Mrs. Talbot,[166] writing from Barrington,[167] bids Mrs. Montagu to come and stay with her. The letter is not a remarkable one, but it says, “Have you heard lately from Lady Sandwich? I find the old Countess[168] is dead at last at Paris.” This was the eccentric Elizabeth Wilmot, sister of _the_ Earl of Rochester, and grandmother of John, Lord Sandwich, widow of the 3rd Earl. It is said she governed her husband to such a degree that he was almost a cypher and a prisoner in his own house, she being, though an indifferent wife, a most brilliant spirited woman. After her lord’s death in 1729, she lived in Paris, where she was the friend of Ninon de l’Enclos and St. Evremont. Both Pope and Lord Chesterfield have mentioned her as extremely spirited and having great intellectual ability. [166] Mrs. Talbot, widow of Edward Talbot, Bishop of Durham. [167] Barrington Park, near Burford, Oxon. [168] She died July 2, 1757, at Rue Vaugirard, Paris. Her daughter-in-law, Lady Hinchinbroke, _née_ Elizabeth Popham, lost her husband, Lord Hinchinbroke, in 1722, and I have several curious letters written by her to Mrs. Montagu in 1739, respecting her son John, 4th Earl of Sandwich (“Jemmy Twitcher”). He was then eleven years old, and his mother sent him to sea. Probably he was even then very unruly, but he could not bear the sea, and through Mr. Montagu she applied to their common connection, John, Duke of Montagu, to get him a commission in the Army, buying it “as an ensign in a marching regiment.” The duke’s reply to this is singularly indifferent in expression, and his spelling terrible. On August 6, writing from Bath Easton to her husband, Mrs. Montagu alludes to the defeat of Frederick the Great at Kollin in Bohemia, on June 18, by General Daun. Emin had written to her, saying-- “The French seem afraid of us, tho’ so much inferior in numbers.... I hear the King of Prussia takes to himself the whole blame of his disgrace in the late affair, and says if he had followed the advice of the Prince of Bevern, it had not happen’d; there is something more great perhaps in a Monarch owning his error than in gaining a victory, but it will not have the same effect in establishing his affairs in Germany, so that in his situation the least advantage over the Empress Queen[169] would have been of better consequence. Sir John Mordaunt, General Conway,[170] and Col. Cornwallis are going abroad with some forces as the Newspapers tell us, and the French seem again disposed to disturb us with the apprehension of an invasion.” [169] Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, born 1717, died 1780. [170] Seymour Henry Conway, the cousin and bosom friend of Horace Walpole; born 1720, died 1795. [Page heading: DESCRIPTION OF EMIN] Writing to Dr. Stillingfleet on August 7, in return for his description of Malvern, Mrs. Montagu gives this fine description of Emin--