whole company came into the drawing-room
for about ten minutes, but nobody was presented that night. The Queen
was in white and silver; an endless mantle of violet-coloured velvet,
lined with ermine, and attempted to be fastened on her shoulder by a
bunch of large pearls, dragged itself and almost the rest of her clothes
halfway down her waist. On her head was a beautiful little tiara of
diamonds; a diamond necklace, and a stomacher of diamonds, worth three
score thousand pounds, which she is to wear at the Coronation too. Her
train was borne by the ten bridesmaids, Lady Sarah Lenox,[1] Lady
Caroline Russell, Lady Caroline Montagu, Lady Harriot Bentinck, Lady
Anne Hamilton, Lady Essex Kerr (daughters of Dukes of Richmond, Bedford,
Manchester, Portland, Hamilton, and Roxburgh); and four daughters of the
Earls of Albemarle, Brook, Harcourt, and Ilchester--Lady Elizabeth
Keppel, Louisa Greville, Elizabeth Harcourt, and Susan Fox Strangways:
their heads crowned with diamonds, and in robes of white and silver.
Lady Caroline Russell is extremely handsome; Lady Elizabeth Keppel very
pretty; but with neither features nor air, nothing ever looked so
charming as Lady Sarah Lenox; she has all the glow of beauty peculiar to
her family. As supper was not ready, the Queen sat down, sung, and
played on the harpsichord to the Royal Family, who all supped with her
in private. They talked of the different German dialects; the King asked
if the Hanoverian was not pure--"Oh, no, Sir," said the Queen; "it is
the worst of all."--She will not be unpopular.

[Footnote 1: Lady Sarah Lennox, in an account of a theatrical
performance at Holland House in a previous letter, is described by
Walpole as "more beautiful than you can conceive." The King himself
admired her so greatly that he is believed to have had serious thoughts
of choosing her to be his queen. She afterwards married Major G. Napier,
and became the mother of Sir William and Sir Charles Napier.]

The Duke of Cumberland told the King that himself and Lady Augusta were
sleepy. The Queen was very averse to leave the company, and at last
articled that nobody should accompany her but the Princess of Wales and
her own two German women, and that nobody should be admitted afterwards
but the King--they did not retire till between two and three.

The next morning the King had a levee. He said to Lord Hardwicke, "It is
a very fine day:" that old gossip replied, "Yes, Sir, and it was a very
fin