One may live in a vast capital, and know no more of three parts of it than of Carthage.  When I was at Florence, I have surprised some Florentines by telling them, that London was built, like their city, (where you often cross the bridges several times in a day,) on each side of the river:  and yet that I had never been but on one side; for then I had never been in Southwark.  When I was very young, and in the height of the opposition to my father, my mother wanted a large parcel of bugles; for what use I forget.  As they were then out of fashion, she could get none.  At last, she was told of a quantity in a little shop in an obscure alley in the City.  We drove thither; found a great stock; she bought it, and bade the proprietor send it home.  He said, “Whither?” “To Sir Robert Walpole’s.”  He asked coolly, “Who is Sir Robert Walpole?”

This is very like Cambridge, who tells you three stories to make you understand a fourth.  In short, t’other morning a gentleman made me a visit, and asked if I had heard of the great misfortune that had happened?  The Albion Mills are burnt down.  I asked where they were; supposing they were powder-mills in the country, that had blown up.  I had literally never seen or heard of the spacious lofty building at the end of Blackfriars Bridge.  At first it was supposed maliciously burnt, and it is certain the mob stood and enjoyed the conflagration, as of a monopoly; but it had been on fire, and it was thought extinguished.  The building had cost a hundred thousand Pounds; and the loss in corn and flour is calculated at a hundred and forty thousand.  I do not answer for the truth of the sums; but it is certain that the Palace-yard and part of St. James’s Park were covered with half-burnt grain.(755)

This accident, and my introduction, have helped me to a good part Of my letter; for you must have observed, that even in this overgrown town the winter has not been productive of events.  Good night!  I have two days to wait for a letter that I may answer.  Stay -, I should tell you, that I have been at Sir Joseph Banks’s literary saturnalia,(756) where was a Parisian watchmaker, who produced the smallest autoMaton that I suppose was ever created.  It was a rich snuffbox, not too large for a woman.  On opening the lid, an enamelled bird started up, sat on the rim, turned round, fluttered its wings, and piped in a delightful tone the notes of different birds; particularly the jug-jug of the nightingale.  It is the prettiest plaything you ever saw; the price tempting—­only five hundred pounds.  That economist, the Prince of Wales, could not resist it, and has bought one of those dickybirds.  If the maker finds such customers, he will not end like one of his profession here, who made the serpent in Orpheus and Eurydice;(757) and who fell so deeply in love with his own works, that he did nothing afterwards but make serpents, of all sorts and sizes, till he was ruined and broke.  I have not a tittle to add-but that the Lord Mayor did not fetch Madame du Barry in the City-royal coach; but kept her to dinner.  She is gone; but returns in April.