Captain Robinson returned from his Chinese expedition in the Saint George the middle of June, and Mrs. Montagu and Mrs. Scott met him from Sandleford at her villa at Hayes. “He has brought me two beautiful gowns and a fine Chinese lanthorn. We are to go on board the St. George to-morrow,” she writes to her husband. He also brought a gown apiece for Lady Sandwich and her sister, Miss Fane. The greater part of the Robinson family went to dine on the Saint George, but on a stormy day, and Mrs. Montagu was very terrified at the tossing of the small boat they went in. Soon after this, in the beginning of July, Mrs. Montagu left for her annual visit to Tunbridge Wells, where she had taken the “White Stone House” on Mount Ephraim. Sarah Scott returned to Sandleford to Mr. Montagu, en route for Bath, where she was about to take up residence with her friend, Lady Bab Montagu. At Tunbridge were Sir George and Lady Lyttelton, Mr. West, Miss Charlotte Fane, Mr. Garrick, Mr. Bower, the Dean of Exeter, General Pulteney,[15] etc. At a big ball Mrs. Montagu says—
“I shone forth in full Chinese pomp at the ball, my gown was much liked, the pattern of the embroidery admired extremely.... Garrick had an incomparable letter from Beranger which he read with proper humour one day he dined here.... I go every day to Mr. King’s lectures.”
[15] Brother of Lord Bath.
On July 22 Mrs. Montagu writes to her husband—
“Sir George and Lady Lyttelton[16] went away this morning, as to the lady, she is so unsociable and retired, her departure makes no difference in the Society, in all her manners she signified a dislike and contempt of the company, and in this, the world is always just, and pays in kind to the full measure, and even with more than legal interest at 4 per cent!”
[16] The second Lady Lyttelton, née Rich.
“A COLD LOAF”
Mr. West from Tunbridge visited his cousins, the Bothams, at Albury, and found Lydia in a terrible state of health, and worried with the preparation of her five children to be inoculated. He persuaded her to go to Tunbridge to consult Dr. Shaw, and writes from Stoke to Mrs. Montagu to suggest that Mrs. Botham should stay with her at Sandleford whilst the children are inoculated, and left in their father’s care. He mentions Mr. Hooke being in a cottage near Stoke, very busy writing. Lydia Botham, despite of all entreaties, returned to Albury to remain with her children. Mrs. Montagu contemplated a visit to Horton, alias Mount Morris, with her husband, to stay with her brother Matthew, but violent rheumatism attacked her in the shoulders. She was reluctantly obliged to let Mr. Montagu visit “the brethren,” as they termed them, alone. Meanwhile, West, not being satisfied with the tutor with whom his son was residing, hastened to Hill Street to remove him to Oxford. Mrs. Medows[17] writes from Chute on October 3 to say she had taken her nieces, the Miss Pulses, to see Sandleford, where they ate “a cold loaf,”[18] and “I was not a little exalted as a planter when I saw chestnuts I had set nuts, five and forty feet high.” She mentions that Mrs. Isted gave them a great many good things, “and showed several pretty pieces of her painting, and one of your curtains finished and a handkerchief the little girl you are so good as to take care of is making for you, that will look very like point.”
[17] Mr. Montagu’s sister.
[18] The usual expression for a picnic then.