1

monsters, Lord Darnley, James the Fifth and his Queen, curious, and a whole history of Kings of England, not worth sixpence a-piece. There is an original of old Bess of Hardwicke herself, who built the house. Her estates were then reckoned at sixty thousand pounds a-year, and now let for two hundred thousand pounds. Lord John Cavendish told me, that the tradition in the family is, that it had been prophesied to her that she should never die as long as she was building; and that at last she died in a hard frost, when the labourers could not work. There is a fine bank of old oaks in the park over a lake; nothing else pleased me there. However, I was so diverted with this old beldam and her magnificence, that I made this epitaph for her:

Four times the nuptial bed she warm'd,

And every time so well perform'd,

That when death spoil'd each husband's billing,

He left the widow every shilling.

Fond was the dame, but not dejected;

Five stately mansions she erected

With more than royal pomp, to vary

The prison of her captive Mary.

When Hardwicke's towers shall bow their head,

Nor mass be more in Worksop said;

When Bolsover's fair fame shall tend

Like Olcotes, to its mouldering end;

When Chatsworth tastes no Ca'ndish bounties,

Let fame forget this costly countess.

As I returned, I saw Newstead and Althorpe : I like both. The former is the very abbey.' The great east window of the church remains, and connects with the house; the hall entire, the refectory entire, the cloister untouched, with the ancient cistern of the convent, and their arms on it; a private chapel quite perfect. The park, which is still charming, has not been so much unprofaned; the present Lord' has lost large sums, and paid part in old oaks, five thousand pounds of which have been cut near the house. In recom

Her

1 She was daughter of John Hardwicke, of Hardwicke in Derbyshire. first husband was Robert Barley, Esq., who settled his large estate on her and her heirs. She married, secondly, Sir William Cavendish; her third husband was Sir William St. Lo; and her fourth was George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, whose daughter, Lady Grace, married her son by Sir William Cavendish.-WALPOLE.

2 Evelyn, who visited Newstead in 1654, says of it:-"It is situated much like Fontainbleau, in France, capable of being made a noble seat, accommodated as it is with brave woods and streams; it has yet remaining the front of a glorious abbey church." Lord Byron describes the family seat, in the thirteenth canto of Don Juan.-WRIGHT.

3 William Byron, fifth Lord Byron, 1736-1798; the immediate predecessor of the great poet.-CUNNINGHAM.

pense he has built two baby forts, to pay his country in castles for the damage done to the navy, and planted a handful of Scotch firs, that look like ploughboys dressed in old family liveries for a public day. In the hall is a very good collection of pictures, all animals; the refectory, now the great drawing-room, is full of Byrons; the vaulted roof remaining, but the windows have new dresses making for them by a Venetian tailor. Althorpe has several very fine pictures by the best Italian hands, and a gallery of all one's acquaintance by Vandyke and Lely. I wonder you never saw it; it is but six miles from Northampton. Well, good night; I have writ you such a volume, that you see I am forced to page it. The Duke [of Cumberland] has had a stroke of the palsy, but is quite recovered, except in some letters, which he cannot pronounce; and it is still visible in the contraction of one side of his mouth. My compliments to your family.

MY DEAR LORD:

632. TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 4, 1760.

You ordered me to tell you how I liked Hardwicke. To say the truth, not exceedingly. The bank of oaks over the ponds is fine, and the vast lawn behind the house: I saw nothing else that is superior to the common run of parks. For the house, it did not please me at all; there is no grace, no ornament, no Gothic in it. I was glad to see the style of furniture of that age; and my imagination helped me to like the apartment of the Queen of Scots. Had it been the chateau of a Duchess of Brunswick, on which they had exhausted the revenues of some centuries, I don't think I should have admired it at all. In short, Hardwicke disappointed me as much as Chatsworth surpassed my expectation. There is a richness and vivacity of prospect in the latter; in the former, nothing but triste grandeur.

Newstead delighted me. There is grace and Gothic indeedgood chambers and a comfortable house. The monks formerly were the only sensible people that had really good mansions.' I saw Althorpe too, and liked it very well: the pictures are fine.

1 In Northamptonshire, the seat of Earl Spencer.-CUNNINGHAM.

2"

It lies perhaps a little low,

Because the monks preferred a hill behind

To shelter their devotion from the wind." Byron.—WRIGHT.

In the gallery I found myself quite at home; and surprised the housekeeper by my familiarity with the portraits.

I hope you have read Prince Ferdinand's thanksgiving, where he has made out a victory by the excess of his praises. I supped at Mr. Conway's t'other night with Miss West,' and we diverted ourselves with the encomiums on her Colonel Johnston. Lady Ailesbury told her, that to be sure next winter she would burn nothing but laurel-faggots. Don't you like Prince Ferdinand's being so tired with thanking, that at last he is forced to turn God over to be thanked by the officers ?

In London there is a more cruel campaign than that waged by the Russians: the streets are a very picture of the murder of the innocents-one drives over nothing but poor dead dogs! The dear, good-natured, honest, sensible creatures! Christ! how can anybody hurt them? Nobody could but those Cherokees the English, who desire no better than to be halloo'd to blood:-one day Admiral Byng, the next Lord George Sackville, and to-day the poor dogs!

:

I cannot help telling your lordship how I was diverted the night I returned hither. I was sitting with Mrs. Clive, her sister and brother, in the bench near the road at the end of her long walk. We heard a violent scolding and looking out, saw a pretty woman standing by a high chaise, in which was a young fellow, and a coachman riding by. The damsel had lost her hat, her cap, her cloak, her temper, and her senses; and was more drunk and more angry than you can conceive. Whatever the young man had or had not done to her, she would not ride in the chaise with him, but stood cursing and swearing in the most outrageous style: and when she had vented all the oaths she could think of, she at last wished perfidion might seize him. You may imagine how we laughed. The fair intoxicate turned round, and cried, "I am

1 Henrietta-Cecilia, eldest daughter of John West, seventh Lord de la Warr. In 1762 she married Colonel Johnston; see vol. ii. p. 24.-CUNNINGHAM.

2 In the summer of this year the dread of mad dogs raged like an epidemic; the periodical publications of the time being filled with little else of domestic interest than the squabbles of the dog-lovers and dog-haters. The Common Council of London, at a meeting on the 26th August, issued an order for killing all dogs found in the streets or high-ways after the 27th, and offered a reward of two shillings for every dog that should be killed and buried in the skin. In Goldsmith's 'Citizen of the World' there is an amusing paper [letter lxix], in which he ridicules the fear of mad dogs as one of those epidemic terrors to which our countrymen are occasionally prone.-WRIGHT. See also Goldsmith's Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog.'CUNNINGHAM.

laughed at!-Who is it?-What, Mrs. Clive? Kitty Clive?No: Kitty Clive would never behave so!" I wish you could have seen my neighbour's confusion. She certainly did not grow paler than ordinary. I laugh now while I repeat it to you.

I have told Mr. Bentley the great honour you have done him, my lord. He is happy the Temple succeeds to please you.

683. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Strawberry Hill, September 19, 1760.

THANK you for your notice, though I should certainly have contrived to see you without it. Your brother promised he would come and dine here one day with you and Lord Beauchamp. I go to Navestock [in Essex] on Monday, for two or three days; but that will not exhaust your waiting.' I shall be in town on Sunday; but as that is a court-day, I will not-so don't propose it-dine with you at Kensington; but I will be with my Lady Hertford about six, where your brother and you will find me if you please. I cannot come to Kensington in the evening, for I have but one pair of horses in the world, and they will have to carry me to town in the morning.

I wonder the King expects a battle; when Prince Ferdinand can do as well without fighting, why should he fight? Can't he make the hereditary Prince gallop into a mob of Frenchmen, and get a scratch on the nose; and Johnson straddle cross a river and come back with six heads of hussars in his fob, and then can't he thank all the world, and assure them he shall never forget the victory they have not gained? These thanks are sent over: the Gazette swears that this no-success was chiefly owing to General Mostyn ; and the Chronicle protests, that it was achieved by my Lord Granby's losing his hat, which he never wears; and then his lordship sends over for three hundred thousand pints of porter to drink his own health; and then Mr. Pitt determines to carry on the war for another year; and then the Duke of Newcastle hopes that we shall be beat, that he may lay the blame on Mr. Pitt, and that then he shall be minister for thirty years longer; and then we shall be the greatest nation in the universe. Amen! My dear Harry, you

1 Mr. Conway, as groom of the bedchamber to the King, was then in waiting at Kensington.-WALPOLE.

see how easy it is to be a hero. If you had but taken Impudence and Oatlands in your way to Rochfort, it would not have signified whether you had taken Rochfort or not. Adieu! I don't know who Lady Ailesbury's Mr. Alexander is. If she curls like a vine with any Mr. Alexander but you, I hope my Lady Coventry will recover and be your Roxana.

684. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Strawberry Hill.

You are good for nothing; you have no engagement, you have no principles; and all this I am not afraid to tell you, as you have left your sword behind you. If you take it ill, I have given my nephew, who brings your sword, a letter of attorney to fight you for me; I shall certainly not see you: my Lady Waldegrave goes to town on Friday, but I remain here. You lose Lady Anne Connolly' and her forty daughters, who all dine here to-day upon a few loaves and three small fishes. I should have been glad if you would have breakfasted here on Friday on your way; but as I lie in bed rather longer than the lark, I fear our hours would not suit one another. Adieu!

685. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 2, 1760.

2

I ANNOUNCE my Lady Huntingtower to you. I hope you will approve the match a little more than I suppose my Lord Dysart will, as he does not yet know, though they have been married these two hours, that, at ten o'clock this morning, his son espoused my niece Charlotte at St. James's Church. The moment my Lord Dysart is dead, I will carry you to see Ham House; it is pleasant to call cousins with a charming prospect over against one. Now you want to know the detail: there was none. It is not the style of our Court to have long negotiations; we don't fatigue the town with exhibiting the betrothed for six months together in public places.

1 Lady Anne Wentworth, sister of the Earl of Strafford, and wife of William Conolly, Esq.-CUNNINGHAM.

2 Charlotte, third daughter of Sir Edward Walpole, and sister to Lady Waldegrave and to Mrs. Keppel.-WALPOLE.