I have set up my staff, and finished my pilgrimages for this year. Sussex is a great damper of curiosity. Adieu! my compliments to your sisters.
(73) lord Robert Sutton, third son of the Duke of rutland.
(74) A seat of the Duke of Norfolk in Nottinghamshire.
(75) A seat of Sir Charles Wyndham, who succeeded to the title of Earl of Egremont on the death of his uncle Algernon, Duke of Somerset.
(76) Second wife of Edward, Duke of Somerset, Protector in the reign of his nephew, Edward VI.-E.
(77) Anthony, the sixth Viscount Montagu, descended from Anthony Brown, created Viscount Montagu in 1554, being descended from John Neville, Marquis of Montagu.
43 Letter 13 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, Sept. 12, 1749,
I have your two letters to answer of August 15th and 26, and, as far as I see before me, have a great deal of paper, which I don't know how to fill. The town is notoriously empty; at Kensington they have scarce company enough to pay for lighting the candles. The Duke has been for a week with the Duke of Bedford at Woburn; Princess Emily remains, saying civil things; for example, the second time she saw Madame de Mircpoix, she cried out, "Ah! Madame, vous n'avez pas tant de rouge aujourd'hui: la premi`ere fois que vous `etes `a not venue ici, vous aviez une quantit`e horrible." This the Mirepoix herself repeated to me; you may imagine her astonishment,—I mean, as far as your duty will give you leave. I like her extremely; she has a great deal of quiet sense. They try much to be English and whip into frocks without measure, and fancy they are doing the fashion. Then she has heard so much of that villanous custom of giving money to the servants of other people, that there is no convincing her that women of fashion never give; she distributes with both hands. The Chevalier Lorenzi has dined with me here: I gave him venison, and, as he was determined to like it, he protested it was "as good as beef." You will be delighted with what happened to him: he was impatient to make his brother's compliments to Mr. Chute, and hearing somebody at Kensington call Mr. Schutz, he easily mistook the sound, and went up to him, and asked him if he had not been at Florence! Schutz with the utmost Hanoverian gravity, replied, "Oui, oui, J'ai `et`e `a Florence, oui, oui:—mais o`u est-il, ce Florence?"
The Richcourts(78) are arrived, and have brought with them a strapping lad of your Count; sure, is it the boy my Lady O. used to bring up by hand? he is pretty picking for her now. The woman is handsome, but clumsy to a degree, and as much too masculine as her lover Rice is too little so. Sir Charles Williams too is arrived, and tells me how much he has heard in your praise in Germany. Villettes is here, but I have had no dealings with him. I think I talk nothing but foreign ministers to-day, as if I were just landed from the Diet of Ratisbon. But I shall have done on this chapter, and I think on all others, for you say such extravagant things of my letters, which are nothing but Gossiping gazettes, that I cannot bear it. Then you have undone yourself with me, for you compare them to Madame Sevign`e,'s; absolute treason! Do you know, there is scarce a book in the world I love so much as her letters?
How infinitely humane you are about Gibberne! Shall I amuse you with the truth of that history, which I have discovered? The woman, his mother, has pressed his coming for a very private reason—only to make him one of the most considerable men in this country!-and by what wonderful means do you think this mighty business is to be effected? only by the beauties of his person! As I remember, he was as little like an Adonis as could be: you must keep this inviolably; but depend upon the truth of it-I mean, that his mother really has this idea. She showed his picture to—why, to the Duchess of Cleveland, to the Duchess of Portsmouth, to Madame Pompadour; in short, to one of them, I don't know which, I only know it was not to my Lady Suffolk, the King's former mistress. "Mon Dieu! Madame, est-il frai que fotrc fils est si sholi que ce bortrait? il faut que je le garte; je feux apsolument l'afoir." The woman protested nothing ever was so handsome as her lad, and that the nasty picture did not do him half justice. In short, she flatters herself that the Countess(79) will do him whole justice-. I don't think it impossible but, out of charity, she may make him groom of the chambers. I don't know, indeed, how the article of beauty may answer; but if you should lose your Gibberne, it is good to have @ a friend at court.