precisely those with which we are least acquainted,-I mean of the age preceding our own.  Such anecdotes are forgotten in the multiplicity of those that ensue, or reside only in the memory of idle old persons, or have not yet emerged into publicity from the portefeuilles of such garrulous Brant`omes as myself.  Trifling I will not call myself; for, while I have such charming disciples as you two to inform; and though acute or plodding politicians, for whom they are not meant, may condemn these pages; which is preferable, the labour of an historian who toils for fame and for applause from he knows not whom; or my careless commission to paper of perhaps insignificant passages that I remember, but penned for the amusement of a pair of such sensible and cultivated minds as I never met at so early an age, and whose fine eyes I do know will read me With candour, and allow me that mite of fame to which I aspire, their approbation of my endeavours to divert their evenings in the country?  O Guicciardin! is posthumous renown so valuable as the satisfaction of reading these court-tales to the lovely Berrys?

Henrietta Hobart was daughter of Sir Henry, and sister of Sir John Hobart, Knight of the Bath on the revival of the order, and afterwards by her interest made a baron; and since created Earl of Buckinghamshire.

She was first married to Mr. Howard, the younger brother of more than one Earl of Suffolk; to which title he at last succeeded himself, and left a son by her, who was the last earl of that branch.  She had but the slender fortune of an ancient baronet’s daughter; and Mr. Howard’s circumstances were the reverse of opulent.  It was the close of Queen Anne’s reign:  the young couple saw no step more prudent than to resort to Hanover, and endeavour to ingratiate themselves with the future sovereigns of England.  Still so narrow was their fortune, that Mr. Howard finding it expedient to give a dinner to the Hanoverian ministers, Mrs. Howard is said to have sacrificed her beautiful head of hair to pay for the expense.  It must be recollected, that at that period were in fashion those enormous full-bottomed wigs, which often cost twenty and thirty guineas.  Mrs. Howard was extremely acceptable to the intelligent Princess Sophia; but did not at that time make farther impression on the Electoral Prince, than, on his father’s succession to the crown, to be appointed one of the bedchamber-women to the new Princess of Wales.

The elder Whig politicians became ministers to the King.  The most promising of the young lords and gentleman of that party, and the prettiest and liveliest of the young ladies, formed the new court of the Prince and Princess of Wales.  The apartment of the bedchamber-woman in waiting became the fashionable evening rendez-vous of the most distinguished wits and beauties.  Lord Chesterfield, then Lord Stanhope, Lord Scarborough, Carr Lord Hervey, elder brother of the more known John Lord Hervey, and reckoned to