519 Letter 343 To George Montagu, Esq.  Arlington Street, Nov. 8, 1759.

Your pictures will set out on Saturday; I give you notice that you may inquire for them.  I did not intend to be here these three days, but my Lord Bath taking the trouble to send a man and horse to ask me to dinner yesterday, I did not know how to refuse; and, besides, as Mr. Bentley said to me, “you know he was an old friend of your father.”

The town is empty, but is coming to dress itself for Saturday.  My Lady Coventry showed George Selwyn her clothes; they are blue, with spots of silver, of the size of a shilling, and a silver trimming, and cost—­my lord will know what.  She asked George how he liked them; he replied, “Why, you will be change for a guinea.”

I find nothing talked of but the French bankruptcy;(1081) Sir Robert Brown, I hear—­and am glad to hear—­will be a great sufferer.  They put gravely into the article of bankrupts in the newspapers, “Louis le Petit, of the city of Paris, peace-breaker, dealer, and chapman;” it would have been still better if they had said, “Louis Bourbon of petty France.”  We don’t know what is become of their Monsieur Thurot,(1082) of whom we had still a little mind to be afraid.  I should think he would do like Sir Thomas Hanmer, make a faint effort, beg pardon of the Scotch for their disappointment, and retire.  Here are some pretty verses just arrived.

Pourquoi le baton `a Soubise,
Puisque Chevert est le vainqueur? 
C’est de la cour une m`eprise,
Ou bien le but de la faveur.

Je ne vois rien l`a qui m’`etonne,
Repond aussitot un railleur;
C’est `a l’aveugle qu’on le donne,
Et non pas au COnducteur.

Lady Meadows has left nine thousand pounds in reversion after her husband to Lord Sandwich’s daughter.  Apropos to my Lady Meadow’s maiden name,(1083) a name I believe you have sometimes heard:  I was diverted t’other day with a story of a lady of that name,(1084) and a lord, whose initial is no farther from hers than he himself is sometimes supposed to be.  Her postillion, a lad of sixteen, said, “I am not such a child but I can guess something:  whenever my Lord Lyttelton comes to my lady, she orders the porter to let in nobody else, and then they call for a pen and ink, and say they are going to Write history.”  Is not this finesse so like him?  ’Do you know that I am persuaded, now he is parted, that he will forget- he is married, and propose himself in form to some woman or other.

When do you come? if it is not soon, you will find a new town.  I stared to-day at Piccadilly like a country squire; there are twenty new stone houses; at first I concluded that all the grooms, that used to live there, had got estates to build palaces.  One young gentleman, who was getting an estate, but was so indiscreet as to step out of his way to rob a comrade, is convicted, and to be transported; in short, one of the waiters at Arthur’s.  George Selwyn says, “What a horrid idea he will give of us to the people in Newgate!”