Reading into an elegant _salon_, and my Landlord and his wife into Mrs. Clayton and Mrs. Southwell; and an empty coach into one filled with good company. A most incomparable dinner appeared, and Mrs. Southwell; we went together to Reading, and by 11 I got back to my darksome pines.” [248] Presumably the widow of Bishop Clayton, and sister of Mrs. Donnellan. [249] Now the seat of Sir William Clayton. [250] Of King’s Weston. Soon after her return to Sandleford, Mr. Montagu fell ill of a bad throat, caught, she thought, at a place built by a Mr. Cottington near Newbury, on such a hill that, as she says to Lyttelton, “it would have made a good situation for a college of Augurs, for here they might conveniently make observations on the flight of Birds; the ascent is so steep a goat can hardly climb to it; he built a Belvidere at the top of the house, where perhaps he hoped to sit as umpire in the battles between the cranes and the pigmies, for as to looking down from it, it is rather horrible.” Fortunately, Dr. Monsey was at Sandleford, and promptly “blooded” and doctored Mr. Montagu. Mention is made of a “magnificent epistle of Emin to the noble daughters of Brittain,” too long to be inserted here. [Illustration: DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON.] [Page heading: INVERARY] Lord Lyttelton and “Tom” were taking a tour to the Highlands, having gone from Hagley to Durham, thence to Lord Ravensworth’s and Morpeth, “on our way to Alnwick.” Lord Lyttelton alludes to the Battle of Minden, fought on August 1, between the English, Hessians, and Hanoverians, against the French. Prince Ferdinand[251] of Brunswick commanded, and under him Lord George Sackville,[252] who commanded the English and Hanoverians, and incurred some obloquy on the score of disobeying orders; but Lyttelton says-- “The necessity the French will be under of restoring their army in Germany by large reinforcements must, I think, putt an end to their intended invasion, and you Ladies of Britain will not be exposed to the outrages and brutalities which the poor Ladies of Hildesheim have suffered from the rage of those polished barbarians.... I had writt thus far at Taymouth, Lord Breadalbane’s fine seat, but was forced by some interruption to delay ending my letter till I came to Inverary, from whence I now write. The House deserves to be call’d, as it was stil’d by Lord Leicester, ‘the Royall Palace of the King of the Goths.’ He reigns here in great state, but Nature reigns in still greater. I have scarce ever seen her more sublimely majestick; nor does she want some sweet graces to soften her dignity and make it more amiable. As the Duke of Argyll[253] is one of your admirers, and, I think, a favoured one too, you ought to make him a visit here when next you return to your northern dominions.” [251] Brother of the Duke of Brunswick. [252] Afterwards Lord George Germaine.