The Duke of St. Albans has cut down all the brave old trees at Hanworth, and consequently reduced his park to what it issued from Hounslow-heath: nay, he has hired a meadow next to mine, for the benefit of embarkation; and there lie all the good old corpses of oaks, ashes, and chestnuts, directly before your windows, and blocking up one of my views of the river! but so impetuous is the rage for building, that his grace's timber will, I trust, not annoy us long. There will soon be one street from London to Brentford; ay, and from London to every village ten miles round! Lord Camden has just let ground at Kentish Town for building fourteen hundred houses—nor do I wonder; London is, I am certain, much fuller than ever I saw it. I have twice this spring been going to stop my coach in Piccadilly, to inquire what was the matter, thinking there was a mob—not at all; it was only passengers. Nor is there any complaint of depopulation from the country: Bath shoots out into new crescents, circuses, and squares every year: Birmingham, Manchester, Hull, and Liverpool would serve ay King in Europe for a capital, and would make the Empress of Russia's mouth water. Of the war with Catherine Slay-Czar I hear not a breath, and thence conjecture it is dozing into peace.
Mr. Dundas has kissed hands for secretary of state; and Bishop Barrington, of Salisbury, is transferred to Durham, which he affected not to desire, having large estates by his wife in the south-but from the triple-mitre downwards, it is almost always true, what I said some years ago, that "nolo episcopari is Latin for I lie.— Tell it not in Gath that I say so; for I am to dine to-morrow at the Bishop of London's, at Fulham, with Hannah Bonner, my imprime. This morning I went with Lysons the Reverend to see Dulwich college, founded in 1619 by Alleyn, a player, which I had never seen in my many days. e were received by a smart divine, tr`es bien poudr`e, and with black satin breeches—but they are giving new wings and red satin breeches to the good old hostel too, and destroying a gallery with a very rich ceiling; and nothing will remain of ancient but the front, and an hundred mouldy portraits, among apostles, sibyls, and Kings of England. On Sunday I shall settle at Strawberry; and then wo betide you on post-days! I cannot make news without straw. The Johnstones are going to Bath, for the healths of both; so Richmond will be my only staple. Adieu, all three!
(801) Lady Anne Wentworth, married to the Right Honourable Thomas Conolly.
(802) Francis, fifth Duke of Bedford. He died at Woburn, in March 1802, at the early age of thirty-one; upon which event, Mr. Fox, in moving for a new writ for Tavistock, in the room of his brother John, who succeeded to the dukedom, pronounced an eloquent eulogium on the deceased-the only speech he could ever be prevailed upon to revise for publication-E.
(803) Maria Cosway, the wife of the eminent painter, and herself distinguished for her proficience both in painting and music. She was a native of Italy but of English parentage; and being passionately fond of music, her soir`ees in Pall-Mall and afterwards in Stratford-place, were attended by all the fashion of the town. In consequence of ill-health, accompanied by her brother, who had gained, as a student in painting, the Academy's gold metal, she had left England for Italy; where she remained about three years.-E
(804) The celebrated Count Lally do Tollendal. In 1789, he was one of the most eloquent members of the Constituent Assembly; but disapproving of the principles that prevailed, he retired into Switzerland, Gibbon, in a letter of the 15th of December of that year, says of him, "Lally is an amiable man of the world, and a poet: he passes the winter here; you know how much I prefer a quiet select society to a crowd of names and titles: what happy countries are England and Switzerland, if they know and preserve their happiness!" Having returned to France in 1792, he was sent to the Abbaye; whence he escaped during the massacres which took place in the prisons in September, and effected his retreat to England, where he found an asylum in the house of Lord Sheffield. On the restoration of the Bourbons, he was created a peer of France, and died in 1830. The subject of the tragedy above alluded to was the fall of the Earl of Strafford.-E.
(805) The unfortunate Count do Lally, governor of Pondicherry; who, on the surrender of the place to the English in 1761, was made prisoner of war, and sent to England. In the Chatham Correspondence, there is a letter from him to Mr. Pitt, written in English; in which he says, "When I shall have seen and heard here of Mr. Pitt all I have already read of him, I shall always remember I am his prisoner, and liberty to me, though a Frenchman, is of an inestimable value; therefore, I earnestly beg your interest with his Majesty to grant me leave to repair to my native soil." The desired permission was granted; but no sooner had he reached Paris, than he was thrown into the Bastille, and after being confined several years, brought to trial for treachery and found guilty. When his sentence was pronounced, "the excess of his indignation," says Voltaire, " was equal to his astonishment: he inveighed against his judges, and, holding in his hand a pair of compasses, which he used for tracing maps in his prison, he struck it against his heart; but the blow was not sufficient to take away life; he was dragged into a dung-cart, with a gag in his mouth, lest, being conscious of his innocence, he should convince the Spectators of the injustice of his fate." Madame du Deffand, in giving to Walpole, on the 10th of January 1766, an account of this horrible scene, having stated, that the populace "battait des mains pendant l'ex`ecution," he returned her an answer, in a high degree honourable to his moral feeling:—"Ah! Madame, Madame, quelles horreurs me racontez-vous la! Qu'on ne dise jamais que les Anglais sent durs et f`eroces. Veritablement ce sent les Fran`cais qui le sent, Oui, oui, vous `etes des sauvages, des Iroquois, vous autres. On a bien massacr`e des gens chez nous, mais a-t-on jamais vu battre des Mains pendant qu'on mettait `a mort un pauvre malheureux, un officier general, qui avait langui pendant deux ans en prison? un homme enfin si sensible `a l'honneur, qu'il n'avait pas voulu se sauver! si touch`e de la disgrace qu'il chercha `a avaler les grilles de sa prison plut`ot que de se voir expos`e `a l'ignominie publique; et c'est exactement cette honn`ete pudeur qui fait qu'on le traine dans un tombereau, et qu'on lui met un baillon `a la bouche comme au dernier des sc`elerats. Mon Dieu! que je suis aise d'avoir quitt`e Paris avant cette horrible sc`ene! je me serais fait d`echirer, ou mettre `a la Bastille."-E.
Letter 383 To The Miss Berrys.
Strawberry Hill, June 14, 1791.(page 508)
I pity you! what a dozen or fifteen uninteresting letters are you going to receive! for here I am, unlikely to have any thing to tell you worth sending. You had better come back incontinently-but pray do not prophesy any more; you have been the death of our summer, and we are in close mourning for it in coals and ashes. It froze hard last night: I went out for a moment to look at my haymakers, and was starved. The contents of an English June are, hay and ice, orange-flowers and rheumatisms! I am now cowering over the fire. Mrs. Hobart had announced a rural breakfast at Sans-Souci last Saturday; nothing being so pastoral as a fat grandmother in a row of houses on Ham Common. It rained early in the morning: she despatched postboys, for want of Cupids and zephyrs, to stop the nymphs and shepherds who tend their flocks in Pall-Mall and St. James's- street; but half of them missed the couriers and arrived. Mrs. Montagu was more splendid yesterday morning, and breakfasted seven hundred persons on opening her great room, and the room with the hangings of feathers. The King and Queen had been with her last week. I should like to have heard the orations she had prepared on the occasion. I was neither City-mouse nor country-mouse. I did dine at Fulham on Saturday with the Bishop of London: Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Garrick, and Hannah More were there; and Dr. Beattie, whom I had never seen. He is quiet, simple, and cheerful, and pleased me. There ends my tale, this instant, Tuesday! How shall I fill a couple of pages more by Friday morning! Oh! ye ladies on the Common, and ye uncommon ladies in London, have pity on a poor gazetteer, and supply me with eclogues or royal panegyrics Moreover—or rather more under—I have had no letter from you these ten days, though the east wind has been as constant as Lord Derby. I say not this in reproach, as you are so kindly punctual; but as it stints me from having a single paragraph to answer. I do not admire specific responses to every article; but they are great resources on a dearth.