to lord Cardigan: his father pulled down a large house here, lest it should interfere with the family seat, Deane. We returned through Wakefield, where is a pretty Gothic chapel on a bridge, erected by Edward IV. in memory of his father, who lived at Sandal-castle just by, and perished in the battle here. There is scarce any thing of the castle extant, but it commanded a rich prospect.

By permission from their graces of Norfolk, who are at Tunbridge, lord Strafford carried us to Worksop, where we passed two days. The house is huge, and one of the magnificent works of old Bess of Hardwicke, who guarded the queen of Scots here for some time in a wretched little bedchamber within her own lofty one: there is a tolerable little picture of Mary's needle-work. The great apartment is vast and trist, the whole leanly furnished: the great gallery, of above two hundred feet, at the top of the house, is divided into a library, and into nothing. The chapel is decent. There is no prospect, and the barren face of the country is richly furred with evergreen plantations, under the direction of the late lord

Petre.

On our way we saw Kiveton, an ugly neglected seat of the duke of Leeds, with noble apartments and several good portraits-Oh! portraits!-I went to Welbeck - It is impossible to describe the bales of Cavendishes, Harleys, Holleses, Veres,

and Ogles: every chamber is tapestried with them; nay, and with ten thousand other fat morsels; all their histories inscribed; all their arms, crests, devices, sculptured on chimneys of various English marbles in ancient forms (and, to say truth, most of them ugly). Then such a Gothic hall, with pendent fret work in imitation of the old, and with a chimney-piece extremely like mine in the library! such water-colour pictures ! such historic fragments! In short, such and so much of every thing I like, that my party thought they should never get me away again. There is Prior's portrait, and the column and Varelst's flower on which he wrote; and the authoress duchess of Newcastle in a theatric habit, which she generally wore, and, consequently, looking as mad as the present duchess; and dukes of the same name, looking as foolish as the present duke; and lady Mary Wortley, drawn as an authoress, with rather better pretensions; and cabinets and glasses wainscoted with the Greendale oak, which was so large, that an old steward wisely cut a way through it to make a triumphal passage for his lord and lady on their wedding, and only killed it ! - But it is impossible to tell you half what there is. The poor woman who is just dead, passed her whole widowhood, except in doing ten thousand right and just things, in collecting and monumenting the portraits and reliques of all the great families from which she descended, and which centred in her. The duke and duchess of Portland are expected there tomorrow, and we saw dozens of cabinets and coffers with the seals not yet taken off. What treasures to revel over! The horseman duke's manege is converted into a lofty stable, and there is still a grove or two of magnificent oaks that have escaped all these great families, though the last lord Oxford cut down above an hundred thousand pounds worth. The place has little pretty, distinct from all these reverend circumstances.

Το GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, August 28, 1756.

As you were so kind as to interest yourself about the issue of my journey, I can tell you that I did get to Strawberry on Wednesday night, but it was half an hour past ten first-besides floods the whole day, I had twenty accidents with my chaise, and once saw one of the postillions with the wheel upon his body; he came off with making his nose bleed. My castle, like a little ark, is surrounded with many waters, and yesterday morning I saw the Blues wade half way up their horses through Teddington-lane.

There is nothing new but what the pamphlet shops produce; however it is pleasant to have a new point or ballad every day - I never had an aversion to living in a Fronde. The enclosed cards are the freshest treason; the portraits by George Townshend are droll-the other is a dull obscure thing as can be. The Worlds are by lord Chesterfield on decorum, and by a friend of yours and mine, who sent it before he went to Jersey; but this is a secret: they neglected it till now, so preferable to hundreds they have published-I suppose Mr. Moore finds, what every body else has found long, that he is a-ground. I saw Lovel to-day; he is very far advanced, and executes to perfection; you will be quite satisfied; I am not discontent with my own design, now I see how well it succeeds. It will certainly be finished by Michaelmas, at which time I told him he might depend on his money, and he seemed fully satisfied. My compliments to your brother, and adieu. Yours ever.

Το GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Strawberry-hill, October 14, 1756.

I SHALL certainly not bid for the chariot for you; do you estimate an old dowager's new machine but at ten pound? you could scarce have valued

herself at less! it is appraised here at fifty. There are no family pictures but such as you might buy at any sale, that is, there are three portraits without names. If you had offered ten pounds for a set of Pelham's, perhaps I should not have thought you had underpriced them.

You bid me give you some account of myself; I can in a very few words: I am quite alone; in the morning I view a new pond I am making for gold fish, and stick in a few shrubs or trees, wherever I can find a space, which is very rare: in the evening I scribble a little; all this mixed with reading; that is, I can't say I read much, but I pick up a good deal of reading. The only thing I have done that can compose a paragraph, and which I think you are whig enough to forgive me, is, that on each side of my bed I have hung MAGNA CHARTA, and the warrant for king Charles's execution, on which I have written Major Charta, as I believe without the latter, the former by this time would be of very little importance. You will ask where Mr. Bentley is; confined with five sick infantas, who live in spite of the epidemic distemper, and as if they were infantas, and in bed himself with a fever and the same sore throat, though he sends me word he mends.

The king of Prussia has sent us over a victory, which is very kind, as we are not likely to get any of our own-not even by the secret expedition, which you apprehend, and which I believe still less than I did the invasion-perhaps indeed there