Chapter 25

Strawberry Hill, June 17, 1771. (page 48)

I was very sure you would grant my request, if you could, and I am perfectly satisfied with your reasons; but I do not believe the parties concerned will be so too, especially the heads of the family, who are not so ready to serve their relations at their own expense as gratis. When I see you I will tell you more, and what I thought I had told you.

You tax me with four days in Bedfordshire; I was but three at most, and of those the evening I went, and the morning I came away, made the third day. I will try to see you before I go. The Edgcumbes I should like and Lady Lyttelton, but Garrick does not tempt me at all. I have no taste for his perpetual buffoonery, and am sick of his endless expectation of flattery; but you who charge me with making a long visit to Lord and Lady Ossory,--you do not see the mote in your own eye; at least I am sure Lady Ailesbury does not see that in hers. I could not obtain a single day from her all last year, and with difficulty got her to give me a few hours this. There is always an indispensable pheasantry that must be visited, or some thing from which she cannot spare four-and-twenty hours. Strawberry sets this down in its pocket-book. and resents the neglect.

At two miles from Houghton Park is the mausoleum of the Bruces, where I saw the most ridiculous monument of one of Lady Ailesbury's predecessors that ever was imagined; I beg she will never keep such company. In the midst of an octagon chapel is the tomb of Diana, Countess of Oxford and Elgin. From a huge unwieldy base of white marble rises a black marble cistern; literally a cistern that would serve for an eating-room. In the midst of this, to the knees, stands her ladyship in a white domino or shroud, with her left hand erect as giving her blessing. It put me in mind of Mrs. Cavendish when she got drunk in the bathing-tub. At another church is a kind of catacomb for the Earls of Kent: there are ten sumptuous monuments. Wrest and Hawnes are both ugly places; the house at the former is ridiculously old and bad. The state bedchamber (not ten feet high) and its drawing-room, are laced with Ionic columns of spotted velvet, and friezes of patchwork. There are bushels of deplorable earls and countesses. The garden was execrable too, but is something mended by Brown. Houghton Park and Ampthill stand finely: the last is a very good house, and has a beautiful park. The other has three beautiful old fronts, in the style of Holland House, with turrets and loggias, but not so large within. It is the worst contrived dwelling I ever saw. Upon the whole, I was much diverted with my journey. On my return I stayed but a single hour in London, saw no soul, and came hither to meet the deluge. It has rained all night, and all day; but it is midsummer, consequently midwinter, and one can expect no better. Adieu!

(35) Now first printed.