kingdom of cinders.  Mrs. Walsingham(530) Was there with her son and daughter.  He is a very pleasing young man; a fine figure; his face like hers, with something of his grandfather, Sir Charles Williams, without his vanity:  very sensible, and uncommonly well-bred.  The daughter is an imitatress of Mrs. Damer, and has modelled a bust of her brother.  Mrs. Damer herself is modelling two masks for the keystones of the new bridge at Henley.  Sir William, who has seen them, says they are in her true antique style.  I am in possession of her sleeping dogs in terra cotta.  She asked me if I would consent to her executing them in marble for the Duke of Richmond?  I said gladly; I should like they should exist in a more durable material; but I would not part with the original, Which is sharper and more alive.  Mr. Wyat the architect saw them here lately; and said, he was sure that if the idea was given to the best statuary in Europe, he would not produce so perfect a group.  Indeed with those dogs and the riches I possess by Lady Di,(531) poor Strawberry may vie with much prouder collections.

Adieu, my good lord! when I fold up a letter I am ashamed of it; but it is your own fault.  The last thing I should think of would be troubling your lordship with such insipid stuff, if you did not command it.  Lady Strafford will bear me testimony how often I have protested against it.

(530) Charlotte, daughter of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, Bart, married to the Hon. Robert Boyle Walsingham.-E.

(531) The number of original drawings by Lady Diana Beauclerc, at Strawberry Hill.

Letter 282 To John Pinkerton, Esq.(532) Strawberry Hill, Sept. 27, 1784. (page 353)

I have read your piece, Sir, very attentively; and, as I promised, will give you my opinion of it fairly.  There is much wit in it, especially in the part of Nebuchadnezer and the dialogue is very easy, and the dinouement in favour of Barbara interesting.  There are, however, I think, some objections to be made, which, having written so well, you may easily remove, as they are rather faults in the mechanism than in the writing.  Several scenes seem to me to finish too abruptly, and not to be enough connected.  Juliana is not enough distinguished, as of an age capable of more elevated sentiments:  her desire of playing at hot-cockles and blind-man’s-buff sounds more childish than vulgar.  There is another defect, which is in the conduct of the plot:  surely there is much too long an interval between the discovery of the marriage of Juliana and Philip, and the anger of her parents.  The audience must expect immediate effect from it; and yet the noise it is to make arrives so late, that it would have been forgotten in the course of the intermediate scenes.