THE PRINCE EYES MISS BURNEY CURIOUSLY.
Tuesday, Aug. 18.—-The Duke of York’s birthday was kept this day, instead of Saturday, that Sunday morning might not interfere with the ball.
The Prince of Wales arrived early, while I was yet with the queen. He kissed her hand, and she sent for the princesses. Only Princess Elizabeth and Princess Sophia were dressed. Her majesty went into the next room with Mrs. Sandys, to have her shoes put on, with which she always finishes. The prince and princesses then chatted away most fluently. Princess Elizabeth frequently addressed me with great sweetness but the prince only with curious eyes. Do not, however, understand that his looks were either haughty or impertinent far from it; they were curious, however, in the extreme.
COLONEL MANNERS’S BEATING.
Colonel Manners made me laugh as If I had been at a farce, by his history of the late Westminster election, in which Lord John Townshend conquered Lord Hood. Colonel Manners is a most eager and active partisan on the side of the government, but so indiscreet, that he almost regularly gets his head broke at every contested election; and he relates it as a thing of course. I inquired if he pursued his musical studies, so happily begun with Colonel Wellbred? “Why,” answered he, “not much, because of the election; but the thing is, to get an ear: however, I think I have got one, because I know a tune when I hear it, if it’s one that I’ve heard before a good many times so I think that’s a proof; but I can never get asked to a concert, and that keeps me a little behind.”
“Perhaps,” cried I, “your friends conclude you have music enough in your three months’ waiting to satisfy you for all the year?”
“O, ma’am, as to that, I’d just as lief hear so many pots and pans rattled together; one noise is just as well as another to me.”