“Your admirable letter found me at the Archiepiscopal Palace at
Croydon, where Mrs. West, Dick and I had been ever since Wednesday;
and it was lucky that it found me there, as I had by that means
an opportunity of showing the Archbishop, whom you very properly
style good, your most ingenious and judicious Reflections of Lord
Bolingbroke’s pompous Rhetorical and inconsistent Declamations with
which his Grace (who, by the bye agrees entirely with you in the
censure you there pass’d upon Mr. W(arburton)’s way of answering
him,) was so pleas’d that he desired me to give him a copy of the
whole paragraph, promising that if he show’d it to anybody he
would, however, cautiously conceal the name of the author. After
this I need not tell you how much we both said in praise of you;
I shall only add that I, this morning, received his commands to
present his respects to you, and to tell you in his name that if
you allow’d yourself the liberty of saying fine things of him,
he would be even with you. These are his own words, grounded on
a piece of information I had given him of the great honour and
esteem you had for him. We quitted Wickham, as I told you, on
Wednesday last, that we might throw no obstacle in the way of that
amorous impatience which Mr. Pitt had in all his notes express’d
of bringing Lady Hester to our sweet and hospitable Habitation,
as he call’d it; but to our great surprise, and to the no small
mortification of Mrs. West in particular, who was afraid that all
the good things, with which she had fill’d her larder, would be
spoil’d by their delay--the happy Bridegroom and his Bride did not
arrive till Saturday, on which morning they were married[78] by Dr.
Ayscough[79] with the Archbishop’s License. They came down alone,
and have continued alone ever since, and, I imagine, will continue
during their stay at Wickham, in that Paradisaical Solitude, tho’
by the quantity of provisions which Mr. Campion[80] brought with
him, and more which he has since sent for from Croydon, we conclude
he expected some visitants from Town, as Lord Temple, etc.,[81]
but having heard of no such visitants being expected, I suppose
that all this profusion was owing to Mr. Campion’s solicitude to
testify in his own way his respects to his new Lady, and make his
compliments on this joyous occasion, in the polite, that is, in the
French Phraseology: this is all the intelligence I can at present
give you of this important affair, for we have had no communication
by messages, either to or from Mr. Pitt, whom we were unwilling to
disturb, or interrupt the free course of those pleasures, which
for a time at least, possess the whole mind, and are most relished
when most private; for this reason I cannot yet acquaint you when
we shall leave Wickham, but I believe it will be about the middle
of this week, and I suppose we shall not be able to go to Chelsea
before the latter end of the next, or the beginning of the week
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account