For a great while I had even stronger reasons than these for silence.  For several months I was disabled by the gout from holding a pen; and you must know, Madam, that one can’t write when one cannot write.  Then, how write to la Fianc`ee du Roi de Garbe?  You had been in the tent of the Cham of Tartary, and in the harem of the Captain Pacha, and, during your navigation of the AEgean, were possibly fallen into the terrible power of a corsair.  How could I suppose that so many despotic infidels would part with your charms?  I never expected you again on Christian ground.  I did not doubt your having a talisman to make people in love with you; but antitalismans are quite a new specific.

Well, while I was in this quandary, I received a delightful drawing Of the Castle of Otranto; but still provokingly without any address.  However, my gratitude for so very agreeable. and obliging a present could not rest till I found you out.  I wrote to the Duchess of Richmond, to beg, she would ask your brother Captain Berkeley for a direction to you; and he has this very day been so good as to send me one, and I do not lose a moment in making use of it.

I give your ladyship a million of thanks for the drawing, which was really a very valuable gift to me.  I did not even know that there was a Castle of Otranto.  When the story was finished, I looked into the map of the kingdom of Naples for a well-sounding name, and that of Otranto was very sonorous.  Nay, but the drawing is so satisfactory, that there are two small windows, one over another, and looking into the country, that suit exactly to the small chambers from one of which Matilda heard the young peasant singing beneath her.  Judge how welcome this must be to the author; and thence judge, Madam, how much you must have obliged him.

When you take another flight towards the bounds of the western ocean, remember to leave a direction.  One cannot always shoot flying.  Lord Chesterfield directed a letter to the late Lord Pembroke, who was always swimming, “To the Earl of Pembroke in the Thames, over against Whitehall.”  That was sure of finding him within a certain number of fathom; but your ladyship’s longitude varies so rapidly, that one must be a good bowler indeed, to take one’s ground so judiciously that by casting wide of the mark one may come in near to the jack.

(579) This celebrated lady was the daughter of Augustus, fourth Earl of Berkeley.  In 1767, she was married to William, who, in 1769, succeeded his uncle as sixth Lord Craven:  she had seven children by him; but, after a union of thirteen years, a separation taking place, she left England for France, and travelled in Italy, Austria, Poland, Russia, Turkey, and Greece.  In 1789, she published her “Journey through the Crimea to England.”  Subsequently, she settled at Anspach, and, becoming a widow in September, 1791, was united in the following month to the Margrave of Anspach; who, having sold his principality to the King of Prussia, settled in England; where he died in 1806.  In 1825, the Margravine published her Memoirs, She died at Naples in 1828-E.