I have at last found a moment to answer your letter; a possession of which, I think, I have not been master these ten days.  You must know I have an uncle dead; a sort of event that could not possibly have been disagreeable to me, let his name have been what it would; and to make it still less unpleasant, here am I one of the heirs-at-law to a man worth thirty thousand pounds.  One of the heirs, you must construe, one of five.  In short, my uncle Erasmus is dead, and think at last we may depend on his having made no will.  If a will should appear, we are but where we were; if it does not, it is not uncomfortable to have a little sum of money drop out of the clouds, to which one has as much right as any body, for which one has no obligation, and paid no flattery.  This death and the circumstances have made extreme noise, but they are of an extent impossible to tell you within the compass of any letter, and I will not raise your curiosity when I cannot satisfy it but by a narration, which I must reserve till I see you.

The only event I know besides within this atmosphere, is the death of Lord Burlington, who, I have just heard, has left every thing in his power to his relict.  I tell you nothing of Jew bills and Jew motions, for I dare to say you have long been as weary of the words as I am.  The only point that keeps up any attention, is expectation of a mail from Ireland, from whence we have heard, by a side wind, that the court have lost a question by six; you may imagine one wants to know more of this.

The opera is indifferent; the first man has a finer voice than Monticelli, but knows not what to do with it.  Ancient Visconti does so much with hers that it is intolerable.  There is a new play of Glover’s, in which Boadicea the heroine rants as much as Visconti screams; but happily you hear no more of her after the end of the third act, till in the last scene somebody brings a card with her compliments, and she is very sorry she cannot wait upon you, but she is dead.  Then there is a scene between Lord Sussex and Lord Cathcart, two captives, which is most incredibly absurd; but yet the parts are so well acted, the dresses so fine, and two or three scenes pleasing enough, that it is worth seeing.(436)

There are new young lords, fresh and fresh:  two of them are much in vogue; Lord Huntingdon and Lord Stormont.(437) I supped with them t’other night at Lady Caroline Petersham’s; the latter is most cried up; but he is more reserved, seems sly and to have sense, but I should not think extreme:  yet it is not fair to judge on a silent man at first.  The other is very lively and very agreeable.  This is the state of the town you inquire after, and which you do inquire after as one does after Mr. Somebody that one used to see at Mr. Such-a-one’s formerly:  do you never intend to know more of us? or do you intend to leave me to wither upon the hands of the town, like Charles Stanhope and Mrs. Dunch?  My contemporaries seem to be all retiring to their proprerties.  If I must too, positively I will go no farther than Strawberry Hill!  You are very good to lament our gold fish — their whole history consists in their being stolen a deux reprises, the very week after I came to town.