“... Montagu” (her nephew and heir) “is in fine health; and as to spirits, he never wants them. He rides in the manège from eleven till twelve, and then his tutor sets him on Pegasus. The day before yesterday was the first time he had attain’d the honour of riding between the pillars, and he was as proud of it as Alexander when he had tamed Bucephalus. He dances, under the care of the celebrated M. Valonys, early every morning. These exercises make a boy more healthy as well as more graceful. On Tuesday he returns to Harrow, where his master tells me he does very well. I carried him to-day to see Mr. Lever’s museum. The collection of birds, both as to their variety and preservation, exceed that in the King of France’s collection of natural curiosities; but, not being shown me by M. de Buffons and Monsr. D’Aubenton, I did not see them with so much pleasure. The finest as well as rarest bird being a wise and learned man. Mr. Lever is gone into the country, and I was disappointed at not seeing a man who would sell in exchange an acre of good land for an extraordinary fungus.” _Hill Street, February 21, 1778._—“... The town is now full of company; full of bustle. Real business and serious occupation have their hours of retreat and rest, but the pursuits of pleasure have no intermissions. The change of objects is the _delassement_ in that case. As to me, I am, like other light and insignificant matters, whisked about in the whirlwind. “I approve my dear neice’s ambition to excel in dancing a minouet; not that dancing a minouet is a matter of great importance; but a desire to do everything well will carry her on to perfections of a higher kind.... A little ball, a frolick now and then, is very good for young persons, but I think you and my brother judged very well in not carrying my neice to assemblies. In our silly, dissipated town, girls never are produced into assemblies till after seventeen, and, indeed, they would never have anything but absurdity and affectation, if they were introduced into the world in their infancy.