Chapter 367

Berkeley Square, Friday night, April 15, 1791. (page 490)

My preface will be short; for I have nothing to tell, and a great deal that I am waiting patiently to hear; all which, however, may be couched in these two phrases,-,, I am quite recovered of my fall, and my nose will not be the worse for it"--for with all my pretences, I cannot help having that nose a little upon my spirits; though if it were flat, I should love it as much as ever, for the sake of the head and heart that belong to it. I have seen O'Hara, with his face as ruddy and black, and his teeth as white as ever; and as fond of you two, and as grieved for your fall, as any body--but I. He has got a better regiment.

Strawberry Hill, Sunday night, past eleven.

You chose your time ill for going abroad this year: England never saw such a spring since it was fifteen years old. The warmth, blossoms, and verdure are unparalleled. I am just come from Richmond, having first called on Lady Di. who is designing and painting pictures for prints to Dryden's Fables.(773) Oh! she has done two most beautiful; one of Emily walking in the garden, and Palamon seeing her from the tower: the other, a noble, free composition of Theseus parting the rivals, when fighting in the wood. They are not, as you will imagine, at all like the pictures in the Shakspeare Gallery: no; they are -worthy of Dryden.

I can tell you nothing at all certain with our war with Russia. If one believes the weather-glass of the stocks, it will be peace; they had fallen to 71, and are risen again, and soberly, to 79. Fawkener" clerk of the council, sets out to-day or to-morrow for Berlin; probably, I hope, with an excuse. In the present case, I had much rather our ministers were bullies than heroes: no mortal likes the war. The court-majority lost thirteen of its former number at the beginning of the week, which put the Opposition into spirits; but, put pursuing their motions on Friday, twelve of the thirteen were recovered.(774) Lord Onslow told me just now, at Madame de BOufflers's, that Lady Salisbury was brought to bed of a son and heir(775) last night, two hours after she came from the Opera; and that Madame du Barry dined yesterday with the Prince of Wales, at the Duke of Queensberry's, at Richmond. Thus you have all my news, such as it is ; and I flatter myself no English at Pisa or Florence can boast of better intelligence than you--but for you, should I care about Madame du Barry or my Lady Salisbury, or which of them lies in or lies out?

Berkeley Square, Monday, April 18.

Oh! what a dear letter have I found, and from both at once; and with such a delightful bulletin! I should not be pleased with the idleness of the pencil, were it not owing to the chapter of health, which I prefer to every thing. You order me to be particular about my own health: I have nothing to say about it, but that it is as good as before my last fit. Can I expect or desire more at my age? My ambition is to pass a summer, with you two established at Cliveden. I shall not reject more if they come; but one must not be presumptuous at seventy-three; and though my eyes, ears, teeth, motion, have still lasted to make life comfortable, I do not know that I should be enchanted if surviving any of them ; and, having no desire to become a philosopher, I had rather be naturally cheerful than affectedly so: for patience I take to be only a resolution of holding one's tongue, and not complaining of what one feels-for does one feel or think the less for not owning it?

Though London increases every day, and Mr. Herschell has just discovered a new square or circus somewhere by the New Road in .the Via Lactea, where the cows used to be fed, I believe you will think the town cannot hold all its inhabitants; so prodigiously the population is augmented. I have twice been going to stop my coach in Piccadilly, (and the same has happened to Lady Ailesbury,) thinking there was a mob; and it was only nymphs and swains sauntering or trudging. T'other morning, i. e. at two o'clock, I went to see Mrs. Garrick and Miss Hannah More at the Adelphi, and was stopped five times before I reached Northumberland-house; for the tides of coaches, chariots, curricles, phaetons, etc. are endless. Indeed, the town is so extended, that the breed of chairs is almost lost ; for Hercules and Atlas could not carry any body from one end of this enormous capital to the other. How magnified would be the error of the young woman at St. Helena, who, some said years ago, to a captain of an Indiaman, "I suppose London is very empty, when the India ships come out." Don't make Me excuses, then, for short letters; nor trouble yourself a moment to lengthen them. YOU Compare little towns to quiet times, which do not feed history ; and most justly. If the vagaries of' London can be comprised once a week in three or four pages of small quarto paper, and not always that, how should little Pisa furnish an equal export? When Pisa *was at war with the rival republic of Milan, Machiavel was put to it to describe a battle, the slaughter in which amounted to one man slain; and he was trampled to death, by being thrown down and battered in his husk of complete armour; as I remember reading above fifty years ago at Florence.

Eleven at night.

Oh! mercy! I am just come from Mrs. Buller's, having left a very pleasant set at Lady Herries'(776)--and for such a collection Eight or ten women and girls, not one of whom I knew by sight: a German Count., as stiff and upright as the inflexible Dowager of Beaufort: a fat Dean and his wife, he speaking Cornish, and of having dined to-day at Lambeth; four young officers, friends of the boy Buller,(777) who played with one of them at tric-trac, while the others made with the Misses a still more noisy commerce; and not a creature but Mrs. Cholmondeley, who went away immediately, and her son, who was speechless with the headache, that I was the least acquainted with: and, to add to my sufferings, the Count would talk to me of les beaux arts, of which he knows no more than an oyster. At last, came in Mrs. Blair, whom I knew as little; but she asked so kindly after you two, and was so anxious about your fall and return, that I grew quite fond of her, and beg you would love her for my sake, as I do for yours. Good night!

I have this moment received a card from the Duchess-Dowager of Ancaster, to summon me for to-morrow at three o'clock--I suppose to sign Lord Cholmondeley's marriage-articles with her daughter.(778) The wedding is to be this day sevennight. Save me, my old stars, from wedding-dinners! But I trust they are not of this age. I should sooner expect Hymen to jump out of a curricle, and walk into the Duchess's dressing-room in boots and a dirty shirt.

(773) A splendid edition of the Fables of Dryden, ornamented with engravings, from the elegant and fascinating pencil of Lady Diana Beauclerc, was published in folio in 1797.-E.

(774) On the 12th of April, a series of resolutions, moved by Mr. Grey, the object of which was to pronounce the armament against Russia inexpedient and unnecessary, were, after a warm debate, negatived by 252 against 17?- A similar motion, made on the fifteenth, by Mr. Baker was rejected by a majority of 254 to 162.-E.

(775) James-Brownlow-William Gascoyne Cecil. in 1823, he succeeded his father as second Marquis of Salisbury.-E.

(776) The wife of the banker in St. James's Street.

(777) Mrs. Buller's only child.

(778) Lady Charlotte Bertie.