In 1776 Walpole wrote to his friend William Mason, "Lady Di Beauclerc has made seven large drawings in soot-water (her first attempt of the kind) for scenes of my Mysterious Mother. Oh! Such drawings! Guido's grace, Albano's children, Poussin's expression, Salvator's boldness in landscape and Andrea Sacchi's simplicity of composition might perhaps have equalled them had they wrought all together very fine."

Act II, Scene 2

Walpole's comment on the drawing: "In the scene of the children, some are evidently vulgar, the others children of rank; and the first child, that pretends to look down and does leer upwards, is charming. . . . These sublime drawings, the first histories she [Lady Di] ever attempted, were all conceived and executed in a fortnight."