[112] He was malicious enough to add, 'a pretty round half.' In middle life Mrs. Clive, like her Twickenham neighbour, Mrs. Pritchard, grew excessively stout; and there is a pleasant anecdote that, on one occasion, when the pair were acting together in Cibber's Careless Husband, the audience were regaled by the spectacle of two leading actresses, neither of whom could manage to pick up a letter which, by ill-luck, had been dropped upon the ground.
[113] In a recently printed letter to Miss Ann Pitt, 19 Jan., 1766, Walpole makes reference to the popularity which this jeu d'esprit procured for him. 'Everybody wou'd have a copy [of course he encloses one to his correspondent]; the next thing was, everybody wou'd see the author.... I thought at last I shou'd have a box quilted for me, like Gulliver, be set upon the dressing-table of a maid of honour, and fed with bonbons.... If, contrary to all precedent, I shou'd exist in vogue a week longer, I will send you the first statue that is cast of me in bergamotte or biscuite porcelaine' (Fortescue Corr., Hist. MSS. Commision, 13th Rept., App. iii. [1892], i, 153).
[114] Hume's narrative of the affair may be read in A Concise and Genuine Account of the Dispute between Mr. Hume and Mr. Rousseau: with the Letters that passed between them during their Controversy. As also, the Letters of the Hon. Mr. Walpole, and Mr. D'Alembert, relative to this extraordinary Affair. Translated from the French. London. Printed for T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, near Surry-street, in the Strand, MDCCLXVI.
[115] Walpole to Lady Hervey, 2 January, 1766. In a letter to Lady Mary Coke, dated two days later, he says: 'Rousseau set out this morning for England. As He loves to contradict a whole Nation, I suppose he will write for the present opposition.... As he is to live at Fulham, I hope his first quarrel will be with his neighbour the Bishop of London, who is an excellent subject for his ridicule' (Letters and Journals, iii. 1892, xx).
[116] Walpole to Chute, 10 October, 1766.
[117] Lady Mary Coke testifies to the charm of her conversation: 'In the evening I made a visit to Madame du Deffan [sic]. She talks so well that I wish'd to write down everything She said, as I thought I shou'd have liked to have read it afterwards' (Letters and Journals, iii. [1892], 233).
[118] Walpole to Montagu, 7 September, 1769.
[119] Letters of Madame du Deffand, 1810, i. 211 n.
[120] i. e. Soot-water. There were two landscapes in soot-water by Mr. Bentley in the Green Closet at Strawberry.
[121] See chapter ix.