I treated him insolently.  He loved me, and I did not think he did.  I reproached him with the difference between us, when he acted from the conviction of knowing that he was my superior.  I often disregarded his wish of seeing places, which I would not quit my own amusements to visit, though I offered to send him thither without me.  Forgive me, if I say that his temper was not conciliating, at the same time that I will confess to you that he acted a most friendly part, had I had the sense to take advantage of it.  He freely told me my faults.  I declared I did not wish to hear them, nor would correct them.  You will not wonder, that with the dignity of his spirit, and the obstinate carelessness of mine, the breach must have widened till we became incompatible.

After this confession, I fear you will think I fall short in the words I wish to have substituted for some of yours.  If you think them inadequate to the state of the case, as I own they are, preserve this letter, and let some future Sir John Dalrymple produce it to load my memory; but I own I do not desire that any ambiguity should aid his invention to forge an account for me.  If you have no objection, I would propose your narrative should run thus ... and contain no more, till a proper time shall come for publishing the truth, as I have stated it to you.  While I am living, it is not pleasant to see my private disagreements discussed in magazines and newspapers.

To THE COUNTESS OF UPPER OSSORY

Fashionable intelligence

Strawberry Hill, 27 March, 1773.

What play makes you laugh very much, and yet is a very wretched comedy?  Dr. Goldsmith’s She Stoops to Conquer.  Stoops indeed!—­so she does, that is the Muse; she is draggled up to the knees, and has trudged, I believe, from Southwark fair.  The whole view of the piece is low humour, and no humour is in it.  All the merit is in the situations, which are comic; the heroine has no more modesty than Lady Bridget, and the author’s wit is as much manque as the lady’s; but some of the characters are well acted, and Woodward speaks a poor prologue, written by Garrick, admirably.

You perceive, Madam, that I have boldly sallied to a play; but the heat of the house and of this sultry March half killed me, yet I limp about as if I was young and pleased.  From the play I travelled to Upper Grosvenor Street, to Lady Edgecumbe’s, supped at Lady Hertford’s.  That Maccaroni rake, Lady Powis, who is just come to her estate and spending it, calling in with news of a fire in the Strand at past one in the morning, Lady Hertford, Lady Powis, Mrs. Howe, and I, set out to see it, and were within an inch of seeing the Adelphi buildings burnt to the ground.  I was to have gone to the Oratorio next night for Miss Linley’s sake, but, being engaged to the French ambassador’s ball afterwards, I thought I was not quite Hercules enough for so many labours, and declined the former.