I have seen your Pelham and Milbank, not much, but I like the latter; I have some notion, from thinking that he resembles you in his manner.  The other seems very good-humoured, but he is nothing but complexion.  Dame is returned; he looks ill; but I like him better than I used to do, for he commends you.  My Lord Pomfret is made ranger of the parks, and by consequence my Lady is queen of the Duck Island.(220) Our greatest miracle is Lady Mary Wortley’s son,(221) whose adventures have made so much noise- his parts are not proportionate, but his expense is incredible.  His father scarce allows him any thing:  yet he plays, dresses, diamonds himself, even to distinct shoe-buckles for a frock, and has more snuff-boxes than would suffice a Chinese idol with an hundred noses.  But the most curious part of his dress, which he has brought from Paris, is an iron wig; you literally would not know it from hair—­I believe it is on this account that the Royal Society have just chosen him of their body.  This may surprise you:  what I am now going to tell you will not, for you have only known her follies — the Duchess of Queensbury told Lady Di.  Egerton,(222) a pretty daughter of the Duchess of Bridgewater, that she was going to make a ball for her:  she did, but did not invite her:  the girl was mortified, and Mr. Lyttelton, her father-in-law, sent the mad Grace a hint of it.  She sent back this card-.  “The advertisement came to hand; it was very pretty and very ingenious; but every thing that is pretty and ingenious does not always succeed; the Duchess of Q. piques herself on her house being unlike Socrates’s; his was small and held all his friends; hers is large, but will not hold half of hers:  postponed, but not forgot:  unalterable.”  Adieu!

(217) The Hon. Alexander Murray, fourth son of Alexander, fourth Lord Elibank.  This family was for the most part Jacobite in its principles.-D.

(218) John Hampden, Esq., the last descendant in the file line of the celebrated Hampden.  On his death in 1754, he left his estates to the Hon. Robert Trevor, son of Lord Trevor, who was descended from Ruth, the daughter of the Patriot.-D.

(219) mr Murray’s health appearing to be in danger, the House, upon the report of his physician, offered to remove him from Newgate into the custody of the sergeant-at-arms:  but he had the resolution to reject the offer, and to continue in Newgate till the end of the session; when he made a kind of triumphal procession to his own house, attended by the sheriffs of London, a large train of coaches, and the declamations of the populace.-E.

(220) Duck Island was a spot in St. James’s Park, near the Bird-cage Walk; and was so called, because Charles the Second had established a decoy of ducks upon it.  It was destroyed when the improvements and alterations took place in this park, about the year 1770.-D.

(221) Edward Wortley Montague, whose singular adventures and eccentricities are so well known.  In 1747, he was chosen member for the county of Huntingdon; but in his senatorial capacity he did not distinguish himself.  His expenses greatly exceeding his income, towards the end of this year he quitted the kingdom and went to Paris.-E.