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. But it would be impertinent to trouble your
ladyship with these matters, who are no stranger to what is worthy
of notice in London. But I was surprised, when Mr. B. observed to me,
that this whole county, and the two cities of London and Westminster,
are represented in parliament by no more than eight members, when so
many borough towns in England are inferior to the meanest villages
about London.

I am in daily expectation of the arrival of Miss Darnford, and then I
shall wish (accompanied by a young lady of so polite a taste) to see
a good play. Mr. B. has already shewn me the opera-house, and the
play-houses, though silent, as I may say; that, as he was pleased to
observe, they should not be new to me, and that the sight might not
take off my attention from the performance, when I went to the play;
so that I can conceive a tolerable notion of every thing, from the
disposition of the seats, the boxes, galleries, pit, the music,