Duke of M. desired a private conference with him. I hope my friend will contrive to keep some Duke about the Court. I had at least three hours' political discourse with him this morning, and hope to improve myself in every thing by it against I have the honour of seeing your Grace, except in betraying you, for all the civilities I am so much obliged to you for showing me. I saw Lady Betty* yesterday morning, and found her in tolerable spirits, considering her situation; I shall pay my court there with full as much pleasure as any where, as well because she is as unlike all that go under the denomination of courtiers, as that I have the highest esteem for her. Lord Trentham and Lord March set out this morning at four o'clock for Newmarket, for today's cricket match. I have the pleasure to inform you that Dick † has won the first. I saw Taafe just now, who came to town as soon as it was over. gentleman, dated Paris, 1st Feb. Horace Walpole says, "Taafe He is a game 1751. 1751. They did not play it out the first day, on account of some rain, and the next morning the Etonians were to go in for a hundred and odd, and lost by thirty-four notches. He tells me they are all sulky and out of humour with one another, that the nobility played remarkably ill, particularly Duke of Kingston and Lord Howe, who stopped behind and missed catches and let balls pass by &c.; that Dick played himself on the other side, batted pretty well and made one good catch, but missed two or three, and let the balls pass him sadly, so that Taafe carries another man in his place against Saturday, and, in short, thinks himself almost sure of all the matches. This the state of all the affairs foreign and domestic I have been able to pick up; and if it informs you a day sooner of what perhaps my brother newswriters might be a post longer informing you of, I beg you would no more think of troubling yourself with a reply to me than you would to them. Only give me leave to add at the bottom, that I have the highest sense of obligation to my correspondent for the many favours he has been so kind to show me. I beg leave to trouble you with my to the Duchess, and am &c. June 27. 1751. best respects RICHARD RIGBY. MR. RIGBY TO THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. My Lord, We If I did not give your Grace the trouble of another paper after receiving your approbation of the beginning of my journal, it would look very much as if either my wit or malice were at an end: I wish with all my heart the former was of the magnitude of the latter; if it was as copious it should take in all your enemies: if it was as keen it should make them smart for being so. Lady Betty, Mr. Bab.*, and myself, took a farewell supper last night at Lord Trentham's, who was to take leave of his papa by appointment at ten o'clock. waited for him to supper till past twelve, and he did not return to us till one o'clock. Mr. Signet† had dined at Greenwich ‡, and came back ready primed from thence with these three hours' arguments in favour of a landlord there, against the malicious attacks, (and my Lord assures they will be impotent ones,) of, in short, yourself and about forty more, in which I am very glad to find Mr. Signet is pleased to place Mr. Fox. During the long discourse, they were divers times very near a quarrel; but I am glad ended without one, as well as without his gaining a single point in favour of Mr. Carter §, who has visibly set him to work again, and whose sore The Hon. Baptist Leveson Gower, brother of Earl Gower. † Lord Gower. Mr. Pelham's. Mr. Pelham. On the breach between the Dukes of Newcastle 1751. 1751. ness and uneasiness, I think, manifest themselves. pretty plain. I know nothing that has an opposite quality to balm, if I did, I would pour it into his wounds. Your Grace's successor *, who yet does not understand the meaning of the word resign, and has never heard of a Secretary of State being turned out, concludes that he is one for life; and poor Lady Pomfret at Windsor, and Madame God knows who at Hampton Court, and Lady Betty's Abigail at Kensington, have all warning to quit their several apartments, to make way for my Lord Secretary in all the palaces at once; in short, your leaving the Court is attended with worse consequences than either yourself, your friends, and, I trust, your enemies, expected. My Lord Albemarle is come; was in with the King yesterday, and came out with the keys†: Lord Hyndford, they say, is certainly to succeed him in the bedchamber. I dined at Holland House the day before yesterday with the Duke of Marlborough, who, I find, intends waiting upon you at Woburn very soon, if I understood him right about this day se'nnight. And, from Dick's intelligence yesterday through Betty Mostyn, General Wall proposed being there * Robert Earl of Holderness, ashamed of being made so considerable, for no reason but because he was so inconsiderable.Memoirs, vol. i. p. 172. † Groom of the Stole. the end of this week. I shall with great pleasure myself accept the favour of your offer, and trouble you with my company on Sunday. The town is grown extremely thin within this week, though White's continues numerous enough with young people only, for Mr. St. Leger's* vivacity, and the idea the old ones have of it, prevent the great chairs at the old club from being filled with their proper drowsy proprietors. July 2d. 1751. 1751. MR. RIGBY TO THE DUKE OF BEDFORD. I would not, I assure you, intrude a correspondence upon you so little worth keeping up, but upon a certainty of your keeping to the first point stipulated at the beginning of it, which was the agreement insisted upon by me, of there not being the least necessity of your putting yourself to the trouble of a reply. I don't love ripping up an old sore, especially of the Duke of Bedford's, and as I fear the best I can write will appear but as a dull remonstrance, if he is to have the trouble of making "Your friend St. Leger is the to swear the judge said to him, hero of all fashion. I never saw 'I see, sir, you are very ready more dashing vivacity and absur- to take an oath.' Yes, my dity, with some flashes of parts. Lord,' replied St. Leger, my He had a cause the other day for father was a judge.' -Walpole's ducking a sharper, and was going Letters, vol. ii. p. 394. |