before, and is upon his good behaviour. If I have the gout next year, and am thoroughly humbled by it again, I will go to Paris, that I may be upon a level with them: at present, I am trop fou to keep them company. Mind, I do not insist that, to have spirits, a nation should be as frantic as poor Fanny Pelham, as absurd as the Duchess of Queensbury, or as dashing as the Virgin Chudleigh. Oh, that you had been at her ball t'other night! History could never describe it and keep its countenance. The Queen's real birthday, you know, is not kept: this Maid of Honour kept it—nay, while the Court is in mourning, expected people to be out of mourning; the Queen's family really was so, Lady Northumberland having desired leave for them. A scaffold was erected in Hyde-park for fireworks. To show the illuminations without to more advantage, the company were received in an apartment totally dark, where they remained for two hours.-If they gave rise to any more birth-days, who could help it? The fireworks were fine, and succeeded well. On each side of the court were two large scaffolds for the Virgin's tradespeople. When the fireworks ceased, a large scene was lighted in the court, representing their Majesties; on each side of which were six obelisks, painted with emblems, and illuminated; mottos beneath in Latin and English: 1. For the Prince of Wales, a ship, Multorum spes. 2. For the Princess Dowager, a bird of paradise, and two little ones, Meos ad sidera tollo. People smiled. 3. Duke of York, a temple, Virtuti et honori. 4. Princess Augusta, a bird of paradise, Non habet parem-unluckily this was translated, I have no peer. People laughed out, considering where this was exhibited. 5. The three younger princes, an orange-tree, Promittit et dat. 6. The two younger princesses, the flower crown-imperial. I forget the Latin: the translation was silly enough, Bashful in youth, graceful in age. The lady of the house made many apologies for the poorness of the performance, which she said was only oil-paper, painted by one of her servants; but it really was fine and pretty. The Duke of Kingston was in a frock, comme chez lui. Behind the house was a cenotaph for the Princess Elizabeth, a kind of illuminated cradle; the motto, All the honours the dead can receive. This burying-ground was a strange codicil to a festival; and, what was more strange, about one in the morning, this sarcophagus burst out into crackers and guns. The Margrave of Anspach began the ball with the Virgin. The supper was most sumptuous.

You ask, when I propose to be at Park-place. I ask, shall not you come to the Duke of Richmond's masquerade, which is the

6th of June ? I cannot well be with you till towards the end of that month.

The enclosed is a letter which I wish you to read attentively, to give me your opinion upon it, and return it. It is from a sensible friend of mine in Scotland [Sir David Dalrymple], who has lately corresponded with me on the enclosed subjects, which I little understand; but I promised to communicate his ideas to George Grenville, if he would state them-are they practicable? I wish much that something could be done for those brave soldiers and sailors, who will all come to the gallows, unless some timely provision can be made for them.-The former part of his letter relates to a grievance he complains of, that men who have not served are admitted into garrisons, and then into our hospitals, which were designed for meritorious sufferers. Adieu !

853. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Arlington Street, Saturday evening. [May 28, 1763.]

No, indeed I cannot consent to your being a dirty Philander.' Pink and white, and white and pink! and both as greasy as if you had gnawed a leg of a fowl on the stairs of the Haymarket with a bunter from the Cardigan's Head!" For Heaven's sake don't produce a tight rose-coloured thigh, unless you intend to prevent my Lord Bute's return from Harrowgate. Write, the moment you receive this, to your tailor to get you a sober purple domino as I have done, and it will make you a couple of summer waistcoats.

In the next place, have your ideas a little more correct about us of times past. We did not furnish our cottages with chairs of ten guineas a-piece. Ebony for a farm-house! So, two hundred years hence some man of taste will build a hamlet in the style of George

The Masquerade was very numerous and very fine. Old Gunning was there in a running-footman's habit, with Lady Coventry's picture hung at his button-hole, like a Croix de St. Louis.-Earl of March to Selwyn, June 1763.-CUNNINGHAM.

2 As this letter cannot be found, no further light can be thrown on its contents.— WALPOLE.

3 At the masquerade given by the Duke of Richmond on the 6th of June, 1763, at his house in Privy-garden.-WALPOLE.

4 The Cardigan's Head is the sign in Hogarth's picture of Night, the scene of which is laid close to Charles the First's statue at Charing Cross.-CUNNINGHAM.

5 Mr. Conway was at this time fitting up the little building beautifully situated on the brow of the hill at Park-place, called the Cottage, though indeed containing a very good room towards the prospect in the Gothic style, for which he had consulted Mr. Walpole on the propriety of ebony chairs.-BERRY.

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 chambers— asked 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.

4 George fourth Duke of Manchester died 1788.-CUNNINGHAM.

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.

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 are, 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 "Etatis suæ 44, anno 1632. D. Mytens pt."-CUNNINGHAM.

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

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

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.