which, or the court before which may extend all along the bottom of Devonshire Garden, though no house must be built there; the house must be where some old paltry stables stand at the lower end of Bolton Row. You see I can cherish this idea of yours.
"The other is quite unsuitable to time and place and years and talents."
A few days after he continues in the same strain:[1]
"You will I hope tell me when you shall come, for, as to your scheme of country life, it will never do. You see, this first summer of it, how it is interrupted by this scene of joy,[2] to which I wish I could add hopes of approaching peace, but I fear they grow fainter."
The scheme was accordingly abandoned, and Shelburne once more became the busy centre of the negotiations between Bute and Fox, which meanwhile had been renewed, but had made slight progress, for Fox still demanded a peerage for Lady Caroline as the price of his support, and Bute under the influence of the King still made difficulties.
Fox now began to have doubts whether "Bute intended to keep his word and go on amicably with him,"[3] and at length, urged by these feelings, wrote to Shelburne:[4]
"Recollection of your Lordship's late conversations, some suppositions made in consequence of them, and other circumstances, give me a good deal of uneasiness.
"To enter into the particulars of all these would make my letter long, nor is it besides necessary as you know more than I do.
"You are so entirely master of the case, and I so little (knowing only that I have not been in the least to blame, which experience has taught me at a Court signifies nothing), that I beg leave to put myself entirely into your Lordship's hands. And for this purpose I write this letter, lest what I have in conversation desired you to say, you should think yourself obliged to at the
