“Mr. Nash[53] had a fit yesterday, by which it is imagined this Monarch will soon resign that Empire over Mankind, which in so extraordinary a manner he gained and has preserved. The Young Pretender is now known to be at Passi, near Paris, where he keeps himself so concealed that he may on any project be able to leave it without exciting the attention of the people. It is said in case of a Minority he will make us a visit. Lord Rochford intercepted a letter from a Cardinal in France to his brother in Italy, in which he said he had supped with Prince Charles the night before. I hear this young adventurer is much a favorite with the French officers and soldiers, whose romantic visions of honour may excite them to do more than even the policy of their Monarque requires.”
[53] Richard Nash, “Beau Nash,” Leader of Fashion at Bath and Tunbridge, born 1674, died 1761.
On August 20 Mr. Montagu arrived at Hinchinbroke to stay with Lord Sandwich, in order to beat up votes for the next election for Huntingdon and the county. A Mr. Jones, an eminent merchant, was to be his fellow-candidate.
“On Tuesday we are to go about the town and canvass, where an entertainment will be prepared for the Burgesses, who will to-morrow night be treated with their wives, with a ball for them only, a thing intirely new and which must produce something new and out of the common. On Friday we shall be at liberty to move off, but on Monday night we are to meet and entertain the Londoners at the King’s Head, Holbourn.”
Writing on August 21 to Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Montagu mentions—
“I am living in the very house my dear Mrs. Boscawen inhabited three years ago. At the Stone Castle reside Mr. Pitt, Mr. and Mrs. West and Miss West. Instead of making parties at Whist or Cribbage, and living with and like the beau monde, we have been wandering about like a company of gipsies, visiting all the fine parks and seats in the neighbourhood.”
These excursions were much encouraged by Mr. Pitt, who considered them “as good for the mind as the body,” and that an occasional day without drinking the waters gave them a greater effect.
Mention of a ventriloquist now occurs as something new—
“I have been this morning to hear the man who has a surprising manner of throwing his voice into the Drawer, a bottle, your pocket, up the chimney, or where he pleases within a certain distance.... I was last night at Mr. King’s, we had the Orrery and an astronomical lecture.”
