“I went yesterday to see the Duke of Queensberry’s palace at Richmond, under the conduct of George Selwyn, the _concierge_. You cannot imagine how noble it looks now all the Cornbury pictures from Amesbury are hung up there. The great hall, the great gallery, the eating-room, and the corridor, are covered with whole and half-lengths of royal family, favourites, ministers, peers, and judges, of the reign of Charles I.--not one an original, I think, at least not one fine, yet altogether they look very respectable; and the house is so handsome, and the views so rich, and the day was so fine, that I could only have been more pleased if (for half an hour) I could have seen the real palace that once stood on that spot, and the persons represented walking about!--A visionary holiday in old age, though it has not the rapture of youth, is a sedate enjoyment that is more sensible because one attends to it and reflects upon it at the time; and as new tumults do not succeed, the taste remains long in one’s memory’s mouth.” Walpole was late this year in removing to Berkeley Square. The political topic of the London season was the debates in the House of Commons on the charges against Warren Hastings; the social topic, in our author’s circle at any rate, appears to have been some theatrical performances at the Duke of Richmond’s house in Whitehall. Horace seems to have interested himself a good deal more in the latter subject than the former. Lady Ossory having urged him to read a pamphlet in favour of Mr. Hastings, he replies: “The pamphlet I have read, Madam; but cannot tell you what would have been my opinion of it, because my opinion was influenced before I saw it. A lady-politician ordered me to read it, and to admire it, as the _chef-d’œuvre_ of truth, eloquence, wit, argument, and impartiality; and she assured me that the _reasonings_ in it were unanswerable. I believe she meant the _assertions_, for I know she uses those words as synonymous. I promised to obey her, as I am sure that ladies understand politics better than I do, and I hold it as a rule of faith-- “That all that they admire is sweet, And all is sense that they repeat. “How much ready wit they have! I can give you an instance, Madam, that I heard last night. After the late execution of the _eighteen_ malefactors, a female was hawking an account of them, but called them _nineteen_. A gentleman said to her, ‘Why do you say _nineteen_? there were but _eighteen_ hanged.’ She replied, ‘Sir, I did not know _you_ had been reprieved.’” A week later, he writes again: “Berkeley Square, Feb. 9, 1787.