(898) The loss of her only child threw Mrs. Cosway upon art once more.  To mitigate her grief, she painted several large Pictures for chapels; and afterwards visited Italy, where she formed a college at Lodi for the education of young ladies.  On the establishment of peace, she returned to England, where she remained till the death of her husband in 1821; after which she returned to Lodi.-E.

(899) The Countess of Jersey, mother to the present Earl.

(900) A portrait of Trefusis, Countess of Orford, widow of the eldest brother of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford.

(901) Charles Howard, eleventh Duke of Norfolk, so called by Lord Orford, for having his portrait executed in painted glass for the window of his great dining-room, at Arundel Castle, as Solomon entertaining the Queen of Sheba.

Letter 425 To Miss Berry.  Strawberry Hill, August 24, 1796. (page 572)

Bathe on, bathe on, and wash away all your complaints; the sea air and such an oriental season must cure every thing but positive decay and decrepitude.  On me they have no more effect than they would have on an Egyptian queen who has been embowelled and reserved in her sycamore etui ever since dying was first invented, and people notwithstanding liked to last for ever, though even in a pyramid.  In short, Mr. —­ has teased me so much about jumbling my relics, that I have aired(902) them every morning in the coach for this fortnight; and yet, you see, I cannot write ten lines together!  Lady Cecilia lets me call on her at twelve, and take her with me:  and yet I grew tired of it, and shall not have patience to continue, but shall remain, I believe, in my mummyhood.  I begin by giving myself a holiday to-day, in order to answer your letter of the 21st; while Lady Waldegrave, who is with me, and who has brought her eldest son, whom, poor soul! she cannot yet bear to call Lord Waldegrave, is gone to the pavilion.  Here is a letter for you from Hannah More, unsealed indeed, for chiefly a mon intention.  Be so good as to tell her how little I am really recovered but that I will hammer out a few words as fast, that is, as slowly as I can to her, in return.

I am scandalized at the slovenly neglect of the brave chapel of the Fitz-Alans.(903) I thought the longer any peer’s genealogy had been spun out, the prouder he was of the most ancient coronets in it; but since Solomon despises the Arundels for not having been dukes, I suppose he does not acknowledge Adam for a relation; who, though he had a tolerably numerous progeny, his grace does not allow to have been the patriarch of the Mowbrays and Howards, as the devil did not make Eve a duchess, though he has made the wives of some other folks so, and may propose to make one more so some time or other.

News I have none; but that Wurmsur seems to have put a little spoke into the wheel of the French triumphal car in Italy:  and as those banditti have deigned to smile on the Duke of Wirtemberg, I suppose they mean to postpone imposing a heavy contribution on him till he shall have received the fortune of the Princess Royal.  Adieu!