I am come to town to meet Mr. Conway and Lady Aylesbury; and, as I have
no letter from you yet to answer, I will tell you how agreeably I have
passed the last three days; though they might have been improved had you
shared them, as I wished, and as I _sometimes_ do wish. On Saturday
evening I was at the Duke of Queensberry's (at Richmond, _s'entend_)
with a small company: and there were Sir William Hamilton and Mrs.
Harte[1]; who, on the 3rd of next month, previous to their departure, is
to be made Madame l'Envoyee a Naples, the Neapolitan Queen having
promised to receive her in that quality. Here she cannot be presented,
where only such over-virtuous wives as the Duchess of Kingston and Mrs.
Hastings[2]--who could go with a husband in each hand--are admitted. Why
the Margravine of Anspach, with the same pretensions, was not, I do not
understand; perhaps she did not attempt it. But I forget to retract, and
make _amende honorable_ to Mrs. Harte. I had only heard of her
attitudes; and those, in dumb show, I have not yet seen. Oh! but she
sings admirably; has a very fine, strong voice; is an excellent buffa,
and an astonishing tragedian. She sung Nina in the highest perfection;
and there her attitudes were a whole theatre of grace and various
expressions.

[Footnote 1: Mrs. Harte, the celebrated Lady Hamilton, with whom Nelson
was so intimately acquainted, though old Lord St. Vincent always
maintained that it had never been more than a purely Platonic
attachment. Her previous life, however, had been notoriously such as
rendered her inadmissible at our Court, though that of Naples was less
particular.]

[Footnote 2: Mrs. Hastings, the wife of the great Governor-General, had
previously been married to Baron Imhoff, a German miniature painter; but
she had obtained a divorce from him, and, as the Baron returned to
Germany with an amount of riches that he could hardly have earned by
skill in his profession, the scandalous tongues of some of Hastings's
enemies imputed to him that he had, in fact, bought her of her husband.]

The next evening I was again at Queensberry House, where the Comtesse
Emilie de Boufflers played on her harp, and the Princesse di
Castelcigala, the Neapolitan minister's wife, danced one of her country
dances, with castanets, very prettily, with her husband. Madame du Barry
was there too, and I had a good deal of frank conversation with her
about Monsieur de Choiseul; having been at Paris at the end of hi