e, she said everything
got into print sooner or later; the name of Lady Mary Wortley would be
sure to attract curiosity; and were such details ever made public, they
would neither edify the world, nor do honour to her memory."

Lady Bute heard that her mother's letters were in existence, and,
fearful of what they might contain, purchased them. "It is known that
when on her way to die, as it proved, in her own country, Lady Mary gave
a copy of the letters to Mr. Snowden, minister of the English church at
Rotterdam, attesting the gift by her signature," Lady Louisa Stuart has
written. "This showed it was her wish that they should eventually be
published; but Lady Bute, hearing only that a number of her mother's
letters were in a stranger's hands, and having no certainty what they
might be, to whom addressed, or how little of a private matter, could
not but earnestly desire to obtain them, and readily paid the price
demanded--five hundred pounds. In a few months she saw them appear in
print. Such was the fact, and how it came about nobody at this time of
day need either care or inquire."

With regard to other correspondence of Lady Mary, Sir Robert Walpole
returned to her the letters she had written to his second wife, Molly
Skerritt, after the death of that lady; and when Lord Hervey died, his
eldest son sealed up and sent her her letters, with an assurance that he
had read none of them. To Lord Hervey's heir, Lady Louisa Stuart has
mentioned, Lady Mary wrote a letter of thanks for his honourable
conduct, adding that she could almost regret he had not glanced his eye
over a correspondence which would have shown him what so young a man
might perhaps be inclined to doubt--the possibility of a long and steady
friendship subsisting between two persons of different sexes without the
least mixture of love. Much pleased with this letter, he preserved it;
and, when Lady Mary came to England, showed it to Lady Bute desiring
she would ask leave for him to visit her mother.

It is to be presumed that Lady Mary, or her daughter, Lady Bute,
destroyed these collections. For her part, Lady Mary returned letters
that she had received from Lord Hervey, but only those that belonged to
the last fourteen years of an acquaintance that had endured twice so
long. These are for the greater number platonic in character, although
there are a few phrases of a freer kind. Croker, who edited Lord
Hervey's _Memoirs_, mentions that Hervey, answering