night I heard that Mr. Walpole is here; I was then at Gloucester;
so I hurried home, and have now some person to converse with who
speaks my own language. He came yesterday from Lady Ailesbury's, and
stays with me till Tuesday, and then I hope we shall return to
London together. I am to have the satisfaction of another festival
on Monday, on which day Mr. Walpole proposes to go and see Berkley
and Thornbury Castles.

I have had the advantage of very fine weather, and should have had
all the benefit of it if I was in any place but where my mind has so
many disagreeable occupations, and my stomach so many things which
it cannot digest. But it is chiefly their liquors, which are like so
much gin. The civility which they shew me, I may say indeed the
friendship which I have from some of these people, make me very
sorry that I cannot prevail on myself to stay a little longer with
them; but in regard to that, I can hardly save appearances, either
by staying, or by forbearing while I do stay to shew them what a
pain it is to me.

Your friend Mr. Howard, who is to be Duke of Norfolk, and who by his
wife is in possession of a great estate in my neighbourhood, takes
so much pains to recommend himself to my Corporation that we are at
a loss to know the source of his generosity. I have no personal
acquaintance with him, but as a member of the Corporation have a
permission to send for what venison we want. He has some charming
ruins of an abbey within a mile from hence, with which I intend to
entertain Mr. Walpole, and if that is not enough, I must throw in
the mazures of this old building, which, I believe, will not hold
out this century.

Horry tells me that a scheme has been formed, of replacing Charles,
but that Lord North will not hear of it. I should certainly myself
have the same repugnance. But as I love Charles more than I do the
other, I wish that, or anything which can put him once more in a way
of establishment. I shall however not have any hopes of that, till
he is less intoxicated than he is with the all sufficiency, as he
imagines, of his parts. I think that, and his infinite contempt of
the qu'en dira-t-on, upon every point which governs the rest of
mankind, are the two and (sic) chief sources of all his misfortunes.

Ste, they tell me, has come to a resolution of selling Holland
H(ouse) as soon as possible, and of rebuilding Winterslow. If Lady
Holland had not died just as she did, I believe that I should have