TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _June_ 20, 1766.

I don't know when I shall see you, but therefore must not I write to
you? yet I have as little to say as may be. I could cry through a whole
page over the bad weather. I have but a lock of hay, you know, and I
cannot get it dry, unless I bring it to the fire. I would give
half-a-crown for a pennyworth of sun. It is abominable to be ruined in
coals in the middle of June.

What pleasure have you to come! there is a new thing published, that
will make you burst your cheeks with laughing. It is called the "New
Bath Guide."[1] It stole into the world, and for a fortnight no soul
looked into it, concluding its name was its true name. No such thing. It
is a set of letters in verse, in all kind of verses, describing the life
at Bath, and incidentally everything else; but so much wit, so much
humour, fun, and poetry, so much originality, never met together before.
Then the man has a better ear than Dryden or Handel. _Apropos_ to
Dryden, he has burlesqued his St. Cecilia, that you will never read it
again without laughing. There is a description of a milliner's box in
all the terms of landscape, _painted lawns and chequered shades_, a
Moravian ode, and a Methodist ditty, that are incomparable, and the best
names that ever were composed. I can say it by heart, though a quarto,
and if I had time would write it you down; for it is not yet reprinted,
and not one to be had.

[Footnote 1: By Christopher Anstey. "Have you read the 'New Bath Guide'?
It is the only thing in fashion, and is a new and original kind of
humour. Miss Prue's conversation I doubt you will paste down, as Sir W.