“I may, perhaps, trouble you to seek me some house about Mount Elphinstone; for, to tell you the truth, I get as far from the busy haunts of the place as I can; for it agrees neither with my inclination nor health to be in the midst of what are called the diversions of the place. An evening assembly in July is rather too warm; and, tell it not in the regions of politeness, I had rather see a few glowworms on a green in a warm summer’s evening than belles adorned with brilliants or beaux bright with clinquant. I cannot be at Tunbridge before the beginning of July. I am engaged to the nightingale and cuckoo for this month.” Although continued ill-health kept Mrs. Montagu much in retirement after she first went to Tunbridge, the Wells had their usual effect. She was the centre of a circle of admiring friends; and when established for months together at Tunbridge Wells, her coterie was a thing apart from those of the Jews, Christians, and Heathens of all classes who crowded the Pantiles or the assembly-rooms. Her letters sparkle with the figures that flit through them. Some contemporary ladies of the last century are thus sharply crayoned: “I think the Miss Allens sensible, and I believe them good; but I do not think the Graces assisted Lucina at their birth.... Lady Parker and her two daughters make a very remarkable figure, and will ruin the poor mad woman of Tunbridge by outdoing her in dress. Such hats, capuchins, and short sacks as were never seen! One of the ladies looks like a state bed running upon castors. She has robbed the valance and tester of a bed for a trimming. They have each of them a lover. Indeed, as to the dowager, she seems to have no greater joys than E. O. and a toad-eater can give her.” That word “toad-eater” was still in its novelty as a slang term. In 1742, Walpole calls Harry Vane, afterward Earl of Darlington, “Pulteney’s toad-eater.” In 1744, Sarah Fielding, in “David Simple,” speaks of it as “a new word.” To Mr. Montagu, his wife thus wrote: “MY DEAREST:—I had, this morning, the pleasure of your letter, which was in every respect agreeable, and in none more so than your having fixed your time for going to Sandleford, as I shall the sooner hope to see my best and dearest friend here.... I shall wish I could procure wings to bring me to you on the terrace at Sandleford, where I have passed so many happy hours in the conversation of the best of companions and kindest of friends; and I hope you will there recollect one who followed your steps as constantly as your shadow. I am still following them, for there are few moments in which my thoughts are not employed in you, and ever in the best and tenderest manner.... The charms of Sandleford are strongly in my remembrance, but still I would have you find that they want your little friend.”