We have not yet done diverting ourselves:  the night before last the Duke of Richmond gave a firework; a codicil to the peace.  He bought the rockets and wheels that remained in the pavilion which miscarried, and took the pretence of the Duke of Modena being here to give a charming entertainment.  The garden(30) lies with a slope down to the Thames, on which were lighters, from whence were thrown up, after a concert of water-music, a great number of rockets.  Then from boats on every side were discharged water-rockets and fires of that kind; and then the wheels Which were ranged along the rails of the terrace were played off; and the whole concluded with the illumination of a pavilion on the top of the slope, of two pyramids on each side, and of the whole length of the balustrade to the water.  You can’t conceive a prettier sight; the garden filled with every body of fashion, the Duke, the Duke of Modena, and the two black Princes.  The King and Princess Emily were in their barge under the terrace; the river was covered with boats, and the shores and adjacent houses with crowds.  The Duke of Modena played afterwards at brag, and there was a fine supper for him and the foreigners, of whom there are numbers here; it is grown as much the fashion to travel hither as to France or Italy.  Last week there was a vast assembly and music at Bedford-house for this Modenese; and to-day he is set out to receive his doctor’s degree at the two Universities.  His appearance is rather better than it used to be, for, instead of wearing his wig down to his nose to hide the humour in his face, he has taken to paint his forehead white, which, however, with the large quantity of red that he always wears on the rest of his face, makes him ridiculous enough.  I cannot say his manner is more polished; Princess Emily asked him if he did not find the Duke much fatter than when he was here before?  He replied, “En verit`e il n’est pas si effroiable qu’on m’avoit dit.”  She commended his diamonds; he said, “Les v`otres sont bien petits.”  As I had been graciously received at his court, I went into his box the first night at the Opera:  the first thing he did was to fall asleep; but as I did not choose to sit waiting his reveil in the face of the whole theatre, I waked him, and would discourse him:  but here I was very unlucky, for of the only two persons I could recollect at his court to inquire after, one has been dead these four years, and the other, he could not remember any such man.  However, Sabbatini, his secretary of state, flattered me extremely:  told me he found me beaucoup mieux, and that I was grown very fat-I fear, I fear it was flattery!  Eight years don’t improve one,-and for my corpulence, if I am grown fat, what must I have been in my Modenese days!