I have myself been present at a public dinner
at Lambeth Palace within the last fifty years or thereabouts, and I have
been at one or more such dinners at Wentworth.' Since receiving this
explanation I have read the following in the second part of the
_Greville Memoirs_, i. 99:--'June 1, 1838. I dined yesterday at
Lambeth, at the Archbishop's public dinner, the handsomest entertainment
I ever saw. There were nearly a hundred people present, all full-dressed
or in uniform. Nothing can be more dignified and splendid than the whole
arrangement.'
[1134] Six weeks later he was willing to hear even of balloons, so long
as he got a letter. 'You,' he wrote to Mr. Sastres, 'may always have
something to tell: you live among the various orders of mankind, and may
make a letter from the exploits, sometimes of the philosopher, and
sometimes of the pickpocket. You see some balloons succeed and some
miscarry, and a thousand strange and a thousand foolish things.' _Piozzi
Letters_, ii. 412.
[1135] See _ante_, p. 349, note.
[1136] 'He alludes probably to the place of King's Painter; which, since
Burke's reforming the King's household expenses, had been reduced from
L200 to L50 per annum.
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