Bubb Dodington, whose diary we have quoted before, was a wealthy _parvenu_ whose ambition in life was to become peer. Walpole had refused him his coveted desire, and he therefore attached himself to Frederick Prince of Wales, who borrowed money from him, and invented a post in his household for his benefit. As far as it was possible for Dodington to be attached to any one, he seems to have been attached to his "Master," as he calls him. After Frederick's death, when, to use his own phrase, "there was little prospect of his doing any good at Leicester House," he again courted the favour of the government. But he retained a sentimental attachment to his master's widow, or (for he was a born intriguer) he wished to keep in touch with the young Prince of Wales. In either case he was careful not to break off his friendship with the Princess-Dowager, and often waited upon her at Carlton House. The Princess, though she did not wholly trust him, clung to him as a friend of her husband's. He was useful as a link with the outer world, he could retail to her all the political gossip of the day, and she, in turn, could make him the medium of her views, for she knew what she told him in apparent confidence would be retailed to all the town before the day was over. Dodington was an inveterate gossip, and his vanity was too much flattered by being made the confidant of the Princess-Dowager for him to conceal the fact. Moreover, he was wealthy, and a shrewd man of business. The Princess sorely needed advice in money matters, for her dower was only £50,000 a year, and out of that sum she had to keep up Leicester House, Carlton House and Kew, educate and maintain her numerous family, and to pay off by instalments her husband's debts--a task which she voluntarily took upon herself, though it crippled her financially for years. She did all so well that her economy was a triumph of management. From Dodington's diary we get glimpses of the domestic life of the Princess-Dowager and her children after her husband's death. For instance, he writes: "The Princess sent for me to attend her between eight and nine o'clock. I went to Leicester House expecting a small company, or little musick, but found nobody but her Royal Highness. She made me draw a stool and sit by the fireside. Soon after came in the Prince of Wales, and Prince Edward, and then the Lady Augusta, all in an undress, and took their stools and sat round the fire with us. We continued talking of familiar occurrences till between ten and eleven, with the ease and unreservedness and unconstraint as if one had dropped into a sister's house that had a family to pass the evening. It is much to be wished that the Prince conversed familiarly with more people of a certain knowledge of the world."[13] [13] Dodington's _Diary_, Nov. 17, 1753, edition 1784.