“I did intend to settle at Strawberry on Sunday; but must return on Thursday, for a party made at Marlborough House for Princess Amelia. I am continually tempted to retire entirely; and should, if I did not see how very unfit English tempers are for living quite out of the world. We grow abominably peevish and severe on others, if we are not constantly rubbed against and polished by them. I need not name friends and relations of yours and mine as instances. My prophecy on the short reign of faro is verified already. The bankers find that all the calculated advantages of the game do not balance pinchbeck _parolis_ and debts of honourable women. The bankers, I think, might have had a previous and more generous reason, the very bad air of holding a bank:--but this country is as hardened against the _petite morale_, as against the greater.--What should I think of the world if I quitted it entirely?” Again a few days, and we come upon an early mention of the youthful William Pitt: “The young William Pitt has again displayed paternal oratory. The other day, on the Commission of Accounts, he answered Lord North, and tore him limb from limb. If Charles Fox could feel, one should think such a rival, with an unspotted character, would rouse him. What if a Pitt and Fox should again be rivals!” Some time later, Walpole asks Lady Ossory: “Apropos of _bon-mots_, has our lord told you that George Selwyn calls Mr. Fox and Mr. Pitt ‘the idle and the industrious apprentices’? If he has not, I am sure you will thank me, Madam.” In the summer of 1781, Horace has a touch of rheumatism, but still he keeps up his juvenile tone. Witness the two following letters to Lady Ossory: “Strawberry Hill, July 7, 1781.