LYDIA BOTHAM
The only other letter on this subject is from Mrs. Lydia Botham, Mrs. Laurence Sterne’s sister, a portion of which I give. The handwritings of the two sisters[408] were much alike—
“Yoxall, May 25, 1746.
“My dear Cousin,
“If your knowing how sensible I am of your loss of my dear Aunt, and how deeply I share in your affliction, could afford you any relief, I should endeavour to lay open a most sorrowful Heart to you, tho’ I could send you but a faint copy of it, for my grief, like yours, is at present too big for utterance. I can offer nothing for your consolation, but what I’m sure your own thoughts will have suggested to you; that the Dear, the Valuable Parent you have lost has lived to enjoy the Greatest Blessing a parent can have, the seeing her children brought up in health and prosperity; that she who acted so strictly up to her duty in every capacity here is only removed from the Happiness she reap’d in her Family, to receive the further and infinitely greater Reward of her well-doing; that since the Giver of Life saw fit to finish hers by so painful a Distemper, it is some comfort that her Misery was of no longer duration.
“From these considerations I am persuaded you will find all the consolation that such an affliction can admit of. Your letter is dated the 5th, but it did not reach me till the last post, and had the Dublin postmark on it. I had received the melancholy news from Lady Suffolk, but could not write to you immediately upon your misfortune. The news of my poor Aunt’s Death is a heavy addition to such a load of sorrow as I was before nearly ready to sink under. My eldest girl has lately discovered some tendency to my asthmatical Disorder; the Thought that she received this from me, and that the rest of my dear Babes stand the same unhappy chance, is such an affliction to me....
“I mourn with my Uncle, but shall forbear writing to him for fear of adding to his concern.”
[408] Mr. Botham was Vicar of Yoxall, Staffordshire.
By the will of his maternal grandfather, Thomas Morris, the estates of Mount Morris and East Horton, Kent, now passed to Matthew Robinson, Mrs. Montagu’s eldest brother. His father, Mr. Robinson, who had always disliked country life, now made London his headquarters. In a letter of June 22, to the Duchess of Portland, Mrs. Montagu says—
“We shall stay in London about a week getting a plan for finishing a house which we are to have in a street near Berkeley Square, in a street not yet much built; it will be better to stay a year for the finishing than to take what one does not like.”