from London when we are in the country. Lord and Lady Gower dined with us yesterday, so that if there had been any political news I should have heard it.

Mrs. Horton is not as yet married, but the Duke of D. told me this morning he had no doubt that it would take place. March has got his Mrs. Horton home again, though with some difficulty, and I take it for granted with more expense, as she was in a spunging-house. As I do not game myself, I am ignorant of any gaming transactions, though, if there had been anything very particular, it would have reached me.

I wish you would re-
Our masquerade was

How long do you stay? solve to go down with us. fine, but dull; the supper well contrived; but it was not agreeable afterward, for want of space to walk about. In short, you would have said, what I hear many of our friends at the Old Club say, that it was nothing to what we remember. The children are very well, and so is Lady Carlisle, notwithstanding the newspapers.

I will write again soon.

ments to Lady Holland.

Pray make my compliI am, my dear George,

Yours most affectionately,

The Earl of Carlisle to George Selwyn.

C.

CASTLE HOWARD, August 2 [1774].
Storer is not arrived, but

MY DEAR GEORGE:

I expect him this evening. Perhaps he may meet

Ekins on the road, and they may come together. We made yesterday a country visit to Lord Fauconberg's. I take it your country visit is one of the most disagreeable operations one can endure.

Stephen Fox's pretty and pious letter to Lord Ilchester is ridiculous enough. He will soon do something and play some prank, which I dare say his uncle will wish him at vinegar for. We shall have but a thin meeting at York, as so many persons will have the same entertainment you have at Gloucester, which will prevent them leaving their counties.

These are all the particulars that are come within my observation and knowledge; so, my dear Mrs. Moss the second, you must be contented with them.

Yours most sincerely,

CARLISLE.

[Stephen, first Earl of Ilchester, alluded to in this letter, was the brother of Lord Holland, and uncle to Stephen Fox. He died on the 26th of September, 1776. It is a remarkable fact, connected with the name of Lord Ilchester, that, notwithstanding the lapse of nearly two hundred years, a person should be still living (1843) whose great-grandfather was present on the scaffold at

'Henry Bellasyse, Earl of Fauconberg, succeeded his father as second earl, on the 4th of February preceding. He died on the 23d of March, 1802, when the earldom became extinct.

the execution of Charles I. The person present on the scaffold was Sir Stephen Fox, and his great-grandson, the present (third) Earl of Ilches

ter.]

ANTHONY MORRIS STORER, ESQ.

ANTHONY MORRIS STORER (from whom some agreeable letters will be found occasionally introduced in the subsequent correspondence) was the son of Thomas Storer, Esq., a large landed proprietor in the West Indies. He received his education at Eton, where he was the contemporary of Lord Carlisle, Fox, Hare, and Lord Fitzwilliam; and where he was thus celebrated by Lord Carlisle, in his verses "On His Schoolfellows at Eton:"

"Whether I Storer sing in hours of joy,

When every look bespeaks the inward boy;
Or when no more mirth wantons in his breast,
And all the man in him appears confest;

In mirth, in sadness, sing him how I will,
Sense and good nature must attend him still."

The character of Storer is thus drawn by a contemporary: "He was a man whose singular felicity it was to excel in everything he set his heart and hand to; and who deserved, in a certain degree, if any one ever did since the days of Crichton, the epithet of Admirable. He was

the best dancer, the best skater of his time, and beat all his competitors in gymnastic honours. He excelled, too, as a musician and a disputant, and very early as a Latin poet.' In short, whatever he undertook he did it con amore, and as perfectly as if it were his only accomplishment. Quod valebat, valdè valebat. He was polite in his conversation, elegant in his manners, and amusing in a high degree, or otherwise in the extreme, as he felt himself and his company. If at any time he was rude, insolent, or overbearing, some allowance ought to be made for a state of health highly bilious, which influenced the man at times, and gave a yellow tinge and a saturnine hue to his character."

In 1779 Storer accompanied Lord Carlisle on his mission to America. Some time afterward he was appointed secretary of legation at the French court; and on the 13th of December, 1783, was nominated minister plenipotentiary, during the temporary absence of the English ambassador, the Duke of Manchester. For some years he resided almost entirely with Lord North, in whose family he is said to have been much more domesticated than in his own. Latterly, he principally occupied himself in beautifying a place of his own creation, Purley, near Reading, and in

1 Several specimens of his Latin poetry, evidently written at an early period of his life, are preserved in the library of Eton College.

accumulating a valuable and very curious collection of books. The latter he bequeathed to the library of Eton College, where there is a pleasing portrait of him, with a suitable Latin inscription underneath. His death, which was occasioned by a deep decline, took place at Bristol Hotwells, on the 4th of July, 1799.

Anthony Morris Storer, Esq., to George Selwyn. Tuesday, August 6, 1774.

DEAR GEORGE:-I am very much obliged to you for your epistle, especially as it was a favour I did not expect. If Brooks pays you for my vin de grave, he will be more gracious than I should imagine he would be, for he has not a farthing of mine in his hands; and, indeed, in this respect he differs very little from anybody else I know; but, as long as I am only a pauper in meo ore, I assure you I shall have a bottle of vin de grave, though it does cost four shillings a bottle. You will get by your edition of Madame de Sévigné's letters enough to pay for as much vin de grave as ever she drank en Bretagne.

I

The weather has been so bad to-day that I could not execute your orders, so Lady Carlisle and Lady Julia went without their nosegays; but I presented your compliments, which were as well received as if they had been accompanied with a

'Lady Juliana Howard, sister to Lord Carlisle, born July 6,