Never let criticisms operate upon your face, or your mind; it is very rarely that an author is hurt by his criticks.  The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket; a very few names may be considered as perpetual lamps, that shine unconsumed.  From the author of Fitzosborne’s Letters, I cannot think myself in much danger.  I met him only once, about thirty years ago, and, in some small dispute, reduced him to whistle; having not seen him since, that is the last impression.  Poor Moore, the fabulist, was one of the company.

Mrs. Montague’s long stay, against her own inclination, is very convenient.  You would, by your own confession, want a companion; and she is “par pluribus,” conversing with her you may “find variety in one.”

At Mrs. Ord’s I met one Mrs. B—­, a travelled lady, of great spirit, and some consciousness of her own abilities.  We had a contest of gallantry, an hour long, so much to the diversion of the company, that at Ramsay’s, last night, in a crowded room, they would have pitted us again.  There were Smelt, and the bishop of St. Asaph, who comes to every place; and lord Monboddo, and sir Joshua, and ladies out of tale.

The exhibition, how will you do either to see or not to see!  The exhibition is eminently splendid.  There is contour, and keeping, and grace, and expression, and all the varieties of artificial excellence.  The apartments were truly very noble.  The pictures, for the sake of a skylight, are at the top of the house; there we dined, and I sat over against the archbishop of York.  See how I live, when I am not under petticoat government.  I am, &c.

London, May 1, 1780.

XLIV.—­To MRS. THRALE.

London, June 9, 1780.

DEAR MADAM,—­To the question, Who was impressed with consternation? it may, with great truth, be answered, that every body was impressed, for nobody was sure of his safety.

On Friday, the good protestants met in St. George’s fields, at the summons of lord George Gordon, and marching to Westminster, insulted the lords and commons, who all bore it with great tameness.  At night, the outrages began, by the demolition of the mass-house by Lincoln’s inn.

An exact journal of a week’s defiance of government, I cannot give you.  On Monday, Mr. Strahan, who had been insulted, spoke to lord Mansfield, who had, I think been insulted too, of the licentiousness of the populace; and his lordship treated it, as a very slight irregularity.  On Tuesday night, they pulled down Fielding’s house and burnt his goods in the street.  They had gutted, on Monday sir George Saville’s house, but the building was saved.  On Tuesday evening, leaving Fielding’s ruins, they went to Newgate, to demand their companions, who had been seized, demolishing the chapel.  The keeper could not release them, but by the mayor’s permission, which he went to ask; at his return, he found all the prisoners released, and Newgate in a blaze.  They then went to Bloomsbury, and fastened upon lord Mansfield’s house which they pulled down; and as for his goods, they totally burnt them.  They have since gone to Caen wood, but a guard was there before them.  They plundered some papists, I think, and burnt a mass-house in Moorfields the same night.