was two guineas: one to the house, one to form a fund at the disposition of the club. The latter gradually accumulated till it amounted to 700_l._ or 800_l._ Both Sir John Sinclair and I were strenuous that this might be applied to some useful purpose, and with difficulty we got an appropriation of fifty guineas as a reward for the best plough that could be produced; but the money assigned to advertisements being much too small, the offer was unknown, and no plough produced. A member once proposed that the 800_l._ might be given to charitable institutions; but this was negatived in an instant, and the sum is still left (1812) unemployed in the funds. While the club flourished the members who most generally attended were the Dukes of Bedford, Buccleugh, Montrose, the Earls of Egremont, Winchester and Darnley, the Lords of Wentworth, Somerville, de Dunstanville, Sheffield, &c. &c. I often dined at Charles Coles’, where I met repeatedly Jacob Bryant,[160] Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. York, Mrs. Garrick, Hannah More, Mrs. Orde and Soame Jenyns. The conversation at these parties on the publications of the day, anecdotes of the time, with the conduct of many of the great men of the age, was usually very interesting. Alas! alas! how few of these persons are now left. I was very eager in listening to every word that fell from Hannah More, though not nearly so much so as I should have been many years after. I had an incessant round of dinners and many evening parties, and generally with people of the highest rank and consequence, but I was not pleased, being discontented with my employment, and disgusted with the frivolous business of the Board, which seemed to me engaged in nothing that could possibly produce the least credit with the public. After five months’ residence at London, I went to the Duke of Bedford’s at Woburn on my way to Bradfield, spending some days very agreeably in company that could not fail of being interesting. This year my second daughter Elizabeth, who, as I have mentioned before, was married to the Rev. John Hoole, died of consumption. She was of a most amiable, gentle temper, and in a resigned frame of mind, which gave me much satisfaction. The last visit I paid her at Abinger, in Surrey, she was very weak, yet not suspected to be so near her end. But at the last parting with me, she did it in so feeling and affectionate a manner as seemed to imply that she thought she should see me no more. It made me, for a time, extremely melancholy, which was shaken off with great difficulty. I took a tour into Hampshire, where I passed several days with Mr. Poulett at Sombourne, taking an account of the agriculture of that district, the result of which examination was printed as an appendix to the original Hampshire Report.