and Twickenham, with a domain from the foot of Richmond-hill to Kingston-bridge, and then imagine its being as dismal and prospectless as if it stood “on Stanmore’s wintry wild!” I don’t see why a man should not be divorced from his prospect as well as from his wife, for not being able to enjoy it.  Lady Dysart frets, but it is not the etiquette of the family to yield, and @ she must content herself with her chateau of Tondertentronk as well as she can.  She has another such ample prison in Suffolk, and may be glad to reside where she is.  Strawberry, with all its painted glass and gloom, looked as gay when I came home as Mrs. Cornelis’s ball-room.

I am very busy about the last volume of my Painters, but have lost my index, and am forced again to turn over all my Vertues, forty volumes of miniature MSS.; so that this will be the third time I shall have made an index to them.  Don’t say that I am not persevering, and yet I thought I was grown idle.  What pains one takes to be forgotten!  Good-night!

(9) Charlotte, daughter of Sir Edward Walpole, married to Lord Huntingtower, who had just succeeded to the title of the Earl of Dysart, on the death of his father.-E.

Letter 6 To George Montagu, Esq.  Strawberry Hill, June 29, 1770. (page 30)

Since the sharp mountain will not come to the little hill, the little hill must go to the mountain.  In short, what do you think of seeing me walk into your parlour a few hours after this epistle!  I had not time to notify myself sooner.  The case is, Princess Amelia has insisted on my going with her to, that is, meeting her at Stowe on Monday, for a week.  She mentioned it to me some time ago, and I thought I had parried it; but having been with her at Park-place these two or three days, she has commanded it so positively that I could not refuse.  Now, as it would be extremely inconvenient to my indolence to be dressed up in weepers and hatbands by six o’clock in the morning, and lest I should be taken for chief mourner going to Beckford’s funeral,(10) I trust you will be charitable enough to give me a bed at Adderbury for one night, whence I can arrive at Stowe in a decent time, and caparisoned as I ought to be, when I have lost a brother-in-law(11) and am to meet a Princess.  Don’t take me for a Lauson, and think all this favour portends a second marriage between our family and the blood-royal; nor that my visit to Stowe implies my espousing Miss Wilkes.  I think I shall die as I am, neither higher nor lower; and above all things, no more politics.  Yet I shall have many a private smile to myself, as I wander among all those consecrated and desecrated buildings, and think what company I am in, and of all that is past; but I must shorten my letter, or you will not have finished it when I arrive.  Adieu!  Yours, a-coming! a-coming!