“The greatest event I know was a present I received last Sunday, just as I was going to dine at Lady Blandford’s, to whom I sacrificed it. It was a bunch of grapes as big--as big--as that the two spies carried on a pole to Joshua; for spies in those days, when they robbed a vineyard, were not at all afraid of being overtaken. In good truth, this bunch weighed three pounds and a half, _côte rôtie_ measure; and was sent to me by my neighbour Prado, of the tribe of Issachar, who is descended from one of foresaid spies, but a good deal richer than his ancestor. Well, Madam, I carried it to the Marchioness of Blandford, but gave it to the _maître d’hotel_, with injunctions to conceal it till the dessert. At the end of dinner, Lady Blandford said, she had heard of three immense bunches of grapes at Mr. Prado’s, at a dinner he had made for Mr. Welbore Ellis. I said those things were always exaggerated. She cried, Oh! but Mrs. Ellis told it, and it weighed I don’t know how many pounds, and the Duke of Argyll had been to see the hothouse, and she wondered, as it was so near, I would not go and see it. Not I, indeed, said I; I dare to say there is no curiosity in it. Just then entered the gigantic bunch. Everybody screamed. There, said I, I will be shot if Mr. Prado has such a bunch as yours. In short, she suspected Lady Egremont, and the adventure succeeded to admiration. If you will send the Bedfordshire waggon, Madam, I will beg a dozen grapes for you.… “Pray, Madam, is not it Farming-Woods’ tide?[62] Who is to have the care of the dear mouse in your absence? I wish I could spare Margaret [his housekeeper], who loves all creatures so well that she would have been happy in the Ark, and sorry when the Deluge ceased; unless people had come to see Noah’s old house, which she would have liked still better than cramming his menagerie.” [Illustration: _Sir Joshua Reynolds. Pinx._ _A. Dawson. Ph. Sc._ _J. Raphael Smith. Sc._ _Lady Gertrude Fitzpatrick._] The dearth of news was presently relieved by a General Election, about which and other topics Walpole writes to Mann: “Strawberry Hill, Oct. 6, 1774.