.’ Delany was going to London to arrange for the publication of his ‘Revelations examined with Candour,’ the first volume of which appeared in 1732, and the second in 1734; a third was added in 1763. In 1732 he married Margaret Tenison, a rich widow, with 1,600l. a year, according to Swift (Letter to Gay, 12 Aug. 1732). Delany's income from his preferments is estimated at 700l. a year, and though he was 1,000l. in debt (Brown, Cases in Parliament, v. 303), he presented 20l. a year to be distributed among the students of Trinity College. Swift tells Pope soon afterwards (January 1732–3) that Delany was one of the very few men not spoilt by an access of fortune, and praises his hospitality and generosity, which often left him without money as before. Delany, he says soon afterwards (8 July 1733), is the only gentleman he knows who can maintain a regular and decorous hospitality, having seven or eight friends at dinner once a week. Delany's book, though orthodox in intention, was fanciful, and he was ridiculed for main-
