two, they appear to me more lifeless than Germans. I cannot comprehend how they came by the character of a lively people. Charles Townshend has more sal volatile in him than the whole nation. Their king is taciturnity itself; Mirepoix was a walking mummy; Nivernois has about as much life as a sick favourite child; and monsieur Dusson is a good-humoured country gentleman, who has been drunk the day before, and is upon his good behaviour. If I have the gout the 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 *** 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 birthdays, who could help it? The fire-works were fine, and succeeded well. On each side of the court were two large scaffolds for the Virgin's trades-people. 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

1 Lady Catherine Hyde, second daughter of Henry Hyde, earl of Clarendon and Rochester, and wife of Charles Douglas, duke of Dover and Queensbury. She was the

“Kitty beautiful and young,” f Matthew Prior's verses. [Ed.]

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 2d 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, 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 many men who have not served, are admitted into garrisons, and then into our hospitals, which were designed for meritorious sufferers. Adieu! Yours ever.

2

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Arlington-street, Saturday evening.

No, indeed I cannot consent to your being a dirty

2 As this letter is not to be found, no further light can be thrown on its contents. [Or.]

Philander.1 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 Hay-market, with a*** from the Cardigan's Head! For heaven's sake don't produce a tight rose-coloured thigh, unless you intend to prevent my lord *** '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 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.

Yours, &c.

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

1 At the masquerade given by the duke of Richmond on the 6th of June, 1763, at his house in Privy-garden. [Or.]

2 Mr. Conway was at this time fitting up a little building at Park-place, called the Cottage, for which he had consulted Mr. Walpole on the propriety of ebony chairs. [Or.]

1 Kimbolton castle, the seat of the duke of Manchester. [Ed.]

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, 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" 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.3 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

Lady Caroline Montagu, sister of the duke of Manchester. [Ed.]

3 Queen Catharine of Arragon, after her divorce from Henry VIII., resided some time in this castle, where she died, January 8th 1536. [Ed.]

blowing perpetually and bending all one's plantations. Tomorrow I see Hinchinbrook*—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 mau in the picture with sir Charles Goring, where a page is tying the latter's scarf? And who are the ladies in the double halflengths?

Arlington-street, May 31.

WELL! I saw Hinchinbrook this morning. Considering it is in Huntingdonshire, the situation is not so ugly or melancholy as I expected; but I do not conceive what provoked so many of your 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 after his exaltation. I returned time enough for the opera, observing all the way I came the proof of the duration of this east wind,

+ Hinchinbroke, the seat of the earl of Sandwich, to whose eldest son the village of Hinchinbroke gives the title of viscount. [Ed.]

• As opposing in every thing the Montagus. [Or.]

6 Admiral Montagu, earl of Sandwich, by sir P. Lely. [Or.] The first earl of Sandwich, distinguished in early life as a military commander under the parliamentary banner, and subsequently joint high admiral of England, in which capacity, having had sufficient influence to induce the whole fleet to acknowledge the restored monarchy, he received the peerage as his reward. His lordship, who, after the restoration, attained the highest renown as a naval officer, fell in the great sea fight with the Dutch, off Southwoldbay, 28th May 1672. [Ed.]