ssion of some of the
Davenants--was then in the Devonshire collection from which it was
stolen. Afterwards purchased by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and at his sale by
Morritt or his father.[358] The countenance handsome and dignified, with
a strong expression of genius, probably the only portrait of Milton
taken from the life excepting the drawing from which Faithorne's head is
done.

[_Grantham_,] _October_ 15.--Old England is no changeling. It is long
since I travelled this road, having come up to town chiefly by sea of
late years, but things seem much the same. One race of red-nosed
innkeepers are gone, and their widows, eldest sons, or head-waiters
exercise hospitality in their room with the same bustle and importance.
Other things seem, externally at least, much the same. The land,
however, is much better ploughed; straight ridges everywhere adopted in
place of the old circumflex of twenty years ago. Three horses, however,
or even four, are often seen in a plough yoked one before the other. Ill
habits do not go out at once. We slept at Grantham, where we met with
Captain William Lockhart and his lady, bound for London like ourselves.

[_Biggleswade_,] _October_ 16.--Visited Burleigh this morning; the first
time I ever saw that grand place, where there are so many objects of
interest and curiosity. The house is magnificent, in the style of James
I.'s reign, and consequently in mixed Gothic. Of paintings I know
nothing; so shall attempt to say nothing. But whether to connoisseurs,
or to an ignorant admirer like myself, the Salvator Mundi, by Carlo
Dolci, must seem worth a King's ransom. Lady Exeter, who was at home,
had the goodness or curiosity to wish to see us. She is a beauty after
my own heart; a great deal of liveliness in the face; an absence alike
of form and of affected ease, and really courteous after a genuine and
ladylike fashion.

We reached Biggleswade to-night at six, and paused here to wait for the
Lockharts. Spent the evening together.

[_Pall Mall_,] _October_ 17.--Here am I in this capital once more, after
an April-weather meeting with my daughter and Lockhart. Too much grief
in our first meeting to be joyful; too much pleasure to be
distressing--a giddy sensation between the painful and the pleasurable.
I will call another subject.

Read over _Sir John Chiverton_[359] and _Brambletye House_[360]--novels
in what I may surely claim as the style

"Which I was born to introduce--
Refined it f