To ROBERT JEPHSON 27 JANUARY 1780 411 in the manager. You too would be the best judge at the rehearsals of what might be improved.0 Managers will take liberties, and often curtail necessary speeches, so as to produce nonsense. Methinks it is unkind to send a child, of which you have so much reason to be proud, to a foundling hospital. I am with great regard, Sir,

Your most obedient humble servant HOR. WALPOLE

To the REV. THOMAS PERCY, Sunday 11 June 1780

Printed for the first time from a photostat of the MS in the possession of the Duke of , Castle, Northumberland, kindly furnished by Mr D. P. Graham through the good offices of Professor Bertram H. Davis (Aln­ wick Castle MS 93A/19). The MS passed to Percy's descendants until it was sold Sotheby's 29 April 1884 (Percy Sale), lot 216 (with other papers of the Percy family), to the 6th .

Strawberry Hill, June 1 ith 1780. ISHOULD be very vain indeed, good Sir, if I thought myself at all entitled to the honour you have done me in consulting me on the epitaph you have drawn with so much judgment and genuine simplicity (the beauty of such inscriptions) for the late Duchess of Northumberland.1 You, Sir, on the other hand are far too modest in thinking it wants any correction or improvement. It is solely to show I am not insensible to the compliment you pay me, and to mark respect for the commands of a family that I honour so much, and 9. As well as being produced at Covent las Read, after a design by Robert Adam. Garden in 1781, The Count of Narbonne The inscription, after mentioning her an- was acted with success at both theatres in cestry and her marriage, describes her Dublin during the 1781-2 season, with character as follows: 'Having lived long an John Philip Kemble in the role of Ray- ornament of courts, an honour to her mond. Jephson attended the rehearsals country, a pattern to the great, a pro­ caines Boaden, Memoirs of the Life of tectress of the poor, ever distinguished for John Philip Kemble, Esq., 1825, i. 39-40). the most tender affection for her family and friends, she died December 5th, 1776, 1. The Duchess died in 1776. The Duke aged sixty; universally beloved, revered, of Northumberland erected a monument lamented' (J. P Neale and E. W. Brayley, to her memory in , The History and Antiquities of the Ab- near to the Percy family vault in the bey Church of St Peter, Westminster, chapel of St Nicholas. The monument 1818-23, ii. 165). was executed in white marble by Nicho-