SUNDAY, 12 o'clock.
Where shall I begin?--Let me see--The first place, by common right, to
the ladies. The ideas I brought with me respecting the female part of
this family are turned quite topsy-turvy, and unfortunately they are not
yet cleared up. I had expected to find in Lady Shelburne a Lady Louisa
Fitzpatrick, sister of an Earl of Ossory, whom I remember at school;
instead of her, I find a lady who has for her sister a Miss Caroline
V-----: is not this the maid of honor, the sister to Lady G-----? the
lady who was fond of Lord C------, and of whom he was fond? and whom he
quitted for an heiress and a pair of horns? Be they who they may, the
one is loveliest of matrons, the other of virgins: they have both of
them more than I could wish of reserve, but it is a reserve of modesty
rather than of pride.
The quadrupeds, whom you know I love next, consist of a child of a year
old, a tiger, a spaniel formerly attached to Lady Shelburne--at present
to my Lord--besides four plebeian cats who are taken no notice of,
horses, etc., and a wild boar who is sent off on a matrimonial
expedition to the farm. The four first I have commenced a friendship
with, especially the first of all, to whom I am body-coachman
extraordinary _en titre d'office_: Henry, (for that is his name) [the
present Lord Lansdowne] for such an animal, has the most thinking
countenance I ever saw; being very clean, I can keep him without disgust
and even with pleasure, especially after having been rewarded, as I have
just now, for my attention to him, by a pair of the sweetest smiles
imaginable from his mamma and aunt. As Providence hath ordered it, they
both play on the harpsichord and at chess. I am flattered with the hopes
of engaging with them, before long, either in war or harmony: not
to-day--because, whether you know it or not, it is Sunday; I know it,
having been paying my devotions--our church, the hall--our minister, a
sleek young parson, the curate of the parish--our saints, a naked
Mercury, an Apollo in the same dress, and a Venus de' Medicis--our
congregation, the two ladies, Captain Blankett, and your humble servant,
upon the carpet by the minister--below, the domestics, _superioris et
inferioris ordinis_. Among the former I was concerned to see poor
Mathews, the librarian, who, I could not help thinking, had as good a
title to be upon the carpet as myself.
Of Lord Fitzmaurice I know nothing, but from his bust and letters: the
first bespeaks him a handsome youth, the latter an ingenious one. He is
not sixteen, and already he writes better than his father. He is under
the care of a Mr. Jervis, a dissenting minister, who has had charge of
him since he was six years old. He has never been at any public school
of education. He has now for a considerable time been traveling about
the kingdom, that he may know something of his own country before he
goes to others, and be out of the way of adulation.