But let us talk of something else.* You remember surely Mrs. Hobson (Miss Comarque). She is just returned to England under a different name. She is now Madame la Baronne de Bavois. Her second husband is an old Swiss Officer about seventy, a man of family, but with as little money as character, who most probably married her for a fortune which he now begins to discover was spent to his hands. They talk of leaving England very soon, and fixing themselves in some cheap Provincial town in the South of France. The Baronne is more ridiculous, and will I fear be more miserable than ever. Mrs. Porten, out of regard to the laws of Hospitality, gave them a dinner last Sunday, & insists on my doing the same to-day, and her brother Sunday next. She grows younger every day, but Sir Stanier much older. *You remember, I think in Newman Street, a good agreeable Woman, Miss Wybolt. The under Secretary[242] is seriously in love with her, and seriously uneasy that his precarious situation precludes him from happiness. We shall soon see which will get the better, Love or reason. I bet three to two on love.*
I cannot find your last letter (a sad memento); did not you ask me with whom Deyverdun was gone abroad? with young Lord Middleton. Lady Fetherston (as they are to return next spring) is mad to get him, but I should fancy Sir Harry must be consulted--I hear confusedly of strange Revolutions in the Gould family.
Next week I go to Sheffield place. Holroyd, who passes a few days with me, was sincerely concerned to hear that you had no thoughts of the Journey this summer. His Father, I find, has had a violent attack.
I am, Dear Madam, Most truly yours, E. G.
The Goslings will obey your commands, whenever you please to signify them.
[242] In the list of marriages for 1774 appears the following:--"Dec. 8, 1774. Sir Stanier Porten, Knt., to Miss Mary Wibault of Titchfield St." (_Ann. Register_). Sir Stanier Porten, Gibbon's uncle, was in 1760 made Consul-General at Madrid. In 1772 he was knighted in order to qualify him to act as proxy to Sir George (afterwards Lord) Macartney, K.B. In May, 1774, he was an Under Secretary of State, and was appointed Keeper and Registrar of His Majesty's papers and records for the business of State at Whitehall. He became a Commissioner of the Customs, and died at Kensington Palace, June 7, 1789.