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TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, June 11, 1770.

My company and I have wished for you very much today. The Duchess of Portland, Mrs. Delany, Mr. Bateman, and your cousin, Fred. Montagu, dined here. Lord Guildford was very obliging, and would have come if he dared have ventured. Mrs. Montagu was at Bill-hill with Lady Gower. The day was tolerable, with sun enough for the house, though not for the garden. You, I suppose, will never come again, as I have not a team of horses large enough to draw you out of the clay of Oxfordshire.

I went yesterday to see my niece1 in her new principality of Ham. It delighted me and made me peevish. Close to the Thames, in the centre of all rich and verdant beauty, it is so blocked up and barricaded with walls, vast trees, and gates, that you think yourself an hundred miles off and an hundred years back. The old furniture is so magnificently ancient, dreary and decayed, that at every step one's spirits sink, and all my passion for antiquity could not keep them up. Every minute I expected to see ghosts sweeping by; ghosts I would not give sixpence to see, Lauderdales, Tollemaches, and Maitlands. There is one old brown gallery full of Vandycks and Lelys, charming miniatures, delightful Wouvermans, and Polenburghs, china, japan, bronzes, ivory cabinets, and silver dogs, pokers, bellows, &c. without end. One pair of bellows is of filigree. In this state of pomp and tatters my nephew intends it shall remain, and is so religious an observer of the venerable rites of his house, that because the gates never were opened by his father but once for the late Lord Granville, you are locked out and locked in, and after journeying all round the house, as you do round an old French fortified town, you are at last admitted through the stable-yard to creep along a dark passage by the housekeeper's room, and so

'Charlotte, daughter of Sir Edward Walpole, married to Lord Huntingtower, who had just succeeded to the title of the Earl of Dysart, by the death of his father.-E.

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by a back-door into the great hall. He seems as much afraid of water as a cat; for though you might enjoy the Thames from every window of three sides of the house, you may tumble into it before you guess it is there. In short, our ancestors had so little idea of taste and beauty, that I should not have been surprised if they had hung their pictures with the painted sides to the wall. Think of such a palace commanding all the reach of Richmond and Twickenham, with a domain from the foot of Richmond-hill to Kingston-bridge, and then imagine its being as dismal and prospectless as if it stood "on Stanmore's wintry wild!" I don't see why a man should not be divorced from his prospect as well as from his wife, for not being able to enjoy it. Lady Dysart frets, but it is not the etiquette of the family to yield, and so she must content herself with her chateau of Tondertentronk as well as she can. She has another such ample prison in Suffolk, and may be glad to reside where she is. Strawberry, with all its painted glass and gloom, looked as gay when I came home as Mrs. Cornelis's ball-room.

I am very busy about the last volume of my Painters, but have lost my index, and am forced again to turn over all my Vertues, forty volumes of miniature MSS.; so that this will be the third time I shall have made an index to them. Don't say I am not persevering, and yet I thought I was grown idle. What pains one takes to be forgotten! Good night!

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, June 29, 1770.

SINCE the sharp mountain will not come to the little hill, the little hill must go to the mountain. In short, what do you think of seeing me walk into your parlour a few hours after this epistle! I had not time to notify myself sooner. The case is, Princess Amelia has insisted on my going with her to, that is, meeting her at, Stowe on Monday, for a week. She mentioned it to me some time ago, and I thought I had parried it; but having been with her at Park-place these two

or three days, she has commanded it so positively, that I could not refuse. Now, as it would be extremely inconvenient to my indolence to be dressed up in weepers and hatbands by six o'clock in the morning, and lest I should be taken for chief mourner going to Beckford's funeral, I trust you will be charitable enough to give me a bed at Adderbury for one night, whence I can arrive at Stowe in a decent time, and caparisoned as I ought to be, when I have lost a brother-inlaw, and am to meet a Princess. Don't take me for a Lausun, and think all this favour portends a second marriage between our family and the blood-royal; nor that my visit to Stowe implies my espousing Miss Wilkes. I think I shall die as I am, neither higher nor lower; and above all things, no more politics. Yet I shall have many a private smile to myself, as I wander among all those consecrated and desecrated buildings, and think what company I am in, and of all that is past; but I must shorten my letter, or you will not have finished it when I arrive. Adieu! Yours, a-coming! acoming!

'William Beckford, Esq. Lord Mayor of London, who died on the 21st of June, during his second mayoralty, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. On the 5th of the following month, at a meeting of the Common Council," a motion being made and question put, that the statue of the Right Hon. William Beckford, late Lord Mayor, deceased, be erected in the Guildhall of this city, with the inscription of his late address to his Majesty, the same was resolved in the affirmative." The speech here alluded to is the one which the Alderman addressed to his Majesty on the 23rd of May, with reference to the King's reply-" That he should have been wanting to the public, as well as to himself, if he had not expressed his dissatisfaction at the late address." At the end of the Alderman's speech, in his copy of the City Addresses, Mr. Isaac Reed has inserted the following note: "It is a curious fact, but a true one, that Beckford did not utter one syllable of this speech. It was penned by Horne Tooke, and by his art put on the records of the city and on Beckford's statue; as he told me, Mr. Braithwaite, Mr. Sayers, &c. at the Athenian Club. Isaac Reed." There can be little doubt, that the worthy commentator and his friends were imposed upon. In the Chatham Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 460, a letter from Sheriff Townsend to the Earl expressly states, that, with the exception of the words " and necessary" being left out before the word" revolution," the Lord Mayor's speech in the Public Advertiser of the preceding day is verbatim the one delivered to the King.-E.

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George third Earl of Cholmondeley. He married, in 1723, Mary, the youngest daughter of Sir Robert Walpole.-E.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Adderbury, Sunday night, July 1, 1770.

You will be enough surprised to receive a letter from me dated from your own house, and may judge of my mortification at not finding you here; exactly as it happened two years ago. In short, here I am, and will tell you how I came here; in truth, not a little against my will. I have been at Park-place with Princess Amelia, and she insisted on my meeting her at Stowe to-morrow. She had mentioned it before, and as I have no delight in a royal progress, and as little in the Seigneur Temple, I waived the honour and pleasure, and thought I should hear no more of it. However, the proposal was turned into a command, and everybody told me I could not refuse. Well, I could not come so near, and not call upon you; besides, it is extremely convenient to my Lord Castlecomer, for it would have been horrid to set out at seven o'clock in the morning, full-dressed in my weepers, and to step out of my chaise into a drawing-room. I wrote to you on Friday, the soonest I could after this was settled, to notify myself to you, but find I am arrived before my letter. Mrs. White is all goodness; and being the first of July, and consequently the middle of winter, has given me a good fire and some excellent coffee and bread and butter, and I am as comfortable as possible, except in having missed you. She insists on acquainting you, which makes me write this to prevent your coming; for as I must depart at twelve o'clock to-morrow, it would be dragging you home before your time for only half an hour, and I have too much regard for Lord Guildford to deprive him of your company. Don't therefore think of making this unnecessary compliment. I have treated your house like an inn, and it will not be friendly, if you do not make as free with me. I had much rather that you would take it for a visit that you ought to repay. Make my best compliments to your brother and Lord Guildford, and pity me for the six dreadful days I am going to pass. Rosette is fast asleep in your chair, or I am sure she would write a postscript.

say

I cannot she is either commanded or invited to be of this royal party; but have me, have my dog.

I must not forget to thank you for mentioning Mrs. Wetenhall, on whom I should certainly wait with great pleasure, but have no manner of intention of going into Cheshire. There is not a chair or stool in Cholmondeley, and my nephew, I believe, will pull it down. He has not a fortune to furnish or inhabit it; and, if his uncle should leave him one, he would choose a pleasanter country. Adieu! Don't be formal with me, and don't trouble your hand about yours ever.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, Saturday night, July 7, 1770.

AFTER making an inn of your house, it is but decent to thank you for my entertainment, and to acquaint you with the result of my journey. The party passed off much better than I expected. A Princess at the head of a very small set for five days together did not promise well. However, she was very good-humoured and easy, and dispensed with a large quantity of etiquette. Lady Temple is good-nature itself, my lord was very civil, Lord Besborough is made to suit all sorts of people, Lady Mary Coke respects royalty too much not to be very condescending, Lady Anne Howard1 and Mrs. Middleton filled up the drawing-room, or rather made it out, and I was so determined to carry it off as well as I could, and happened to be in such good spirits, and took such care to avoid politics, that we laughed a great deal, and had not one cloud the whole time.

We breakfasted at half an hour after nine; but the Princess did not appear till it was finished; then we walked in the garden, or drove about in cabriolets, till it was time to dress; dined at three, which, though properly proportioned to the smallness of company to avoid ostentation, lasted a vast while, as the Princess eats and talks a great deal; then again

'Lady Anne Howard, daughter of Henry fourth Earl, and sister of Frederick fifth Earl of Carlisle.-E.

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