a great haymaking at Mrs. Pitt's on Wednesday. Yesterday they all went to Woburn, and to-morrow the ceremony is to be performed; for the Duke has not a moment's patience till she is breeding.

You would have been diverted at Northumberland-house; besides the sumptuous liveries, the illuminations in the garden, the pages, the two chaplains in waiting in their gowns and scarves, à l'Irlandaise,1 and Dr. Hill and his wife, there was a most delightful Countess, who has just imported herself from Mecklenburgh. She is an absolute Princess of Monomotapa; but I fancy you have seen her, for her hideousness and frantic accoutrements are so extraordinary, that they tell us she was hissed in the Tuileries. She crossed the drawing-room on the birth-day to speak to the Queen en amie, after standing with her back to Princess Amalie. The Queen was so ashamed of her, that she said cleverly, "This is not the dress at Strelitz; but this woman always dressed herself as capriciously there, as your Duchess of Queensberry does here."

The haymaking at Wandsworth-hill did not succeed, from the excessive cold of the night; I proposed to bring one of the cocks into the great room, and make a bonfire. All the beauties were disappointed, and all the macaronies afraid of getting the tooth-ache.

The Guerchys are gone to Goodwood, and were to have been carried to Portsmouth, but Lord Egmont3 refused to let the ambassador see the place. The Duke of Richmond was in a rage, and I do not know how it has ended, for the Duke of Bedford defends the refusal, and says, they certainly would not let you see Brest. The Comte d'Ayen is going a longer tour. He is liked here. The three great ambassadors danced at court the Prince of Masserano they say well; he is extremely in fashion, and is a sensible very goodhumoured man, though his appearance is so deceitful. They have given me the honour of a bon-mot, which, I assure you, does not belong to me, that I never saw a man so full of

Lord Northumberland was still lord-lieutenant of Ireland.-E. 2 Mrs. Pitt's villa.

3 First lord of the admiralty.

orders and disorders. He and his suite, and the Guerchys and theirs, are to dine here next week. Poor little Strawberry never thought of such fêtes. I did invite them to breakfast, but they confounded it, and understood that they were asked to dinner, so I must do as well as I can. Both the ambassadors are in love with my niece; therefore, I trust they will not have unsentimental stomachs.

Shall I trouble you with a little commission? It is to send me a book that I cannot get here, nor am I quite sure of the exact title, but it is called "Origine des Mœurs," or something to that import. It is in three volumes, and has not been written above two or three years. Adieu, my dear lord, from my fireside.

P. S. Do you know that Madame de Yertzin, the Mecklenburgh Countess, has had the honour of giving the King of Prussia a box of the ear?—I am sure he deserved it, if he could take liberties with such a chimpanzee. Colonel Elliot died on Thursday.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, June 18, 1764.

I TRUST that you have thought I was dead, it is so long since you heard of me. In truth I had nothing to talk of but cold and hot weather, of rain and want of rain, subjects that have been our summer conversation for these twenty years. I am pleased that you was content with your pictures, and shall be glad if you have begotten ancestors out of them. You may tell your uncle Algernon that I go to-morrow, where he would not be ashamed to see me; as there are not many such spots at present, you and he will guess it is to Park-place.

1 Lady Waldegrave.

2 In a subsequent letter, he calls this work "Essais sur les Mours." I find a work of the latter title published in 1756 anonymously, and under the date of Bruxelles. It was written by a M. Soret, but it seems to have been in only one volume. Can Mr. Walpole have meant Duclos's celebrated" Considerations sur les Mours," published anonymously in 1750, but subsequently under his name?—C.

Strawberry, whose glories perhaps verge towards their setting, has been more sumptuous to-day than ordinary, and banquetted their representative majesties of France and Spain. I had Monsieur and Madame de Guerchy, Mademoiselle de Nangis their daughter, two other French gentlemen, the Prince of Masserano, his brother and secretary, Lord March, George Selwyn, Mrs. Ann Pitt, and my niece Waldegrave. The refectory never was so crowded; nor have any foreigners been here before that comprehended Strawberry. Indeed, everything succeeded to a hair. A violent shower in the morning laid the dust, brightened the green, refreshed the roses, pinks, orange-flowers, and the blossoms with which the acacias are covered. A rich storm of thunder and lightning gave a dignity of colouring to the heavens; and the sun appeared enough to illuminate the landscape, without basking himself over it at his length. During dinner there were French horns and clarionets in the cloister, and after coffee I treated them with an English, and to them a very new collation, a syllabub milked under the cows that were brought to the brow of the terrace. Thence they went to the printinghouse, and saw a new fashionable French song printed. They drank tea in the gallery, and at eight went away to Vauxhall.

They really seemed quite pleased with the place and the day; but I must tell you, the treasury of the abbey will feel it, for without magnificence, all was handsomely done. I must keep maigre; at least till the interdict is taken off from my convent. I have kings and queens, I hear, in my neighbourhood, but this is no royal foundation. Adieu; your poor beadsman,

THE ABBOT OF STRAWBERRY.

P.S. Mr. T***'s servile poem is rewarded with one hundred and sixty pounds a year in the post-office.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, July 16, 1764.

MR. CHUTE says you are peremptory that you will not cast a look southwards. Do you know that in that case you will not set eyes on me the Lord knows when? My mind is pretty much fixed on going to Paris the beginning of September. I think I shall go, if it is only to scold my Lord and Lady Hertford for sending me their cousins, the Duke and Duchess of Berwick, who say they are come to see their relations. By their appearance, you would imagine they were come to beg money of their family. He has just the sort of capacity which you would expect in a Stuart engrafted on a Spaniard. He asked me which way he was to come to Twickenham ? I told him through Kensington, to which I supposed his geography might reach. He replied, "Oh! du coté de la mer.” She, who is sister of the Duke of Alva, is a decent kind of a body; but they talk wicked French. I gave them a dinner here t'other day, with the Marquis of Jamaica, their only child, and a fat tutor, and the few Fitzroys I could amass at this season. They were very civil, and seemed much pleased. To-day they are gone to Blenheim by invitation. I want to send you something from the Strawberry press; tell me how I shall convey it; it is nothing less than the most curious book that ever set its foot into the world. I expect to hear you scream hither: if you don't I shall be disappointed, for I have kept it as a most profound secret from you, till I was ready to surprise you with it; I knew your impatience, and would not let you have it piecemeal. It is the Life of the great philosopher, Lord Herbert, written by himself.1 Now are you disappointed? Well, read it not the first forty pages, of which you will be sick-I will not anticipate it, but I will tell you the history. I found it a year ago at Lady

Printed in quarto. This was the first edition of this celebrated piece of autobiography. It was reprinted at Edinburgh in 1807, with a prefatory notice, understood to be by Sir Walter Scott; and a third edition, which also contained his letters written during his residence at the French court, was published in 1826.-E.

up,

Hertford's, to whom Lady Powis had lent it. I took it and soon threw it down again, as the dullest thing I ever saw. She persuaded me to take it home. My Lady Waldegrave was here in all her grief; Gray and I read it to amuse her. We could not get on for laughing and screaming. I begged to have it to print: Lord Powis, sensible of the extravagance, refused-I insisted-he persisted. I told my Lady Hertford, it was no matter, I would print it, I was determined. I sat down and wrote a flattering dedication to Lord Powis, which I knew he would swallow: he did, and gave up his ancestor. But this was not enough; I was resolved the world should not think I admired it seriously, though there are really fine passages in it, and good sense too: I drew up an equivocal preface, in which you will discover my opinion, and sent it with the dedication. The Earl gulped down the one under the palliative of the other, and here you will have all. Pray take notice of the pedigree, of which I am exceedingly proud; observe how I have clearly arranged so involved a descent: one may boast of one's heraldry. I shall send you too Lady Temple's poems.1 Pray keep both under lock and key, for there are but two hundred copies of Lord Herbert, and but one hundred of the poems suffered to be printed.

I am almost crying to find the glorious morsel of summer, that we have had, turned into just such a watery season as the last. Even my excess of verdure, which used to comfort me for everything, does not satisfy me now, as I live entirely alone. I am heartily tired of my large neighbourhood, who do not furnish me two or three rational beings at most, and the best of them have no vivacity. London, whither I go at least once a fortnight for a night, is a perfect desert. As the court is gone into a convent at Richmond, the town is more abandoned than ever. I cannot, as you do, bring myself to be content without variety, without events; my mind is always wanting new food; summer does not suit me; but I will grow old some time or other. Adieu!

1

1 Poems by Anna Chambers, Countess Temple.-E.