On this occasion one saw to how high-water-mark extravagance is risen in England.  At the Coronation of George II. my mother gave forty guineas for a dining-room, scaffold, and bedchamber.  An exactly parallel apartment, only with rather a worse view, was this time set at three hundred and fifty guineas—­a tolerable rise in thirty-three years!  The platform from St. Margaret’s Roundhouse to the church-door, which formerly let for forty pounds, went this time for two thousand four hundred pounds.  Still more was given for the inside of the Abbey.  The prebends would like a Coronation every year.  The King paid nine thousand pounds for the hire of jewels; indeed, last time, it cost my father fourteen hundred to bejewel my Lady Orford.

A COURT BALL—­PAMPHLETS ON MR. PITT—­A SONG BY GRAY.

TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY.

ARLINGTON STREET, Nov. 28, 1761.

Dear Madam,—­You are so bad and so good, that I don’t know how to treat you.  You give me every mark of kindness but letting me hear from you.  You send me charming drawings the moment I trouble you with a commission, and you give Lady Cecilia [Johnston] commissions for trifles of my writing, in the most obliging manner.  I have taken the latter off her hands.  The Fugitive Pieces, and the “Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors” shall be conveyed to you directly.  Lady Cecilia and I agree how we lament the charming suppers there, every time we pass the corner of Warwick Street!  We have a little comfort for your sake and our own, in believing that the campaign is at an end, at least for this year—­but they tell us, it is to recommence here or in Ireland.  You have nothing to do with that.  Our politics, I think, will soon be as warm as our war.  Charles Townshend is to be lieutenant-general to Mr. Pitt.  The Duke of Bedford is privy seal; Lord Thomond, cofferer; Lord George Cavendish, comptroller.

Diversions, you know, Madam, are never at high-water mark before Christmas; yet operas flourish pretty well:  those on Tuesdays are removed to Mondays, because the Queen likes the burlettas, and the King cannot go on Tuesdays, his post-days.  On those nights we have the middle front box, railed in, where Lady Mary [Coke] and I sit in triste state like a Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress.  The night before last there was a private ball at court, which began at half an hour after six, lasted till one, and finished without a supper.  The King danced the whole time with the Queen,—­Lady Augusta with her four younger brothers.  The other performers were:  the two Duchesses of Ancaster and Hamilton, who danced little; Lady Effingham and Lady Egremont, who danced much; the six maids of honour; Lady Susan Stewart, as attending Lady Augusta; and Lady Caroline Russel, and Lady Jane Stuart, the only women not of the family.  Lady Northumberland is at Bath; Lady Weymouth lies in; Lady Bolingbroke was there in waiting, but in black gloves, so did not dance.  The men, besides the royals, were Lords March and Eglintoun, of the bedchamber; Lord Cantelupe, vice-chamberlain; Lord Huntingdon; and four strangers, Lord Mandeville, Lord Northampton, Lord Suffolk, and Lord Grey.  No sitters-by, but the Princess, the Duchess of Bedford, and Lady Bute.