wenty couples
danced country-dances, in two sets, twelve and twelve, 'there was Lady
Sophia, handsomer than ever, but a little out of humour at the scarcity
of minuets; however, as usual, dancing more than anybody, and, as usual
too, she took out what men she liked, or thought the best
dancers.'...'We danced; for I country-danced till four, then had tea and
coffee, and came home.' Poor Horace! Lady Sophia was not for a younger
son, however gay, talented, or rich he might be.

His pique and resentment towards her mother, who had higher views for
her beautiful daughter, begin at this period to show themselves, and
never died away.

Lady Townshend was the wit who used to gratify Horace with tales of her
whom he hated--Henrietta-Louisa, Countess of Pomfret.

'Lady Townshend told me an admirable history: it is of _our friend_ Lady
Pomfret. Somebody that belonged to the Prince of Wales said, they were
going to _court_; it was objected that they ought to say to Carlton
House; that the only _court_ is where the king resides. Lady P., with
her paltry air of significant learning and absurdity, said, "Oh, Lord!
Is there no _court_ in England but the king's? Sure, there are many
more! There is the _Court_ of Chancery, the _Court_ of Exchequer, the
_Court_ of King's Bench, &c." Don't you love her? Lord Lincoln does her
daughter--Lady Sophia Fermor. He is come over, and met me and her the
other night; he turned pale, spoke to her several times in the evening,
but not long, and sighed to me at going away. He came over all alone;
and not only his Uncle Duke (the Duke of Newcastle) but even Majesty is
fallen in love with him. He talked to the king at his levee, without
being spoken to. That was always thought high treason; but I don't know
how the gruff gentleman liked it. And then he had been told that Lord
Lincoln designed to have made the campaign, if we had gone to war; in
short, he says Lord Lincoln is the handsomest man in England.'

Horace was not, therefore, the only victim to a mother's ambition: there
is something touching in the interest he from time to time evinces in
poor Lord Lincoln's hopeless love. On another occasion, a second ball of
Sir Thomas Robinson's, Lord Lincoln, out of prudence, dances with Lady
Caroline Fitzroy, Mr. Conway taking Lady Sophia Fermor. 'The two couple
were just admirably mismatched, as everybody soon perceived, by the
attentions of each man to the woman he did not dance with, and the
emulatio