Yet, I must own, we
found a stately, well-ordered, and convenient house: but, although it
is not far from the fields, and has an airy opening to its back part,
and its front to a square, as it is called, yet I am not reconciled to
it, so entirely as to the beloved mansion we left.
My dear Mr. B. has been, and is, busily employed in ordering some few
alterations, to make things still more commodious. He has furnished me
out a pretty library; and has allotted me very convenient apartments
besides: the furniture of every place is rich, as befits the mind and
fortune of the generous owner. But I shall not offer at particulars,
as we hope to have the honour of a visit from my good lord, and your
ladyship, before the winter weather sets in, to make the roads too
dirty and deep: but it is proper to mention, that the house is so
large, that we can make a great number of beds, the more conveniently
to receive the honours of your ladyship, and my lord, and Mr. B.'s
other friends will do us.
I have not yet been at any of the public diversions. Mr. B. has
carried me, by gentle turns, out of his workmen's way, ten miles round
this overgrown capital, and through the principal of its numerous
streets. The villages that lie spangled about this vast circumference,
as well on the other side the noble Thames (which I had before a
notion of, from Sir John Denham's celebrated Cooper's Hill), as on the
Middlesex side, are beautiful, both by buildings and situation, beyond
what I had imagined, and several of them seem larger than many of our
country towns of note.
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