How shall I tell you the greatest curiosity of the story?  The whole plan and execution of the second act was laid and adjusted by my Lady Suffolk herself and Will.  Chetwynd, Master of the Mint, Lord Bolingbroke’s Oroonoho-Chetwynd; he fourscore, she past seventy-six; and what is more, much worse than I was, for, added to her deafness, she has been confined these three weeks with the gout in her eyes, and was actually then in misery, and had been without sleep.  What spirits, and cleverness, and imagination, at that age, and under those afflicting circumstances!  You reconnoitre her old court knowledge, how charmingly she has applied it!  Do you wonder I pass so many hours and evenings with her?  Alas!  I had like to have lost her this morning!  They had poulticed her feet to draw the gout downwards, and began to succeed yesterday, but to-day it flew up into her head, and she was almost in convulsions with the agony, and screamed dreadfully; proof enough how ill she was, for her patience and good breeding make her for ever sink and conceal what she feels.  This evening the gout has been driven back to her foot, and I trust she is out of danger.  Her loss would be irreparable to me at Twickenham, where she is by far the most rational and agreeable company I have....

To LADY HERVEY

A quiet life

Strawberry Hill, 11 June, 1765.

I am almost as much ashamed, Madam, to plead the true cause of my faults towards your ladyship, as to have been guilty of any neglect.  It is scandalous, at my age, to have been carried backwards and forwards to balls and suppers and parties by very young people, as I was all last week.  My resolutions of growing old and staid are admirable:  I wake with a sober plan, and intend to pass the day with my friends—­then comes the Duke of Richmond, and hurries me down to Whitehall to dinner—­then the Duchess of Grafton sends for me to too in Upper Grosvenor Street—­before I can get thither, I am begged to step to Kensington, to give Mrs. Anne Pitt my opinion about a bow-window—­after the loo, I am to march back to Whitehall to supper—­and after that, am to walk with Miss Pelham on the terrace till two in the morning, because it is moonlight and her chair is not come.  All this does not help my morning laziness; and by the time I have breakfasted, fed my birds and my squirrels, and dressed, there is an auction ready.  In short, Madam, this was my life last week, and is I think every week, with the addition of forty episodes.—­Yet, ridiculous as it is, I send it to your ladyship, because I had rather you should laugh at me than be angry.  I cannot offend you in intention, but I fear my sins of omission are equal to a good many Christian’s.  Pray forgive me.  I really will begin to be between forty and fifty by the time I am fourscore:  and I truly believe I shall bring my resolutions within compass; for I have not chalked out any particular business that will take me above forty years more; so that, if I do not get acquainted with the grandchildren of all the present age, I shall lead a quiet sober life yet before I die....