York in the church, erected by order of Queen Elizabeth. The church has been very fine, but is now intolerably shabby; yet many large saints remain in the windows, two entire, and all the heads well painted. You may imagine we were civil enough to the Queen of Scots, to feel a feel of pity for her, while we stood on the very spot where she was put to death; my companion,1 I believe, who is a better royalist than I am, felt a little more. There, I have obeyed you. To-morrow we see Burleigh and Peterborough, and lie at Ely; on Monday I hope to be in town, and on Tuesday I hope much more to be in the gallery at Strawberry Hill, and to find the gilders laying on the last leaf of gold. Good night! TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Hockerill, Monday night, July 25, Vol. 2d. I CONTINUE. You must know we were drowned on Saturday night. It rained, as it did at Greatworth on Wednesday, all night and all next morning, so we could not look even at the outside of Burleigh; but we saw the inside pleasantly; for Lord Exeter, whom I had prepared for our intentions, came to us, and made every door and every lock fly open, even of his magazines, yet unranged. He is going through the house by degrees, furnishing a room every year, and has already made several most sumptuous. One is a little tired of Carlo Maratti and Lucca Jordano, yet still these are treasures. The china and japan are of the finest ; miniatures in plenty, and a shrine full of crystal vases, filigree, enamel, jewels, and the trinkets of taste, that have belonged to many a noble dame. In return for his civilities, I made my Lord Exeter a present of a glorious cabinet, whose drawers and sides are all painted by Rubens. This present you must know is his own, but he knew nothing of the hand or the value. Just so I have given Lady Betty Germain a very fine portrait, that I discovered at Drayton in the woodhouse. 1 I was not much pleased with Peterborough; the front is adorable, but the inside has no more beauty than consists in vastness. By the way, I have a pen and ink that will not form a letter. We were now sent to Huntingdon in our way to Ely, as we found it impracticable, from the rains and floods, to cross the country thither. We landed in the heart of the assizes, and almost in the middle of the races, both which, to the astonishment of the virtuosi, we eagerly quitted this morning. We were hence sent south to Cambridge, still on our way northward to Ely; but when we got to Cambridge we were forced to abandon all thoughts of Ely, there being nothing but lamentable stories of inundations and escapes. However, I made myself amends with the university, which I have not seen these four-and-twenty years, and which revived many youthful scenes, which, merely from their being youthful, are forty times pleasanter than any other ideas. You know I always long to live at Oxford: I felt that I could like to live even at Cambridge again. The colleges are much cleaned and improved since my days, and the trees and groves more venerable; but the town is tumbling about their ears. We surprised Gray with our appearance, dined and drank tea with him, and are come hither within sight of land. I always find it worth my while to make journies, for the joy I have in getting home again. A second adieu ! TO THE REV. MR. COLE. Strawberry Hill, Aug. 8, 1763. DEAR SIR, You judge rightly, I am very indifferent about Dr. Shorton, since he is not Dr. Shorter. It has done nothing but rain since my return; whoever wants hay, must fish for it; it is all drowned, or swimming about the country. I am glad our tour gave you so much pleasure; you was so very obliging, as you have always been to me, that I should have been grieved not to have had it give you satisfaction. I hope your servant is quite recovered. The painters and gilders quit my gallery this week, but I have not got a chair or a table for it yet; however, I hope it will have all its clothes on by the time you have promised me a visit. I HAVE been rambling about the country, or should not so long have deferred to answer the favour of your letter. I thank you for the notices in it, and have profited of them. I am much obliged to you too for the drawings you intended me; but I have since had a letter from Mr. Churchill, and he does not mention them. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Strawberry Hill, Aug. 9, 1763. My gallery claims your promise; the painters and gilders finish to-morrow, and next day it washes its hands. You talked of the 15th; shall I expect you then, and the Countess, and the Contessina, and the Baroness ?3 1 2 Lord Digby is to be married immediately to the pretty Miss Fielding; and Mr. Boothby, they say, to Lady Mary Douglas. What more news I know I cannot send you; for I have had it from Lady Denbigh and Lady Blandford, who have so confounded names, genders, and circumstances, that I am not sure whether Prince Ferdinand is not going to be married to the hereditary Prince. Adieu! read a P.S. If you want to know more of me, you may whole column of abuse upon me in the Public Ledger of Thursday last; where they inform me that the Scotch cannot be so sensible as the English, because they have not such 1 Of Ailesbury. good writers. Alack! I am afraid the most sensible men in any country do not write. I had writ this last night. This morning I receive your paper of evasions, perfide que vous êtes! You may let it alone, you will never see anything like my gallery — and then to ask me to leave it the instant it is finished! I never heard such a request in my days!-Why, all the earth is begging to come to see it: as Edging says, I have had offers enough from blue and green ribands to make me a falbala-apron. Then I have just refused to let Mrs. Keppel and her Bishop be in the house with me, because I expected all you - it is mighty well, mighty fine!—No, sir, no, I shall not come; nor am I in a humour to do anything else you desire: indeed, without your provoking me, I should not have come into the proposal of paying Giardini. We have been duped and cheated every winter for these twenty years by the undertakers of operas, and I never will pay a farthing more till the last moment, nor can be terrified at their puffs; I am astonished you are. So far from frightening me, the kindest thing they could do would be not to let one have a box to hear their old thread-bare voices and frippery thefts; and as for Giardini himself, I would not go cross the room to hear him play to eternity. I should think he could frighten nobody but Lady Bingley by a refusal. TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD. MY DEAR LORD, Strawberry Hill, Aug. 10, 1763. I HAVE waited in hopes that the world would do something worth telling you: it will not, and I cannot stay any longer without asking you how you do, and hoping you have not quite forgot me. It has rained such deluges, that I had some thoughts of turning my gallery into an ark, and began to pack up a pair of bantams, a pair of cats, in short, a pair of every living creature about my house: but it is grown fine at last, and the workmen quit my gallery to-day without hoisting a sail in it. I know nothing upon earth but what the ancient ladies in my neighbourhood knew three-score years ago; I write merely to pay you my pepper-corn of affection, and to inquire after my lady, who I hope is perfectly well. A longer letter would not have half the merit: a line in return will however repay all the merit I can possibly have to one to whom I am so much obliged. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Strawberry Hill, Aug. 15, 1763. THE most important piece of news I have to tell you is, that the gallery is finished; that is, the workmen have quitted it. For chairs and tables, not one is arrived yet. Well, how you will tramp up and down in it! Methinks I wish you would. We are in the perfection of beauty; verdure itself was never green till this summer, thanks to the deluges of rain. Our complexion used to be mahogany in August. Nightingales and roses indeed are out of blow, but the season is celestial. I don't know whether we have not even had an earthquake to-day. Lady Buckingham, Lady Waldegrave, the Bishop of Exeter, and Mrs. Keppel, and the little Hotham dined here; between six and seven we were sitting in the great parlour; I sat in the window looking at the river: on a sudden I saw it violently agitated, and, as it were, lifted up and down by a thousand hands. I called out, they all ran to the window; it continued; we hurried into the garden, and all saw the Thames in the same violent commotion for I suppose a hundred yards. We fancied at first there must be some barge rope; not one was in sight. It lasted in this manner, and at the farther end, towards Teddington, even to dashing. It did not cease before I got to the middle of the terrace, between the fence and the hill. Yet this is nothing to what is to come. The Bishop and I walked down to my meadow by the river. At this end were two fishermen in a boat, but their backs had been turned to the agitation, and they had seen nothing. At the farther end of the field was a |