“. . . Mrs. Taylor says Lady Glengall told her last night she had not a single ticket left for the Hibernian ball out of her 100. . . . You know the original plan was to have had the affair at Willis’s Rooms. The leading female managers being Lady Hertford and Dowr. Richmond, &c., &c. The blockheads, it seems, made up their list of patronesses without including Ly. Conyngham in the number, and she was not a lady to submit quietly to such an insult; so she started this opposition ball at the Opera House, with the King as patron, and all the same ladies as patronesses that were on the other list, except Lady Hertford and Dowr. Richmond. The former is incensed at this practical retort from her successful rival* beyond all bounds. . . . If you wish for anything in the public line, let me tell you that on Thursday or Friday last, Castlereagh, being in Hyde Park on horseback, met Tavistock, and tho’ he has very slight acquaintance with him, he turned his horse about, and lost no time in unbosoming himself upon the state of public affairs. He described the torment of carrying on the Government under the general circumstances of the country as beyond endurance, and said if he could once get out of it, no power on earth should get him into it again.”†
