“... Montagu set out for Denton on Monday last, to give his attention to opening a new seam of coal. It gave me great pleasure to see him apply to the knowledge of collieries, which not above two or three of our gentlemen, interested in those valuable possessions, will take the trouble to do.
“... You will find Sandleford embellish’d since you saw it. I have now thirty men at work, making a piece of water down to ye river from ye water on the side of the wood. It will have a very beautiful effect.
“... Will you pardon my making a bold and impertinent petition. The trout season being now over, I shall be distress’d how to provide fish for the primate. If any day after Wednesday next, you would let one of your servants purchase the finest dish of fish the sea produces and direct it, accompanied by a crab and a lobster, to me, to be left at the turnpike at Newtown, Hants, I will not grudge any price for it. I would not be thus troublesome for any guest I did not so much wish to indulge as the primate.... Mrs. M. Montagu desires her most respectful compliments to you.”
“Portman Square, January ye 10th, 1788. ... I found London on my arrival, the 11th of November, according to the old song, ‘A fine town and a gallant city.’ I never knew it so full of the fine world at that season of the year. At Christmas it is the Ton to go into the country for the holydays; but yet, on New Year’s Day, the Drawing-room was as much crowded as it used to be during the sitting of the parliament; but what adds most to the pleasure of society is the satisfaction all people express at our triumphs over the ungrateful Dutch and the insidious French. The Mynheers and the Mounseers bow before us, and all this obtain’d without any bloodshed, and at little expense.
“I cannot by the best information form any conjecture how the fermentations in France will end. I rather think the spirit of liberty they have imported from America will be beat up into the froth of remonstrances and satires, than have any solid effect. A nabob has purchas’d Mr. Sawbridge’s house, who, being as prudent in domestick as sagacious in publick affairs, is oblig’d to give it up to his creditors.”
In 1788, Mrs. Montagu adopted a fashion which had been introduced by the Duke of Dorset, of giving a thé. The Duke had been our ambassador in France, and had brought thence a fashion, reasonable enough, of offering a tea at eight to people who dined at two; but unreasonable in England, where the hour for dinner, in great houses, was six o’clock. Hannah More describes the teas as Mme. de Bocage, nearly forty years before, had described Mrs. Montagu’s breakfasts. From fifty to a hundred guests were seated at a long table or made up little parties at small ones. The cloth was laid as at breakfast, and the tea was made by the company. Every one had a napkin, as at a public breakfast. The table was covered with hot buttered-rolls, muffins, bread and butter, and wafers. Hannah More adds to her description, made in nearly the above words: “Of all nations under the sun, as I take it the English are the greatest fools.” At the breakfasts in Hill Street there was appetite with clear intellects; at the “Bluestocking” coteries there, a select circle, and not a fool among them; but what wit could there be among people eating buttered muffins two hours after a heavy dinner and strong port wine?
“December, 1788. My dear Neice:—As I was indebted to you for the favour of a letter, when I left Sandleford, I should have fulfill’d my promise of sending you whatever news I could collect in the great metropolis; but instead of finding this town the seat of gayety, I found it the abode of melancholly. Every countenance (except of the fox kind) looked dejected. The king’s illness and our country’s danger occupied every mind, and tinctured every conversation with melancholly and anxiety. The reports of his majesty’s condition for these three days have been much more favorable than any time since he was first taken ill; so the hopes of being again under the government of a good king are revived, and the dread of a bad set of men who wanted to usurp his power, has, from the spirited conduct of the houses of parliament, much abated.
“Mr. Fox is in a very bad state of health. His rapid journeys to England, on the news of the king’s illness, have brought on him a violent complaint in the bowels, which will, it is imagined, prove mortal. However, if it should, it will vindicate his character from the general report that he has no bowels, as has been most strenuously asserted by his creditors.
“After I left Mrs. Boscawen’s, at Richmond, I passed a week very agreably with my dear friends at Shooter’s Hill; and should have prolonged my stay there if I had not been afraid to meet December in the country. The weather has justified my apprehensions. Weather makes small part of the comforts of a London life, and I have pass’d my time very comfortably. Twice or thrice a week, I invite seven or eight agreable persons to dine with me. On others days, I often prevail on some intimate friend to partake of my mutton and chicken, which, with the visits of such of my acquaintance as are in town, give me enough of society. I have not been out of my house above four times since I came to town, the first of December, for I am afraid to expose my weak eyes to the northern blast.
“My nephew Robinson set out for Horton on Christmas Day. Montagu and his family intend to continue at Shooter’s Hill till ye parliament meet daily.... He comes up in a morning to attend the House, and returns the next morning, but gives me the pleasure of seeing him when he comes to town; and a kind visit I had also from her yesterday. Few of the gentlemen of either House of Parliament have yet brought their ladies to London, so you will not wonder there is little news stirring but of the political kind. However, there is a marriage going forward, at which I am rejoyced, as it will add to the happiness of two persons whose paternal conduct well deserves that reward. Many in our town dissipate the estates they inherited from their ancestors, and suffer their noble mansions to fall to ruin; but Lord and Lady Mount Edgcumbe, by prudent conduct, have retrieved the family estates, which his lordship’s elder brother had embarrass’d; all which will now be secured by settlements and inherited by their posterity. Mr. Edgcumbe is going to be married to Lady Sophia Hobart. Lord Mount Edgcumbe behaves very generously in his settlements.... The joy those good parents express at seeing their son now out of danger of any imprudent choice or vicious connection is great. Indeed, a parent’s satisfaction in his son can never be compleat till the important point of his marriage is accomplish’d; for, if he marries a trumpery girl, she not only does not bring any addition to the family property, but the elevation of her situation so much above her birth, will probably make her extravagant and fall into absurd method that will ruin it.”