LIFE AND LETTERS SIR GILBERT ELLIOT FIRST EARL OF MINT0 - IN THREE VOLUMES- VOL. 11. - CHAPTER I. LADY R ALYESBURYS letters having carried 11s on to thc summer of 1792, we must now retrace our steps to the spring of that year, when Sir Gilbert went up to London to attend to his parliamentary duties, and resumed his place as his wifes correspondent al head-quarters. A slight delay was caused in his journey to town by a collision with a runaway couple to Gretna, who had carried off all the horses. G The lady is a fortune, and pays all the post-boys largely herself, so she is not carried off by force, though she looks a miserable little creature. London Msrcli 24, 1792. L . . . I dined yesterday at the Star ancl Garter, at a sort of party club for members of the House of VOL. 11. B LIFE AND LETTERS l792 Commons to dine every Friday during the session. There are seldom above a dozen, but they are generally the leading people. Fox was accordingly there yesterday, and Grey. Sheridan came in late in the evening, just as me were parting. Fox is always . pleasant in these sort of small and cosy companies and he has exactly the merit which he said he liked yesterday in Lord Sandwich, which was being very much engaged and eager in whatever he was about with this difference,, that F is generally eager about better things than Lord Sandwich whose objects were mostly trifling and childish to the greatest degree. Lord Sandwich is supposed to be dying. Gerard Hamilton has had a severe paralytic stroke, which is not his first, and he is not expected to recover. . . . G I am glad to find, I think, an appearance of greater moderation about the French affairs and our own constitution, etc., than there seemed to be last year. The conduct of France is not commended in everything as it was, by anybody that I have met with, and Fox spoke as ill of Paynes book yesterday as other people, which he did not do last Parliament of Paynes first book. There are certainly a certain number of people in the kingdom who are desirous of confusion but there always are, and always must be, some such men in every country. They do not appear to produce any effect, and that matter is now in the hands of Horne Tooke and such persons, who mill probably never be able to raise even a mob of the populace, . but will certainly make no revolution. Fra - n ci3 however, I am JET. 401 BURLINGTON HOUSE . S sorry to say, is very fr riousa, nd, I think, wrong-headed , on these points, and seems to have no objection to a . convulsion. Sl eridan is also one of those who think they might gain. by confusion, and I am persuaded that he wishes to stir the lower ranks of the peopb even by t. he hope of plundering their betters. But I class him in a form very little above Horne Tooke in oharacter. and estimation, and therefore in effect, in this country. . . . There is one of the finest pictures of Sylvester Douglas at Lawrences I ever saw. Lawrence seems to. me much improved this year. There is a picture of. Grey just begun, wonderfully like. London Monday, Mareh 26, 1792-I dined on Saturday at Burlingt, on House, where there was but a small party. The Duke was kind as. possible in his manner, and desired me to come, when-. ever I was disengaged, in a family way, which I propose, to do now and then. If I can break through the Duchesss cold and particular ways, I should find it a pleasant resource. Lady Charlotte is a good-looking. girl, but not up to beauty...