after Christmas, unless great cold drives me thither.  Lady Di, Selwyn, the Penns, the Onslows, Douglases, Mackinsys, Keenes, Lady Mount-Edgcumbe, all stay, and Some of them meet every evening.  The Boufflers too are constantly invited, and the Comtesse Emilie sometimes carries her harp, on which they say she plays better than Orpheus; but as I never heard him on earth, nor chez Proserpine, I do not pretend to decide.  Lord Fitzwilliam(718) has been here too; but was in the utmost danger of being lost on Saturday night, in a violent storm between Calais and Dover, as the captain confessed to him when they were landed.  Do you think I did not ache at the recollection of a certain Tuesday when you were sailing to Dieppe?

(718) Richard, seventh and last Viscount Fitzwilliam, the munificent benefactor to the University of Cambridge.  He died in 1816.-E.

Letter 362 To Miss Agnes Berry.  Strawberry Hill, Sunday, Nov. 29, 1790. (page 464)

Though I write to both at once, and reckon your letters to come equally from both, yet I delight in seeing your hand with a pen as well as with a pencil, and you express yourself as well with the one as with the other.  Your part in that which I have been so happy as to receive this moment, has singularly obliged me, by your having saved me the terror of knowing you had a torrent to cross after heavy rain.  No cat is so afraid of water for herself, as I am grown to be for you.  That panic, which will last for many months, adds to my fervent desire of your returning early in the autumn, that you may have neither fresh water nor the “silky” ocean to cross in winter.  Precious as our insular situation is, I am ready to wish with the Frenchman, that you could somehow or other get to it by land,—­ Oui, c’est une isle toujours, je le sais bien; mais, par exemple, en allant d’alentour, n’y auroit-il pas moyen d’y arriver par terre?”

Correggio never pleased me in proportion to his fame; his grace touches upon grimace; the mouth of the beautiful Angel at Parma curls up almost into a half-moon.  Still I prefer Corregio to the lourd want of grace in Guereino, who is to me a German edition of Guido.  I am sorry the bookseller would not let you have an Otranto.  Edwards told me, above two months ago, that he every day expected the whole impression; and he has never mentioned it waiting for my corrections.  I will make Kirgate write to him, for I have told you that I am still here.  We have had much rain, but no flood; and yesterday and to-day have exhibited Florentine skies.