was a comely figure. My Lady Cowper refused,
but was forced to walk with Lady Macclesfield.
Lady Falmouth was not there on which George Selwyn
said, “that those peeresses who were most used
to walk, did not.” I carried my Lady Townshend,
Lady Hertford, Lady Anne Connolly, my Lady Hervey,
and Mrs. Clive, to my deputy’s house at the
gate of Westminster-hall. My Lady Townshend said
she should be very glad to see a coronation, as she
never had seen one. “Why,” said I,
“Madam, you walked at the last?” “Yes,
child,” said she, “but I saw nothing of
it: I only looked to see who looked at me.”
The Duchess of Queensbury walked! her affectation
that day was to do nothing preposterous. The
Queen has been at the Opera, and says she will go
once a week. This is a fresh disaster to our
box, where we have lived so harmoniously for three
years. We can get no alternative but that over
Miss Chudleigh’s; and Lord Strafford and Lady
Mary Coke will not subscribe, unless we can.
The Duke of Devonshire and I are negotiating with
all our -art to keep our party together. The
crowds at the Opera and play when the King and Queen
go, are a little greater than what I remember.
The late royalties went to the Haymarket, when it
was the fashion to frequent the other opera in Lincoln’s-inn-fields.
Lord Chesterfield one night came into the latter,
and was asked, if he had been at the other house?
“Yes,” said he, “but there was nobody
but the King and Queen; and as I thought they might
be talking business, I came away.”
Thank you for your journals: the best route you
can send me in would be of your Journey homewards.
Adieu!
P. S. If you ever hear from, or write to, such a person
as Lady Ailesbury, pray tell her she is worse to me
in point of correspondence than ever you said I was
to you, and that she sends me every thing but letters!
(185) Mr. Pitt, then secretary of state.
(186) The English ambassador at the court of Madrid.
You are a mean mercenary woman. If you did not
want histories of weddings and coronations, and had
not jobs to be executed about muslins, and a bit of
china, and counterband goods, one should never hear
of you. When you don’t want a body, you
can frisk about with greffiers and burgomasters. and
be as merry in a dyke as my lady frog herself.
The moment your curiosity is agog, or your cambric
seized, you recollect a good cousin in England, and,
as folks said two hundred years ago, begin to write
“upon the knees of your heart.”
Well! I am a sweet-tempered creature, I forgive
you. I have already writ to a little friend in
the customhouse, and will try what can be done; however,
by Mr. Amyand’s report to the Duchess of Richmond,
I fear your case is desperate. For the genealogies,
I have turned over all my books to no purpose; I can
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