ARLINGTON STREET, _May_ 11, 1769.
You are so wayward, that I often resolve to give you up to your humours.
Then something happens with which I can divert you, and my good-nature
returns. Did not you say you should return to London long before this
time? At least, could you not tell me you had changed your mind? why am
I to pick it out from your absence and silence, as Dr. Warburton found a
future state in Moses's saying nothing of the matter! I could go on with
a chapter of severe interrogatories, but I think it more cruel to treat
you as a hopeless reprobate; yes, you are graceless, and as I have a
respect for my own scolding, I shall not throw it away upon you.
Strawberry has been in great glory; I have given a festino there that
will almost mortgage it. Last Tuesday all France dined there: Monsieur
and Madame du Châtelet, the Duc de Liancourt, three more French ladies,
whose names you will find in the enclosed paper, eight other Frenchmen,
the Spanish and Portuguese ministers, the Holdernesses, Fitzroys, in
short, we were four and twenty. They arrived at two. At the gates of the
castle I received them, dressed in the cravat of Gibbons's carving, and
a pair of gloves embroidered up to the elbows that had belonged to James
I. The French servants stared, and firmly believed this was the dress of
English country gentlemen. After taking a survey of the apartment, we
went to the printing-house, where I had prepared the enclosed verses,
with translations by Monsieur de Lille, one of the company. The moment
they were printed off, I gave a private signal, and French horns and
clarionets accompanied this compliment. We then went to see Pope's
grotto and garden, and returned to a magnificent dinner in the
refectory.
In the evening we walked, had tea, coffee, and lemonade in the Gallery,
which was illuminated with a thousand, or thirty candles, I forget
which, and played at whisk and loo till midnight. Then there was a cold
supper, and at one the company returned to town, saluted by fifty
nightingales, who, as tenants of the manor, came to do honour to their
lord.
I cannot say last night was equally agreeable. There was what they
called a _ridotto al fresco_ at Vauxhall,[1] for which one paid
half-a-guinea, though, except some thousand more lamps and a covered
passage all round the garden, which took off from the gardenhood, there
was nothing better than on a common night. Mr. Conway and I set out from
his house at eight o'clock; the tide and torrent of coaches was so
prodigious, that it was half-an-hour after nine before we got half way
from Westminster Bridge. We then alighted; and after scrambling under
bellies of horses, through wheels, and over posts and rails, we reached
the gardens, where were already many thousand persons. Nothing diverted
me but a man in a Turk's dress and two nymphs in masquerade without
masks, who sailed amongst the company, and, which was surprising, seemed
to surprise nobody. It had been given out that people were desired to
come in fancied dresses without masks. We walked twice round and were
rejoiced to come away, though with the same difficulties as at our
entrance; for we found three strings of coaches all along the road, who
did not move half a foot in half-an-hour. There is to be a rival mob in
the same way at Ranelagh to-morrow; for the greater the folly and
imposition the greater is the crowd. I have suspended the vestimenta[2]
that were torn off my back to the god of repentance, and shall stay
away. Adieu! I have not a word more to say to you. Yours ever.
P.S.--I hope you will not regret paying a shilling for this packet.
[Footnote 1: The ridotto was a Venetian entertainment--
They went to the _Ridotto_--'tis a hall
Where people dance, and sup, and dance again;
Its proper name, perhaps, was a masqued ball,
But that's of no importance to my strain;
'Tis (on a smaller scale) like our Vauxhall,
Excepting that it can't be spoilt by rain;
The company is "mix'd"--the phrase I quote is
As much as saying, they're below your notice.