hearty welcome, a large and convenient house, sweet gardens and a manner of living quite to my sober taste. Our only disturbance are visitors: we had yesterday seven coaches and six, mostly my own relations, my brother, sister, nephews and nieces.” [524] Means a horse trained to carry a pillion. [Page heading: THE DAUPHIN] On October 31 there is a letter dated from London to Mr. Gilbert West. In this Mrs. Montagu is forwarding him patterns of all kinds of dove-coloured paper from Mr. Bromedge’s shop, and Mr. Linnell was sending a marble chimney-piece for West’s big room at Wickham. She says-- “Poor Dr. Courayer notified to me that he was ill of a sore throat, and could not come to visit me, though he wanted to see me. I went to him, I was obliged to pass through all the gay vanities of Mrs. Chenevix,[525] and then ascend a most steep and difficult staircase to get at the little Philosopher: this way to wisdom through the vanities and splendid toys of the world might be prettily allegorized by the pen of the great Bunyan; the good man himself to an emblematizeing genius would have afforded an ample subject; his head was _enfoncé_ in a cap of the warmest beaver, made still more respectable by a gold orrace, ‘a wondrous hieroglyphick robe he wore,’ in which was portrayed all the attributes of the god Fo, with the arms and delineaments of the Cham of Tartary.... I began to consider him as the best piece of Chinese furniture I had ever seen, and could hardly forbear offering him a place on my chimney-piece. He asked much after your health.... There has been a terrible fracas in the court of the grand Monarque, the people, generally credulous, have strangely taken it into their heads that the Duke of Burgundy is not legitimate, and instead of acclamations and huzzas, murmurs and sighs have echo’d through the streets, on the days the feasts were made for the birth of this child; besides this there was conveyed into the cradle some gunpowder and a match with an epigram expressing that they would serve to blow up the pretended Duke of Burgundy. Upon his Majesty hearing this, the gouvernante, sub-gouvernante, women of the bedchamber, even to the toothless pap tasters, were all sent to the Bastille, one of the women who said she saw a hand reach over a screen to throw a paper into the cradle is since dead. A little knowledge is allowed to be a dangerous thing; had the lady been able to inform his Majesty at once who threw the paper, she had been safe, but it is supposed the hand that threw it, lest she should discover more, gave her a dose that has silenced her for ever.... “The Duke and Duchess of Portland and Lord Titchfield dined with us to-day, and staid till eight o’clock; her grace inquired after you.” [525] Famous shop for _bric-à-brac_ and toys. [Page heading: MR. NATHANIEL HOOKE]