thought me distracted.  It is hard upon me to be so circumstanced that I cannot see what would give me so much pleasure, but on ne peut pas menager le choux et la chevre.  If it pleases God that I should live, I shall have that, and for a time a great deal more, for I think that I must be quite wore out with infirmities, and blindness must be one, if seeing Caroline appear to advantage will not give me pleasure. . . .

I saw Charles to-day in a new hat, frock, waistcoat, shirt, and stockings; he was as clean and smug as a gentleman, and upon perceiving my surprise, he told me that it was from the Pharo Bank.  He then talked of the thousands it had lost, which I told him only proved its substance, and the advantage of the trade.  He smiled, and seemed perfectly satisfied with that which he had taken up; he was in such a sort of humour that I should have liked to have dined with him.  His old clothes, I suppose, have been burned like the paupers at Salt Hill.

(157) Anne, only child of Lord Ravensworth.  In 1769 she was divorced from the Duke of Grafton and shortly afterward married the Earl of Upper Ossory.  She was a correspondent of Selwyn, and of Walpole, who called her “my duchess.”  She was “gifted with high endowments of mind and person, high spirited, and noble in her ways of thinking, and generous in her disposition.”

(1781,) May 21, Monday morning.—. . . .  Yesterday about the middle of the day, passing by Brooks’s, I saw a Hackney coach, which announced a late sitting.  I had the curiosity to enquire how things were, and found Richard in his Pharo pulpit, where he had been, alternately with Charles, since the evening before, and dealing to Adm.  Pigott only.  I saw a card on the table—­“Received from Messieurs Fox & Co. 1,500 guineas.”  The bank ceased in a few minutes after I was in the room; it was a little after 12 at noon, and it had won 3,400 or 500 g(uineas).  Pigott, I believe, was the chief loser.

At Devonshire House there had been a bank held by Sir W. Aston and Grady, and that won 700.  Martindale cannot get paid, because, as Charles says, he is not allowed to take money from the bank; he means for the payment of debts, but yet I hear some are paid, such as O’Kelly and other blacklegs.  But there are at this time two executions in his house, and Richard’s horses were taken the other day from his coach, as Lady Ossory tells me.

Charles says that he is accable de demandes, comme de dettes, et avec la reputation d’avoir de l’argent, il ne sait ou donner de la tete.  A vous dire la verite, si j’avais une tete comme la sienne, ou je me la ferois couper, ou j’en tirerois bien meilleur parti que ne fait notre ami; son charactere, son genie, et sa conduite sont egalement extraordinaires et m’est (me sont) incomprehensibles.

Lord G. Cavendish is to be married to Lady Eliz.  Compton, it being agreed that the Cavendish family must be continued from his loins.  Me.  La Duchesse fait des paroles, mais non pas des enfans.  I hear that she has won immensely, et avec beaucoup d’exactitude, ce qui n’est pas fort ordinaire aux dames.