Je ne vois rien l`a qui m'`etonne,
Repond aussitot un railleur;
C'est `a l'aveugle qu'on le donne,
Et non pas au COnducteur.
Lady Meadows has left nine thousand pounds in reversion after her husband to Lord Sandwich's daughter. Apropos to my Lady Meadow's maiden name,(1083) a name I believe you have sometimes heard: I was diverted t'other day with a story of a lady of that name,(1084) and a lord, whose initial is no farther from hers than he himself is sometimes supposed to be. Her postillion, a lad of sixteen, said, "I am not such a child but I can guess something: whenever my Lord Lyttelton comes to my lady, she orders the porter to let in nobody else, and then they call for a pen and ink, and say they are going to Write history." Is not this finesse so like him? 'Do you know that I am persuaded, now he is parted, that he will forget- he is married, and propose himself in form to some woman or other.
When do you come? if it is not soon, you will find a new town. I stared to-day at Piccadilly like a country squire; there are twenty new stone houses; at first I concluded that all the grooms, that used to live there, had got estates to build palaces. One young gentleman, who was getting an estate, but was so indiscreet as to step out of his way to rob a comrade, is convicted, and to be transported; in short, one of the waiters at Arthur's. George Selwyn says, "What a horrid idea he will give of us to the people in Newgate!"
I was still more surprised t'other day, than at seeing Piccadilly, by receiving a letter from the north of Ireland from a clergyman, with violent encomiums on my Catalogue of Noble Authors—and this when I thought it quite forgot. It put me in mind of the queen that sunk at Charing-cross and rose at Queenhithe.
Mr. Chute has got his commission to inquire about your Cutts, but he thinks the lady is not your grandmother. You are very ungenerous to hoard tales from me of your ancestry: what relation have I spared? If your grandfathers were knaves, will your bottling up their bad blood amend it? Do you only take a cup of it now and then by yourself, and then come down to your parson, and boast of it, as if it was pure old metheglin? I sat last night with the Mater Gracchorum—oh! 'tis a mater Jagorum; if her descendants taste any of her black blood, they surely will make as wry faces at it as the servant in Don John does when the ghost decants a corpse. Good night! I am just returning to Strawberry, to husband my two last days and to avoid all the pomp of the birthday. Oh! I had forgot, there is a Miss Wynne coming forth, that is to be handsomer than my Lady Coventry; but I have known one threatened with such every summer for these seven years, and they are always addled by winter!
(1081) The public credit in France, had, at this time, suffered a very severe blow, the court having stopped the payment of several of the public bills and funds to a vast amount.-E.
(1082) The captain of a privateer, who had commanded the French squadron off Dunkirk, destined for an attack on Scotland.-E.
(1083) Montagu.
(1084) Elizabeth, daughter of Matthew Robinson, Esq. of the Rokeby family, widow of Edward Montagu, grandson of the first Earl of Sandwich, and founder of the Blue-stocking Club. She wrote "Three Dialogues of the Dead," printed with those of Lord Lyttelton; and in 1769 published her "Essay on the Genius and Writings of Shakspeare." She died in 1800.-E.
521 Letter 344 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Nov. 16, 1759.