meadows are under water.  Lady Browne and I, coming last Sunday night from Lady Blandford’s, were in a piteous plight.  The ferryboat was turned round by the current, and carried to Isleworth.  Then we ran against the piers of our new bridge, and the horses were frightened.  Luckily, my cicisbeo -was a Catholic, and screamed to so many Saints, that some of them at the nearest alehouse came and saved us, or I should have had no more gout, or what I dreaded I should; for I concluded we should be carried ashore somewhere, and be forced to wade through the mud up to my middle.  So you see one may wrap oneself up in flannel and be in danger, without visiting all the armies on the face of the globe, and putting the immortality of one’s chaise to the proof.

I am ashamed Of sending you three sides of smaller paper in answer to seven large—­but what can I do?  I see nothing, know nothing, do nothing.  My castle is finished, I have nothing new to read, I am tired of writing, I have no new or old bit for my printer.  I have only black hoods around me; or, if I go to town, the family-party in Grosvenor Street.  One trait will give you a sample of how I passed my time, and made me laugh, as it put me in mind of you; at least it was a fit of absence, much more likely to have happened to you than to me.  I was playing eighteenpenny tredrille with the Duchess of Newcastle(131) and Lady Browne, and certainly not much interested in the game.  I cannot recollect nor conceive what I was thinking of, but I pushed the cards very gravely to the Duchess, and said, “Doctor, you are to deal.”  You may guess at their astonishment, and how much it made us all laugh.  I wish it may make you smile a moment, or that I had any thing better to send you.  Adieu, most affectionately.  Yours ever.

(129) a Daughter of the Earl of Harrington.  Her ladyship was married, in 1776, to Thomas second Lord Foley.-E.

(130) When Mr. Wilkes was elected.

(131) Catherine, eldest daughter and heiress of the Right Hon. Henry Pelham, married to Henry ninth Earl of Lincoln; who, in consequence of his marriage with her, inherited in 1768, the dukedom of Newcastle-under-Line on the demise of the Countess’s uncle, Thomas Pelham Holles, Who had been created Duke of Newcastle.under-Line, with special remainder to the Earl of Lincoln , in 1756 E.

Letter 74 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.  Strawberry Hill, Sept. 28, 1774. (page 103)

Lady Ailesbury brings you this,(132) which is not a letter, but a paper of direction, and the counterpart of what I have written to Madame du Deffand.  I beg of you seriously to take a great deal of notice of this dear old friend of mine.  She will, perhaps, expect more attention from you, as my friend, and as it is her own nature a little, than will be quite convenient to you:  but you have an infinite deal of patience and good-nature, and will excuse it.