ments she has since made, I see she was not, at my first acquaintance, the perfect creature I thought her then. We wrote to one another every day, and met in the fields between our fathers' houses as often as we had an opportunity, thought that day tedious that we did not meet, and had many stolen interviews. Her extraordinary understanding, lively imagination and humane disposition, which soon became conspicuous, at last reconciled my father to her, and he never after debarred me the pleasure of seeing her, when it was convenient we should meet. My sister was at this time a plaything to us, and often offended at our whispers and mysterious talk. 'Tis time to break off, my friend, adieu.

EXPLANATIONS BY MRS. DELANY ON THIS LETTER.

Queen Ann had set me down for maid of honour with her own hand, and given her promise to my father.

The Play. The Lancashire Witches.

The Opera. Hydaspes, in which Nicolini fights with a lionremarkable equally for his very fine voice and very fine action.

I also saw Powell's famous puppet show, in which Punch fought with a pig in burlesque, in imitation of Nicolini's battle with the lion. My Lord Bolingbroke was of the party, and made me sit upon his lap to see it. The rest of the company were my father, my uncle Granville, Sir John Stanley, Vice-Chamberlain Cooke, Mr. W. Collier, my mother and Lady Stanley, and Mrs. Betty Granville.

1

Among my young companions was my Lord Clarendon's

1 Probably Sir Bevil Granville, eldest brother of Lord Lansdown. He was governor of Barbadoes, and died in the year 1716.

daughter, Lady Catherine Hyde,' afterwards Duchess of Queensborough.

The first day's journey to the Farm was only Uxbridge, though we travelled in a coach and six.

The minister of the parish was Mr. Tucker.

Roberto, Mr. Twyford.

Sappho, Mrs. Chapone, mother-in-law to the author of Letters on the Improvement of the Mind.

The Farm' is near Broadway, in Gloucestershire.

The Vale of Evesham,

Sir William Windham, who had gained over a great many young men in his neighbourhood to be of his party in favour of the Pretender, appointed a day to meet in order to consult how they should pursue their scheme. Accordingly they assembled (I think the number was about thirty) full of youthful fire, to proceed on this expedition, when an express came from Sir Wm. Windham to inform them that he had surrendered his person to the government, and begged they would consider their own safety; upon which, after many imprecations, urged by their resentment for what they called his treachery, they dispersed several ways to their particular friends.

LETTER III.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

As much as the vanity of my heart suffered by leaving the court, assembly, play, &c., the country grew pleasant to me as soon as the weather permitted me to consider its beauties. The Farm is a low house, with very good, convenient room in it, the outside entirely covered with

1

Daughter of Henry, Earl of Clarendon and Rochester. She married, March 10th, 1720, Charles, 3rd Duke of Queensbury and 2nd Duke of Dover. Her two sons, who were successively Earls of Drumlanrig, lived to manhood, but died before their parents. The Duchess died in 1777-the Duke in 1778. * Buckland.

VOL. I.

C

laurel, the inside neat furnished with home spun stuff, adorned with fine China and prints. The front of the house faces the finest vale in England, the Vale of Evesham, of which there is a very advantageous view from every window: the back part of the house is shaded by a very high hill which rises gradually; between lies the garden, a small spot of ground, but well stocked with fruit and flowers. Nothing could be more fragrant and rural : the sheep and cows came bleating and lowing to the pales of the garden. At some distance on the left hand was a rookery; on the right a little clear brook run winding through a copse of young elms (the resort of many warbling birds), and fell with a cascade into the garden, completing the concert. In the midst of that copse was an arbour with a bench, which I often visited, and I think it was impossible not to be pleased with so many natural beauties and delights as I there beheld and enjoyed around me.

But this innocent, uniform, still life was not to last. At the end of the year, Roberto returned according to his promise; he was invited to the Farm, and accepted very readily the invitation. I found his behaviour not at all the same as it used to be; he was often silent and thoughtful. When I came down in a morning to practise my harpsichord, as was my constant custom till the family met at breakfast, which was about nine, he was always in the room, and would place himself by me whilst I played. Whenever I went to my favourite bench, if I did not find him there, he followed me immediately. This I observed, but was so young and innocent as to imagine it without design. One day he took me by the hand, as I was coming down stairs, and said "he almost

wished he had never known the family." I interpreted that very naturally-he had lived some time with us. very agreeably, and was then obliged to return home to a cross father and more perverse mother, who valued herself upon being a great fortune, and living miserably to enrich her family. Roberto was the youngest of twenty children, and had only five sisters living.

After he had been a month with us my mother took notice of his being more particular in his behaviour towards me; even my little sister Anna made several observations that often made Roberto blush (which he was as apt to do as I was), and made me angry at her pertness. My mother cautioned me not to leave my room in a morning till she sent for me down, and never permitted me to walk without a servant, when she or my father could not go with me. Roberto I believe designed speaking to me first, in which being disappointed, he applied to my father, and made proposals of marriage. He told him I had no fortune, and it was very probable, for this reason, his friends would not approve of his choice; if they did he had so high an opinion of him, that he should be well pleased with his alliance; upon which Roberto returned home to try what he could do with his friends, but after some months' trial to get his parents to consent, he wrote my father word they were inexorable. This he apprehended before he went, and pressed me very much to marry him privately, but I was offended at the proposal, and desired him, if he could not gain the consent he wished to have, to think no more of me. I little thought then how fatal this disappointment would prove to him. I was very easy when the affair was over, or rather glad of it. From that time till the

September following nothing remarkable happened in our family or in the neighbourhood worth troubling my dear friend with an account of. I release you for a few posts, and then will proceed in my relation. I cannot give you a stronger proof of how entirely I am devoted to you.

LETTER IV.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

I told you, my dear Maria, in my last letter that till the September after Roberto left us nothing new happened. I had then an invitation from my uncle, Alcander, and my aunt Laura2 to go with them to the Bath, and afterwards to spend the winter at their country seat, not very distant from it. They had been confined nearly two years, for reasons of State, in the Tower, and had not been long at liberty. The invitation was a very agreeable one to me, and thought too advantageous by my father and mother to be refused. My father accompanied me himself, and delivered me into Lord Lansdown's hands, who received me with that grace and fondness so peculiar to his politeness and

1 George Granville, Lord Lansdown.

2 "Laura," Lady Lansdown. She was previously Lady Mary Villiers, daughter of the Earl of Jersey, and widow of Thos. Thynne, Esq., who was the son of Henry Frederick Thynne, one of the Clerks of the Privy Council, and grandson of Sir Henry Frederick Thynne, of Kempsford, Bart. Thomas Thynne, Esq., died in the year 1710, and his only child Thomas Thynne, became 2nd Viscount Weymouth in 1714, on the death of his great uncle Thomas, 1st Viscount Weymouth, eldest brother of Henry Frederick Thynne, Clerk of the Privy Council.

3

February 8th.-The Lord Lansdown, having received his pardon, was released from his imprisonment in the Tower.-Historical Register, for 1717.