Bad taste expellas fursa tamen usque recurret.

On the contrary, Mrs. Walsingham is making her house at Ditton (now baptized Boyle-farm) very orthodox.  Her daughter Miss Boyle(600) who has real genius, has carved three tablets in marble with buoys, designed by herself.  Those sculptures are for a chimney-piece; and she is painting panels in grotesque for the library, with pilasters of glass in black and gold.  Miss Crewe, who has taste too, has decorated a room for her mother’s house at Richmond, which was Lady Margaret Compton’s in a very pretty manner.  How much more amiable the old women of the next age will be, than most of those we remember, who used to tumble at once from gallantry to devout scandal and cards! and revenge on the young of their own sex the desertion of ours.  Now they are ingenious, they will not want amusement.  Adieu, my dear lord!

(599) Sister to the Prince de Carignan, of the royal house of Sardinia, and wife of the Prince de Lamballe, only son to the Duc de Penthi`evre.  She was sur-intendante de la maison de la Reine, and, from her attachment to Marie Antoinette, was one of the first females who fell a victim to the fury of the French revolution.  The peculiar circumstances of horror which attended her death, and the indignities offered to her remains, are in the memory of every one who has read the accounts of that heart.rending event.-E.

(600) Afterwards married to Lord Henry Fitzgerald.

Letter 313 To Miss Hannah More.  Strawberry Hill, Oct. 14, 1787. (page 395)

My dear Madam, I am shocked for human nature at the repeated malevolence of this woman!(601) The rank soil of riches we are accustomed to see overrun with weeds and thistles; but who could expect that the kindest seeds sown on poverty and dire misfortunes should meet with nothing but a rock at bottom?  Catherine de’ Medici, suckled by popes. and transplanted to a throne, seems more excusable.  Thank heaven, Madam, for giving you so excellent a heart; ay, and so good a head.  You are not only benevolence itself:  but, with fifty times the genius of a Yearsley, you are void of vanity.  How strange that vanity should expel gratitude!  Does not the wretched woman owe her fame to you, as well as her affluence?  I can testify your labours for both.  Dame Yearsley reminds me of the Troubadours, those vagrants whom I used to admire till I knew their history; and who used to pour out trumpery verses, and flatter or abuse accordingly as they were housed and clothed, or dismissed to the next parish.  Yet you did not set this person in the stocks, after procuring an annuity for her!  I beg your pardon for renewing so disgusting a subject, and will never mention it again.  You have better amusement; you love good works, a temper superior to revenge.(602)

I have again seen our poor friend in Clarges-street:  her faculties decay rapidly, and of course she suffers less.  She has not an acquaintance in town; and yet told me the town was very full, and that she had had a good deal of company.  Her health is re-established, and we must now be content that her mind is not restless.  My pity now feels most for Mrs. Hancock,(603) whose patience is inexhaustible, though not insensible.