he foolish admiration of
his acquaintance, been worked up into a kind of phrensy, I shall be
very unwilling to believe that he ever intended to distress a friend
whom he loved as much as I believe that he has done you.

But really this is being very candid to him, and yet I cannot help
it. For I have passed two evenings with him at supper at Almack's,
ou nous avons ete lie en conversation, and never was anybody more
agreeable and the more so for his having no pretensions to it, which
is what has offended more people than even what Lady H(ollan)d is so
good as to call his misconduct. I do assure you, my dear Lord, that
notwithstanding all that I have been obliged by my friendship and
confidence in you to say, I very sincerely love him, although I
blame him so much, that I dare not own it; and it will give me the
greatest pleasure in the world to see him take that turn which he
professes to take. But what hopes can we have of it?

Vernon said yesterday after dinner, that he and some others--Bully,
I think, among the rest--had been driven by the rain up into
Charles's room; and when they had lugged him out of his bed, they
attacked him so violently upon what he did at the Bath, that he was
obliged to have recourse, as he did last year, to an absolute denial
of the fact. The imagination of the blacklegs at the Billiard Table
that he was gone over to Long Leate to borrow the money of Lord
W(eymouth?) had in it something truly ridiculous, and serves only to
shew that his Lordship had been never trusted by them.

Gregg dines to-day at Lavie's; I shall go down to meet him there,
and perhaps order my chicken over from Almack's, that I may converse
more en detail with Gregg upon this business of the Annuities. I
like his conversation the best, I own, because I see less resentment
in it. He speaks to the matters of fact, and not to the characters
of the actors, which now is losing of time. God knows how well, and
how universally, all that is established.

The women in town have found this a good morsel for their invective
disposition, and the terms in which they express themselves tiennent
de la frenesie, et de l'entousiasme. Lady Albemarle, who is not a
wise woman, certainly, was at Lady Gower's the other evening, and
was regretting only that Charles had not been consumed in the Fire,
instead of the linnets. I am glad it was no worse. I think your
fears about the rebuilding of the House are not so well founded as
your satisf