BULLSTRODE MENAGERIE
Writing from Lillingston on October 27, West describes his visit to Bullstrode—
“I was very kindly received both at Bullstrode and Cookham; at the former we were shown a great many fine and great many curious things, both in doors and without; the day proved too cold, and I was not enough recovered to see all the rarities of the animal as well as the vegetable kind, which were dispersed over the Park and gardens. Those that might be seen from the windows, as some spotted Sheep and a little Bull from Fort St. David’s, whose resemblance I have often seen in China ware, I beheld with admiration and applause, and ventured two steps into the garden to take a view of the orange trees against the wall.... Her Grace promised to make me a present of some trained up for that purpose. In her closet we were shown some curious works in Shells, performed by Mrs. Delany, whom her Grace expected at Bullstrode in a short time, and expressed great pleasure and not a little impatience in the prospect of seeing so dear and so ingenious a friend. Of you she said nothing, till upon her naming Mrs. Donnellan, I said I could give her some account of her, having been informed by you that she was gone to town; she then asked when I heard from you, and where you was, but carried her enquiry after you no further. At Cookham I spent some hours with Mrs. Stanley, for Mr. Hooke had gone out with Mrs. Edwin to make a visit to Dr. Freind....” He further states that he found his mother well, and “very little alter’d since I last saw her, excepting that she has grown a little fatter, a circumstance to a woman of seventy is greatly preferable to wrinkles. In my way thro’ Stowe Park I met Miss Banks riding out with Lord Vere,[62] of her I enquired much about Mr. Pitt, and received from her the same answer, which I must have made for your enquiries after him, that they had heard nothing of him since he left Stowe.... While he staid at Stowe he was in good health and spirits, he went from thence to Hagley, and she believed he intended to go from Hagley to Bath.”
[62] Baron Vere, of Hanworth.
On November 10 Mrs. Donnellan, to whom Mrs. Montagu had lent her house in Hill Street, whilst she searched for lodgings in the suburbs, her lungs not permitting her to live in the town during the winter, writes—
“I have taken a little house on tryal at Kensington Gravel Pits ... both Richardson’s house at Northend and Mrs. Granville’s at Chelsey I think too low for me.... I want you to read ‘Sir Charles Grandison,’ it is not formed on your plan of banishing delicacy. I am afraid it carrys it too far on t’other side, and is too fine spun, but there are fine things and fine characters in it, and I don’t know how it is, but his tediousness gives one an eagerness to go on; there is a love-sick madness that I think extremely fine and touching, but if you have not read it I must not forestall. I think I will own to you, the great fault of my friend’s writings, there is too much of everything. I really laughed at your nursery of ‘Clarissas,’ but I hope you did not think of me as the old nurse, there was nobody there while I stayed!”
“SIR CHARLES GRANDISON”
Mr. Richardson had just completed his novel of Sir Charles Grandison. The Clarissas is an allusion to Miss Botham and Miss Carter, then with Mrs. Montagu.
This same month Mrs. Montagu was again very unwell. West urged her to go to London, but Mr. Montagu, who loved the retirement at Sandleford, was unwilling to leave it, and she says—
“Tho’ I am told I may go to town, I know it would not be agreeable where I ought to please, and I can hardly think it right to be in such haste to quit the place where I live most in the manner I ought to do, where only I am useful. I relieve the distresses and animate the industry of a few, and have given all my hours to the two girls under my care, whose welfare, whose eternal welfare perhaps, depends on what they shall now learn.”