“... I observe with great pleasure that Montagu has a happy turn for business, and applies himself to learning the science of coal-mine-working, of which many coal-owners are ignorant entirely, but none ought to be so. Without working in the mines, the process may be, to a certain extent, understood by any one who possesses any mathematical knowledge. The late Duke of Northumberland was very able in all those matters. Lord Mount-Stewart is now at Newcastle attending the business of the collieries he acquired by his marriage with Lord Windsor’s daughter. Lord Carlisle never comes into Northumberland, but leaves his affairs entirely to his agents. Lord Ravensworth was very attentive to his collieries, but his heir, Sir Henry Liddell, is of a very different character. He amused himself and neighbours with the exhibition of two Lapland women whom he imported. He collects all sorts of wild beasts; and his ale-cellars make beasts of men. It is strange that Lord Ravensworth should prefer such a nephew to his grandsons. “... I am obliged to you for your kind attention to my feather-work. The neck and breast feathers of the stubble goose are very useful, and I wish your cook would save those of the Michaelmas goose for us. Things homely and vulgar are sometimes more useful than the elegant, and the feathers of the goose may be better adapted to some occasions than the plumes of the phœnix.” Mrs. Montagu was ever touching and reëmbellishing her famous “feather-hangings.” Cowper has told in song how— “The birds put off their every hue, To dress a room for Montagu.” Peacock, pheasant, swan, and “all tribes beside of Indian name,” says the poet, contributed plumage of— “... splendour ever new, Safe with protecting Montagu.” To “her court,” thus decorated, resorted genius, wit, philosophy, learning, and fancy: “All these to Montagu’s repair, Ambitious of a shelter there. She thus maintains divided sway, With yon bright regent of the day; The plume and poet both, we know, Their lustre to his influence owe; And she, the works of Phœbus aiding, Both poet saves, and plume, from fading.”