CHAPTER VIII.

Mrs. Montagu’s Attention to Her Affairs—Visits Sandleford and Denton—Visits Her Estate at Burniston—Entertains Her Tenants—Drought in 1775—Charitable Institutions—Visits Her Collieries—Difference between Her Northumbrian and Yorkshire Tenantry—Anecdote of Walter Scott—Lord Villiers Acts Lord Townley—The French Ambassador—Lord Granby—Mrs. Montagu in Paris—Voltaire Sends a Paper to the Academy against Shakespeare—Mrs. Montagu Is Present at the Reading—Her Ready Reply to M. Suard—A Judicious Idleness—Quantity of Rouge Used in Paris—The Emperor of Austria—“The School for Scandal”—The Duchess of Devonshire—Run of Bad Weather—Sir William Temple—Doctor Robinson’s History of America—Lord Shelburne—Abbé Raynal—Prevalence of Influenza—Engagement of Lady Mary Somerset—Death of Morris Robinson—Jack the Painter—Doctor Dodd—Lord Chesterfield—Lady Strathmore’s Conduct at the Elections—Stoney Bowes 139