“The Duke and Duchess were so obliging as to carry me to see Windsor Castle last week. It is so delightful a place and so fine a palace, I am surprised his Majesty does not spend his summer there, I should think it as well as going to Hanover. The same day we were at Windsor, we went to see a little island[120] circled by the Thames, which the Duke of Marlborough[121] purchased and has beautified at the expense of £8000. There is too great an embarras of buildings upon it, the finest of which I think something resembling the Temple of Janus. He has a better title to build one to war than to fame, for he has got a commission, but renown I believe is what he will never gain. He sent out a few days ago for four-score workmen to improve a place he never proposes to live at, after the old Duchess dies. His Grandfather now saved a people, now saved a groat, but such a warrior and economist as this gentleman he will never save either. “Lady Andover[122] told me in a letter I received from her last post, that Mrs. Botham was grown very grave, and a great workwoman and an excellent housewife; if that is the case, Mr. Botham preaches to those of his household as well as those of his parish.” [120] Monkey Island. [121] Charles, 3rd Duke. [122] Second daughter of Heneage, Earl of Aylesford, wife of William, Lord Andover. [Page heading: LYDIA BOTHAM] [Page heading: COUNTESS OF OXFORD] This is the first allusion to Lydia Botham, cousin of Elizabeth Robinson; she, and her more illustrious sister Elizabeth, or Eliza Lumley, afterwards wife of the Rev. Laurence Sterne, of “Shandean” memory, were the children of the Rev. Robert Lumley, of the Lumley Castle family, Rector of Bedale, Yorks, from 1721 to 1732; and of Lydia, daughter of Anthony Light,[123] and widow in 1709 of her first husband, Thomas Kirke, of Cockridge, near Leeds (a famous Virtuoso), she married afterwards the Rev. Robert Lumley;[124] for the table elucidating this pedigree the reader must turn to the end of the introductory portion of this work. The Lumleys are said to have been brought up in style, but little means had remained to them. Both parents were dead; Lydia had recently married the Rev. John Botham, Rector of Yoxall, Staffordshire. Elizabeth Lumley, her sister, was residing alone in “Little Alice Lane,” under the shadow of York Cathedral. In a folio-sheet letter to her sister Sarah, Elizabeth explains that owing to the Countess of Oxford being at Bullstrode, she had more time to herself, as the countess and she had spent alternate mornings with the duchess. The countess was kind to Elizabeth, but she was a rare admirer of etiquette. When she was with the duchess, she actually wished to see all her letters, which was naturally annoying to a married woman; she also expected them to be couched in the most formal manner, as addressed _to a ducal person_! Hence, when Elizabeth was away from the duchess, and Lady Oxford was with her, the letters