inquietude, showed me letters he had received from Lady Chatham, begging in the most pathetic terms that he would sell them Hayes again. She urged that it would save her children from destruction; and that her children’s children would be bound to pray for him; requesting that he would take some days to consider before he refused. He did; and then wrote to her that he was very averse from parting with the place, on which he had laid out much money; but if the air of Hayes was the object, Lord Chatham was welcome to go thither directly for a month, or for the whole summer; that he would immediately remove his family, who were there, and Lord Chatham would find it well aired. This she declined accepting. Mr. Walpole then sent Nuthall[16] to her. She, who had never appeared to have a will or thought of her own, but to act with submission at her lord’s nod, now received Nuthall alone, and besought him not to own to her lord that she had yet received any letter from Mr. Walpole, but to deliver it as just arrived, if Lord Chatham should ask for the answer, and then carried him to her lord. He seemed in health and reasonable; but asking if Nuthall knew anything about Hayes, and being told the contents of the letter, he said, with a sigh, “That might have saved me.” Lady Chatham, seeming to be alarmed, said, “My lord, I was talking to Mr. Nuthall on that subject; we will go and finish our discourse;” and carried him out of the room. She then told him they had agreed to sell the Wiltshire estate (part of Pynsent’s), and with part of the produce re-purchase Hayes, which, however, they must mortgage, for they owed as much as the sale would amount to. Mr. Walpole, distressed between unwillingness to part with Hayes, and apprehension that Lord Chatham’s ill-health would be imputed to him, as that air might have been a remedy, consulted the Chancellor. The latter, on hearing the story, said, “Then he is mad,” and sent for James Grenville. Asking when he had seen Lord Chatham, Grenville replied, “The day before, and had found him much better.” Lord Camden said, “Did he mention Hayes?” “Yes,” said Grenville, “and then his discourse grew very ferocious.” No doubt there was something in these words of Grenville that had the air of a part acted: one can scarce believe a brother-in-law would have been so frank, had there been no concerted plan in the phrenzy; yet what wonder if anything seemed more credible than the fictitious madness of a first minister in no difficult situation? From this period the few reports of the few who had access to him, concurred in representing him as sedate, conversable, even cheerful, till any mention was made of politics: then he started, fell into tremblings, and the conversation was broken off. When the session was closed, these reports wore away; and as he remained above a year in close confinement at Hayes, unconsulting, and by degrees unconsulted, he and his lunacy were totally forgotten, till