My next grievance is, that je peris de froid; j'en mis penetre au pied de la lettre, and the reason is plain, but why I did not discover it myself is hardly to be conceived. I have no clothes; my stockings are of a fine thin thread, half of them full of holes; I have no flannel waistcoat, which everybody else wears; in short, I have been shivering in the warmest room sans scavoir pourquoi. But yesterday there was a committee at the Duke's upon my drapery, and to-day a tailor is sent for. I am to be flannelled and cottoned, and kept alive if possible; but if that cannot be done, I must be embalmed, with my face, mummy like, only bare, to converse through my cerements. Then, my other footman, the Bruiser, is that, and all things bad besides; he is not an hour in the day at home, and is gaming at alehouses till 12 at night; so the moment that I can get any servant that is tolerable to supply his place I shall send him out of the house, sans autre forme de proces; but, till he is gone, my whole family lives in terror of him. It is amazing to what a degree I am become helpless; nothing can account for it but extreme dotage, or extreme infancy. I wish Barthow had left Lady Caroline, and was here only to dress me in warmer clothes, but she goes from here, I hear, to Lady Ailesford, so that I must not think of lying in and being nursed for some time. . . . (1790,) Dec. 8, Wednesday, Richmond.--You have bean at C(astle) H(oward) ever since Monday sevennight, and not one single word have you received from your humble slave and beadsman. . . . Here is now come a snip-snap letter of reproach from Lady Ossory for not having answered her letter of compliments upon Lady Caroline's delivery. I received yours on Sunday. That was no post day, so I resolved to answer it in Berkley Square on Monday. But I did not set out till three o'clock, lost all the fine part of the morning, and did not get to town till five in the afternoon--dragged for two hours, two whole hours, through mud, and cold, and mist, till I was perishing; so that when I had eat some dinner I was fit for nothing but to go to bed, and therefore did not go to Berkley Square till yesterday at noon. . . . I saw Caroline and her bambino. . . . The christening is to be, as I understand, to-morrow. I hope in God that I shall be well enough to assist, and name the child, and eat cake, and go through all the functions of a good gossip. If I am obliged to give up that which seems to have been my vocation, c'est fait de moi; I must declare myself good for nothing. I carried yesterday the regalia. The cup has been new boiled, and looks quite royal.