I wish I could fill my sheet, in return for your five pages.
The only thing-you will care for knowing is, that I never saw
Mrs. Damer better in her life, nor look so well. You may trust
me, who am so apt to be frightened about her.
(125) Mr. Conway had gone to see the gold and silver mines of cremnitz, in the neighbourhood of Grau, in Hungary.
(126) Mr. Hans Stanley.
(127) Charles Viscount Mahon, born on the 3d of August 1753. In the following December, he married Lady Hester Pitt, eldest daughter of the Earl of Chatham. He succeeded his father, as third Earl Stanhope, in March 1786, and died in 1816.-E.
(128) In Consequence of the death of Louis XV. on the 10th of May.-E.
Letter 73 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 27, 1774. (page 101)
I should be very ungrateful indeed if I thought of complaining of you, who are goodness itself to me: and when I did not receive letters from 'you, I concluded it happened from your eccentric positions. I am amazed, that hurried as YOU have been, and your eyes and thoughts- crowded with objects, you have been able to find time to write me so many and such long letters, over and above all those to Lady, Ailesbury, your daughter, brother, and other friends. Even Lord Strafford brags of your frequent remembrance. That your superabundance of royal beams would dazzle you, I never suspected. Even I enjoy for you the distinctions you have received—though I should hate such things for myself, as they are particularly troublesome to me,'and I am particularly awkward under them, and as I abhor the King of Prussia, and if I passed through Berlin, should have no joy like avoiding him—like one of our countrymen, who changed horses at Paris, and asked what the name of that town was? All the other civilities you have received I am perfectly happy in. The Germans are certainly a civil, well-meaning people, and, I believe, one of the least corrupted nations in Europe. I do not think them very agreeable; but who do I think are so? A great many French women, some English men, and a few English women; exceedingly few French men. Italian women are the grossest, vulqarest of the sex. If an Italian man has a grain of sense, he is a buffoon. So much for Europe!
I have already told you, and so must Lady Ailesbury, that my courage fails me, and I dare not meet you at Paris, As the period arrived when the gout used to come, it is never a moment out of my head. Such a suffering, such a helpless condition as I was in for five months and a half, two years ago, makes me tremble from head to foot. I should die at once if seized in a French inn; or, what, if possible, would be worse, at Paris, where I must admit every body.—I, who you know can hardly bear to see even you when I am ill, and who shut up myself here, and would not let Lord and Lady Hertford come near me—I, who have my room washed though in bed, how could I bear French dirt! In short, I, who am so capricious, and whom you are pleased to call a philosopher, I suppose because I have given up every thing but my own will—how could I keep my temper, who have no way of keeping my temper but by keeping it out of every body's way! No, I must give up the satisfaction of being with you at Paris. I have just learnt to give up my pleasures, but I cannot give up my pains, which such selfish people as I who have suffered much, grow to compose into a system that they are partial to, because it is their own. I must make myself amends when you return: you will be more stationary, I hope, for the future; and if I live I shall have intervals of health. In lieu of me, you will have a charming succedaneum, Lady Harriet Stanhope.(129) Her father, who is more a hero than i, is packing up his old decrepit bones, and goes too. I wish she may not have him to nurse, instead of diverting herself.
The present state of your country is, that it is drowned and dead drunk; all water without, and wine within. Opposition for the next elections every where, even in Scotland; not from party, but as laying Out money to advantage. In the head-quarters, indeed, party is not out of the question: the day after to-morrow will be a great bustle in the city for a Lord Mayor,(130) and all the winter in Westminster, where Lord Mahon and Humphrey Cotes oppose the court. Lady Powis is saving her money at Ludlow and Powis Castles by keeping open house day and night against Sir Watkin Williams, and fears she shall be kept there till the general election. It has rained this whole month, and we have got another inundation. The Thames is as broad as your Danube, and all my meadows are under water. Lady Browne and I, coming last Sunday night from Lady Blandford's, were in a piteous plight. The ferryboat was turned round by the current, and carried to Isleworth. Then we ran against the piers of our new bridge, and the horses were frightened. Luckily, my cicisbeo -was a Catholic, and screamed to so many Saints, that some of them at the nearest alehouse came and saved us, or I should have had no more gout, or what I dreaded I should; for I concluded we should be carried ashore somewhere, and be forced to wade through the mud up to my middle. So you see one may wrap oneself up in flannel and be in danger, without visiting all the armies on the face of the globe, and putting the immortality of one's chaise to the proof.
I am ashamed Of sending you three sides of smaller paper in answer to seven large—but what can I do? I see nothing, know nothing, do nothing. My castle is finished, I have nothing new to read, I am tired of writing, I have no new or old bit for my printer. I have only black hoods around me; or, if I go to town, the family-party in Grosvenor Street. One trait will give you a sample of how I passed my time, and made me laugh, as it put me in mind of you; at least it was a fit of absence, much more likely to have happened to you than to me. I was playing eighteenpenny tredrille with the Duchess of Newcastle(131) and Lady Browne, and certainly not much interested in the game. I cannot recollect nor conceive what I was thinking of, but I pushed the cards very gravely to the Duchess, and said, "Doctor, you are to deal." You may guess at their astonishment, and how much it made us all laugh. I wish it may make you smile a moment, or that I had any thing better to send you. Adieu, most affectionately. Yours ever.