There is another public vindication of me which I think I ought to take notice of, and that is, that soon after the Queen came to the crown, I was the cause of having the strictest orders made against taking of money for the disposing of places that were ever known at the court; which, how consistent it was with having any designs of my own of making money that way, I leave any one to judge. In the green cloth I found means of making it necessary, for every one that came into any employment there, to make an oath, in the strictest terms that could be, that he did not pay anything for it. And though I could not so easily procure any such effectual means to prevent the same practice with respect to the dispensing of other employments, yet I often pressed the Queen to do all that was possible in it; and upon this there was an order of council made, which everybody knows of, about it. All this, I hope, is sufficient to clear me from anything cast upon me with respect to the disposal of employments. _Extract from a work called “Sylva, or the Wood,” published in 1788; describing the limited education of the Duchess, and the manner in which she delivered the Vindication of her Conduct, so often referred to in this Volume, to Mr. Hooke._[507] The “old Sarah,” as she was then called, published, in 1742, an _Account of her Conduct_ under Queen Anne; which _account_, by the way, affords an excellent insight into the manœuvres of a court, and would greatly confirm the idea given of it in the two preceding numbers. She was assisted herein by Mr. Hooke, the historian, to whom, though oppressed with the infirmities of age, and almost bed-rid, she would continue speaking for six hours together. She delivered to him her account without any notes, in the most lively, as well as the most connected manner; and though the correction of the language is left to Hooke, yet the whole is plainly animated with her spirit; and as some philosophers have said of Saul with regard to body, she was _tota in toto, et tota in qualibet parte_. She was of a strong understanding and uncommon sagacity, which I premise to justify my wonder at the strange neglect of education among the females; for her woman would have written as well, and perhaps better. Here follow, merely as curiosities, two letters from her own handwriting, directed “For Doctor Clarke, att his haus near St. James’ Church,” without alteration of either grammar or orthography; that is _verbatim et liberatim_, as Mrs. Bellamy upon a like occasion expresses. _An Inventory of the Jewels belonging to the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough._—Copied from the Coxe Manuscripts, vol. xlviii. Weight. Value. Car. Gr. £ s. d. In the Duke of Marlborough’s George, eleven jewels 0 95