My dear lord, Nothing was ever equal to the bustle and uncertainty of the town for these three days.  The Queen was seen off the coast of Sussex on Saturday last, and is not arrived yet-nay, last night at ten o’clock it was neither certain when she landed, nor when she would be in town.  I forgive history for knowing nothing, when so public an event as the arrival of a new Queen is a mystery even at the very moment in St. James’s Street.  The messenger that brought the letter yesterday morning, said she arrived ,it half an hour after four at Harwich.  This was immediately translated into landing, and notified in those words to the ministers.  Six hours afterwards it proved no such thing, and that she was only in Harwich-road; and they recollected that an hour after four happens twice in twenty-four hours, and the letter did not specify which of the twices it was.  Well! the bridemaids whipped on their virginity; the new road and the parks were thronged; the guns were choking with impatience to go off; and Sir James Lowther, who was to pledge his Majesty was actually married to Lady Mary Stuart.(182) Five, six, seven, eight o’clock came, and no Queen—­She lay at Witham at Lord Abercorn’s, who was most tranquilly in town; and it is not certain even whether she will be composed enough to be in town to-night.  She has been sick but half an hour; sung and played on the harpsicord all the voyage, and been cheerful the whole time.  The coronation will now certainly not be put off-so I shall have the pleasure of seeing you on the 15th.  The weather is close and sultry; and if the wedding is to-night, we shall all die.

They have made an admirable speech for the Tripoline ambassador that he said he heard the King had sent his first eunuch to fetch the Princess.  I should think he meaned Lord Anson.

You will find the town over head and ears in disputes about rank, and precedence, processions, entr`ees, etc.  One point, that of the Irish peers, has been excellently liquidated:  Lord Halifax has stuck up a paper in the coffee-room at Arthur’s, importing, , That his Majesty, not having leisure to determine a point of such great consequence, permits for this time such Irish peers as shall be at the marriage to walk in the procession.”  Every body concludes those personages will understand this order as it is drawn up in their own language; otherwise it is not very clear how they are to walk to the marriage, if they are at it before they come to it.

Strawberry returns its duty and thanks for all your lordship’s goodness to it, and though it has not got its wedding-clothes yet, will be happy to see you.  Lady Betty Mackenzie is the individual woman she was—­she seems to have been gone three years, like the Sultan in the Persian Tales, who popped his head into a tub of water, pulled it up again, and fancied he had been a dozen years in bondage in the interim.  She is not altered a tittle.  Adieu, my dear lord!