As Parliament is to be dissolved to-morrow or Tuesday, conceive the bustle which prevails thro'out this great town. The gentlemen are in agonies for their purses, and the ladies for their parties, which must either be postponed or destitute of beaux.... This last week we have been very gay--that is, we have been almost squeezed to death at sundry grand crowds, and knocked up with balls. Mrs Robinson's was good in everything but dancing, and Lady Scott's [21] was good in everything but company. The latter was nothing but a little dance, a rehearsal to a magnificent ball she means to give in May, in which she has asked us to dance in the French country dances--but hélas! all that will now be at an end.... You would have been charmed with Lady Scott. I know how much you admire her, and to increase your delight, I will tell you what she eats for supper. After having already been at one table, she came to ours when everybody had done eating. _She had first half a breast of mutton, then half a chicken, then a whole lobster, a blanc-manger & a mixed salad._ The Election of 1807 was one long celebrated in the history of Yorkshire, being unprecedented in the fierceness of the struggle it provoked. As is well known, there were in those days but two representatives for the entire county, and there was but one polling booth, which was in the castle yard at York. The retiring members on this occasion were Mr Walter Fawkes and William Wilberforce. The former did not seek re-election, for he took the dissolution so much to heart that he declared he should withdraw for ever from public life, but the latter speedily made good his right to represent the county once more. There remained, therefore, but one seat to be contested, and great was the excitement when it was found that the candidates were to be chosen from the two great Yorkshire houses of rival politics--Lord Milton, the son of Earl Fitzwilliam, in the Whig interest, and the Hon. Henry Lascelles, son of the Earl of Harewood, for the Tory party. Mr Stanhope, having secured his own election for his old seat of Carlisle, hastened back to Yorkshire to take part in the contest in favour of the Tory member there, whose chances of success he hoped would be enhanced by the youthfulness of Lord Milton, which gave his opponents a valuable handle for satire. As already pointed out, precocious in every rôle of life, Lord Milton had married at the age of nineteen, and having just attained his majority, was now anxious to represent the county. _Walter Spencer-Stanhope to John Spencer-Stanhope._ CANNON HALL, _May 18th, 1807._