He said we were to go on Monday se’nnight to Lord Bath’s, on Wednesday to Lord Aylesbury’s, and on Friday to return to Windsor. He was himself to be discharged some days sooner, as he should not be wanted on the road. He said many things relative to Court lives and situations: with respect, deference, and regard invariable, mentioned the leading individuals; but said nothing could be so weak as to look there, in such stations, for such impossibilities as sympathy, friendship, or cordiality! And he finished with saying, “People forget themselves who look for them!”
Such, however, is not my feeling; and I am satisfied he has met with some unexpected coldness. Miss Planta being present, he explained only in generals.
A BRIEF SOJOURN AT LONGLEAT.
Monday, Sept. 14.—We all left Weymouth. All possible honours were paid the king on his departure; lords, ladies, and sea-officers, lined the way that he passed, the guns of the Magnificent and Southampton fired the parting salute, and the ships were under sail.
We all set out as before, but parted on the road. The royals went to breakfast at Redlinch, the seat of Lord Ilchester, where Mr. Fairly[317] was in waiting for them, and thence proceeded to a collation at Sherborne Castle, whither he was to accompany them, and then resign his present attendance, which has been long and troublesome and irksome, I am sure.
Miss Planta and myself proceeded to Longleat, the seat of the Marquis of Bath, late Lord Weymouth; where we were all to dine, sleep, and spend the following day and night. Longleat was formerly the dwelling of the Earl of Lansdowne, uncle to Mrs. Delany; and here, at this seat, that heartless uncle, to promote some political views, sacrificed his incomparable niece, at the age of seventeen, marrying her to an unwieldly, uncultivated, country esquire, near sixty years of age, and scarce ever sober—his name Pendarves.
With how sad an awe, in recollecting her submissive unhappiness, did I enter these doors!—and with what indignant hatred did I look at the portrait of the unfeeling earl, to whom her gentle repugnance, shown by almost incessant tears, was thrown away, as if she, her person, and her existence were nothing in the scale, where the disposition of a few boroughs opposed them! Yet was this the famous Granville—the poet, the fine gentleman, the statesman, the friend and patron of Pope, of whom he wrote—
“What Muse for Granville can refuse to sing?”