If her own account is to be taken literally, she had now, at forty, assumed gravity as a grace and an adornment. In 1761, she wrote to Mrs. Elizabeth Carter that, whether in London or in the country, “I am become one of the most reasonable, quiet, good kind of country gentlewoman that ever was.” And she closes another letter to the same lady, in September of the same year, with the observation,—made when she was only forty-one, and had but just accomplished half of a career of which she was already tired,—“I will own I often feel myself so weary of my journey through this world, as to wish for more rest, a quiet Sabbath after my working days; but when such time shall come, perhaps some painful infirmity may find my virtue employment; but all this I leave to Him who knows what is best.” While the writer was recording this wish and making this reflection, all England was in a frenzy of exultation at the accession of the young king, George III., and all London in feverish excitement at the coming of a young queen. When, so to speak, the uproar of festival and congratulation culminated at the coronation of the young royal couple, the lady who was weary of life and sighed for a Sabboth of rest, got into a coach at Fulham at half-past four on an October morning, and was driven to Lambeth. With her gay company she was rowed across the river from Lambeth to the cofferer’s office, whence she saw the procession go and return, between Westminster Hall and the Abbey, and owned that it exceeded her expectations. The return to the Hall was made, however, in the dark; and, under shadow of night, the Montagu party were rowed to York Buildings, where a carriage waited to take them to Fulham. The lady, stirred by a new sensation, which was followed by neither fatigue nor indisposition, seemed to have resumed the spirit of the nymph who used to take headers into the Mary-le-bone Gardens plunging-bath, and to be complimented, on her daring, in ballads, by Lord Dupplin! * * * * * When the fashionable world flocked to Mrs. Montagu’s house in Hill Street, in the middle of last century, the street was not paved, and the road was very much at the mercy of the weather. To get to the house was not always an easy matter. When entered, the visitor found it furnished in a style of which much was said, and at which the hostess herself laughed. “Sick of Grecian elegance and symmetry, or Gothick grandeur and magnificence, we must all seek the barbarious gaudy _goût_ of the Chinese; and fat-headed pagods and shaking mandarins bear the prize from the finest works of antiquity; and Apollo and Venus must give way to a fat idol with a sconce on his head. You will wonder I should condemn the taste I have complied with, but in trifles I shall always conform to the fashion.”