at Russell Street was all a sweet fragrance of gardens,
mingling with the smell of the fields from the open country to the north.
We drove past red Montagu House with its stone facings and dome, like a
French hotel, and the cluster of buildings at its great gate. It had
been then for over a decade the British Museum. The ground behind it was
a great resort for Londoners of that day. Many a sad affair was fought
there, but on that morning we saw a merry party on their way to play
prisoner's base.

Then we came to the gardens in front of Bedford House, which are now
Bloomsbury Square. For my part I preferred this latter mansion to the
French creation by its side, and admired its long and graceful lines.
Its windows commanded a sweep from Holborn on the south to Highgate on
the north. To the east of it, along Southampton Row, a few great houses
had gone up or were building; and at the far end of that was Baltimore
house, overlooking her Grace of Bedford's gardens. Beyond Lamb's Conduit
Fields stretched away to the countryside.

I own I had a lively curiosity to see that lordly ruler, the proprietor
of our province, whose birthday we celebrated after his Majesty's. Had
I not been in a great measure prepared, I should have had a revulsion
indeed.

When he heard that Mr. Fox and my Lord Comyn were below stairs he gave
orders to show them up to his bedroom, where he received us in a
night-gown embroidered with oranges. My Lord Baltimore, alas! was not
much to see. He did not make the figure a ruler should as he sat in his
easy chair, and whined and cursed his Swiss. He was scarce a year over
forty, and he had all but run his race. Dissipation and corrosion had
set their seal upon him, had stamped his yellow face with crows' feet and
blotted it with pimples. But then the glimpse of a fine gentleman just
out of bed of a morning, before he is made for the day, is unfair.

"Morning, Charles! Howdy, Jack!" said his Lordship, apathetically.
"Glad to know you, Mr. Carvel. Heard of your family. 'Slife! Wish
there were more like 'em in the province."

This sentiment not sitting very well upon his Lordship, I bowed, and said
nothing.

"By the bye," he continued, pouring out his chocolate into the dish,
"I sent a damned rake of a parson out there some years gone. Handsome
devil, too. Never seen his match with the women, egad. 'Od's fish--"
he leered. And then added with an oath and a nod and a vile remark:
"Married three times to