The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope, vol 1 | Page 9

flatter myself you are too much attached to home and to the life you have led here ever to get into the idle way of spending Sunday, which I fear you will witness too frequently at Oxford, for from your account of what they are obliged to do on that day, a very small portion only need be given up to the religious duties of the day.
I was particularly pleased with a passage I met with the other day in which Bishop Newton on the Prophecies, speaking of Lord Bolingbrook, who, you know, was an unbeliever and from his talents and eloquence had too much weight at the time, says, "Raleigh and Clarendon believed, Lock and Newton believed, where then is the discredit to Revelation if Lord Bolingbrook was an Infidel. 'A scorner,' saith Solomon, 'seeketh Wisdom and findeth it not'"
I know not if your father took any notice of the part of your letter to him where you mention that, in a lecture, it had been proved that the Blacks were a species between men and monkeys--I think, for I have not your letter, that I have stated rightly what was said. It might be asserted, but surely could not be proved, and it is doctrine I do not like, as it goes directly to justify using them as beasts of burthen--a very good argument for a slave dealer.
March 1st.
Your father is very well. He was sorry for the fate of the Slave Trade Bill last night.
The Elopement and distress in the House of Petre has been the chief subject of conversation for the last few days. Miss Petre [11] made her escape from her father's house in Norfolk with her Brothers' tutor on Monday last. It is said they are at Worcester and married only by a Catholic Priest. However, Lord and Lady P. are gone there and it is expected she will be brought back to-night. They can do nothing but get her married to the man at Church. She is 18, he 30, and no Gentleman. She was advertised and 20 guineas reward offered to anyone who could give an account of the stray sheep. It is a sad History. What misery this idle girl has caused her parents, and probably ensured her own for life.
Marianne Stanhope to John Spencer Stanhope. March 3rd.
You have doubtless read in the papers the account of Miss Petre's elopement with her brother's tutor, Mr Philips. He is a very low man, quite another class, always dined with the children, never associated the least with the family, a sort of upper servant. Lady Petre thought him rather forward, he was to have left them at Easter. She had seen her daughter at twelve the night before, and only missed her at breakfast. Her clothes were all gone. A friend of his, a brandy merchant, accompanied her in the chaise, the tutor rode first. A clergyman refused to marry them some time ago at Lambeth, but they have since been married at Oxford by a Mr Leslie, a Catholic priest, which is not enough. They are not yet discovered.
The Same. GROSVENOR SQUARE, March 4th, 1805.
MY DEAR JOHN,
... London cannot be duller, those who remember it formerly were astonished at the change that time has wrought, and those ho look forward to the future, hope it will not always be so; but without a joke, except the Opera and the house of Glyn, I have scarcely seen anybody or been anywhere. We have three dinner engagements this week, besides one at home, but not one Assembly. You must know that we contrive to go out almost every night, but that it is only one degree better, or if you please, two degrees worse, than dozing at home; then, you know, as the existence of an Assembly is the not having room to stir, when you have plenty of elbow room from the thinness of the company it must be bad; besides another thing, when you have no time for conversation, you fancy everybody is agreeable, and in fashionable life, trust me, imagination is always preferable to reality!
Not a ball have I heard of excepting one the other night at Mr Johnstone's, Hanover Square. Now you know, balls without dancing are such very enchanting things! Without the Opera it requires a stretch of imagination to know how we should have existed. Our neighbour, Mrs Fitzherbert, in the next box to our own, affords us plenty of amusement. I shall almost become an adept at finding out Royalty by their conversation, from frequently overhearing what passes between the Lady, and not only one but several of their R.H.'s. I will give you an infallible guide to a Royal conversation. Stupidity for its basis, an ignorance of intellectual merit for one prop, and a contempt of