“. . . There was a prodigious to-do at the Castle here the day before yesterday, it being Billy’s seventieth birthday—a dinner to 150 and tea party to as many more; in short, to all the nibberhood, always excepting poor Stoke, the residence of Maria Craven, Billy’s first love.‡ Oh perfidious Billy! but as Sefton told me, this omission was quite a matter of course, the family not having written their names at the Castle this year. . . . You will be glad to know that amongst the visitors at the Castle, the Lord Mayor had the honor to be one, and not only to dine, but to stay all night. This said Lord Mayor, Winchester, is a stationer; and having been employed by a Tory Government for supply of the Treasury, was formally dismissed by the same Government, by regular Treasury minute, for cheating—that was all. Another favored guest, both for bed and board, was Walter, M.P. for Berkshire, formerly proprietor and editor of the Times newspaper.”
