The Lady Blandford mentioned in this passage was a widow who had lived within a few miles of Horace, at Sheen, and had recently died. During her illness, Walpole, in writing to Lady Ossory, had dwelt on the Roman fortitude with which the sick lady supported her sufferings, and on the devotion shown to her by her friend, Miss Stapylton. He added in his usual strain: “Miss Stapylton has £30,000, and Lady Blandford nothing. I wish we had some of these exalted characters in breeches! These two women shine like the last sparkles in a piece of burnt paper, which the children call the parson and clerk. Alas! the rest of our old ladies are otherwise employed; they are at the head of fleets and armies.” Walpole at this moment was altogether out of heart. “I see myself a poor invalid, threatened with a painful and irksome conclusion, and mortified at seeing the decay of my country more rapid than my own.” But he could still keep up a tone of gaiety. In November he wrote to Mann: “I went this morning to Zoffani’s to see his picture or portrait of the ‘Tribune at Florence;’ and, though my letter will not put on its boots these three days, I must write while the subject is fresh in my head. The first thing I looked for, was _you_--and I could not find you. At last I said, ‘Pray, who is _that_ Knight of the Bath?’--‘Sir Horace Mann.’--‘Impossible!’ said I. My dear Sir, how you have left me in the lurch!--you are grown fat, jolly, young; while I am become the skeleton of Methuselah.… “Well! but are you really so portly a personage as Zoffani has represented you? I envy you. Everybody can grow younger and plump, but I. My brother, Sir Edward Walpole, is as sleek as an infant, and, though seventy-three, is still quite beautiful. He has a charming colour, and not a wrinkle. I told him, when Lord Orford[75] was in danger, that he might think what he would, but I would carry him into the Court of Chancery, and put it to the consciences of the judges, which of us two was the elder by eleven years?” And two days later we have the following amusing letter to Lady Ossory: “Berkeley Square, Nov. 14, 1779.