t from your absence and silence, as Dr. Warburton found a
future state in Moses's saying nothing of the matter! I could go on with
a chapter of severe interrogatories, but I think it more cruel to treat
you as a hopeless reprobate; yes, you are graceless, and as I have a
respect for my own scolding, I shall not throw it away upon you.

Strawberry has been in great glory; I have given a festino there that
will almost mortgage it. Last Tuesday all France dined there: Monsieur
and Madame du Chatelet, the Duc de Liancourt, three more French ladies,
whose names you will find in the enclosed paper, eight other Frenchmen,
the Spanish and Portuguese ministers, the Holdernesses, Fitzroys, in
short, we were four and twenty. They arrived at two. At the gates of the
castle I received them, dressed in the cravat of Gibbons's carving, and
a pair of gloves embroidered up to the elbows that had belonged to James
I. The French servants stared, and firmly believed this was the dress of
English country gentlemen. After taking a survey of the apartment, we
went to the printing-house, where I had prepared the enclosed verses,
with translations by Monsieur de Lille, one of the company. The moment
they were printed off, I gave a private signal, and French horns and
clarionets accompanied this compliment. We then went to see Pope's
grotto and garden, and returned to a magnificent dinner in the
refectory.

In the evening we walked, had tea, coffee, and lemonade in the Gallery,
which was illuminated with a thousand, or thirty candles, I forget
which, and played at whisk and loo till midnight. Then there was a cold
supper, and at one the company returned to town, saluted by fifty
nightingales, who, as tenants of the manor, came to do honour to their
lord.

I cannot say last night was equally agreeable. There was what they
called a _ridotto al fresco_ at Vauxhall,[1] for which one paid
half-a-guinea, though, except some thousand more lamps and a covered
passage all round the garden, which took off from the gardenhood, there
was nothing better than on a common night. Mr. Conway and I set out from
his house at eight o'clock; the tide and torrent of coaches was so
prodigious, that it was half-an-hour after nine before we got half way
from Westminster Bridge. We then alighted; and after scrambling under
bellies of horses, through wheels, and over posts and rails, we reached
the gardens, where were already many thousand persons. Nothing diverted
me