“My poor brother’s virtues and capacity gave me the fairest hopes of seeing him enjoy life with great advantages; a fatal moment has destroyed those hopes, but it must be length of time that can make me submit to the cruel disappointment; he was an honour and happiness to us all, and I never thought of him without pleasure.”
BATH
In a letter to Mrs. Donnellan from Bath, dated February 6, the following passage occurs: “The Coffee House is really grown sprightly. We meet Mrs. Pitt,[455] Mrs. G. Trevor, Mrs. Grosvenor, Lady Lucy Stanhope, and a few more, and we are often very merry, and sit round the fire after other people go away.”[456] The Freinds were at Bath, but their little boy Robert being inoculated for the smallpox kept the cousins apart.
[455] Anne Pitt, sister of Mr. Pitt, Maid-of-Honour to Queen Caroline.
[456] The “Coffee House” apparently adjoined the Rooms, as is shown in the reproduction of Nixon’s original water-colour drawing of such a scene as Mrs. Montagu describes, now in Mr. Broadley’s valuable Bath Collection.
Her spirits reviving, Mrs. Montagu, writing to the duchess, says, “Whisk and the noble game of E. O. employ the evening; three glasses of water, a toasted roll, a Bath cake, and a cold walk the mornings,” but the regimen agreed with her, and she accompanied Mr. Montagu to Sandleford on May 1, leaving Sarah Robinson, who was suffering from headache, with her friend, Miss Grinfield, at Bath. From this period dates the extreme intimacy which grew up between Miss Robinson and Lady Barbara Montagu, sister of George Montagu Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, who was then living at Bath, and invited Miss Robinson to stay with her.
The Hill Street house not being completed, Mrs. Knight,[457] a cousin of the family, lent Mrs. Montagu her house in Golden Square, London. Miss Grinfield, just mentioned, was just made a dresser to the princesses, daughters of George II.
[457] Née Robinson.
“Miss Grinfield is in waiting.... The place is enough to weary a person of the strongest constitution; their Highnesses rise early and go to bed late; are waited upon by the dressers at dinner. Princess Caroline[458] has one to read to her continually; poor Nancy is to have only the £100 per annum, and no cloathes till one goes off.”
[458] Married 1766, to King Christian VII. of Denmark.