Calvinist. The latter's
husband was not here, nor Drumgold, who have both got fevers, nor the
Duc de Nivernois, who dined at Claremont. The Gallery is not advanced
enough to give them any idea at all, as they are not apt to go out of
their way for one; but the Cabinet, and the glory of yellow glass at
top, which had a charming sun for a foil, did surmount their
indifference, especially as they were animated by the Duchess of
Grafton, who had never happened to be here before, and who perfectly
entered into the air of enchantment and fairyism, which is the tone of
the place, and was peculiarly so to-day--_apropos_, when do you design
to come hither? Let me know, that I may have no measures to interfere
with receiving you and your grandsons.

Before Lord Bute ran away, he made Mr. Bentley[1] a Commissioner of the
Lottery; I don't know whether a single or a double one: the latter,
which I hope it is, is two hundred a-year.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Bentley, who was an occasional correspondent of
Walpole, was a son of the great Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.]

_Thursday 19th_.

I am ashamed of myself to have nothing but a journal of pleasures to
send you; I never passed a more agreeable day than yesterday. Miss
Pelham gave the French an entertainment at Esher;[1] but they have been
so feasted and amused, that none of them were well enough, or reposed
enough, to come, but Nivernois and Madame Dusson. The rest of the
company were, the Graftons, Lady Rockingham, Lord and Lady Pembroke,
Lord and Lady Holdernesse, Lord Villiers, Count Woronzow the Russian
minister, Lady Sondes, Mr. and Miss Mary Pelham, Lady Mary Coke, Mrs.
Anne Pitt, and Mr. Shelley. The day was delightful, the scene
transporting; the trees, lawns, concaves, all in the perfection in which
the ghost of Kent[2] would joy to see them. At twelve we made the tour
of the farm in eight chaises and calashes, horsemen, and footmen,
setting out like a picture of Wouverman's. My lot fell in the lap of
Mrs. Anne Pitt, which I could have excused, as she was not at all in
the style of the day, romantic, but political. We had a magnificent
dinner, cloaked in the modesty of earthenware; French horns and hautboys
on the lawn. We walked to the Belvidere on the summit of the hill, where
a theatrical storm only served to heighten the beauty of the landscape,
a rainbow on a dark cloud falling precisely behind the tower of a
neighbouring church, between another tower and the bui