great person[1]. It has cost me but three shillings in meat and drink since I came here, as thin as the town is. I laugh to see myself so disengaged in these revolutions. Well, I must leave off and go write to sir John Stanley, to desire him to engage lady Hyde, as my mistress to engage lord Hyde, in favour of Mr. Pratt.
2. Lord Halifax was at Hampton court at his lodgings, and I dined with him there with Methuen[2] and Delaval, and the late attorney general. I went to the drawing room before dinner, (for the queen was at Hampton court) and expected to see nobody: but I met acquaintance enough. I walked in the gardens, saw the cartons of Raphael, and other things, and with great difficulty got from lord Halifax, who would have kept me to morrow to show me his house and park, and improvements. We left Hampton court at sun set, and got here in a chariot and two horses time enough by star light. That's something charms me mightily about London: that you go dine a dozen miles off in October, stay all day, and return so quickly: you cannot do any thing like this in Dublin[3]. I writ a second penny post letter to your mother, and hear nothing of her. Did I tell you that earl Berkeley died last Sunday was sennight, at Berkley castle, of a dropsy? lord Halifax began a health to me to day: it was the resurrection of the whigs, which I refused unless he would add
- ↑ The earl of Godolphin.
- ↑ Sir Paul Methuen, a very ingenious gentleman, who was ambassador at the court of Portugal. His collection of pictures is esteemed one of the finest in England.
- ↑ When this letter was written there were no turnpike roads in Ireland: but the case now is quite altered.
