'When I have the honour of seeing Lady Strafford, I shall beseech her to tell me all the news: for I am too nigh and too far to know any. Adieu, my dear Lord!
(1050) A masquerade given at the Opera-house by the King of Denmark; one of the most magnificent which had ever been given in England. The jewels worn on the occasion by the maskers were estimated to be of the value of two millions.-E.
Letter 354 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 10, 1768. (page 535)
I have not received the cheese, but I thank you as much beforehand. I have been laid up with a fit of the gout in both feet and a knee; at Strawberry for an entire month, and eight days here: I took the air for the first time the day before yesterday, and am, considering, surprisingly recovered by the assistance of the bootikins and my own perseverance in drinking water. I moulted my stick to-day, and have no complaint but weakness left. The fit came just in time to augment my felicity in having quitted Parliament. I do not find it so uncomfortable to grow old, when One is not obliged to expose oneself in public.
I neither rejoice nor am sorry at your being accommodated in your new habitation. It has long been plain to me that you choose to bury yourself in the ugliest spot you can find, at a distance from almost all your acquaintance; so I give it up; and then I am glad you are pleased.
Nothing is stirring but politics, and chiefly the worst kind of politics, elections. I trouble myself with no sort, but seek to pass what days the gout leaves me or bestows on me, as quietly as I can. I do not wonder at others, because I doubt I am more singular than they are; and what makes me happy would probably not make them so. My best compliments to your brother; I shall be glad to see you both when you come; though for you, you don't care how little time you pass with your friends. Yet I am, and ever shall be Yours most sincerely.
Letter 355 To George Montagu, Esq.
Arlington Street, Nov. 15, 1768. (page 535)
You cannot wonder when I receive such kind letters from you, that I am vexed our intimacy should be reduced almost to those letters. It is selfish to complain, when you give me such good reasons for your system: but I grow old; and the less time we have to live together, the more I feel a separation from a person I love so well; and that reflection furnishes me with arguments in vindication of my peevishness. Methinks, though the contrary is true in practice, prudence should be the attribute of youth, not of years. When we approach to the last gate of life, what does it signify to provide for new furnishing one's house? Youth should have all those cares; indeed, charming youth is better employed. It leaves foresight to those that have little occasion for it. You and I have both done with the world, the busy world, and therefore I would smile with you over what we have both seen of it, and luckily we can smile both, for we have quitted it willingly, not from disgust nor mortifications. However, I do not pretend to combat your reasons, much less would I draw you to town a moment sooner than it is convenient to you, though I shall never forget your offering it. Nay, it is not so much in town that I wish we were nearer, as in the country. Unless one lives exactly in the same set of company, one is not much the better for one's friends being in London. I that talk of giving up the world, have only given up the troubles of it, as far as that is possible. I should speak more properly in saying, that I have retired out of the world into London. I always intend to place some months between me and the moroseness of retirement. We are not made for Solitude. It gives us prejudices, it indulges us in our own humours, and at last we cannot live without them.
My gout is quite gone; and if I had a mind to disguise its remains, I could walk very gracefully, except on going down stairs. Happily, it is not the fashion to hand any body; the nymph and I should soon be at the bottom.
Your old cousin Newcastle is going; he has had a stroke of the palsy, and they think will not last two days.(1051) I hope he is not sensible, as I doubt he would be too averse to his situation. Poor man! he is not like my late amiable friend, Lady Hervey;(1052) two days before She died, she wrote to her Son Bristol these words: "I feel my dissolution coming on, but I have no pain; what can an old woman desire more?" This was consonant to her usual propriety—yes, propriety IS grace, and thus every body may be graceful, when other graces are fled. Oh! but you will cry, is not this a contradiction to the former part of your letter? Prudence is one of the graces of age;-why—yes, I do not know but it may and yet I don't know how, it is a musty quality; one hates to allow it to be a grace—come, at least it is only like that one of the graces that hides her face. In Short, I have ever been so imprudent, that though I have much corrected myself, I am not at all vain of such merit. I have purchased it for much more than it was worth. I wish you joy of Lord Guildford's amendment; and always take a full part in your satisfaction or sorrow. Adieu! Yours ever.