fect. The park, which is still
charming, has not been so much unprofaned; the present Lord has lost
large sums, and paid part in old oaks, five thousand pounds of which
have been cut near the house. In recompense he has built two baby forts,
to pay his country in castles for the damage done to the navy, and
planted a handful of Scotch firs, that look like ploughboys dressed in
old family liveries for a public day. In the hall is a very good
collection of pictures, all animals; the refectory, now the great
drawing-room, is full of Byrons; the vaulted roof remaining, but the
windows have new dresses making for them by a Venetian tailor. Althorpe
has several very fine pictures by the best Italian hands, and a gallery
of all one's acquaintance by Vandyke and Lely. I wonder you never saw
it; it is but six miles from Northampton. Well, good night; I have writ
you such a volume, that you see I am forced to page it. The Duke [of
Cumberland] has had a stroke of the palsy, but is quite recovered,
except in some letters, which he cannot pronounce; and it is still
visible in the contraction of one side of his mouth. My compliments to
your family.

[Footnote 1: Newstead, since Walpole's time immortalised as the seat of
the illustrious Byron. Evelyn had compared it, for its situation, to
Fontainebleau, and particularly extolled "the front of a glorious Abbey
Church" and its "brave woods and streams;" and Byron himself has given
an elaborate description of it under the name of "Norman Abbey," not
overlooking its woods:

It stood embosomed in a happy valley
Crowned by high woodlands, where the Druid-oak
Stood like Caractacus in act to rally
His host, with broad arms, 'gainst the thunderstroke--

nor the streams:

Before the mansion lay a lucid lake
Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed
By a river, which its softened way did take
In currents through the calmer waters spread
Around--

nor the abbey front:

A glorious remnant of the Gothic pile
While yet the church was Rome's, stood half apart
In a grand arch, which once screened many an angle.

("Don Juan," xiii. 56-59.)]

_GENTLEMAN'S DRESS--INFLUENCE OF LORD BUTE--ODE BY LORD MIDDLESEX--G.
SELWYN'S QUOTATION._

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

ARLINGTON STREET, _April_ 16, 1761.

You are a very mule; one offers you a handsome stall and manger in
Berkeley Square, and you will not accept it. I have chosen y