I should have wrote to Beriton last post, or even (which I might have
done) the post before. I am sorry at present to have so disagreable
an excuse for the shortness of my present letter as a new attack
in my shoulder, which has confined me to my lodgings yesterday and
to-day. If I am not better to-morrow I will certainly have advice
about it.
Mrs. Porten has not been well but has recovered. I have met Guise
in town with his whole family, who have been exceedingly civil to
me.--To-morrow (if I am able) I shall introduce d'Eyverdun[93]
to Miss Comarque at the new play, to which she has obliged me to
contribute a ticket. The number of separations encrease daily.
They talk of Lords and Ladies Bolingbroke,[94] Warkworth,[95]
Grosvenor,[96] Sr. James Lowther and Lady,[97] Mr. & Mrs. Onslow,
&c. (would you believe it?) Sr. M. & Lady F. Soon, Dear Sir, I will
write more at large, till when believe me,
Most truly yours,
E. G.
[93] M. Deyverdun had known Gibbon at Lausanne, and from 1766-69
was a frequent guest at Beriton. With his assistance Gibbon
published the _Mémoires Littéraires de la Grande Bretagne pour
l'an 1767_ (Londres: Chez T. Becket and P. A. de Hondt dans le
Strand, 1767), which were discontinued in 1768, when Deyverdun,
on his friend's recommendation, left England as tutor to the son
of Sir T. Worsley, afterwards the Right Hon. Sir Richard Worsley.
In 1783 Gibbon took up his abode with Deyverdun at the latter's
house at Lausanne. Deyverdun died in July, 1789, leaving his
house and land by will to Gibbon for his life.
[94] Lady Diana Spencer married in 1757 Frederick St. John,
Lord Bolingbroke, the "Bully" who figures in George Selwyn's
correspondence, from whom she was divorced, March 10, 1768. Two
days later she married Topham Beauclerk, grandson of the first
Duke of St. Albans, the friend of Dr. Johnson, and the collector
of a magnificent library. During his long illness she nursed
him, as Johnson, no friendly witness, admits, "with very great
assiduity." He died in 1780. Lady Diana, whose skill as an artist
is frequently alluded to by Walpole, died in 1808.
[95] Hugh, Lord Warkworth, eldest son of Sir Hugh Smithson,
Bart., of Stanwick, who was created Duke of Northumberland in
1766, married July 2, 1764, Lady Anne Stuart, third daughter
of the Earl of Bute. They were divorced in 1779. As Earl Percy
he served in the American War at the battle of Lexington and
elsewhere.
[96] See note to Letter 126.
[97] Sir James Lowther, Bart., first Earl of Lonsdale, married
(1761) Lady Mary Stewart, eldest daughter of the Earl of Bute,
and sister of Lady Warkworth.
[Sidenote: WANT OF FRIENDS IN LONDON.]
48.
_To his Stepmother._
Miss Lake's in St. James's place, January the 18th, 1766.