Lady Fanny Shirley, who had long been one of the reigning beauties of the court of George the First; the Duchess of Argyll; Lady Betty Campbell; Lady Ferrers; Lady Sophia Thomas; the Duchess of Montagu, daughter of the great Duke of Marlborough; Lady Cardigan; Lady Lincoln; Mrs. Boscawen; Mrs. Pitt; Miss Rich; Lady Fitzwalter; Lady Caroline Petersham; the Duchess of Queensbury, daughter of the Earl of Clarendon, and celebrated for extraordinary beauty, wit, and sprightliness, by Pope, Swift, and Prior; the Duchess of Manchester; Lady Thanet, daughter of the Marquis of Halifax, and wife of Sackville, Earl of Thanet; Lady St. John, niece of Lady Huntingdon; Lady Luxborough, the friend and correspondent of Shenstone, the poet; Lady Monson, whose husband, in 1760, was created Baron Sondes; Lady Rockingham, the wife of the great statesman, a woman of immense wit and pleasant temper, often at court, and possessed of considerable influence in the higher circles of society; Lady Betty Germain, daughter of the Earl of Berkeley, and through her husband, Sir John Germain, the possessor of enormous wealth; Lady Eleanor Bertie, a member of the noble family of Abingdon; the Dowager-Duchess of Ancaster; the Dowager-Lady Hyndford; the Duchess of Somerset; the Countess Delitz, one of the daughters of the Duchess of Kendal, and the sister of Lady Chesterfield; Lady Hinchinbroke, granddaughter of the Duke of Montagu; and Lady Schaubs. Besides these “honourable women not a few,” there were also the Earl of Burlington, so famed for his admiration of the works of Inigo Jones, and for his architectural expenditure; George Bubb Dodington, afterwards Lord Melcombe, a friend and favourite of the Prince of Wales, and whose costly mansion was often crowded with literary men; George Augustus Selwyn, an eccentric wit, to whom nearly all the current _bon-mots_ of the day were attributed; the Earl of Holderness; Lord (afterwards Marquess) Townshend, named George, after his godfather, George the First, a distinguished general in the army, member of Parliament for Norfolk, and ultimately a field-marshal. Charles Townshend, now a young man of twenty-three, whom Burke described as “the delight and ornament of the House of Commons, and the charm of every private society he honoured with his presence;” Lord St. John, half-brother to Lord Bolingbroke; the Earl of Aberdeen; the Earl of Lauderdale; the Earl of Hyndford, Envoy Extraordinary to the King of Prussia; the Marquis of Tweeddale, Secretary of State for Scotland; George, afterwards, Lord Lyttelton, at one time member for Okehampton, and secretary of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and who had recently published his well-known book, “Observations on the Conversion of St. Paul;” William Pitt, the distinguished first Earl of Chatham; Lord North, in his twenty-first year, afterwards First Lord of the Treasury, and ultimately Earl of Guildford; Evelyn, Duke of Kingston; Viscount