the Third, and beg his cousin Tom Hearne to get him some chairs for it of mahogany gilt, and covered with blue damask. Adieu! I have not a minute's time more.

854. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Huntingdon, May 30, 1763.

As you interest yourself about Kimbolton, I begin my journal of two days here. But I must set out with owning, that I believe I am the first man that ever went sixty miles to an auction.' As I came for ebony, I have been up to my chin in ebony; there is literally nothing but ebony in the house; all the other goods, if there were any, and I trust my Lady Conyers did not sleep upon ebony mattresses, are taken away. There are two tables and eighteen chairs, all made by the Hallet' of two hundred years ago. These I intend to have; for mind, the auction does not begin till Thursday. There are more plebeian chairs of the same materials, but I have left commission for only the true black blood. Thence I went to Kimbolton' and asked to see the house. A kind footman, who in his zeal to open the chaise pinched half my finger off, said he would call the housekeeper: but a Groom of the chambers insisted on my visiting their Graces; and as I vowed I did not know them, he said they were in the great apartment, that all the rest was in disorder and altering, and would let me see nothing. This was the reward of my first lie. I returned to my inn or alehouse, and instantly received a message from the Duke' to invite me to the Castle. I was quite undressed, and dirty with my journey, and unacquainted with the Duchess-yet was forced to go-Thank the god of dust, his Grace was dirtier than me. He was extremely civil, and detected me to the Groom of the chambersasked me if I had dined. I said yes-lie the second. He pressed me to take a bed there. I hate to be criticised at a formal supper by a circle of stranger-footmen, and protested I was to meet a gentleman at Huntingdon to-night. The Duchess' and Lady Caroline

The eight very fine ebony chairs at Strawberry Hill were bought at the Lady Conyers' at Great Stoughton, Huntingdonshire.-CUNNINGHAM.

2 The Hallet who bought Canons, in Middlesex, Timons's Villa. See vol. ii. p. 447. -CUNNINGHAM.

3 In Huntingdonshire, the seat of the Duke of Manchester.-CUNNINGHAM. George fourth Duke of Manchester died 1788.-CUNNINGHAM.

4

5 Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Dashwood, of Kirlington, Oxon, painted by Sir Joshua as Diana disarming Cupid.-CUNNINGHAM.

6 Sister of the Duke of Manchester.-WRIGHT.

2

are,

came in from walking; and to disguise my not having dined, for it was past six, I drank tea with them. The Duchess is much altered, and has a bad short cough. I pity Catherine of Arragon' for living at Kimbolton: I never saw an uglier spot. The fronts are not so bad as I expected, by not being so French as I expected; but have no pretensions to beauty, nor even to comely ancient ugliness. The great apartment is truly noble, and almost all the portraits good, of what I saw; for many are not hung up, and half of those that my lord Duke does not know. The Earl of Warwick is delightful; the Lady Mandeville,' attiring herself in her wedding garb, delicious. The Prometheus is a glorious picture, the Eagle as fine as my statue. Is not it by Vandyck? The Duke told me that Mr. Spence found out it was by Titian-but critics in poetry I see are none in painting. This was all I was shown, for I was not even carried into the chapel. The walls round the house are levelling, and I saw nothing without doors that tempted me to taste. So I made my bow, hurried to my inn, snapped up my dinner, lest I should again be detected, and came hither, where I am writing by a great fire, and give up my friend the east wind, which I have long been partial to for the south-east's sake, and in contradiction to the west, for blowing perpetually and bending all one's plantations. To-morrow I see Hinchinbrook [Lord Sandwich's]—and London. Memento, I promised the Duke that you should come and write on all his portraits. Do, as you honour the blood of Montagu! Who is the man in the picture [a half-length] with Sir Charles Goring, where a page is tying the latter's scarf ?' And who are the ladies in the double half-lengths?

Arlington Street, May 31.

Well! I saw Hinchinbrook this morning. Considering it is in Huntingdonshire, the situation is not so ugly nor melancholy as I expected; but I do not conceive what provoked so many of

your

1 Queen Catherine of Arragon, after her divorce from Henry the Eighth, resided some time in this castle, and died there in 1536.-WRIGHT.

2 Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick, died 1658, a fine full-length inscribed " Ætatis suæ 44, anno 1632. D. Mytens pt."-CUNNINGHAM.

It is a

3 Anne Rich (died 1641), daughter of the Earl of Warwick and second wife of Lord Mandeville, (the parliamentary general) afterwards Earl of Manchester. whole length, and, as Walpole says, "delicious."-CUNNINGHAM.

No, by Rubens-the Eagle by Snyders, according to a letter written by Rubens. Carpenter's Vandyck, p. 142.—CUNNINGHAM.

5 Mountjoy Blount, Earl of Newport (died 1665) and George Goring, Earl of Norwich (died 1662) with Goring's son and successor, Charles (in the centre of the composition) tying on his father's sash. A knee-piece. Both men are in buff coats, one wears a blue scarf, the other a red. Duplicate at Petworth.--CUNNINGHAM.

ancestors to pitch their tents in that triste country, unless the Capulets loved fine prospects. The house of Hinchinbrook is most comfortable, and just what I like; old, spacious, irregular, yet not vast or forlorn. I believe much has been done since you saw it-it now only wants an apartment, for in no part of it are there above two chambers together. The furniture has much simplicity, not to say too much; some portraits tolerable, none I think fine. When this lord gave Blackwood the head of the Admiral' that I have now, he left himself not one so good. The head he kept is very bad: the whole-length is fine, except the face of it. There is another of the Duke of Cumberland by Reynolds, the colours of which are as much changed as the original is to the proprietor. The garden is wondrous small, the park almost smaller, and no appearance of territory. The whole has a quiet decency that seems adapted to the Admiral after his retirement, or to Cromwell before his exaltation. I returned time enough for the opera; observing all the way I came the proof of the duration of this east wind, for on the west side the blossoms were so covered with dust one could not distinguish them; on the eastern hand the hedges were white in all the pride of May. Good-night!

Wednesday, June 1.

My letter is a perfect diary. There has been a sad alarm in the kingdom of white satin and muslin. The Duke of Richmond was seized last night with a sore throat and fever; and though he is much better to-day, the Masquerade of to-morrow night is put off till Monday. Many a Queen of Scots, from sixty to sixteen, has been ready to die of the fright. Adieu once more! I think I can have nothing more to say before the post goes out to-morrow.

855. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill, June 5, 1763.

I AM much concerned at the melancholy accounts you give me of both Lord and Lady Northampton. They are young, handsome, and happy, and life was very valuable to them. She has been consumptive some time; but he seemed healthy and strong.

The misery in the family of Molesworth is not yet closed. The

1 Admiral Sir Edward Montagu, first Earl of Sandwich, died 1672.-CUNNINGHAM. 2 Charles Compton, Earl of Northampton [died 1763], married Lady Anne Somerset, eldest daughter of Noel Duke of Beaufort.-WALPOLE.

eldest young lady, who has had her leg cut off, does not yet know of the loss of her mother and sisters, but believes them much hurt, and not able even to write to her; by degrees they intend to tell her that her mother grows worse and then dies. Till this week she did not know she had lost a limb herself, they keeping the mangled part in a frame. One of her sisters, she of eleven, who is still lame with her bruises, was lately brought to her. They had not prepared the child, thinking she knew nothing of what had happened to Miss Molesworth. The moment the girl came in, she said, "Oh! poor Harriet! they tell me your leg is cut off!" Still this did not undeceive her. She replied, "No, it is not." The method they have since taken to acquaint her with it was very artful: they told her her leg must be taken off, and then softened the shock by letting her know the truth. She wept much, but soon comforted herself, saying, "Thank God, it is not my arm, for now I can still amuse myself." It would surprise one that at her age so many indications should not lead her to the full extent of her calamity; but they keep her in a manner intoxicated with laudanum. She is in the widow Lady Grosvenor's house, and the humanity, tenderness, and attention of Lord Grosvenor to her is not to be described. The youngest girl overheard the servants in the next room talking of her mother's death, and would not eat anything for two days.

Lord Bath's extravagant avarice and unfeelingness on his son's death rather increases. Lord Pulteney left a kind of Will, saying he had nothing to give, but made it his request to his father to give his post-chaise and one hundred pounds to his cousin Colman;' the same sum and his pictures to another cousin, and recommended the Lakes, his other cousins, to him. Lord Bath sent Colman and Lockman word they might get their hundred pounds as they could, and for the chaise and pictures they might buy them if they pleased, for they would be sold for his son's debts; and he expressed great anger at the last article, saying, that he did not know what business it was of his son to recommend heirs to him.

I have told you of our French: we have got another curious one,

1 George Colman, son of Lady Bath's sister, author of several dramatic works, and afterwards manager of the Little Theatre in the Haymarket.-WALPOLE. "Let me place Mr. Murray, the present Attorney-General, before your eyes; look steadfastly towards him, and see what a rapid progress he hath made towards wealth and great reputation. You have as good parts When you are at Lincoln's Inn, I tell you beforehand that I will have you closely watched and be constantly informed how you employ your time. * * * I must have no running to play-houses." Lord Bath to Colman, January 20, 1755.-CUNNINGHAM.

* *

La Condamine, qui se donne pour philosophe. He walks about the streets, with his trumpet and a map, his spectacles on, and hat under his arm.

But, to give you some idea of his philosophy, he was on the scaffold to see Damien executed. His deafness was very inconvenient to his curiosity; he pestered the confessor with questions to know what Damien said: "Monsieur, il jure horriblement." La Condamine replied, "Ma foi, il n'a pas tort;" not approving it, but as sensible of what he suffered. Can one bear such want of feeling ?1 Oh! but as a philosopher he studied the nature of man in torments;-pray, for what? One who can so far divest himself of humanity as to be, uncalled, a spectator of agony, is not likely to employ much of his time in alleviating it. We have lately had an instance that would set his philosophy to work. A young highwayman was offered his life after condemnation, if he would consent to have his leg cut off, that a new styptic might be tried. "What!" replied he, "and go limping to the devil at last? no, I'll be d————d first"-and was hanged!

Mr. Crawford has given me the second plan of Inigo Jones's church at Leghorn, for which I thank you. I am happy that you are easy about your brother James: I had told you he would write; have not you received that letter?

No public news. Parliamentary and political campaigns end when the military used to begin, and, thank God, we have now not them!

Did I, or did I not, tell you how much I am diverted with his serenity of Modena's match with that old, battered, painted, debauched Simonetta ? An antiquated bagnio is an odd place for conscience to steal a wedding in! Two and twenty years ago she was as much repaired as Lady Mary Wortley, or as her own new spouse. Why, if they were not past approaching them, their faces must run together like a palette of colours, and they would be disputing to which such an eyebrow or such a check belonged. The first time I saw her, at the fair of Reggio, in 1741, I was to dine with her; and going at three o'clock, found her in a loose linen gown, with no other woman, playing at faro with eleven men in white waistcoats and nightcaps. Such a scene was very new to me at that age! I did not expect that twenty years afterwards she

1 As La Condamine was on the scaffold, one of the executioners said to another, "Est-il des notres?" "Non," replied he, "Monsieur n'est qu'amateur."-Yet, La Condamine was a very humane and good man.—WALPOLE.