CAEN-WOOD.
June 22.—Mrs. Crewe took my father and myself to see the Hampstead lions. We went to Caen-wood, to see the house and pictures. Poor Lord Mansfield[370] has not been downstairs, the housekeeper told us, for the last four years; yet she asserts he is by no means superannuated, and frequently sees his very intimate friends, and seldom refuses to be consulted by any lawyers. He was particularly connected with my revered Mrs. Delany, and I felt melancholy upon entering his house to recollect how often that beloved lady had planned carrying thither Miss Port and myself, and how often we had been invited by Miss Murrays, my lord’s nieces. I asked after those ladies, and left them my respects. I heard they were up-stairs with Lord Mansfield, whom they never left.
Many things in this house were interesting, because historical but I fancy the pictures, at least, not to have much other recommendation. A portrait Of Pope, by himself, I thought extremely curious. It is very much in the style of most of Jervas’s own paintings. They told us that, after the burning of Lord Mansfield’s house in town, at the time of Lord G. Gordon’s riots, thousands came to inquire, if this original portrait was preserved. Luckily it was at Caen-wood.
We spent a good deal of time in the library,—and saw first editions of almost all Queen Anne’s classics; and lists of subscribers to Pope’s “Iliad,” and many such matters, all enlivening to some corner or other of the memory.