Have you heard that Miss Pitt has dismissed Lord Buckingham? Tant mieux pour lui. She damns her eyes that she will marry some captain—tant mieux pour elle. I think the forlorn earl should match with Miss Ariadne Drury; and by the time my Lord Halifax has had as many more children and sentiments by and for Miss Falkner, as he can contrive to have. probably Miss Pitt may be ready to be taken into keeping. Good night!
P. S. The Prince of Wales has been in the greatest anxiety for Lord Bute; to whom he professed to Duncombe, and Middleton, he has the greatest obligations; and when they pronounced their patient out of danger, his Royal Highness gave to each of them a gold modal of himself, as a mark of his sense of their care and attention.
(78) Now first printed.
Letter 31 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, June 28, 1760. (page 72)
The devil is in people for fidgetting about! They can neither be quiet in their own houses, nor let others be at peace in theirs! Have not they enough of one another in winter, but they must cuddle in summer too? For your part, you are a very priest: the moment one repents, you are for turning it to account. I wish you was in camp—never will I pity you again. How did you complain when you was in Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, and I don't know where, that you could never enjoy Park-place! Now you have a whole summer to yourself, and you are as junkettaceous as my Lady Northumberland. Pray, what horse-race do you go to next? For my part, I can't afford to lead such a life: I have Conway-papers to sort; I have lives of the painters to write; I have my prints to paste, my house to build, and every thing in the world to tell posterity. How am I to find time for all this? I am past forty, and may 'not have above as many more to live; and here I am to go here and to go there—well, I will meet you at Chaffont on Thursday; but I positively will stay but one night. I have settled with our brother that we will be at Oxford on the 13th of July, as Lord Beauchamp is only loose from the 12th to the 20th. I will be at Park-place on the 12th, and we will go together the next day. If this is too early for you, we may put it off to the 15th: determine by Thursday, and one of us will write to Lord Hertford.
Well! Quebec(79) is come to life again. Last night I went to see the Holdernesses, who by the way are in raptures with Park-in Sion-lane; as Cibber says of the Revolution, I met the Raising of the Siege; that is, I met my lady in a triumphal car, drawn by a Manks horse thirteen little fingers high, with Lady Emily:
et sibi Countess Ne placeat, ma'amselle curru portatur eodem-
Mr. Milbank was walking in ovation by himself after the car; and they were going to see the bonfire at the alehouse at the corner. The whole procession returned with me; and from the countess's dressing-room we saw a battery fired before the house, the mob crying "God bless the good news!"—These are all the particulars I know of the siege: my lord would have showed me the journal, but we amused ourselves much better in going to eat peaches from the new Dutch stoves.
The rain is come indeed, and my grass is as green as grass; but all my hay has been cut and soaking this week, and I am too much in the fashion not to have given Up gardening for farming; as next I suppose We shall farming and turn graziers and hogdrivers.
I never heard of such a Semele as my Lady Stormont(80) brought to bed in flames. I hope Miss Bacchus Murray will not carry the resemblance through, and love drinking like a Pole. My Lady Lyttelton is at Mr. Garrick's, and they were to have breakfasted here this morning; but somehow or other they have changed their mind. Good Night!