I do not mean, by what I am going to say, to extort another letter from you before I have the pleasure of seeing you at Hampton; but I really shall be much obliged to you for a single line soon, only to tell me if Miss Williams is at Stoke with the Duchess of Beaufort.  To a short note, cannot you add a short P. S. on the fate of Earl Goodwin?(687) Lac mihi novum non frigore desit.  Adieu! my amiable friend!  Yours most sincerely.

(683) George fourth Earl of Waldegrave born in 1751; married, in 1782, his cousin Lady Elizabeth Laura Waldegrave, daughter of James, the second Earl.  He died on the 22d of October.-E.

(684) Mr. Barrett was the person who first encouraged Chatterton to publish the poems which he attributed to Rowley.  He was a respectable surgeon at Bristol.-E.

(685) Miss More, in her last letter, had said—­“What a pity it is that Vertot is not alive that man’s element was a state convulsion; he hopped over peaceful intervals, as periods of no value, and only seemed to enjoy himself when all the rest of the world was sad.  Storm and tempest were his halcyon days."-E.

(686) In her letter to Walpole Miss More had said,—­“I comforted myself., that your two fair wives were within reach of your elbow-chair, and that their pleasant society would somewhat mitigate the sufferings of your confinement.  Apropos of two wives—­when the newspapers the other day were pleased to marry me to Dr. Priestley, I am surprised they did not rather choose to bestow me on Mr. Madan, as his wife is probably better broken in to these eastern usages, than Mrs. Priestley may be.  I never saw the Doctor but once in my life, and he had then been married above twenty years.”  Memoirs, vol. ii.  P. 188.-E.

(687) Ann Yearsley’s tragedy, which had just been represented, with little success, at the Bath and Bristol theatres.  In reply to Walpole’s query, Miss More says, “There are, I dare say, some Pretty Passages in it, but all seem to bring it in guilty of the crime of dullness; which I take to be the greatest fault in dramatic composition."-E.

Letter 348 To Miss Hannah More.  Berkeley Square, Feb. 20, 1790. (PAGE 446)

It is very provoking that people must always be hanging or drowning themselves, or going mad, that you forsooth, Mistress, may have the diversion of exercising your pity and good-nature, and charity, and intercession, and all that bead-roll of virtues that make you so troublesome and amiable, when you might be ten times more agreeable by things that would not cost one above half-a-crown at a time.(688) You are an absolutely walking hospital, and travel about into lone and bye places, with your doors open to house stray casualties!  I wish at least that you would have some children yourself, that you might not be plaguing one for all the Pretty brats that are starving and friendless.  I suppose it was some such goody two or three thousand