much of her sister my Lady Stafford, whom I remember to have seen when I was a child. She used to live at Twickenham when Lady Mary Wortley and the Duke of Wharton lived there; she had more wit than both of them. What would I give to have had Strawberry Hill twenty years ago! I think any thing but twenty years. Lady Stafford used to say to her sister, "Well, child, I have come without my wit to-day;" that is, she had not taken her opium, which she was forced to do if she had any appointment, to be in particular spirits. This rage of Grammont carried me a little while ago to old Marlborough's at Wimbledon, where I had heard there was a picture of Lady Denham;d it is a charming one. The house you know stands in a hole, or, as the whimsical old lady said, seems to be making a courtesy. She had directed my Lord Pembroke not to make her go up any steps; "I wont go up steps;"-and so he dug a saucer to put it in, and levelled the first floor with the ground. There is a bust of Admiral Vernon, erected I suppose by Jack Spencer, with as many lies upon it as if it was a tombstone; and a very curious old picture up-stairs that I take to be Louis Sforza the Moor, with his nephew Galeazzo. There are other good pictures in the house, but perhaps. you have seen them. As I have formerly seen Oxford and Blenheim, I did not stop till I came to Stratford-upon-Avon, the wretchedest old town I ever saw, which I intended for Shakspeare's sake, to find snug, and pretty, and antique, not old. His tomb, and his wife's, and John à Combes', are in an agreeable church, with several other monuments; as one of the Earl of Totness, and another of Sir Edward Walker, the memoirs writer. There are quantities of Cloptons, too; but the bountiful corporation have exceedingly bepainted Shakspeare and the principal personages.

I was much struck with Ragley; the situation is magnificent; the house far beyond any thing I have seen of that bad age: for it was begun, as I found by an old letter in the library from Lord Ranelagh to Earl Conway, in the year 1680. By the way, I have had, and am to have, the rummaging of three chests of pedigrees and letters to that secretary Conway, which I have interceded for and saved from the flames. The prospect is as fine as one destitute of a navigated river can be, and hitherto totally unimproved; so is the house, which is but just covered in, after so many years. They have begun to inhabit the naked walls of the attic story; the great one is unfloored and unceiled; the hall is magnificent, sixty by forty, and thirty-eight

Claude Charlotte, Countess of Stafford, wife of Henry, Earl of Stafford, and daughter of Philibert, Count of Grammont, and Elizabeth Hamilton, his wife.

b Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough.

d Miss Brooke, one of the beauties of the court of Charles II., second wife of Sir John Denhamn the poet. This second marriage brought upon him so much disquiet, as for a time to disorder his understanding, and Butler lampooned him for his lunacy. In Grammont's Memoirs many circumstances are related, both of his marriage and his frenzy, very little favourable to his character.-E.

George Carew, Earl of Totness, died without heirs male in 1629, leaving an only daughter, married to Sir Allen Apsley.—E.

high. I am going to pump Mr. Bentley for designs. The other apartments are very lofty, and in quantity, though I had suspected that this leviathan hall must have devoured half the other chambers.

a

The Hertfords carried me to dine at Lord Archer's, an odious place. On my return, I saw Warwick, a pretty old town, small, and thinly inhabited, in the form of a cross. The castle is enchanting; the view pleased me more than I can express; the river Avon tumbles down a cascade at the foot of it. It is well laid out by one Brown, who has set up on a few ideas of Kent and Mr. Southcote. One sees what the prevalence of taste does; little Brooke, who would have chuckled to have been born in an age of clipt hedges and cockle-shell avenues, has submitted to let his garden and park be natural. Where he has attempted Gothic in the castle, he has failed; and has indulged himself in a new apartment, that is paltry. The chapel is very pretty, and smugged up with tiny pews, that look like étuis for the Earl and his diminutive Countess. I shall tell you nothing of the glorious chapel of the Beauchamps in St. Mary's church, for you know it is in Dugdale; nor how ill the fierce bears and ragged staves are succeeded by puppets and corals. As I came back another road, I saw Lord Pomfret's, by Towcester, where there are a few good pictures, and many masked statues; there is an exceeding fine Cicero, which has no fault, but the head being modern. I saw a pretty lodge, just built by the Duke of Grafton, in Whittleberryforest; the design is Kent's, but, as was his manner, too heavy. I ran through the gardens at Stowe, which I have seen before, and had only time to be charmed with the variety of scenes. I do like that Albano glut of buildings, let them be ever so much condemned.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Mistley, Aug. 31, 1751.

I AM going to answer two of your letters, without having the fear of Genoad before my eyes. Your brother sent to me about this embassy the night before I came out of town, and I had not time nor opportunity to make any inquiry about it. Indeed, I am persuaded

a Umberslade, near Stratford-upon-Avon.

b Lancelot Brown, generally called "Capability Brown," from his frequent use of that word. He rose by his merit, from a low condition, to be head gardener at Stowe; and was afterwards appointed, by George the Second, to the same situation at Hampton Court. Lord Chatham, who had a great regard for him, thus speaks of him, in a letter to Lady Stanhope:-"The chapter of my friend's dignity must not be omitted. He writes Lancelet Brown, Esquire, en titre d'offic: please to consider, he shares the private hours of Majesty, dines familiarly with his neighbour of Sion, and sits down to the tables of all the House of Lords, &c. To be serious, he is deserving of the regard shown to him; for I know him, upon very long acquaintance, to be an honest man, and of senti. ments much above his birth." See Chatham Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 430.-E. c Easton Neston.

d Count Richcourt pretended that he had received intelligence from his brother, then minister in London, that Mr. Mann was to be sent on a secret commission to Genoa.

it is all a fable, some political nonsense of Richcourt. How should his brother know any thing of it? or, to speak plainly, what can we bring about by a sudden negotiation with the Genoese? Do but put these two things together, that we can do nothing, and the Richcourts can know nothing, and you will laugh at this pretended communication of a secret that relates to yourself from one who is ignorant of what relates to you, and who would not tell you if he did know. I have had a note from your brother since I came hither, which confirms my opinion; and I find Mr. Chute is of the same. Be at peace, my dear child: I should not be so if I thought you in the least danger.

I imagined you would have seen Mr. Conway before this time; I have already told you how different you will find him from the raw animals that you generally see. As you talk of our Beauties, I shall tell you a new story of the Gunnings, who make more noise than any of their predecessors since the days of Helen, though neither of them, nor any thing about them, have yet been teterrima belli causa. They went the other day to see Hampton Court; as they were going into the Beauty-room, another company arrived; the housekeeper said, "This way, ladies; here are the Beauties." The Gunnings flew into a passion, and asked her what she meant; that they came to see the palace, not to be showed as a sight themselves.

I am charmed with your behaviour to the Count on the affair of the Leghorn allegiance; I don't wonder he is willing to transport you to Genoa! Your priest's epigram is strong; I suppose he had a dispensation for making a false quantity in secunda.

Pray tell me if you know any thing of Lady Mary Wortley: we have an obscure history here of her being in durance in the Brescian, or the Bergamasco: that a young fellow whom she set out with keeping has taken it into his head to keep her close prisoner, not permitting her to write or receive any letters but what he sees: he seems determined, if her husband should die, not to lose her, as the Count lost my Lady Orford."

Lord Rockingham told me himself of his Guercino, and seemed obliged for the trouble you had given yourself in executing the commission. I can tell you nothing farther of the pictures at Houghton; Lord Orford has been ill and given over, and is gone to Cheltenham.

Lord Wharncliffe, in his edition of Lady Mary's Works, vol. iii. p. 435, makes the following observation on this passage:-"Among Lady Mary's papers there is a long paper, written in Italian, not by herself, giving an account of her having been detained for some time against her will in a country-house belonging to an Italian Count, and inhabited by him and his mother. This paper seems to have been submitted to a lawyer for his opinion, or to be produced in a court of law. There is nothing else to be found in Lady Mary's papers referring in the least degree to this circumstance. It would appear, however, that some such forcible detention as is alluded to did take place, probably for some pecuniary or interested object; but, like many of Horace Walpole's stories, he took care not to let this lose any thing that might give it zest, and he therefore makes the person by whom Lady Mary was detained a young fellow whom she set out with keeping.' Now, at the time of this transaction, Lady Mary was sixty-one years old. The reader, therefore, may judge for himself, how far such an imputation upon her is likely to be founded in truth."-E.

The affair of Miss Nicholl is blown up by the treachery of my uncle Horace and some lawyers, that I had employed at his recommendation. I have been forced to write a narrative of the whole transaction, and was with difficulty kept from publishing it. You shall see it whenever I have an opportunity. Mr. Chute, who has been still worse used than I have been, is, however, in better spirits than he was, since he got rid of all this embroil, I have brought about a reconciliation with his brother, which makes me less regard the other disappointments.

I must bid you good night, for I am at too great a distance to know any news, even if there were any in season. I shall be in town next week, and will not fail you in inquiries, though I am persuaded you will before that have found that all this Genoese mystery was without foundation.

Adieu!

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, Oct. 8, 1751.

So you have totally forgot that I sent you the pedigree of the Crouches, as long ago as the middle of last August, and that you promised to come to Strawberry Hill in October. I shall be there some time in next week, but as my motions neither depend on resolutions nor almanacs, let me know beforehand when you intend me a visit; for though keeping an appointment is not just the thing you ever do, I suppose you know you dislike being disappointed yourself, as much as if you were the most punctual person in the world to engagements.

I came yesterday from Woburn, where I have been a week. The house is in building, and three sides of the quadrangle finished. The park is very fine, the woods glorious, and the plantations of evergreens sumptuous; but upon the whole, it is rather what I admire than like I fear that is what I am a little apt to do at the finest places in the world where there is not a navigable river. You would be charmed, as I was, with an old gallery, that is not yet destroyed. It is a bad room, powdered with little gold stars, and covered with millions of old portraits. There are all the successions of Earls and Countesses of Bedford, and all their progenies. One countess is a whole-length drawing in the drollest dress you ever saw; and another picture of the same woman leaning on her hand, I believe by Cornelius Johnson, is as fine a head as ever I saw. There are many of Queen Elizabeth's worthies, the Leicesters, Essexes, and Philip Sidneys, and a very curious portrait of the last Courtney, Earl of Devonshire, who died at Padua. Have not I read somewhere that he was in love with Queen Elizabeth, and Queen Mary with him? He is quite in the style of the former's lovers, red-bearded, and not comely. There is Essex's friend, the Earl of Southampton; his son

the Lord Treasurer; and Madame l'Empoisonneuse, that married Carr, Earl of Somerset-she is pretty. Have not you seen a copy Vertue has made of Philip and Mary? That is in this gallery too, but more curious than good. They showed me two heads, who, according to the tradition of the family, were the originals of Castalio and Polydore. They were sons to the second Earl of Bedford; and the eldest, if not both, died before their father. The eldest has vipers in his hand, and in the distant landscape appears in a maze, with these words, Fata viam invenient. The other has a woman behind him, sitting near the sea, with strange monsters surrounding her. I don't pretend to decipher this, nor to describe half the entertaining morsels I found here; but I can't omit, as you know I am Grammont-mad, that I found "le vieux Roussel, qui étoit le plus fier danseur d'Angleterre." The portrait is young, but has all the promise of his latter character. I am going to send them a head of a Countess of Cumberland, sister to Castalio and Polydore, and mother of a famous Countess of Dorset, who afterwards married the Earl of Pembroke, of Charles the First's time. She was an authoress, and immensely rich. After the restoration, Sir Joseph Williamson, the secretary of state, wrote to her to choose a courtier at Appleby: she sent him this answer: "I have been bullied by an usurper, I have been ill-treated by a court, but I won't be dictated to by a subject; your man shall not stand. Ann Dorset, Pembroke and Montgomery." Adieu! If you love news a hundred years old, I think you can't have a better correspondent. For any thing that passes now, I shall not think it worth knowing these fifty years.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 14, 1751.

Ir is above six weeks since I wrote to you, and I was going on to be longer, as I stayed for something to tell you; but an express that arrived yesterday brought a great event, which, though you will hear long before my letter can arrive, serves for a topic to renew our correspondence. The Prince of Orange is dead; killed by the waters

a Lady Frances Howard, daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, and married to the Earl of Essex, from whom she was divorced. She then married her lover, the Earl of Somerset. She poisoned Sir Thomas Overbury, because he had endeavoured to dissuade his friend the Earl of Somerset from this alliance. She was tried and condemned, but was pardoned by King James.

Robert Carr, a favourite of King James the First, who created him Viscount Rochester and Earl of Somerset. He was tried and condemned, but was pardoned by James the First.

c Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, daughter of Francis Russell, second Earl of Bed. ford, and married to George Clifford, third Earl of Cumberland.

d Ann Clifford, daughter of George, Earl of Cumberland, first married to Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset, and afterwards to Philip, Earl of Pembroke.

Philip, Earl of Pembroke, son of Henry, second Earl of Pembroke. He was chamberlain to Charles the First.