“Now I return to politics. Sir Ralph Payne and Dr. Johnson are answering General Burgoyne, and they say the words are to be so long that the reply must be printed in a pamphlet as long as an atlas, but in an Elzevir type, or the first sentence would fill twenty pages in octavo. You may depend upon the truth of it, for Mr. Cumberland told it in confidence to one with whom he is not at all acquainted, who told it to one whom I never saw; so you see, Madam, there is no questioning the authority.
“I will not answer so positively for what I am going to tell you, as I had it only from the person himself. The Duke of Gloucester was at Bath with the Margrave of Anspach. Lord Nugent came up and would talk to the Duke, and then asked if he might take the liberty of inviting his Royal Highness to dinner? I think you will admire the quickness and propriety of the answer:—the Duke replied, ‘My Lord, I make no acquaintance but in London,’ where you know, Madam, he only has levees. The Irishman continued to talk to him even after that rebuff. He certainly hoped to have been very artful—to have made court there, and yet not have offended anywhere else[77] by not going in town, which would have been a gross affront to the Duke, had he accepted the invitation.
“I was at Blackheath t’other morning, where I was grieved. There are eleven Vander Werffs that cost an immense sum: half of them are spoiled since Sir Gregory Page’s death by servants neglecting to shut out the sun. There is another room hung with the history of Cupid and Psyche, in twelve small pictures by Luca Giordano, that are sweet. There is, too, a glorious Claude, some fine Teniers, a noble Rubens and Snyders, two beautiful Philippo Lauras, and a few more,—and several very bad. The house is magnificent, but wounded me; it was built on the model of Houghton, except that three rooms are thrown into a gallery.
“Now I have tapped the chapter of pictures, you must go and see Zoffani’s ‘Tribune at Florence,’ which is an astonishing piece of work, with a vast deal of merit.
“There too you will see a delightful piece of Wilkes looking—no, squinting tenderly at his daughter. It is a caricature of the Devil acknowledging Miss Sin in Milton. I do not know why, but they are under a palm-tree, which has not grown in a free country for some centuries.
“15th.
“With all my pretences, there is no more veracity in me than in a Scotch runner for the Ministry. Here must I send away my letter without a word in it worth a straw. All the good news I know is, that a winter is come in that will send armies and navies to bed, and one may stir out in November without fear of being tanned. I am heartily glad that we shall keep Jamaica and the East Indies another year, that one may have time to lay in a stock of tea and sugar for the rest of one’s days. I think only of the necessaries of life, and do not care a rush for gold and diamonds, and the pleasure of stealing logwood. The friends of Government, who have thought of nothing but of reducing us to our islandhood, and bringing us back to the simplicity of ancient times, when we were the frugal, temperate, virtuous old English, ask how we did before tea and sugar were known. Better, no doubt; but as I did not happen to be born two or three hundred years ago, I cannot recollect precisely whether diluted acorns, and barley bread spread with honey, made a very luxurious breakfast.
“I was last night at Lady Lucan’s to hear the Misses Bingham sing Jomelli’s ‘Miserere,’ set for two voices. There were only the Duchess of Bedford, Lady Bute … and half a dozen Irish.… The Duchess told me, that a habit-maker returned from Ampthill is gone stark in love with Lady Ossory, on fitting her with the new dress—I think they call it a Levite—and says he never saw so glorious a figure. I know that; and so you would be in a hop-sack, Madam—but where is the grace in a man’s nightgown bound round with a belt?
“Good-night, Lady! I hope I shall have something to tell you in my next, that my letter may be shorter.
“Codicil to my to-day’s:—viz. Nov. 15, 1779.