his parts and presumption are prodigious.  He wanted nothing but independence to let him loose:  I propose great entertainment from him; and now, perhaps, the times will admit it.  There may be such things again as parties—­odd evolutions happen.  The ballad I am going to transcribe for you is a very good comment on so commonplace a text.  My Lord Bath, who was brought hither by my Lady Hervey’s and Billy Bristow’s reports of the charms of the place, has made the following stanzas, to the old tune which you remember of Rowe’s ballad on Doddington’s Mrs. Strawbridge:—­

“Some talk of Gunnersbury,
For Sion some declare;
And some say that with Chiswick-house
No villa can compare;
But all the beaux of Middlesex,
Who know the country well,
Say, that Strawberry Hill, that Strawberry
Doth bear away the bell.

Though Surry boasts its Oatlands,
And Claremont kept so jim;
And though they talk of Southcote’s,
’Tis but a dainty whim;
For ask the gallant Bristow,
Who does in taste excel,
If Strawberry Hill, if Strawberry
Don’t bear away the bell.”

Can there be an odder revolution of things, than that the printer of the Craftsman(585) should live in a house of mine, and that the author of the Craftsman should write a panegyric on a house of mine?

I dined yesterday at Wanstead many years have passed since I saw it.  The disposition of the house and the prospect are better than I expected, and very fine:  the garden, which they tell you cost as much as the house, that is, 100,000 pounds (don’t tell Mr. Muntz) is wretched; the furniture fine, but totally without taste:  such continences and incontinences of Scipio and Alexander by I don’t know whom! such flame-coloured gods and goddesses, by Kent! such family-pieces, by—­I believe the late Earl himself, for they are as ugly as the children he really begot!  The whole great apartment is of oak, finally carved, unpainted and has a charming effect(586) The present Earl is the most generous creature in the world:  in the first chamber I entered he offered me four marble tables that lay in cases about the room:  I compounded, after forty refusals of every thing I commended, to bring away only a haunch of venison:  I believe he has not had so cheap a visit a good while.  I commend myself, as I ought:  for, to be sure, there were twenty ebony chairs, and a couch, and a table, and a glass, that would have tried the virtue of a philosopher of double my size!  After dinner we dragged a gold-fish pond(587) for my lady Fitzroy and Lord S@ I could not help telling my Lord Tilney, that they would certainly burn the poor fish for the gold, like the old lace.  There arrived a Marquis St. Simon, from Paris, who understands English, and who has seen your book of designs for Gray’s Odes:  he was much pleased at meeting me, to whom the individual cat(588) belonged, and you may judge whether I was pleased with him.  Adieu! my dear Sir.