with so much violence, that he seems in some degree to admit that he was to blame. The most extraordinary circumstance however is, that he never had any such dispute with Gibbon, and that at the time when he supposed it to have taken place, Gibbon was actually residing at Lausanne."[1]
A very different figure from Romilly or Mirabeau was frequently to be seen in their company. This was John Britton, the Aubrey of the eighteenth century. He used himself to relate how he came to Bowood, from Chippenham, a town which it is to be hoped has recovered from the terrible condition in which the antiquary describes it; for there he says owing to party spirit "friendships were turned into enmities, and families were separated from and divided against each other; discord and enmity pervaded the whole population, and it was painful for a peace-loving person to visit any of their houses, and to find nothing but back-biting and scandal." The amiable inhabitants of this pleasant town had solemnly warned Britton against ever going near the owner of Bowood, who they declared was "high, stern, and haughty" to strangers. Britton accordingly started, as he says, with a full recognition of the embarrassed situation of Goldsmith in his interview with the Duke of Newcastle, and was agreeably surprised to find the exact reverse of what he had been led to expect. He was told to stay, provided with all the books and maps and plans he wanted, and on leaving was presented with a copy of Andrew and Drury's large survey of Wiltshire, and asked to repeat his visit. It was owing, he says, to the encouragement he then received that his great work, The Beauties of Wiltshire, was undertaken. On returning to Chippenham he found that in consequence of his hospitable reception he was in future to be himself included in the abuse so freely levelled at his host.[2]
Britton has left some account of the large picture gallery which then existed at Bowood, and he mentions that he was informed by Lord Lansdowne, that he had
