“My bower is determined, but not at all what it is to be. Though I write romances, I cannot tell how to build all that belongs to them. Madame Danois, in the Fairy Tales, used to _tapestry_ them with _jonquils_; but as that furniture will not last above a fortnight in the year, I shall prefer something more huckaback. I have decided that the outside shall be of _treillage_, which, however, I shall not commence, till I have again seen some of old Louis’s old-fashioned _Galanteries_ at Versailles. Rosamond’s bower, you, and I, and Tom Hearne know, was a labyrinth: but as my territory will admit of a very short clew, I lay aside all thoughts of a mazy habitation: though a bower is very different from an arbour, and must have more chambers than one. In short, I both know, and don’t know, what it should be. I am almost afraid I must go and read Spenser, and wade through his allegories, and drawling stanzas, to get at a picture. But, good night! you see how one gossips, when one is alone, and at quiet on one’s own dunghill!--Well! it may be trifling; yet it is such trifling as Ambition never is happy enough to know! Ambition orders palaces, but it is Content that chats for a page or two over a bower.” A large part of Walpole’s correspondence was despatched at night after his return from the theatre or a reception. His habits were late. He was a late riser, and he often played cards till two or three o’clock in the morning. Whist he disliked, but gave himself to faro, while that game was in vogue, and afterwards to loo, with all the fervour of a devotee. But when not thus occupied, the hours observed by the fashionable world allowed him to retire early to his desk. How different those hours were then from what they now are, may be gathered from Walpole’s amusing sketch of a retarded dinner, at which he was a sufferer, in 1765: