A quadrille party in the next room, Mrs. Bonfoy, Lady Ely,[306] &c.:
we are impatient.
You have acted like yourself about Newhaven.
[305] After the battle of Bunker's Hill (June 17, 1775) General
Gage was recalled, and General Howe appointed to the chief
command in America.
[306] Gibbon speaks of Miss Bonfoy, the _future_ Lady Ely.
261.
_To J. B. Holroyd, Esq._
Bentinck Street, August 15th, 1775.
I have not time to hold a long conversation with you: but I want to
settle the _plan of our visit_ (Aunt and self) to S. P. According
to our last it seemed that you were to go into Bucks _the first
week in September_, and that it would suit us all to _attend your
return_ into Sussex. But as I was pacing along the Strand last week,
the Baronet arrested me with a friendly laugh and _a hearty shake_,
and told me, among other curious and interesting particulars, that
your visit to him would not _take place before the 18th_: an awkward
period, as it intersects the time that we could bestow upon you.
Suppose you _were to defer it till the first week in October_. We
could then give you the whole month of September, and come up with
you. _Siquid novisti rectius istis, candidus imperti, sinon_---- I
have nothing to add about the enclosed. Palmer is out of town,
and Lovegrove and Matthews appear wonderfully nonchalant. Eliot is
stepped down into Gloucestershire. I shall communicate the Lord's
portrait,[307] and I think it will please and suit them.
[307] Doubtless a reference to Mr. Holroyd's character of Lord
Ely.
[Sidenote: HIS DOG THE COMFORT OF HIS LIFE.]
262.
_To his Stepmother._
London, August 18th, 1775.