I must trouble you once more to know to what merchant you consigned the Princess’s trees, and Lady Hervey’s biblioth`eque—­ I mean for the latter.  I did not see the Princess last week, as the loss of my nephew kept me from public places.  Of all public places, guess the most unlikely one for the most unlikely person to have been at.  I had sent to know how Lady Macclesfield did:  Louis(564) brought me word that he could hardly get into St. James’s-square, there was so great a crowd to see my lord lie in state.  At night I met my Lady Milton(565) at the Duchess of Argyle’s, and said in joke, “Soh, to be sure, you have been to see my Lord Macclesfield lie in state!” thinking it impossible—­ she burst out into a fit of laughter, and owned she had.  She and my Lady Temple had dined at Lady Betty’s,(566) put on hats and cloaks, and literally waited on the steps of the house in the thick of the mob, while one posse was admitted and let out again for a second to enter, before they got in.

You will as little guess what a present I have had from Holland—­ only a treatise of mathematical metaphysics from an author I never heard of, with great encomiums on my taste and knowledge.  To be sure, I am warranted to insert this certificate among the testimonia authorum, before my next edition of the Painters.  Now, I assure you, I am much more just—­I have sent the gentleman word what a perfect ignoramus I am, and did not treat my vanity with a moment’s respite.  Your brother has laughed at me, or rather at the poor man who has so mistaken me, as much as ever I did at his absence and flinging down every thing at breakfast.  Tom, your brother’s man, told him to-day, that Mister Helvoetsluys had been to wait on him—­now you are guessing,—­did you find out this was Helvetius?

It is piteous late, and I must go to bed, only telling you a bon-mot of Lady Bell Finch.(567) Lord Bath owed her half a crown; he sent it next day, with a wish that he could give her a crown.  She replied, that though he could not give her a crown, he could give her a coronet, and she was very ready to accept it.(568) I congratulate you on your new house; and am your very sleepy humble servant.

(555) The ancient Barony of Bottetourt had been considered as extinct ever since the reign of Edward iii. and was now claimed by Mr. Norborne Berkeley, member for Gloucestershire, and a groom of the bedchamber; the revival of a claim so long forgotten created considerable interest.-C.

(556) This is an important observation:  it affords a clue to the causes of the unpopularity of the early years of George iii.-C.

(557) The Princess Dowager.

(558) M. de Praslin was secretary for foreign affairs, and M. de Nivernois had been lately ambassador in England.-C.

(559) At this distance of time, D,Eon’s book seems to us the mere ravings of insane vanity; the puns poor, and the wit rare and forced.-C.