T’other night a description was given me of the most extraordinary declaration of love that ever was made.  Have you seen young Poniatowski?(479) he is very handsome.  You have seen the figure of the Duchess of Gordon,(480) who looks like a raw-boned Scotch metaphysician that has got a red face by drinking water.  One day at the drawing-room, having never spoken to him, she sent one of the foreign ministers to invite Poniatowski to dinner with her for the next day.  He bowed and went.  The moment the door opened, her two little sons, attired like Cupids, with bows and arrows, shot at him; and one of them literally hit his hair, and was very near putting his eye out, and hindering his casting it to the couch

“Where she another sea-born Venus lay.”

The only company besides this Highland goddess were two Scotchmen, who could not speak a word of any language but their own Erse; and to complete his astonishment at this allegorical entertainment, with the dessert there entered a little horse, and galloped round the table; a hieroglyphic I cannot solve.  Poniatowski accounts for this profusion of kindness by his great-grandmother being a Gordon:  but I believe it is to be accounted for by * * * * Adieu! my dear Sir.

(479) Stanislaus, the ill-fated King of Poland.

(480) Lady Catherine Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Aberdeen, widow of Cosmo Duke of Gordon, who died in 1752.  She married, secondly, Colonel Saates Morris.-E.

207 Letter 100 To Richard Bentley, Esq.  Arlington Street, May 18, 1754.

My dear Sir, Unless you will be exact in dating your letters, you will occasion me much confusion.  Since the undated one which I mentioned in my last, I have received another as unregistered, with the fragment of the rock, telling me of one which had set sail on the 18th, I suppose of last month, and been driven back:  this I conclude was the former undated.  Yesterday, I received a longer, tipped with May 8th.  You must submit to this lecture, and I hope will amend by it.  I cannot promise that I shall correct myself much in the intention I had of writing to you seldomer and shorter at this time of year.  If you could be persuaded how insignificant I think all I do, how little important it is even to myself, you would not wonder that I have not much empressement to give the detail of it to any body else.  Little excursions to Strawberry, little parties to dine there, and many jaunts to hurry Bromwich, and the carver, and Clermont, are my material occupations.  Think of sending these ’cross the sea!-The times produce nothing. there is neither party, nor controversy, nor gallantry, nor fashion, nor literature-the whole proceeds like farmers regulating themselves, their business, their views, their diversions, by the almanac.  Mr. Pelham’s death has scarce produced a change; the changes in Ireland, scarce a murmur.  Even in France the squabbles of the parliament and clergy are under the same opiate influence.—­I don’t believe that Mademoiselle Murphy (who is delivered of a prince, and is lodged openly at Versailles) and Madame Pompadour will mix the least grain of ratsbane in one another’s tea.  I, who love to ride in the whirlwind, cannot record the yawns of such an age!