George Lord Lansdowne to his niece Mrs. Pendarves.

MY DEAR NIECE,

London, Augt. 8th, 1733. The last post brought me the enclosed from Sir W. Carew. I send it you for your farther instructions. You mentioned to me at parting a certain Mr. Cox who was to come to me, but I have never heard of him. Your good sense will make all places agreeable to you, but with your pardon, notwithstanding all your fine rural descriptions, the pleasures of Courts, and the entertainments of the town are more at the bottom of your heart; and it is fit they should be so for the sake of the public, qualified as you are to grace our assemblies. Nor can you ever make me believe you prefer the murmuring of a purling stream, to a quaver of Cuzzoni! Your friend the Reverend Dean' would tell you this is all "widowe's cant" and "meer pruderie." I wish Lord Bathurst' success with all my heart, but I am told Mr. Stow gives his interest to Sir John Dutton. Is that possible? Our present subject for discourse is the marriage of the Duchess Dowager of Cleveland with Mr. Southcot. Widow! have a care; a matrimonial star is reigning over young and old, you may be caught before you are aware, and there is no resisting one's destiny.

3

I hear all at Long Leat are well, except Lord Inchiquin,*

1 "Your friend the Dean,"-Dean Swift.

2 Allen, first Lord Bathurst, one of the twelve Tory peers created by Queen Anne, in 1711; created an earl in 1772. He lived to see his eldest son Lord Chancellor of England, and died at the age of 91, in 1775. He was the friend of Pope, Congreve, Swift, Prior, Hume, Sterne, and other men of letters.

3 Anne, daughter of Sir Wm. Pulteney; married in 1694, to Charles Duke of Cleveland, by whom she was mother of William Duke of Cleveland. She was married, secondly, to William Southcote, Esq., of Weybridge, in Surrey; and died February, 1746.

4 William, 4th Earl of Inchiquin, succeeded his father, 1719; married in