“The Bowers came here yesterday. Mr. and Mrs. West met them here at dinner, and to-morrow we are all to dine at Wickham. This morning I shall carry Mrs. Bower to see Cæsar’s Camp, the prospect from which is now in high beauty.” [Page heading: INOCULATION] The five Botham children had been inoculated! Their mother had been persuaded in her bad health to leave them in their father’s care. Lydia, writing to Mrs. Montagu to thank her for a present of Madeira, says-- “You will desire to hear something of my Babes. My letter from their good Father to-day says they were well when he wrote, but that my kind and humane friends, Dr. Shaw and Winchester, who had both been with them in the morning, said their eyes were so heavy and their pulses so loaded that they would not hold up long.” A postscript to this letter gives the next day’s account in Mr. Botham’s words-- “My dear Babes are all drooping round me, and wonder not if I tell you I am glad they are so, since from the gentlest symptoms of the distemper I have a good foundation to hope they will do well. They are sometimes up and sometimes down, and sicken so gradually that Winchester doubts not that they will have a favourable sort of the smallpox. I expect they will be in their beds to-morrow.” By November 16 the five children were well, and Mrs. Montagu writes to Mr. West from Sandleford-- “Mrs. Botham returns to her little family to-morrow, they are all quite recovered, and I hope this lucky event will hasten the recovery of my Lydia. I should indeed be glad to behold the happy smile that will illuminate her countenance at her return to her babes. Mr. Rogers[21] is recovering from another mortification.... I really believe he will live to the age of Methuselah, for he recovers of those illnesses which destroy the strongest. “I find the Princess of Wales will have a drawing-room as soon as the King returns, and I hope you will consult with your friends, whether it will not be proper you should appear there.... Mr. Linnell[22] brought me his bill the morning I left town, and I think I will send a copy of it as a proper warning to your Mrs. West, and if you will still proceed in spite of my sad and woeful example, I cannot help it. I shall repent my misdeeds as the daughters of Israel did theirs in sackcloth and ashes. Adieu Brocade, Embroidery, and lace, and even the cheaper vanities of lutestring and blonde.” [21] John Rogers, of Denton Hall, to whom Mr. Montagu, his cousin, was trustee, as he was a lunatic. [22] Linnell had been decorating rooms in her house at Hill Street, and Mr. West was also employing him at Wickham. Mr. West took Mrs. Montagu’s advice as to going to Court and “kissing hands, a ceremony which upon more deliberation I think it most advisable to go through, however glad I should have been to avoid it.” [Page heading: NEW BOOKS]