Chapter 291

Berkeley Square, Dec. 14, 1785. (page 379)

I am extremely obliged to your ladyship for your kind letter; and, though I cannot write myself, I can dictate a few lines. This has not been a regular fit of the gout, but a worse case: one of my fingers opened with a deposit of chalk,(563) and brought on gout, and both together an inflammation and swelling almost up to my shoulder. in short, I was forced to have a surgeon, who has managed me so Judiciously, that both the inflammation and swelling are gone; and nothing remains but the wound in my finger, which will heal as soon as all the chalk is discharged. My surgeon wishes me to take the air; but I am so afraid of a relapse, that I have not yet consented.

My poor old friend is a great loss;(564) but it did not much Surprise me, and the manner comforts me. I had played at cards with her at Mrs. Gostling's three nights before I came to town, and found her extremely confused, and not knowing what she did: indeed, I perceived something Of the sort before, and had found her much broken this autumn. It seems, that the day after I saw her, she went to General Lister's burial and got cold, and had been ill for two or three days. On the Wednesday morning she rose to have her bed made; and while sitting on the bed, with her maid by her, sunk down at once, and died without a pang or a groan. Poor Mr. Raftor is struck to the greatest degree, and for some days would not see any body. I sent for him to town to me; but he will not come till next week. Mrs. Prado has been so excessively humane as to insist on his coming to her house till his sister is buried, which is to be to-night.

The Duchess does not come till the 26th. Poor Miss Bunbury is dead; and Mrs. Boughton, I hear, is in a very bad way. Lord John Russell has sent the Duchess of Bedford word, that he is on the point of marrying Lord Torrington's eldest daughter; and they suppose the wedding is over.(565) Your ladyship, I am sure, will be pleased to hear that Lord Euston is gone to his father, who has written a letter with the highest approbation of Lady Euston.(566) You will be diverted, too, Madam, to hear that Hecate has told Mrs. Keppel, that she was sure that such virtue would be rewarded at last.

(562) Now first printed.

(563) "Neither years nor sufferings," writes Hannah More to her sister, "can abate the entertaining powers of the pleasant Horace, which rather improve than decay; though he himself says he is only fit to be a milk-woman, as the chalk-stones at his fingers' ends qualify him for nothing but scoring; but he declares he will not be a Bristol milk.woman. I was obliged to recount to him all that odious tale." Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 14.-E.

(564) The incomparable Kitty Clive; who died at Twickenham on the 6th of December, in her seventy-second year.-E.

(565) Lord John Russell, who, in 1802, succeeded his brother Francis as sixth Duke of Bedford, married, at Brussels, in March 1786, Georgiana Elizabeth, second daughter of Lord Torrington.-E.

(566) Lord Euston, who, in 1811, succeeded his father as fourth Duke of Grafton, married, in November 1784, Charlotte Maria, daughter of the Earl of Waldegrave.-E.