[25] Mrs. Lloyd of Spring Gardens, to whom the Earl of Haddington was married this year.
[26] An Irish adventurer, whose fine person had induced the Dowager Duchess of Manchester to marry him. He was afterwards created Earl of Beaulieu. O’Brien, it seems, was even taller than Hussey.
[27] Walpole had given this Chinese name to a pond of gold-fish at Strawberry Hill.
[28] It was written by Mrs. Halket of Wardlaw. Mr. Lockhart states, that on the blank leaf of his copy of Allan Ramsay’s “Evergreen,” Sir Walter Scott has written, “Hardyknute was the first poem that I ever learnt, the last that I shall forget.”
[29] The “Siege of Aquileia,” a tragedy, by John Home, produced at Drury Lane, 21st February, 1760.
[30] The living of Coxwold, in Yorkshire.
[31] “My flatterers here are all mutes. The oaks, the beeches, the chestnuts, seem to contend which best shall please the Lord of the Manor. They cannot deceive, they will not lie.”—Sir Robert Walpole to General Churchill, Houghton, June 24th, 1743.
[32] “Queen Charlotte had always been if not ugly, at least ordinary, but in her later years her want of personal charms became of course less observable, and it used to be said that she was grown better looking. I one day said something to this effect to Colonel Disbrowe, her Chamberlain. ‘Yes,’ replied he, ‘I do think that the bloom of her ugliness is going off.’”—Croker.
[33] “The recluse life led here at Richmond, which is carried to such an excess of privacy and economy, that the Queen’s friseur waits on them at dinner, and that four pounds only of beef are allowed for their soup, disgusts all sorts of people.”—Walpole to Lord Hertford, Sep. 9, 1764.
[34] Walpole was thinking of an anecdote he had told in a previous letter. “The old Maréchale de Villars gave a vast dinner [at Paris] to the Duchess of Bedford. In the middle of the dessert, Madame de Villars called out, ‘Oh dear! they have forgot! yet I bespoke them, and I am sure they are ready; you English love hot rolls—bring the rolls.’ There arrived a huge dish of hot rolls, and a sauce-boat of melted butter.”