ordered ten sauceboats:  besides this, she and her sister have squandered seven thousand pounds apiece in all kind of baubles and frippery; so her four thousand pounds a-year is to be set apart for two years to pay her debts.  Don’t you like this English management? two of the greatest fortunes meeting and setting out with poverty and want!  Sir Thomas Bootle, the Prince’s chancellor, who is one of the guardians, wanted to have her tradesmen’s bills taxed; but in the mean time he has wanted to marry her Duchess-mother:  his love-letter has been copied and dispersed every where.  To give you a sufficient instance of his absurdity, the first time he went with the Prince of Wales to Cliefden, he made a nightgown, cap, and slippers of gold brocade, in which he came down to breakfast the next morning.

My friend M’Lean is still the fashion:  have not I reason to call him my friend?  He says, if the pistol had shot me, he had another for himself.  Can I do less than say I will be hanged if he is?  They have made a print, a very dull one, of what I think I said to Lady Caroline Petersham about him,

,Thus I stand like the Turk with his doxies around!”

You have seen in the papers a Hanoverian duel, but may be you don’t know that it was an affair of jealousy.  Swiegel, the slain, was here two years ago, and paid his court so Assiduously to the Countess(180) that it was intimated to him to return; and the summer we went thither afterwards, he was advised to stay at his villa.  Since that, he has grown more discreet and a favourite.  Freychappel came hither lately, was proclaimed a beauty by the monarch, and to return the compliment, made a tender of all his charms where Swiegel had. the latter recollected his own passion Jostled Freychappel, fought, and was killed.  I am glad he never heard what poor Gibberne was intended for.

They have put in the papers a good story made on White’s:  a man dropped down dead at the door, was carried in:  the club immediately made bets whether he was dead or not, and when they were going to bleed him, the wagerers for his death interposed, and said it would affect the fairness of the bet.

Mr. Whithed has been so unlucky as to have a large part of his seat,(181) which he had just repaired, burnt down:  it is a great disappointment to me, too, who was going thither Gothicizing.  I want an act of parliament to make master-builders liable to pay for any damage occasioned by fire before their workmen have quitted it.  Adieu!  This I call a very gossiping letter; I wish you don’t call it worse.

(172) Joseph Damer, afterwards created Lord Milton in Ireland, married Lady Caroline Sackville, daughter of Lionel, Duke of Dorset.

(173) Thomas Pelham, of Stanmer; a young gentleman who travelled with Mr. Milbank.

(174) The highest part of the Apennine between Florence and Bologna.

(175) Mrs. Temple, widow of Lord Palmerston’s son:  she was afterwards married to Lord Abergavenny.