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42 To the Countess of Upper Ossory [1774

Mahon⁴, whom Lord Stanhope, his father, will not suffer to
wear powder because wheat is so dear, was presented t'other
day in coal-black hair and a white feather: they said ' he
had been tarred and feathered.⁹

In France you will find a new scene⁵. The Chancellor is
sent, a little before his time, to the devil. The old Parlia-
ment is expected back. I am sorry to say I shall not meet
you there. It will be too late in the year for me to venture,
especially as I now live in dread of my biennial gout, and
should die of it in an hotel garni, and forced to receive all
comers—I, who you know lock myself up when I am ill as
if I had the plague.

I wish I could fill my sheet, in return for your five pages.
The only thing you will care for knowing is, that I never
saw Mrs. Darner better in her life, nor look so well. You
may trust me, who am so apt to be frightened about her.

1558. To THE COUNTESS OF UPPEB OSSOBY.

MADAM, Strawberry Hill, Sept. H,1774.

'Methinks an JSsop's fable you relate/ as Dryden says in
The Hind and Panther. A mouse that wraps itself in a French
cloak and sleeps on a couch; and a goldfinch that taps at the
window and swears it will come in to quadrille at eleven
o'clock at night! no, no, these are none of JSsop's cattle;
they are too fashionable to have lived so near the Creation.
The mouse is neither country mouse nor city mouse; and
whatever else he may be, the goldfinch must be a Maccaroni,
or at least of the S$ avoir vivre¹. I do not deny but I have
some skill in expounding types and portents; and could
give a shrewd guess at the identical persons who have

* Charles Stanhope (1753-1816), science.

Viscount Mahon; succeeded his ⁶ Upon the death of Louis XV.

father as third Earl Stanhope in Walpole,

1786. He was noted for his Eepub- LETTER 1658.—* A fashionable

lican views, and for his interest in club.