As summery as June and Strawberry Hill may sound, I assure you I am writing to you by the fire-side:  English weather will give vent to its temper, and whenever it is out of humour it will blow east and north and all kinds of cold.  Your brothers Ned and Gal. dined with me to-day, and I carried the latter back to Richmond:  as I passed over the green, I saw Lord Bath, Lord Lonsdale,(46) and half-a-dozen more of the White’s club sauntering at the door of a house which they have taken there, and come to every Saturday and Sunday to play at whist.  You will naturally ask why they can’t play at whist in London on those two days as well as on the other five; indeed I can’t tell you, except that it is so established a fashion to go out of town at the end of the week, that people do go, though it be only into another town.  It made me smile to see Lord Bath sitting there, like a citizen that has left off trade.

Your brother Ned has not seen Strawberry Hill since my great improvements; he was astonished:  it is pretty:  you never saw so tranquil a scene, without the least air of melancholy:  I should hate it, if it was dashed with that.  I forgot to ask Gal. what is become of the books of Houghton which I gave him six months ago for you and Dr. Cocchi.  You perceive I have got your letter of May 23rd, and with it Prince Craon’s simple epistle to his daughter:(47) I have no mind to deliver it:  it would be a proper recommendation of a staring boy on his travels, and is consequently very suitable to my colleague, Master St. Leger; but one hates to be coupled with a romping grayhound puppy, “qui est moins prudent que Monsieur Valpol!” I did not want to be introduced to Madame de Mirepoix’s assemblies, but to be acquainted with her, as I like her family:  I concluded, simple as he is, that an old Frenchman knew how to make these distinctions.  By thrusting St. Leger into the letter with me, and talking of my prudence, I shall not wonder if she takes me for his bear-leader, his travelling governor!

Mr. Chute, who went from hence this morning, and is always thinking of blazoning your pedigree(48) in the noblest colours, has turned over all my library, till he has tapped a new and very great family for you:  in short, by your mother it is very clear that you are descended from Hubert de Burgh, Grand Justiciary to Richard the Second:  indeed I think he was hanged; but that is a misfortune that ill attend very illustrious genealogies; it is as common to them as to the pedigrees about Paddington and Blacieheath.  I have had at least a dozen great-great-grandfathers that came to untimely ends.  All your virtuosos in heraldry are content to know that they had ancestors who lived five hundred years ago, no matter how they died.  A match with a low woman corrupts a stream of blood as long as the Danube, tyranny, villainy, and executions are mere fleabites, and leave no stain.  The good Lord of Bath, whom I saw on Richmond-green this evening, did intend, I believe, to ennoble my