Note 90 — STRAWBERRY HILL.

“Strawberry Hill is grown a perfect Paphos—it is the land of beauties. On Wednesday the Duchesses of Hamilton and Richmond, and Lady Ailesbury, dined there, and the two latter stayed all night. There never was so pretty a sight as to see them all three sitting in the shell. A thousand years hence, when I begin to grow old, if that can ever be, I shall talk of that event, and tell young people how much handsomer the women of my time were, than they will be then. I shall say, Women alter now; I remember Lady Ailesbury looking handsomer than her daughter, the Duchess of Richmond, as they were sitting in the shell on my terrace with the Duchess of Hamilton, one of the famous Gunnings! Yesterday, t’other more famous Gunning, Lady Coventry, dined there!” Correspondence of Horace Walpole, vol. ii.