Lord Oxford’s (495) famous sale begins next Monday, where there is as much rubbish of another kind as in her grace’s history.  Feather bonnets presented by the Americans to Queen Elizabeth; elks’-horns -cups; true copies converted into candle of original pictures that never existed; presents to himself from the Royal Society, etc. particularly forty volumes of prints of illustrious English personages; which collection is collected from frontispieces to godly books, bibles and head-pieces and tail-pieces to Waller’s works; views of King Charles’s sufferings; tops of ballads; particularly earthly crowns for heavenly ones, and streams of glory.  There are few good pictures. for the miniatures are not to be sold, nor the manuscripts , the books not till next year.  There are a few fine bronzes, and a very fine collection of English coins.

We have got another opera,(496) which is liked.  There was to have been a vast elephant, but the just directors, designing to give the audience the full weight of one for their money, made it so heavy that at the prova it broke through the stage.  It was to have carried twenty soldiers, with Monticelli on a throne in the middle.  There is a new subscription begun for next year, thirty subscribers at two hundred pounds each.  Would you believe that I am one?  You need not believe it quite, for I am but half an one; Mr. Conway and I take a share between us.  We keep Monticelli and Amorevoli, and to please Lord Middlesex, that odious Muscovita; but shall discard Mr. Vaneschi.  We are to have the Barberina and the two Faussans; so, at least, the singers and dancers will be equal to any thing in Europe.

Our earl is still at Richmond:  I have not been there yet; I shall go once or twice; for however little inclination I have to it, I would not be thought to grow cool just now.  You know I am above such dirtiness, and you are sensible that my coolness is of much longer standing.  Your sister is with mine at the Park; they came to town last Tuesday for the opera, and returned next day.  After supper, I prevailed on your sister (497) to sing, and though I had heard her before, I thought I never heard any thing beyond it; there is a sweetness in her voice equal to Cuzzoni’s, with a better manner. ’

I was last week at the masquerade, dressed like an old woman, and passed for a good mask.  I took the English liberty of teasing whomever I pleased, particularly old Churchill.  I told him I was quite ashamed. of being there till I met him, but was quite comforted with finding one person in the room older than myself.  The Duke,(498) who had been told who I was, came up and said, “Je connois cette poitrine.”  I took him for some Templar, and replied, “Vous! vous ne connoissez que des poitrines qui sont bien plus us`ees.”  It was unluckily pat.  The next night, at the drawing-room, he asked me, very good-humouredly, if I knew who was the old woman that had teased every body at the masquerade.