On August 20 Mr. Montagu arrived at Hinchinbroke to stay with Lord Sandwich, in order to beat up votes for the next election for Huntingdon and the county. A Mr. Jones, an eminent merchant, was to be his fellow-candidate. “On Tuesday we are to go about the town and canvass, where an entertainment will be prepared for the Burgesses, who will to-morrow night be treated with their wives, with a ball for them only, a thing intirely new and which must produce something new and out of the common. On Friday we shall be at liberty to move off, but on Monday night we are to meet and entertain the Londoners at the King’s Head, Holbourn.” Writing on August 21 to Mrs. Boscawen, Mrs. Montagu mentions-- “I am living in the very house my dear Mrs. Boscawen inhabited three years ago. At the Stone Castle reside Mr. Pitt, Mr. and Mrs. West and Miss West. Instead of making parties at Whist or Cribbage, and living with and like the _beau monde_, we have been wandering about like a company of gipsies, visiting all the fine parks and seats in the neighbourhood.” These excursions were much encouraged by Mr. Pitt, who considered them “as good for the mind as the body,” and that an occasional day without drinking the waters gave them a greater effect. Mention of a ventriloquist now occurs as something new-- “I have been this morning to hear the man who has a surprising manner of throwing his voice into the Drawer, a bottle, your pocket, up the chimney, or where he pleases within a certain distance.... I was last night at Mr. King’s, we had the Orrery and an astronomical lecture.” [Illustration: _Thos. Malton, pxt._] THE CIRCUS, AT BATH.] [Page heading: MR. PITT VISITS HAYES] Mr. Montagu joined his wife for a week at Tunbridge, when he had to return to London. On September 16 she writes to him-- “I intend to be with you on Thursday.... I find Mr. Pitt has some intentions, as _I told you when you was here, of going to Heys_, in case he should not be well enough to take the long journey he intends, and he seems much pleased that I will lend him that little tenement; but as I apprehend a feather bed more will be wanted than used to be, I propose to send one from Hill Street.... Mr. Pitt leaves this place to-morrow, he is now going to Dr. Ascough’s, and from thence to Stowe[54] and Hagley.[55] Mr. West goes to Stowe with him.” [54] Lady Cobham’s. [55] Sir George Lyttelton’s seat. Probably it was from this time that Pitt took such a fancy to Hayes, which endured all his lifetime. [Page heading: MR. HOOKE] The next letter to Gilbert West I transcribe in portions-- “Sandleford, September 27, 1753. “MY MOST HONOURED COUSIN,