The Duke of St. Albans has cut down all the brave old trees at Hanworth, and consequently reduced his park to what it issued from Hounslow-heath:  nay, he has hired a meadow next to mine, for the benefit of embarkation; and there lie all the good old corpses of oaks, ashes, and chestnuts, directly before your windows, and blocking up one of my views of the river! but so impetuous is the rage for building, that his grace’s timber will, I trust, not annoy us long.  There will soon be one street from London to Brentford; ay, and from London to every village ten miles round!  Lord Camden has just let ground at Kentish Town for building fourteen hundred houses—­nor do I wonder; London is, I am certain, much fuller than ever I saw it.  I have twice this spring been going to stop my coach in Piccadilly, to inquire what was the matter, thinking there was a mob—­not at all; it was only passengers.  Nor is there any complaint of depopulation from the country:  Bath shoots out into new crescents, circuses, and squares every year:  Birmingham, Manchester, Hull, and Liverpool would serve ay King in Europe for a capital, and would make the Empress of Russia’s mouth water.  Of the war with Catherine Slay-Czar I hear not a breath, and thence conjecture it is dozing into peace.

Mr. Dundas has kissed hands for secretary of state; and Bishop Barrington, of Salisbury, is transferred to Durham, which he affected not to desire, having large estates by his wife in the south-but from the triple-mitre downwards, it is almost always true, what I said some years ago, that “nolo episcopari is Latin for I lie.—­ Tell it not in Gath that I say so; for I am to dine to-morrow at the Bishop of London’s, at Fulham, with Hannah Bonner, my imprime.  This morning I went with Lysons the Reverend to see Dulwich college, founded in 1619 by Alleyn, a player, which I had never seen in my many days. e were received by a smart divine, tr`es bien poudr`e, and with black satin breeches—­but they are giving new wings and red satin breeches to the good old hostel too, and destroying a gallery with a very rich ceiling; and nothing will remain of ancient but the front, and an hundred mouldy portraits, among apostles, sibyls, and Kings of England.  On Sunday I shall settle at Strawberry; and then wo betide you on post-days!  I cannot make news without straw.  The Johnstones are going to Bath, for the healths of both; so Richmond will be my only staple.  Adieu, all three!

(801) Lady Anne Wentworth, married to the Right Honourable Thomas Conolly.

(802) Francis, fifth Duke of Bedford.  He died at Woburn, in March 1802, at the early age of thirty-one; upon which event, Mr. Fox, in moving for a new writ for Tavistock, in the room of his brother John, who succeeded to the dukedom, pronounced an eloquent eulogium on the deceased-the only speech he could ever be prevailed upon to revise for publication-E.