even after the rupture between the king and prince (for the affair commenced in the reign of the first George), and though the prince, on quitting St. James's, resided in a private house, it was too serious an enterprise to attempt to take his wife by force out of the palace of the prince of Wales. The case was altered, when, on the arrival of summer, their royal highnesses were to remove to Richmond. Being only woman of the bedchamber, etiquette did not allow Mrs. Howard the entrée of the coach with the princess. She apprehended that Mr. Howard might seize her on the road. To baffle such an attempt, her friends, John duke of Argyle, and his brother, the earl of Ilay, called her in the coach of one of them by eight o'clock in the morning of the day, at noon of which the prince and princess were to remove, and lodged her safely in their house at Richmond. During the summer a negotiation was commenced with the obstreperous husband, and he sold his own noisy honour and the possession of his wife for a pension of twelve hundred a-year.

These now little-known anecdotes of Mr. Howard's behaviour I received between twenty and thirty years afterwards from the mouth of lady Suffolk herself. She had left the court about the year 1735, and passed her summers at her villa of Marble-hill at Twickenham, living very retired both there and in London. I purchased Strawberry-hill in 1747; and being much acquainted with the houses of Dorset, Vere, and others of lady Suffolk's intimates, was become known to her; though she and my father had been at the head of two such hostile factions at court. Becoming neighbours, and both, after her second husband's death, living single and

alone, our acquaintance turned to intimacy. She was extremely deaf, and consequently had more satisfaction in narrating than in listening; her memory both of remote and of the most recent facts was correct beyond belief. I, like you, was indulgent to, and fond of old anecdotes. Each of us knew different parts of many court-stories, and each was eager to learn what either could relate more; -and thus, by comparing notes, we sometimes could -make out discoveries of a third circumstance*, before unknown to both. Those evenings, and I had many of them in autumnal nights, were extremely agreeable; and if this chain of minutiæ proves so to you, you owe perhaps to those conversations the fidelity of my memory, which those repetitions recalled and stamped so lastingly.

In this narrative will it be unwelcome to you, if I subjoin a faithful portrait of the heroine of this part? Lady Suffolk was of a just height, well made, extremely fair, with the finest light brown hair; was remarkably genteel, and always well dressed with taste and simplicity. Those were her personal charms, for her face was regular and agreeable rather than beautiful; and those charms she retained with little diminution to her death at the age of 79. Her mental qualifications were by no means shining; her eyes and countenance showed her character, which was grave and mild. Her strict love of truth and her accurate memory were

The same thing has happened to me by books. A passage lately read has recalled some other formerly perused; and both together have opened to me, or cleared up some third fact, which neither separately would have expounded.

even after the rupture between the king and prince (for the affair commenced in the reign of the first George), and though the prince, on quitting St. 'James's, resided in a private house, it was too serious an enterprise to attempt to take his wife by force out of the palace of the prince of Wales. The case was altered, when, on the arrival of summer, their royal highnesses were to remove to Richmond. Being only woman of the bedchamber, etiquette did not allow Mrs. Howard the entrée of the coach with the princess. She apprehended that Mr. Howard might seize her on the road. To baffle such an attempt, her friends, John duke of Argyle, and his brother, the earl of Ilay, called her in the coach of one of them by eight o'clock in the morning of the day, at noon of which the prince and princess were to remove, and lodged her safely in their house at Richmond. During the summer a negotiation was commenced with the obstreperous husband, and he sold his own noisy honour and the possession of his wife for a pension of twelve hundred a-year.

These now little-known anecdotes of Mr. Howard's behaviour I received between twenty and thirty years afterwards from the mouth of lady Suffolk herself. She had left the court about the year 1735, and passed her summers at her villa of Marble-hill at Twickenham, living very retired both there and in London. I purchased Strawberry-hill in 1747; and being much acquainted with the houses of Dorset, Vere, and others of lady Suffolk's intimates, was become known to her; though she and my father had been at the head of two such hostile factions at court. Becoming neighbours, and both, after her second husband's death, living single and

alone, our acquaintance turned to intimacy. She was extremely deaf, and consequently had more satisfaction in narrating than in listening; her memory both of remote and of the most recent facts was correct beyond belief. I, like you, was indulgent to, and fond of old anecdotes. Each of us knew different parts of many court-stories, and each was eager to learn what either could relate more; and thus, by comparing notes, we sometimes could make out discoveries of a third circumstance*, before unknown to both. Those evenings, and I had many of them in autumnal nights, were extremely agreeable; and if this chain of minutiæ proves so to you, you owe perhaps to those conversations the fidelity of my memory, which those repetitions recalled and stamped so lastingly.

In this narrative will it be unwelcome to you, if I subjoin a faithful portrait of the heroine of this part? Lady Suffolk was of a just height, well made, extremely fair, with the finest light brown hair; was remarkably genteel, and always well dressed with taste and simplicity. Those were her personal charms, for her face was regular and agreeable rather than beautiful; and those charms she retained with little diminution to her death at the age of 79. Her mental qualifications were by no means shining; her eyes and countenance showed her character, which was grave and mild. Her strict love of truth and her accurate memory were

The same thing has happened to me by books. A passage lately read has recalled some other formerly perused; and both together have opened to me, or cleared up some third fact, which neither separately would have expounded.

always in unison, and made her too circumstantial on trifles. She was discreet without being reserved; and having no bad qualities, and being constant to her connections, she preserved uncommon respect to the end of her life; and from the propriety and decency of her behaviour was always treated as if her virtue had never been questioned; her friends even affecting to suppose that her connection with the king had been confined to pure friendship.Unfortunately, his majesty's passions were too indelicate to have been confined to Platonic love for a woman who was deaf*-sentiments he had expressed in a letter to the queen, who, however jealous of lady Suffolk, had latterly dreaded the king's contracting a new attachment to a younger rival, and had prevented lady Suffolk from leaving the court as early as she had wished to do. "I don't know," said his majesty, "why you will not let me part with an old deaf woman, of whom I am weary."

Her credit had always been extremely limited by the queen's superior influence, and by the devotion of the minister to her majesty. Except a barony,

*Lady Suffolk was early affected with deafness. Cheselden the surgeon, then in favour at court, persuaded her that he had hopes of being able to cure deafness by some operation on the drum of the ear, and offered to try the experiment on a condemned convict then in Newgate, who was deaf. If the man could be pardoned, he would try it; and, if he succeeded, would practise the same cure on her ladyship. She obtained the man's pardon, who was cousin to Cheselden, who had feigned that pretended discovery to save his relation-and no more was heard of the experiment. The man saved his ear too- but Cheselden was disgraced at court.