Strawberry, whose glories perhaps verge towards their setting-, have been more sumptuous to-day than ordinary, and banquetted their representative majesties of France and Spain.  I had Monsieur and Madame de Guerchy, Mademoiselle de Nangis their daughter, two other French gentlemen, the Prince of Masserano, his brother and secretary, Lord March, George Selwyn, Mrs. Add Pitt, and my niece Waldegrave.  The refectory never was so crowded; nor have any foreigners been here before that comprehended Strawberry.  Indeed, every thing succeeded to a hair.  A violent shower in the morning laid the dust, brightened the green, refreshed the roses, pinks, orange-flowers, and the blossoms with which the acacias are covered.  A rich storm of thunder and lightning gave a dignity of colouring to the heavens; and the sun appeared enough to illuminate the landscape, without basking himself over it at his length.  During dinner there were French horns and clarionets in the cloister, and after coffee I treated them with an English, and to them a very new collation, a syllabub milked Under the cows that were brought to the brow of the terrace.  Thence they went to the printing-house, and saw a new fashionable French song printed.  They drank tea in the gallery, and at eight went away to Vauxhall.

They really seemed quite pleased with the place and the day; but I must tell you, the treasury of the abbey will feel it, for without magnificence, all was handsomely done.  I must keep maigre; at least till the interdict is taken off from my convent.  I have kings and queens, I hear, in my neighbourhood, but this is no royal foundation.  Adieu; your poor beadsman, The Abbot Of Strawberry.

P. S. Mr. T***’s servile poem is rewarded with one hundred and sixty pounds a ),ear in the post-office.

Letter 214 To George Montagu, Esq.  Strawberry Hill, July 16, 1764. (page 329)

mr. chute says you are peremptory that you will not cast a look southwards.  Do you know that in that case you will not set eyes on me the Lord knows when?  My mind is pretty much fixed on going to Paris the beginning of September.  I think I shall go, if it is only to scold my Lord and Lady Hertford for sending me their cousins, the Duke and Duchess of Berwick, who say they are come to see their relations.  By their appearance, you would imagine they were come to beg money of their family.  He has just the sort of capacity which you would expect in a Stuart engrafted on a Spaniard.  He asked me which way he was to come to Twickenham?  I told him through Kensington, to which I supposed his geography might reach.  He replied, “Oh! du cot`e de la mer.”  She, who is sister of the Duke of Alva, is a decent kind of a body:  but they talk wicked French.  I gave them a dinner here t’other day, with the Marquis of Jamaica, their only child, and a fat tutor, and the few Fitzroys I could amass at this season.  They were very civil, and seemed