344 THE WENTWORTH PAPERS.
your Lordship, the first while I was at Oxford, and was wel- com'd with the other when I came home.
I doe not in the least doubt but your masquerade was generally applauded as it deserv'd. I have not heard since from Lady Portland, but I hear from one she writ to, that it was extreamly fine, and particularly commended the richness of the side board, which reach'd to the ceiling of the room.
The magnificent part I know your Lordship too well to question, and I fancy it was as orderly as any thing could be where there was such a crowd.
Madame la Quintessence made me laugh very heartily, but either you sent me the wrong paper, or I am very dull in not finding out anything relating to that entertainment. Your Lordship is very kind and generous in repeating the offers of your house at Twitnam, a favour I would sooner receive from soe good a friend then from any body, but I am now settled in an ugly house at Richmond, yet what I like better then anything in London at this time of year, where one is poyson'd with stinks and smoke. I intend some times to goe over the water and walk in your garden. I have had a most pleasant ramble to Oxford, the most entertaining place I ever knew. The nobleness of the buildings, the neatness of the chappels, the beauty and good order of the library's afford a variety never to be weary of Then the Countrey soe open, yet fruitfull, and intermixed with Woods. I went to Blen- heim, which is soe great a building that it exceeds my com- prehension. It looks like a great college with a church in the middle, for the hall looks like one, and the pillars soe crowded that half the number would have had a more pleasing effect, but after all the apartments below and the offices are very fine. Above stairs they have nothing but lodging rooms enough to lodge an Army. I would walk you into the gardens, if there was anything worth it, besides some vistos through the woods in the Park ; else it is only a large piece of flat ground very disagreeable. There is a bridge to make the coming to the house easy, between two hills, with only one arch above a hundred foot from pear to pear, and between 30 and forty foot high, and now it is built, the business is to
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