TO THE REV. MR. COLE.

Strawberry Hill, June 1, 1776.

MR. GRANGER'S papers have been purchased by Lord Mount Stewart, who has the frenzy of portraits as well as I;

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was found guilty, but, pleading her privilege, was discharged without any punishment. Hannah More gives the following description of the scene: "Garrick would have me take his ticket to go to the trial of the Duchess of Kingston; a sight which, for beauty and magnificence, exceeded anything which those who were never present at a coronation or a trial by peers can have the least notion of. Mrs. Garrick and I were in full-dress by seven. You will imagine the bustle of five thousand people getting into one hall! yet, in all this hurry, we walked in tranquilly. When they were all seated, and the King-at-arms had commanded silence, on pain of imprisonment, (which, however, was very ill observed,) the gentleman of the black rod was commanded to bring in his prisoner. Elizabeth, calling herself Duchess-dowager of Kingston, walked in, led by Black Rod and Mr. La Roche, courtesying profoundly to her judges. The peers made her a slight bow. The prisoner was dressed in deep mourning; a black hood on her head; her hair modestly dressed and powdered; a black silk sacque, with crape trimmings; black gauze, deep ruffles, and black gloves. The counsel spoke about an hour and a quarter each. Dunning's manner is insufferably bad, coughing and spitting at every three words, but his sense and his expression pointed to the last degree: he made her grace shed bitter tears. The fair victim had four virgins in white behind the bar. She imitated her great predecessor, Mrs. Rudd, and affected to write very often, though I plainly perceived she only wrote, as they do their love epistles on the stage, without forming a letter. The Duchess has but small remains of that beauty of which kings and princes were once so enamoured. She looked much like Mrs. Pritchard. She is large and ill-shaped; there was nothing white but her face, and, had it not been for that, she would have looked like a bale of bombazeen. There was a great deal of ceremony, a great deal of splendour, and a great deal of nonsense they adjourned upon the most foolish pretences imaginable, and did nothing with such an air of business as was truly ridiculous. I forgot to tell you the Duchess was taken ill, but performed it badly." In a subsequent letter, she says "I have the great satisfaction of telling you that Elizabeth, calling herself Duchess-dowager of Kingston, was, this very afternoon, undignified and unduchessed, and very narrowly escaped being burned in the hand. If you have been half as much interested against this unprincipled, artful, licentious woman as I have, you will be rejoiced at it as I am. Lord Camden breakfasted with us. He is very angry that she was not burned in the hand. He says, as he was once a professed lover of hers, he thought it would have looked illnatured and ungallant for him to propose it; but that he should have acceded to it most heartily, though he believes he should have recommended a cold iron." Memoirs, vol. i. pp. 82, 85.—E.

John Lord Mountstuart; in March 1796, created Marquis of Bute. He died at Geneva in November 1814, when the marquisate descended to his grandson.-E.

and, though I am the head of the sect, I have no longer the rage of propagating it, nor would I on any account take the trouble of revising and publishing the manuscripts. Mr. Granger had drowned his taste for portraits in the ocean of biography; and, though he began with elucidating prints, he at last only sought prints that he might write the lives of those they represented. His work was grown and growing so voluminous, that an abridgment only could have made it useful to collectors. I am not surprised that you will not assist Dr. Kippis:1 Bishop Laud and William Prynne could never agree. You are very justly more averse to Mr. Masters, who is a pragmatic fellow, and at best troublesome.

If the agate knives you are so good as to recommend to me can be tolerably authenticated, have any royal marks, or, at least, old setting of the time, and will be sold for two guineas, I should not dislike having them: though I have scarce room to stick a knife and fork. But if I trouble you to pay for them, you must let me know all I owe you already, for I know I am in your debt for prints and pamphlets, and this new debt will make the whole considerable enough to be remitted. I have lately purchased three apostle-spoons to add to the one you was so kind as to give me. What is become of Mr. Essex? does he never visit London? I wish I could tempt him thither or hither. I am not only thinking of building my offices in a collegiate style, for which I have a good design and wish to consult him, but I am actually wanting assistance at this very moment, about a smaller gallery that I wish to add this summer; and which, if Mr. Essex was here, he should build directly.

It is scarce worth asking him to take the journey on pur

1 Dr. Andrew Kippis, well-known for the active part he took in producing the second edition of the " Biographia Britannica," of which he was the editor, and in a great measure the writer. He had applied to Mr. Cole for assistance; and Walpole's satisfaction at Cole's refusal is to be accounted for by the fact of Kippis having threatened to expose Sir Robert Walpole in the course of that work. Walpole had called the "Biographia Britannica" an apology for everybody. This Kippis happened to hear of; upon which he is said to have retorted, "that the Life of Sir Robert Walpole should prove that the Biographia was not an apology for everybody."-E.

pose, though I would pay for his journey hither and back, and would lodge him here for the necessary time. I can only beg you to mention it to him as an idle jaunt, the object is so trifling. I wish more that you could come with him: do you leave your poor parishioners and their souls to themselves? if you do, I hope Dr. Kippis will seduce them. Yours ever.

TO THE REV. MR. COLE.

Strawberry Hill, June 11, 1776.

I AM grieved, and feel for your gout; I know the vexations and disappointments it occasions, and how often it will return when one thinks it going or gone: it represents life and its vicissitudes. At last I know it makes me content when one does not feel actual pain,- and what contents may be called a blessing; but it is that sort of blessing that extinguishes hopes and views, and is not so luxurious but one can bear to relinquish it. I seek amusements now to amuse me; I used to rush into them, because I had an impulse and wished for what I sought. My want of Mr. Essex has a little of both kinds, as it is for an addition to this place, for which my fondness is not worn out. I shall be very glad to see him here either on the 20th or 21st of this month, and shall have no engagement till the 23rd, and will gladly pay his journey. I am sorry I must not hope that you will accompany him.

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Strawberry Hill, June 30, 1776.

I was very glad to receive your letter, not only because always most glad to hear of you, but because I wished to write to you, and had absolutely nothing to say till I had something to answer. I have lain but two nights in town since I saw you; have been, else, constantly here, very much employed, though doing, hearing, knowing exactly nothing. I have had a Gothic architect from Cambridge to design me a 2 G

VOL. V.

gallery, which will end in a mouse, that is, in an hexagon closet of seven feet diameter. I have been making a beautyroom, which was effected by buying two dozen of small copies of Sir Peter Lely, and hanging them up; and I have been making hay, which is not made, because I put it off for three days, as I chose it should adorn the landscape when I was to have company; and so the rain is come, and has drowned it. However, as I can even turn calculator when it is to comfort me for not minding my interest, I have discovered that it is five to one better for me that my hay should be spoiled than not; for, as the cows will eat it if it is damaged, which horses will not, and as I have five cows, and but one horse, is not it plain that the worse my hay is the better? Do not you with your refining head go, and, out of excessive friendship, find out something to destroy my system. I had rather be a philosopher than a rich man; and yet have so little philosophy, that I had much rather be content than be in the right.

Mr. Beauclerk and Lady Di.1 have been here four or five days—so I had both content and exercise for my philosophy. I wish Lady Ailesbury was as fortunate! The Pembrokes, Churchills, Le Texier, as you will have heard, and the Garricks have been with us. Perhaps, if alone, I might have come to you but you are all too healthy and harmonious. I can neither walk nor sing-nor, indeed, am fit for anything but to amuse myself in a sedentary trifling way. What I have most certainly not been doing, is writing anything: a truth I say to you, but do not desire you to repeat. I deign to satisfy scarce anybody else. Whoever reported that I was writing anything, must have been so totally unfounded, that they either blundered by guessing without reason, or knew they lied and that could not be with any kind intention; though saying I am going to do what I am not going to do, is wretched enough. Whatever is said of me without truth, anybody is welcome to believe that pleases. In

Lady Diana Spencer, daughter of Charles Duke of Marlborough; born in 1734; married, in 1757, to Viscount Bolingbroke; from whom she was divorced in 1768, and married immediately after to Mr. Topham Beauclerk.-E.