my
time is my having been obliged to pay some visits
out of town. We spent a little time at Beaumont
Lodge,[29] and I am but just returned from an
excursion into Berkshire, during which we made
some little stay at Oxford. My cousin[30] met us
there, and as well as his brother was so good as
to take the trouble of shewing us the lions. We
visited several of the Colleges, the Museum, etc.,
and were very elegantly entertained by our gallant
relations at St. John's, where I was mightily
taken with the garden and longed to be a _Fellow_
that I might walk in it every day; besides I was
delighted with the black gown and thought the
square cap mighty becoming. I do not think you
would know Henry with his hair powdered in a very
_tonish_ style, besides he is at present taller
than his father.

You mention the troubles in France, but you will
easily imagine from what I have said concerning my
approaching journey, that things are in a quieter
state than they were some months ago. Had they
continued as they were it is most probable M. de
F. would have been called out, and it would have
been a very unpleasant kind of duty because he
must have borne arms against his own countrymen.

We hear but little of Eliza during the next two or three years, which
she seems to have spent partly in France, partly in England. She must
have been much engrossed by the stirring events in Paris, the result of
which was eventually to prove fatal to her husband.

In January 1791 she is at Margate for the benefit of her boy, and,
though the place is very empty, occupies herself with reading, music,
drawing, &c. She adds:--

M. de F. had given me hopes of his return to
England this winter, but the turn which the
affairs of France have taken will not allow him to
quit the Continent at this juncture. I know not
whether I have already mentioned it to you, but my
_spouse_, who is a strong _Aristocrate_ or
Royalist in his heart, has joined this latter
party who have taken refuge in Piedmont, and is
now at Turin where the French Princes of the Blood
are assembled and watching some favourable
opport