e night." Lord Bute had told the King that Lord Orford had betted his
having a child before Sir James Lowther, who had been married the night
before to Lord Bute's eldest daughter; the King told Lord Orford he
should be glad to go his halves. The bet was made with Mr. Rigby.
Somebody asked the latter how he could be so bad a courtier as to bet
against the King? He replied, "Not at all a bad courtier; I betted Lord
Bute's daughter against him."

After the King's Levee there was a Drawing-room; the Queen stood under
the throne: the women were presented to her by the Duchess of Hamilton,
and then the men by the Duke of Manchester; but as she knew nobody, she
was not to speak. At night there was a ball, drawing-rooms yesterday and
to-day, and then a cessation of ceremony till the Coronation, except
next Monday, when she is to receive the address of the Lord Mayor and
Aldermen, sitting on the throne attended by the bridesmaids. A
ridiculous circumstance happened yesterday; Lord Westmoreland, not very
young nor clear-sighted, mistook Lady Sarah Lenox for the Queen, kneeled
to her, and would have kissed her hand if she had not prevented him.
People think that a Chancellor of Oxford was naturally attracted by the
blood of Stuart. It is as comical to see Kitty Dashwood, the famous old
beauty of the Oxfordshire Jacobites, living in the palace as Duenna to
the Queen. She and Mrs. Boughton, Lord Lyttelton's ancient Delia, are
revived again in a young court that never heard of them. There, I think,
you could not have had a more circumstantial account of a royal wedding
from the Heralds' Office. Adieu!

Yours to serve you,

HORACE SANDFORD.

Mecklenburgh King-at-Arms.

_THE CORONATION AND SUBSEQUENT GAIETIES._

TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _Sept._ 27, 1761.

You are a mean, mercenary woman. If you did not want histories of
weddings and coronations, and had not jobs to be executed about muslins,
and a bit of china, and counterband goods, one should never hear of you.
When you don't want a body, you can frisk about with greffiers and
burgomasters, and be as merry in a dyke as my lady frog herself. The
moment your curiosity is agog, or your cambric seized, you recollect a
good cousin in England, and, as folks said two hundred years ago, begin
to write "upon the knees of your heart." Well! I am a sweet-tempered
creature, I forgive you.

[Illustration: THE LIBRARY, STRAWBERRY HILL]

My heraldry was much m