We have had another great day in the House on the army in

Flanders, which the Opposition were for disbanding; but we

carried 'it by a hundred and twenty.(741) Murray spoke for

the first time, with the greatest applause; Pitt answered him

with all his force and art of language, but on an ill-founded

argument. In all appearances, they will be great rivals.

Shippen was in great rage at Murray's apostacy;(742) if any

thing can really change his principles, possibly this

competition may. To-morrow we shall have a tougher battle on

the sixteen thousand Hanoverians. Hanover is the word given

out for this winter: there is a most bold pamphlet come out,

said to be Lord

Marchmont's,(743) which affirms that in every treaty made

since the accession of this family, England has been

sacrificed to the interest of Hanover, and consequently

insinuates the incompatibility of the two. Lord Chesterfield

says, "that if we have a mind effectually to prevent the

Pretender from ever obtaining this crown, we should make him

Elector of Hanover, for the people of England will never fetch

another king from thence." Adieu! my dear child. I am sensible

that I write you short letters, but I write you all I know. I

don't know how it is, but the wonderful seems worn out. In this

our day, we have no rabbit women-no elopements-no epic

poems,(744) finer than Milton's-no contest about harlequins and

Polly Peachems. Jansen (745) has won no more estates, and the

Duchess of Queensberry is grown as tame as her neighbours. Whist

has spread an universal opium over the whole nation; it makes

courtiers and patriots sit down to the same pack of cards.

The only thing extraordinary, and which yet did not seem to

surprise any body, was the Barberina's(746) being attacked by

four men masqued, the other night, as she came out of the

opera house, who would have forced her away, but she

screamed, and the guard came. Nobody knows who set them on,

and I believe nobody inquired.

The Austrians in Flanders have separated from our troops a

little out of humour, because it was impracticable for them to

march without any preparatory provisions for their reception.

They will probably march in two months, if no peace prevents

it. Adieu!

(741) Upon a motion, made by Sir William Yonge, that 534,763

pounds be granted for defraying the charge of 16,259 men, to

be employed in Flanders. The numbers on the division were 280

against 160.-E.

(742) From Toryism.-D.

(743) Hugh Hume, third Earl of Marchmont.

(744) This alludes to the extravagant encomiums bestowed on

Glover's Leonidas by the young patriots.

(745) H. Jansen, a celebrated gamester, who cheated the late Duke

of Bedford of an immense sum: Pope hints at that affair in this

line, "Or when a duke to Jansen punts at White's."

(746) A famous dancer.

301 Letter 92

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Dec. 23, 1742.

I have had no letter from you this fortnight, and I have heard

nothing this month: judge now how fit I am to write. I hope

it is not another mark of growing old; but, I do assure you,

my writing begins to leave me. Don't be frightened! I don't

mean this as an introduction towards having done with you-I

will write to you to the very stump of my pen, and as Pope

says,

"Squeeze out the last dull droppings of my sense."

But I declare, it is hard to sit spinning out one's brains by

the fireside, without having heard the least thing to set

one's hand a-going. I am so put to it for something to say,

that I would make a memorandum of the most improbable lie that

could be invented by a viscountess-dowager; as the old Duchess

of Rutland (747) does when she is told of some strange

casualty, "Lucy, child, step into the next room and set that

down."-"Lord, Madam!" says Lady Lucy,(748) "it can't be

true!"-"Oh, no matter, child; it will do for news into the

country next post." But do you conceive that the kingdom of

the Dull is come upon earth-not with the forerunners and

prognostics of other to-come kingdoms? No, no; the sun and the

moon go on just as they used to do, without giving us any

hints: we see no knights come prancing upon pale horses, or

red horses; no stars, called wormwood, fall into the Thames,

and turn a third part into wormwood; no locusts, like horses,

with their hair as the hair of women-in short, no

thousand things, each of which destroys a third part of

mankind: the only token of this new kingdom is a woman riding

on a beast, which is the mother of abominations, and the name

in the forehead is whist: and the four-and-twenty elders, and

the woman, and the whole town, do nothing but play with this

beast. Scandal itself is dead, or confined to a pack of

cards; for the only malicious whisper I have heard this

fortnight, is of an intrigue between the Queen of hearts and

the Knave of clubs. Y

our friend Lady Sandwich (749) has got a son; if one may

believe the belly she wore, it is a brave one. Lord

Holderness(750) has lately given a magnificent repast to

fifteen persons; there were three courses of ten, fifteen, and

fifteen, and a sumptuous dessert: a great saloon illuminated,

odours, and violins-and, who do you think were the

invited?-the Visconti, Giuletta, the Galli, Amorevoli,

Monticelli, Vanneschi and his wife, Weedemans the hautboy, the

prompter, etc. The bouquet was given to the Guiletta, who is

barely handsome. How can one love magnificence and low

company at the same instant! We are making great parties for

the Barberina and the Auretti, a charming French girl; and our

schemes succeed so well, that the opera begins to fill

surprisingly; for all those who don't love music, love noise

and party, and will any night give half-a-guinea for the

liberty of hissing-such is English harmony.

I have been in a round of dinners with Lord Stafford, and

Bussy the French minister, who tells one stories of Capuchins,

confessions, Henri Quatre, Louis XIV., Gascons, and the string

which all Frenchmen go through, without any connexion or

relation to the discourse. These very stories, which I have

already heard four times, are only interrupted by English

puns, which old Churchill translates out of jest-books into

the mouth of my Lord Chesterfield, and into most execrable

French.

Adieu! I have scribbled, and blotted, and made nothing out,

and, in short, have nothing to say, so good night!

(747) Lady Lucinda Sherard, widow of John Manners, second Duke

of Rutland. She died in 1751.-E.

(748) Lady Lucy Manners, married, in 1742, to William, second

Duke of Montrose. She died in 1788.-E.

(749) Judith, sister of Lord Viscount Fane, wife of John

Montagu, fifth Earl of Sandwich.-E.

(750) Robert d'Arcy, fourth Earl of Holderness; subsequently

made secretary of State. Upon his death his earldom

extinguished, and what remained of his estate, as well as the

Barony of Conyers, descended to his only daughter, who was

married to Francis Osborne, fifth Duke of Leeds, in 1773.-D.

[From whom she was divorced in 1779. She afterwards married

Captain John Byron, son of Admiral Byron, and father of the

great poet.]

302 Letter 93

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Jan. 6, 1743.

You will wonder that you have not heard from me, but I have

been too ill to write. I have been confined these ten days

with a most violent cough, and they suspected an inflammation

on my lungs; but I am come off with the loss of my eyes and my

voice, both of which I am recovering, and would write to you

to-day. I have received your long letter of December 11th,

and return you a thousand thanks for giving up so much of your

time; I wish I could make as long a letter for you, but we arc

in a neutrality of news. The Elector Palatine (751) is dead;

but I have not heard what alterations that will make. Lord

Wilmington's death, which is reckoned hard upon, is likely to

make more conversation here. He is going to Bath, but that is

only to pass away the time until be dies.

The great Vernon is landed, but we have not been alarmed with

any bonfires or illuminations; he has outlived all his

popularity. There is nothing new but the separation of a Mr.

and Mrs. French, whom it is impossible you should know. She

has been fashionable these two winters; her husband has

commenced a suit in Doctors' Commons against her cat, and

will, they say, recover considerable damages: but the lawyers

are of opinion, that the kittens must inherit Mr. French's

estate, as they were born in lawful wedlock.

The parliament meets again on Monday, but I don't hear of any

fatigue that we are likely to have; in a little time, I

suppose, we shall hear what campaigning we are to make.

I must tell you of an admirable reply of your acquaintance the

Duchess of Queensberry:(752) old Lady Granville, Lord

Carteret's mother, whom they call the Queen-Mother, from

taking upon her to do the honours of her son's power, was

pressing the duchess to ask her for some place for herself or

friends, and assured her that she would procure it, be it what

it would. Could she have picked out a fitter person to be

gracious to? The duchess made her a most grave curtsey, and

said, "Indeed, there was one thing she had set her heart

on."-"Dear child, how you oblige me by asking, any thing! What

is it? tell me." "Only that you would speak to my Lord

Carteret to get me made lady of the bedchamber to the Queen of

Hungary."

I come now to your letter, and am not at all pleased to find

that the Princess absolutely intends to murder you with her

cold rooms. I wish you could come on those cold nights and

sit by my fireside; I have the prettiest warm little

apartment, with all my baubles, and Patapans, and cats!

Patapan and I go to-morrow to New Park, to my lord, for the

air, and come back with him on Monday.

What an infamous story that affair of Nomis is! and how

different the ideas of honour among officers in your world and

ours! Your history of cicisbeosm is more entertaining: I

figure the distress of a parcel of lovers who have so many

things to dread-the government in this world! purgatory in the

next! inquisitions, villeggiaturas, convents, etc.

Lord Essex is extremely bad, and has not strength enough to go

through the remedies that are necessary to his recovery. He

now fancies that he does not exist, will not be persuaded to

walk or talk, because, as he sometimes says, "How should he do

any thing? he is not." You say, "How came I not to see Duc

d'Aremberg?" I did once at the opera; but he went away soon

after: and here it is not the way to visit foreigners, unless

you are of the Court, or are particularly in a way of having

them at your house: consequently Sir R. never saw him

either-we are not of the Court! Next, as to Arlington Street:

Sir R. is in a middling kind of house, which has long been

his, and was let; he has taken a small one next to it for me,

and they are laid together.

I come now to speak to you of the affair of the Duke of

Newcastle; but absolutely, on considering it much myself, and

on talking of it with your brother, we both are against your

attempting any such thing. In the first place, I never heard

a suspicion of the duke's taking presents, and should think he

would rather be affronted: in the next place, my dear child,

though you are fond of that coffee-pot, it would be thought

nothing among such wardrobes as he has, of the finest wrought

plate: why, he has- a set of gold plates that would make a

figure on any sideboard in the Arabian Tales;(753) and as to

Benvenuto cellini, if the duke could take it for his, people

in England understand all work too well to be deceived.

Lastly, as there has been no talk of alterations in the

foreign ministers, and as all changes seem at an end, why

should you be apprehensive? As to Stone,(754) if any thing

was done, to be sure it should be to him though I really can't

advise even that. These are my sentiments sincerely: by no

means think of the duke. Adieu!

(751) Charles Philip of Neubourg, , Elector Palatine. He died

December 31, 1742. He was succeeded by Charles Theodore,

Prince of Sulzbach, descended from a younger branch of the

house of Neubourg, and who, in his old age, became Elector of

Bavaria.-D.

(752) Catherine Hyde, daughter of the Earl of Clarendon, and

wife of Charles Douglas, Duke of Queensberry; a famous beauty,

celebrated by Prior in that pretty poem which begins, "Kitty,

beautiful and young," and often mentioned in Swift and Pope's

letters, She was forbid the Court for promoting subscriptions

to the second part of the Beggar's Opera, when it had been

prohibited from being acted. She and the duke erected the

monument to Gay in Westminster Abbey. [And to which Pope

supplied the epitaph, "the first eight lines of which," says

Dr. Johnson, "have no grammar; the adjectives without

substantives, and the epithets without a subject." The duchess

died in 1777, and her husband in the year following.]

(753) Walpole, in his Memoires, says that the duke's houses,

gardens, table, and equipages swallowed immense treasures, and

that the sums he owed were only exceeded by those he wasted.

He employed several physicians, without having had apparently

much need of them. His gold plate appears to have been almost

as dear to him as his health; for he usually kept it in pawn,

except when he wished to display it on great occasions.

(754) Andrew Stone, at this time private secretary to the Duke

of Newcastle. he subsequently filled the offices of under-

secretary of state, sub-governor to Prince George, keeper of

the state-paper office, and, on the marriage of George the

third, treasurer to the Queen. he died in 1773.-E.

304 Letter 94

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Jan. 13, 1743,

Your brother brought me two letters together this morning, and

at the same time showed me yours to your father. How should I

be ashamed, were I he, to receive such a letter! so dutiful,

so humble, and yet so expressive of the straits to which he

has let you be reduced! My dear child, it looks too much like

the son of a minister, when I am no longer so; but I can't

help repeating to you offers of any kind of service that you

think I can do for you any way.

I am quite happy at your thinking Tuscany so secure from

Spain, unless the wise head of Richcourt works against the

season; but how can I ever be easy while a provincial

Frenchman, Something half French, half German, instigated by a

mad Englishwoman is to govern an Italian dominion?

I laughed much at the magnificent presents made by one of the

first families in Florence to their young accouch`ee. Do but

think if a Duke or Duchess of Somerset were to give a Lady

Hertford fifty pounds and twenty yards of velvet for bringing

an heir to the blood of Seymour!

It grieves me that my letters drop in so slowly to you: I have

never missed writing, but when I have been absolutely too much

out of order, or once or twice when I had no earthly thing to

tell you. This winter is so quiet, that one must inquire much

to know any thing. The parliament is met again, but we do not

hear of any intended opposition to any thing. the tories have

dropped the affair of the Hanoverians in the House of Lords,

in compliment to Lord Gower. there is a second pamphlet on

that subject which makes a great noise.(755) The ministry are

much distressed on the ways and means for raising the money

for this year: there is to be a lottery, but that will not

supply a quarter of what they want. They have talked of a new

duty on tea, to be paid by every housekeeper for all the

persons in their families; but it will scarce be proposed.

Tea is so universal, that it would make a greater clamour than

a duty on wine. Nothing is determined; the new folks do not

shine at expedients. Sir Robert's health is now drunk at all

the clubs in the city; there they are for having him made a

duke, and placed again at the head of the Treasury; but I

believe nothing could prevail on him to return thither. He

says he will keep the 12th of February,.-the day he resigned,

with his family as long as he lives. They talk of Sandys

being raised to the peerage, by way of getting rid of him; he

is so dull they can scarce draw him on.(756)

The English troops in Flanders march to-day, whither we don't

know, but "probably to Liege: from whence they imagine the

Hanoverians are going into Juliers and Bergue.(757) The

ministry have been greatly alarmed with the King of Sardinia's

retreat, and suspected that it was a total one from the

Queen's interest; but it seems he sent for Villettes and the

Hungarian minister, and had their previous approbations of his

deserting Chamberry, etc.

Vernon is not yet got to town, we are impatient for what will

follow the arrival of this mad hero. Wentworth will certainly

challenge him, but Vernon does not profess personal valour: he

was once knocked down by a merchant, who then offered him

satisfaction-but he was satisfied.

Lord Essex' is dead:(758) Lord Lincoln will have the

bedchamber; Lord Berkeley of Stratton(759) (a disciple of

Carteret's) the Pensioners; and Lord Carteret himself probably

the riband.

As to my Lady Walpole's dormant title,(760) it was in her

family; but being in the King's power to give to which sister

in equal claim he pleased, it was bestowed on Lord Clinton,

who descended from the younger sister of Lady W.'s

grandmother, or great grand-something. My Lady Clifford,(761)

Coke's mother, got her barony so, in preference to Lady

Salisbury and Lady Sondes, her elder sisters, who had already

titles for their children. It is called a title in abeyance.

Sir Robert has just bid me tell you to send the Dominichin by

the first safe conveyance to Matthews, who has had orders from

Lord Winchilsea (762) to send it by the first man-of-war to

England; or if you meet with a ship going to Port Mahon, then

you must send it thither to Anstruther, and write to him that

Lord Orford desires that he will take care of it, and send it

by the first ship that comes directly home. He is so

impatient for it, that he will have it thus; but I own I

should not like to have my things tumbled out of one ship into

another, and beg mine may stay till they can come at once.

Adieu!

(755) Entitled "The Case of the Hanover Forces in the Pay of

Great Britain examined." It was written by Lord Chesterfield,

and excited much attention.-E.

(756) In December he was created a peer, by the title of Lord

Sandys, Baron of Ombersley, and made cofferer of the

household.-E.

(757) The British troops began their march from Flanders at

the end of February, under the command of the Earl of Stair;

but were so tardy in their movements, that it was the middle

of May before they crossed the Rhine and fixed their station

at Hochst, between Mayence and Frankfort.-E.

(758) William Capel, third Earl of Essex. [A lord of the

bedchamber, knight of the garter, and captain of the yeomen of

the guard.)

(759) John, fifth and last Lord Berkeley of Stratton. He died

in 1773.-D.

(760) The barony of Clinton in fee descended to the daughters

of Theophilus, Earl of Huntingdon, who died without male

issue. One of those ladies died without children, by which

means the title lay between the families of Rolle and

Fortescue. King George I. gave it to Hugh Fortescue,

afterwards Created an earl; on whose death it descended to his

only sister, a maiden lady, after whom, without issue, it

devolved on Lady Orford.

(761) Lady Margaret Tufton, third daughter of Thomas, sixth

Earl of Thanet. the barony of De Clifford had descended to

Lord Thanet, from his mother, Lady Margaret Sackville,

daughter of Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and

Montgomery. Upon Lord Thanet's death, the barony of De

Clifford fell into abeyance between his five daughters. These

were Lady Catherine, married to Edward Watson, Viscount

Sondus; Lady Anne, married to James Cecil, Earl of Salisbury;

Lady Margaret, before mentioned; Lady Mary, married first to

Anthony Grey, Earl of Harold, and secondly to John Earl Gower;

and Lady Isabella, married to Lord Nassau Powlett.-D.

(762) First lord of the admiralty.-]).

306 Letter 95

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Jan. 27, 1743.

I could not write you last Thursday, I was so much out of

order with a cold; your brother came and found me in bed.

TO-night, that I can write, I have nothing to tell you; except

that yesterday the welcome news (to the ministry) came of the

accession of the Dutch to the King's measures. They are in

great triumph; but till it Is clear what part his Prussian

Uprightness is acting, other people take the liberty to be

still in suspense. So they are about all our domestic matters

too. It is a general stare! the alteration that must soon

happen in the Treasury will put some end to the uncertainties

of this winter. Mr. Pelham is universally named to the head

of it; but Messrs. Prince,(263) Carteret, Pultney, and

Companies must be a little considered. how they will like it:

the latter the least.

You will wonder, perhaps be peevish, when I protest I have not

another paragraph by me in the world. I want even common

conversation; for I cannot persist, like the royal family, in

asking people the same questions, "Do you love walking?" "Do

you love music'!" "Was you at the opera?" "When do you go into

the country!" I have nothing else to say: nothing happens;

scarce the common episodes of a newspaper, of a man falling

off a ladder and breaking his leg; or of a countryman cheated

out of his leather pouch, with fifty shillings in it. We are

in such a state of sameness, that I shall begin to wonder at

the change of seasons, and talk of the spring as a strange

accident. Lord Tyrawley, who has been fifteen years in

Portugal, is of my opinion; he says he finds nothing but a

fog, whist, and the House of Commons.

In this lamentable state, when I know not what to write even

to you, what can I do about my serene Princess Grifoni? Alas!

I owe her two letters, and where to find a beau sentiment, I

cannot tell! I believe I may have some by me in an old chest

of draws, with some exploded red-heel shoes and full-bottom

wigs; but they would come out so yellow and moth-eaten! Do bow

to her, in every superlative degree in the language, that my

eyes have been so bad, that as I wrote you word, over and

over, I have not been able to write a line. That will move

her, when she hears what melancholy descriptions I write, of

my not being able to write-nay, indeed it will not be so

ridiculous as you think; for it is ten times worse for the

eyes to write in a language one don't much practise! I

remember a tutor at Cambridge, who had been examining some

lads in Latin, but in a little while excused himself, and said

he must speak English, for his mouth was very sore.

I had a letter from you yesterday of January 7th, N. S. which

has wonderfully excited my compassion for the necessities of

the princely family,(764) and the shifts the old Lady' is put

to for quadrille.(765)

I triumph much on my penetration about the honest

Rucellai(766)-we little people, who have no honesty, virtue,

nor shame, do so exult when a good neighbour, who was a

pattern, turns out as bad as oneself! We are like the good

woman in the Gospel, who chuckled so much on finding her lost

bit; we have more joy on a saint's fall, than in ninety-nine

devils, who were always de nous autres! I am a little pleased

too, that Marquis BagneSi'(767) whom you know I always liked

much, has behaved so well; and am more pleased to hear what a

Beffana(768) the Electress(769) is-Pho! here am I sending you

back your own paragraphs, cut and turned! it is so silly to

think that you won't know them again! I will not spin myself

any longer; it is better to make a short letter. I am going

to the masquerade, and will fancy myself in via della

Pergola.(770) Adieu! "Do you know me?"-"That man there with

you, in the black domino, is Mr. Chute.,, Good night!

(763) Frederick, Prince of Wales.-D.

(764) Prince and Princess Craon.

(765) Madame Sarasin.

(766) Sir H. Mann says, in his letter of January 7, 1743, 11 I

must be so just as to tell you, @my friend, the Senator

Rucellai, is, as you always thought, a sad fellow. He has

quite abandoned me for fear of offending."-D.

(767) "Apropos of duels, two of our young nobles, Marquis

BagneSi and Strozzi, have fought about a debt of' fifteen

shillings; the latter, the creditor and the occasion of the

fight, behaved ill."-Letter from Sir H. Mann, dated Jan. 7,

1743.-D.

(768) A Beffana was a puppet, which was carried about the town

on the evening of the Epiphany. The word is derived from

Epifania. It also means an ugly woman. The Electress

happened to go out for the first time after an illness on the

Epiphany, and said in joke to Prince Craon, that the "Beffane

all went abroad on that day."-D.

(769) The Electress Palatine Dowager, the last of the House of

Medici.

(770) A street at Florence, in which the Opera house stands.

308 Letter 96

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Feb. 2, 1743.

Last night at the Duchess of Richmond's I saw Madame

Goldsworthy: what a pert, little, unbred thing it is! The

duchess presented us to one another; but I cannot say that

either of us stepped a foot beyond the first civilities. The

good duchess was for harbouring her and all her brood: how it

happened to her I don't conceive, but the thing had decency

enough to refuse it. She is going to live with her father at

Plymouth-tant mieux!

The day before yesterday the lords had a great day: Earl

Stanhope(771) moved for an address to his Britannic Majesty,

in consideration of the heavy wars, taxes, etc. far exceeding

all that ever were known, to exonerate his people of foreign

troops, Hanoverians,) which are so expensive, and can In no

light answer the ends for which they were hired. Lord

Sandwich seconded: extremely well, I hear, for I was not

there. Lord Carteret answered, but was under great concern.

Lord Bath spoke too, and would fain have persuaded that this

measure was not Solely Of one minister, but that himself and

all the council were equally concerned in it. The late Privy

Seal(772) Spoke for an hour and a half, with the greatest

applause, against the Hanoverians: and my Lord Chancellor

extremely well for them. The division was, 90 for the Court,

35 against it The present Privy Seal(773) voted with the

Opposition: so there will soon be another. Lord Halifax, the

Prince's new Lord, was with the minority too; the other, Lord

Darnley,(774) with the Court. After the division, Lord

Scarborough, his Royal Highness's Treasurer, moved an address

of approbation of the measure, which was carried by 78 to the

former 35. Lord Orford was ill, and could not be there, but

sent his proxy: he has got a great cold and slow fever, but

does not keep his room. If Lord Gower loses the Privy Seal,

(as it is taken for granted he does not design to keep it,)

and Lord Bath refuses it, Lord Cholmondeley stands the fairest

for it.

I will conclude abruptly, for you will be tired of my telling

you that I have nothing to tell you-but so it is literally-

oh! yes, you will want to know what the Duke of Argyle did-he

was not there; he is every thing but superannuated. Adieu!

(771) Philip, second Earl Stanhope, born in 1714. He

succeeded his father when he was only seven years old, and

died in 1786. His character is thus sketched by his great-

grandson, Viscount Mahon, in his History of England, vol. iii.

p. 242.-"He had great talents, but fitter for speculation than

for practical objects of action. He made himself one of the

best-Lalande used to say the best-mathematicians in England of

his day, and was likewise deeply skilled in other branches of

science and philosophy. The Greek language was as familiar to

him as the English; he was said to know every line of Homer by

heart. In public life, on the contrary, he was shy, ungainly,

and embarrassed. From his first onset in Parliament, he took

part with vehemence against the administration of Sir Robert

Walpole." Bishop Secker says, that Lord Stanhope "spoke a

precomposed speech, which he held in his hand, with great

tremblings and agitations, and hesitated frequently in the

midst of great vehemence."-E.

(772) Lord Hervey.

(773) Lord Gower.

(774) Edward Bligh, second Earl of Darnley, in Ireland, and

Lord of the Bedchamber to Frederic Prince of Wales.-D.

309 Letter 97

To Sir Horace Mann.

Feb. 13, 1743.

Ceretesi tells me that Madame Galli is dead: I have had two

letters from you this week; but the last mentions only the

death of old Strozzi. I am quite sorry for Madame Galli,

because I proposed seeing her again, on my return to Florence,

which I have firmly in my intention: I hope it will be a

little before Ceretesi's, for he seems to be planted here. I

don't conceive who -waters him! Here are two noble Venetians

that have carried him about lately to Oxford and Blenheim: I

am literally waiting for him now, to introduce him to Lady

Brown's sunday night; it is the great mart for all travelling

and travelled calves-pho! here he is.

Monday morning.-Here is your brother: he tells me you never

hear from me; how can that be? I receive yours, and you

generally mention having got one of mine, though long after

the time you should. I never miss above one post, and that

but very seldom. I am longer receiving yours, though you have

never missed; but then-I frequently receive two at once. I am

delighted with Goldsworthy's mystery about King Theodore! If

you will promise me not to tell him, I will tell you@a secret,

which is, that if that person is not King Theodore, I assure

you it is not Sir Robert Walpole.

I have nothing to tell you but that Lord Effingham Howard(775)

is dead, and Lord Litchfield(776) at the point of death; he

was struck with a palsy last Thursday. Adieu!

(775) Francis, first Earl of Effingham, and seventh Lord

Howard of Effingham. He died February 12, 1743.-D.

(776) George Henry Lee, second Earl of Lichfield. He died

February 15, 1743.-D.

309 Letter 98

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Feb. 24, 1743.

I write to you in the greatest hurry in the world, but write I

will. Besides, I must wish you joy; you are warriors; nay,

conquerors;(777) two things quite novel in this war, for

hitherto it has been armies without fighting, and deaths

without killing. We talk of this battle as of a comet; "Have

you heard of the battle?" it Is so strange a thing, that

numbers imagine you may go (ind see it at Charing Cross.

Indeed, our officers, who are going to Flanders, don't quite

like it; they are afraid it should grow the fashion to fight,

and that a pair of colours should be no longer a sinecure. I

am quite unhappy about poor Mr. Chute: besides, it is cruel to

find that abstinence is not a drug. If mortification ever

ceases to be a medicine, or virtue to be a passport to

carnivals in the other world, who will be a self-tormentor any

longer-not, my child, that I am one; but, tell me, is he quite

recovered?

I thank you for King Theodore's declaration,(778) and wish Him

success with all my soul. I hate the Genoese; they make a

commonwealth the most devilish of all tyrannies!

We have every now and then motions for disbanding Hessians and

Hanoverians, alias mercenaries; but they come to nothing.

To-day the party have declared that they have done for this

session; so you will hear little more but of fine equipages

for Flanders: our troops are actually marched, and the

officers begin to follow them-1 hopes they know whither! You

know in the last war in Spain, Lord Peterborough rode

galloping about to inquire for his army.

But to come to more real contests; Handel has set up an

oratorio against the opera @ind succeeds. He has hired all

the goddesses from farces and the singers of Roast Beef(779)

from between the acts at both theatres, with a man with one

note in his voice, and a girl without ever an one; and so they

sing, and make brave hallelujahs; and the good company encore

the recitative, if it happens to have any cadence like what

they call a tune. I was much diverted the other night at the

opera; two gentlewoman sat before my sister, and not knowing

her, discoursed at their ease. Says one, "Lord! how fine Mr.

W. is!" "Yes," replied the other, with a tone of saying

sentences, "some men love to be particularly so, your

petit-maitres-but they are not always the brightest of their

sex.'@-Do thank me for this period! I am sure you will enjoy

it as much as we did.

I shall be very glad of my things, and approve entirely of

your precautions; Sir R. will be quite happy, for there is no

telling YOU how impatient he is for his Dominichin. Adieu!

(777) This alludes to an engagement, which took place on the

8th of February, near Bologna, between the Spaniards under M.

de Gages, and the Austrians under General Traun, in which the

latter were successful.-D.

(778) With regard to Corsica, of which he had declared himself

King. By this declaration, which was dated January 30,

Theodore recalled, under pain of confiscation of their

estates, all the Corsicans in foreign service, except that of

the Queen of Hungary, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany.-E.

(779) It was customary at this time for the galleries to call

for a ballad called "The Roast Beef of Old England," between

the acts, or before or after the play.

310 Letter 99

To Sir Horace Mann.

March 3d, 1743.

So, she is dead at last, the old Electress!(780)-well, I have

nothing more to say about her and the Medici; they had

outlived all their acquaintance: indeed, her death makes the

battle very considerable -makes us call a victory what before

we did not look upon as very decided laurels.

Lord Hervey has entertained the town with another piece of

wisdom: on Sunday it was declared that he had married his

eldest daughter the night before to a Mr. Phipps,(781)

grandson of the Duchess of Buckingham. They sent for the boy

but the day before from Oxford, and bedded them at a day's

notice. But after all this mystery, it does not turn out that

there is any thing great in this match, but the greatness of

the secret. Poor

Hervey,(782) the brother, is in fear and trembling, for he

apprehends being ravished to bed to some fortune or other with

as little ceremony. The Oratorios thrive abundantly-for my

part, they give me an idea of heaven, where every body is to

sing whether they have voices or not.

The Board (the Jacobite Club) have chosen his Majesty's Lord

Privy Seal(783) for their President, in the room of Lord

Litchfield. Don't you like the harmony of parties? We expect

the parliament will rise this month: I shall be sorry, for if

I am not hurried out of town, at least every body else

will-and who can look forward from April to November? Adieu!

though I write in defiance of having nothing to say, yet you

see I can't go a great way in this obstinacy; but you will

bear a short letter rather than none.

(780) Anna Maria of Medicis, daughter of Cosmo III. widow of

John William, Elector Palatine. After her husband's death she

returned to Florence, where she died, Feb @ 7 1743, aged

seventy-five, being the last of that family.

(781) Constantine Phipps, in 1767, created Lord Mulgrave in

Ireland. He married, on the 26th of February, Lepel, eldest

daughter of Lord Hervey, and died in 1775. Her ladyship was

found dead in her bed, 9th March, 1780, at her son's house in

the Admiralty.-E.

(782) George William Hervey, afterwards second Earl of

Bristol. He died unmarried, in 1775.-E.

(783) Lord Gower.

311 Letter 100

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, March 14, 1743.

I don't at all know how to advise you about mourning; I always

think that the custom of a country, and what other foreign

ministers do, should be your rule. But I had a private

scruple rose with me: that was, whether you should show so

much respect to the late woman (784) as other ministers do,

since she left that legacy to Quella a Roma.(785) I mentioned

this to my lord, but he thinks that the tender manner of her

wording it, takes off that exception; however, he thinks it

better that you should write for advice to your commanding

officer. That will be very late, and you will probably have

determined before. You see what a casuist I am in ceremony; I

leave the question more perplexed than I found it.

Pray, Sir, congratulate me upon the new acquisition of glory

to my family! We have long been eminent statesmen; now that we

are out of employment we have betaken ourselves to war-and we

have made great proficiency in a short season. We don't run,

like my Lord Stair, into Berg and Juliers, to seek battles

where we are sure of not finding them-we make shorter marches;

a step across the Court of Requests brings us to engagement.

But not to detain you any longer with flourishes, which will

probably be inserted in my uncle Horace's patent when he is

made a field-marshal; you must know that he has fought a duel,

and has scratched a scratch three inches long on the side of

his enemy-lo Paon! The circumstances of this memorable

engagement were, in short, that on some witness being to be

examined the other day in the House upon remittances to the

army, my uncle said, He hoped they would indemnify him, if he

told any thing that affected himself." Soon after he was

standing behind the Speaker's chair, and Will. Chetwynd,(786)

an intimate of Bolingbroke, came up to him, What, Mr. Walpole,

are you for rubbing up old sores?" He replied, "I think I said

very little, considering that you and your friends would last

year have hanged up me and my brother at the lobby-door

without a trial." Chetwynd answered, I would still have you

both have your deserts." The other said, If you and I had,

probably I should be here and you would be somewhere else."

This drew more words, and Chetwynd took him by the arm and led

him out. In the lobby, Horace said, "We shall be-observed, we

had better put it off till to-morrow." "No, no, now! now!"

When they came to the bottom of the stairs, Horace said, "I am

out of breath, let us draw here." They drew; Chetwynd hit him

on the breast, but was not near enough to pierce his coat.

Horace made a pass which the other put by with his hand, but

It glanced along his side-a clerk, who had observed them go

out together so arm-in-arm-ly, could not believe it amicable,

but followed them, and came up just time enough to beat down

their swords, as Horace had driven him against a post, and

would probably have run him through at the next thrust.

Chetwynd went away to a surgeon's, and kept his bed the next

day; he has not reappeared yet, but is in no danger. My uncle

returned to the House, and was so little moved as to speak

immediately upon the Cambrick bill, which made Swinny say,

"That it was a sign he was not ruffled."(787) Don't you

delight in this duel? I expect to see it daubed up by some

circuit-painter on the ceiling of the saloon at Woolterton.

I have no news to tell you, but that we hear King Theodore has

sent over proposals of his person and crown to Lady Lucy

Stanhope,(788) with whom he fell in love the last time he was

in England.

Princess Buckingham(789) is dead or dying: she has sent for

Mr. Anstis, and settled the ceremonial of her burial. On

Saturday she was so ill that she feared dying before all the

pomp was come home: she said, "Why won't they send the canopy

for me to see? let them send it, though all the tassels are

not finished." But yesterday was the greatest stroke of all!

She made her ladies vow to her, that if she should lie

senseless, they would not sit down in the room before she was

dead. She has a great mind to be buried by her father at

Paris. Mrs. Selwyn says, "She need not be carried out of

England, and yet be buried by her father." You know that Lady

Dorchester always told her, that old Graham(790) was her

father.

I am much obliged to you for the trouble you have taken about

the statue; do draw upon me for it immediately, and for all my

other debts to you: I am sure they must be numerous; pray

don't fail.

A thousand loves to the Chutes: a thousand compliments to the

Princess; and a thousand-what? to the Grifona. Alas! what can

one do? I have forgot all my Italian. Adieu!

(784) The Electress Palatine Dowager.

(785) She left a legacy to the Pretender, describing him only

by these words, To Him at Rome.

(786) William Chetwynd, brother of the Lord Viscount Chetwynd.

On the coalition he was made Master of the Mint.

(787) Coxe, in his Memoirs of Lord Walpole, gives the

following account of this duel: "A motion being made in the

House of Commons, which Mr. Walpole supported, he said to Mr.

Chetwynd, 'I hope we shall carry this question.' Mr. Chetwynd

replied, 'I hope to see you hanged first!' 'You see me hanged

first!' rejoined Mr. Walpole and instantly seized him by the

nose. They went out and fought. The account being conveyed

to Lord Orford, he sent his son to make inquiries; who, on

coming into the House of Commons, found his uncle speaking

with the same composure as if nothing had happened to ruffle

his tamper or endanger his life. Mr. Chetwynd was wounded."

vol. ii. p. 68.-E.

(788) Sister of Philip, second Earl Stanhope.

(789) Catherine, Duchess of Buckingham, natural daughter of

King James II. by the Countess of Dorchester. She was so

proud of her birth, that she would never go to Versailles,

because they would not give her the rank of Princess of the

Blood. At Rome, whither she went two or three times to see

her brother, and to carry on negotiations with him for his

interest, she had a box at the Opera distinguished like those

of crowned heads. She not only regulated the ceremony of her

own burial, and dressed up the waxen figure of herself for

Westminster Abbey, but had shown the same insensible pride on

the death of her only son, dressing his figure, and sending

messages to her friends, that if they had a mind to see him

lie in state, she would carry them in conveniently by a

back-door. She sent to the old Duchess of Marlborough to

borrow the triumphal car that had carried the Duke's body.

Old Sarah, as mad and proud as herself, sent her word, "that

it had carried my Lord Marlborough, and should never be

profaned by any other corpse." The Buckingham retorted that,

"she had spoken to the undertaker, and he had engaged to make

a finer for twenty pounds." [See ant`e, p. 204.]

(790) Colonel Graham. When the Duchess was young, and as

insolent as afterwards, her mother used to say, "You need not

be so proud, for you are not the King's but old Graham's

daughter." It is certain, that his legitimate daughter, the

Countess of Berkshire and Suffolk, was extremely like the

Duchess, and that he often said with a sneer, "Well, well,

kings are great men, they make free with whom they please! All

I can say is, that I am sure the same man begot those two

women." The Duchess often went to weep over her father's body

at Paris: one of the monks seeing her tenderness, thought it a

proper opportunity to make her observe how ragged the pall is

that lies over the body, (which is kept unburied, to be some

time or other interred in England,)-but she would not buy a

new!

314 Letter 101

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, March 25, 1743.

Well! my dear Sir, the Genii, or whoever are to look after the

seasons, seem to me to change turns, and to wait instead of

one another, like lords of the bedchamber. We have had loads

of sunshine all the winter; and within these ten days nothing

but snows, north-east winds, and blue plagues. The last ships

have brought over all your epidemic distempers: not a family

in London has escaped under five or six ill: many people have

been forced to hire new labourers. Guernier, the apothecary,

took two new apothecaries, and yet could not drug all his

patients. It is a cold and fever. I had one of the worst,

and was blooded on Saturday and Sunday, but it is quite gone:

my father was blooded last night: his is but slight. The

physicians say that there has been nothing like it since the

year Thirty-three, and then not so bad: in short, our army

abroad would shudder to see what streams of blood have been

let out! Nobody has died of it, but old Mr. Eyres, of Chelsea,

through obstinacy of not bleeding; and his ancient Grace of

York:(791) Wilcox of Rochester(792) succeeds him, who is fit

for nothing in the world, but to die of this cold too.

They now talk of the King's not going abroad: I like to talk

on that side; because though it may not be true, one may at

least be able to give some sort of reason why he should not.

We go into mourning for your Electress on Sunday; I suppose

they will tack the Elector of Mentz to her, for he is just

dead. I delight in Richcourt's calculation- I don't doubt but

it is the method he often uses in accounting with the Great

Duke.

I have had two letters from you of the 5th and 12th, with a

note of things coming by sea; but my dear child, you are

either run Roman Catholicly devout, or take me to be so; for

nothing but a religious fit of zeal could make you think of

sending me so many presents. Why, there are Madonnas enough

in one case to furnish a more than common cathedral-I

absolutely will drive to Demetrius, the silversmith's, and

bespeak myself a pompous shrine! But indeed, seriously, how

can I, who have a conscience, and am no saint, take all these

things? You must either let me pay for them, or I will demand

my unfortunate coffee-pot again, which has put you upon

ruining yourself By the way, do let me have it again, for I

cannot trust it any longer in your hands at this rate; and

since I have found out its virtue, I will present it to

somebody, whom I shall have no scruple of letting send me

bales and cargoes, and ship-loads of Madonnas, perfumes,

prints, frankincense, etc. You have not even drawn upon me

for my statue, my hermaphrodite, my gallery, and twenty other

things, for which I am lawfully your debtor.

I must tell you one thing, that I will not say a word to my

lord of this Argosie, as Shakspeare calls his costly ships,

till it is arrived, for he will tremble for his Dominichin,

and think it will not come safe in all this company-by the

way, will a captain of a man-of-war care to take all? We were

talking over Italy last night- my lord protests, that if he

thought he had strength, he would see Florence, Bologna, and

Rome, by way of Marseilles, to Leghorn. You may imagine how I

gave in to such a jaunt. I don't set my heart upon it,

because I think he cannot do it; but if he does, I promise

you, you shall be his Cicerone. I delight in the gallantry of

the Princess's brother.(793) I will tell you what, if the

Italians don't take care, they will grow as brave and as

wrongheaded as their neighbours. Oh! how shall I do about

writing to her? Well, if I can, I will be bold, and write to

her to-night.

I have no idea what the two minerals are that you mention, but

I will inquire, and if there are such, you shall have them;

and gold and silver, if they grow in this land; for I am sure

I am deep enough in your debt. Adieu! .

P. S. It won't do! I have tried to write, but you would bless

yourself to see what stuff I have been forging for half an

hour, and have not waded through three lines of paper. i have

totally forgot my Italian, and if she will but have prudence

enough to support the loss of a correspondence, which was long

since worn threadbare, we will come to as decent a silence as

may be.

(791) Doctor lancelot Blackburne. Walpole, in his Memoires,

vol. i. p. 74, calls him "the jolly old archbishop, who had

the manners of a man of quality, though he had been a

buccaneer, and was a clergyman." Noble, in his continuation

of Granger, treats these aspersions as the effect of malice.

"How is it possible!" he asks, ,that a buccaneer should be so

great a scholar as Blackburne certainly was? he who had so

perfect a knowledge of the classics, as to be able to read

them with the same ease as he could Shakspeare, must have

taken great pains to have acquired the learned languages, and

have had both leisure and good masters." He is allowed to have

been a remarkably pleasant man; and it was said of him, that

"he gained more hearts than souls."-E.

(792) He was not succeeded by Dr. Wilcox, but by Dr. Herring,

who was elevated, in 1747, to the archbishopric of Canterbury,

and died in 1757.-E.

(793) a Signor Capponi, brother of Madame Grifoni.

315 Letter 102

To Sir Horace Mann.

Monday, April 4, 1743.

I had my pen in my hand all last Thursday morning to write to

you, but my pen had nothing to say. I would make it do

something to-day though what will come of it, I don't

conceive.

They say, the King does not go abroad: we know nothing about

our army. I suppose it is gone to blockade Egra, and to not

take Prague, as it has been the fashion for every body to send

their army to do these three years. The officers in

parliament are not gone yet. We have nothing to do, but I

believe the ministry have something for us to do, for we are

continually adjourned, but not prorogued. They talk of

marrying Princess Caroline and Louisa to the future Kings of

Sweden and Denmark; but if the latter(794) is King of both, I

don't apprehend that he is to marry both the Princesses in his

double capacity.

Herring, Of Bangor, the youngest bishop, is named to the see

of York. it looks as if the bench thought the church going out

of fashion; for two or three(795) of them have refused this

mitre.

Next Thursday we are to be entertained with a pompous parade

for the burial of old Princess Buckingham. They have invited

ten peeresses to walk: all somehow or other dashed with

blood-royal, and rather than not have King James's daughter

attended by princesses, they have fished out two or three

countesses descended from his competitor Monmouth.

There, I am at the end of my tell! If I write on, it must be

to ask questions. I Would ask why Mr. Chute has left me off

but when he sees what a frippery correspondent I am, he will

scarce be in haste to renew with me again. I really don't

know why I am so dry; mine used to be the pen of a ready

writer, but whist seems to have stretched its leaden wand over

me too, who have nothing to do with it. I am trying to set up

the noble game of bilboquet against it, and composing a

grammar in opposition to Mr. Hoyle's. You will some day or

other see an advertisement in the papers, to tell you where it

may be bought, and that ladies may be waited upon by the

author at their houses, to receive any further directions. I

am 'really ashamed to send this scantling of paper by the

post, over so many seas and mountains: it seems as impertinent

as the commission which Prior gave to the winds,

"Lybs must fly south, and Eurus east,

For jewels for her neck and breast."

Indeed, one would take you for my Chloe, when one looks on

this modicum of gilt paper, which resembles a billet-doux more

than a letter to a minister. You must take it as the widow's

mite, and since the death of my spouse, poor Mr. News, I

cannot afford such large doles as formerly. Adieu! my dear

child, I am yours ever, from a quire of the largest foolscap

to a vessel of the smallest gilt.

(794) There was a party at this time in Sweden, who tried to

choose the Prince Royal of Denmark for successor to King

Frederick of sweden.

(795) Dr. Wilcox, Bishop of Rochester, and Dr. Sherlock,

Bishop of Salisbury: the latter afterwards accepted the See of

London.

317 Letter 103

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, April 14, 1743.

This has been a noble week; I have received three letters at

once from you. I am ashamed when I reflect on the poverty of

my own! but what can one do? I don't sell you my news, and

therefore should not be excusable to invent. I wish we don't

grow to have more news! Our politics, which have not always

been the most in earnest, now begin to take a very serious

turn. Our army is wading over the Rhine, up to their middles

in snow. I hope they will be thawed before their return: but

they have gone through excessive hardships. The King sends

six thousand more of his Hanoverians at his own expense: this

will be popular-and the six thousand Hessians march too. All

this will compose an army considerable enough to be a great

loss if they miscarry. The King certainly goes abroad in less

than a fortnight. He takes the Duke with him to Hanover who

from thence goes directly to the army. The Court will not be

great: the King takes only Lord Carteret, the Duke of

Richmond, master of the horse, and Lord Holderness and Lord

Harcourt,(796) for the bedchamber. The Duchesses of Richmond

and Marlborough,(797) and plump Carteret,(798) go to the

Hague.

His Royal Highness is not Regent: there are to be fourteen.

The Earl of Bath and Mr. Pelham, neither of them in

regency-posts, are to be of the number.

I have read your letters about Mystery to Sir Robert. He

denies absolutely having ever had transactions with King

Theodore, and is amazed Lord Carteret can; which he can't help

thinking but he must, by the intelligence about Lady W. Now I

can conceive all that affected friendship for Richcourt! She

must have meant to return to England by Richcourt's interest

with Touissant(799) and then where was her friendship? You are

quite in the right not to have engaged with King Theodore:

your character is not-Furibondo. Sir R. entirely disapproves

all Mysterious dealings; he thinks Furibondo most bad and most

improper, and always did. You mistook me about Lady W.'s

Lord-I meant Quarendon, who is now Earl of Litchfield, by his

father's death, which I mentioned. I think her lucky in

Sturges's death, and him lucky in dying. He had outlived

resentment; I think had almost lived to be pitied.

I forgot to thank you about the model, which I should have

been sorry to have missed. I long for all the things, and my

Lord more. so. Am I not to have a bill of lading, or how!

I never say any thing of the Pomfrets, because in the great

city of London the Countess's follies do not make the same

figure as they did in little Florence. Besides, there are

such numbers here who have such equal pretensions to be

absurd, that one is scarce aware of particular ridicules.

I really don't know whether Vanneschi be dead; he married some

low English woman, who is kept by Amorevoli; so the Abbate

turned the opera every way to his profit. As to

Bonducci,(200) I don't think I could serve him; for I have no

interest with the Lords Middlesex and Holderness, the two sole

managers. Nor if I had, would I employ it, 'to bring over

more ruin to the operas. Gentlemen directors, with favourite

abb`es and favourite mistresses, have almost overturned the

thing in England. You will plead my want of interest to Mr.

Smith(801) too: besides, we had Bufos here once, and from not

understanding the language, people thought it a dull kind of

dumb-show. We are next Tuesday to have the Miserere of Rome.

It must be curious! the finest piece of vocal music in the

world, to be performed by three good voices, and forty bad

ones, from Oxford, Canterbury, and the farces! There is a new

subscription formed for an opera next year, to be carried on

by the Dilettanti, a club, for which the nominal qualification

is having been in Italy, and the real one, being drunk: the

two chiefs are Lord Middlesex and Sir Francis Dashwood, who

were seldom sober the whole time they were in Italy.

The parliament rises next week: every body is going out of

town. My Lord goes the first week in May; but I shall

reprieve myself till towards August. Dull as London is in

summer, there is always more company in it than in any one

place in the country. I hate the country: I am past the

shepherdly age of groves and streams, and am not arrived at

that of hating every thing but what I do myself, as building

and planting. Adieu!

(796) Simon, second Viscount Harcourt, created an earl in

1749; in 1768 appointed ambassador at Paris, and in 1769 Lord

Lieutenant of Ireland. He was accidentally drowned in a well

in his park at Nuncham, in 1777; occasioned, it is believed,

by overreaching himself, in order to save the life of a

favourite dog.-E.

(797) Elizabeth Trevor, daughter of Thomas Lord Trevor, wife

of Charles Spencer, Duke of Marlborough. She died in 1761.-E.

(798) Frances, only daughter of Sir Robert Worseley, first

wife of Lord Carteret.

(799) First minister of the Great Duke.

(800) Bonducci was a Florentine abb`e, who translated some of

Pope's works into Italian.

(801) The English Consul at Venice.

318 Letter 104

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, April 25, 1743.

Nay, but it is serious! the King is gone, and the Duke with

him. The' latter actually to the army. They must sow

laurels, if they design to reap any; for there are no

conquests forward enough for them to come just in time and

finish. The French have relieved Egra and cut to pieces two

of the best Austrian regiments, the cuirassiers. This is

ugly! We are sure, you know, of beating the French afterwards

in France and Flanders; but I don't hear that the heralds have

produced any precedents for our conquering them on the other

side the Rhine.(802) We at home may be excused from trembling

at the arrival of every post; I am sure I shall. If I were a

woman, should support my fears with more dignity; for if one

did lose a husband or a lover, there are those becoming

comforts, weeds and cypresses, jointures and weeping cupids;

but I have only a friend or two to lose, and there are no

ornamental substitutes settled, to be one's proxy for that

sort of grief. One has not the satisfaction of fixing a day

for receiving visits of consolation from a thousand people

whom one don't love, because one has lost the only person one

did love. This is a new situation, and I don't like it.

You will see the Regency in the newspapers. I think the

Prince might have been of it when my Lord Gower is. I don't

think the latter more Jacobite than his Royal Highness.

The Prince is to come to town every Sunday fortnight to hold

drawing-rooms; the Princesses stay all the summer at St.

James's-would I did! but I go in three weeks to Norfolk; the

only place that could make me wish to live at St. James's. My

Lord has pressed me so much, that I could not with decency

refuse: he is going to furnish and hang his picture-gallery,

and wants me. I can't help wishing that I had never known a

Guido from a Teniers: but who could ever suspect any connexion

between painting and the wilds of Norfolk.

Princess Louisa's contract with the Prince of Denmark was

signed the morning before the King Went; but I don't hear when

she goes. Poor Caroline misses her man of Lubeck,(803) by his

missing the crown of Sweden.

I must tell you an odd thing that happened yesterday at

Leicester House. The Prince's children were in the circle:

Lady Augusta(804) heard somebody call Sir Robert Rich by his

name. She concluded there was but one Sir Robert in the

world, and taking him for Lord Orford, the child went staring

up to him, and said, "Pray, where is your blue string! and

pray what has become of your fat belly?" Did one ever hear of

a more royal education, than to have rung this mob cant in the

child's ears till it had made this impression on her!

Lord Stafford is come over to marry Miss Cantillon, a vast

fortune, of his own religion. She is daughter of the

Cantillon who was robbed and murdered, and had his house

burned by his cook(805) a few years ago. She is as ugly as

he; but when she comes to Paris, and wears a good deal of

rouge, and a separate apartment, who knows but she may be a

beauty! There is no telling what a woman is, while she is as

she is. There is a great fracas in Ireland in a noble family

or two, heightened by a pretty strong circumstance of Iricism.

A Lord Belfield(806) married a very handsome daughter of a

Lord Molesworth.(807) A certain Arthur Rochfort, who happened

to be acquainted in the family, by being Lord Belfield's own

brother, looked on this woman, and saw that she was fair.

These ingenious people, that their history might not be

discovered, corresponded under feigned names-And what names do

you think they chose?-Silvia and Philander! Only the very same

that Lord Grey(808) and his sister-in-law took upon a parallel

occasion, and which arc printed in their letters!

Patapan sits to Wootton to-morrow for his picture. He is to

have a triumphal arch at a distance, to signify his Roman

birth, and his having barked at thousands of Frenchmen in the

very heart of Paris. If you can think of a good Italian motto

applicable to any part of his history send it to me. If not,

he shall have this antique one-for I reckon him a senator of

Rome, while Rome survived,-"O, et Presidium et dulce decus

meum!" He is writing an ode on the future campaign of this

summer; it is dated from his villa, where he never was, and

being truly in the classic style, "While you, great Sir," etc.

Adieu!

(802) Walpole seems to have forgotten the battle of

Blenheim.-D;

(803) Adolphus Frederick of Holstein, Bishop of Lubeck, was

elected successor, and did succeed to the crown of Sweden. He

married the Princess Louisa Ulrica of Prussia.

(804) Afterwards Duchess of Brunswick.-D.

(805) Cantillon was a Paris wine-merchant and banker, who had

been engaged with Law in the Mississippi scheme. He

afterwards brought his riches to England and settled in this

country. In May 1734, some of his servants, headed by the

cook, conspired to murder him, knowing that he kept large sums

of money in his house. They killed him, and then set fire to

the house; but the fire was extinguished, and the body, with

the wounds upon it, found. The cook fled beyond sea; but in

December, three of his associates were tried at the Old Bailey

for the murder, and acquitted.-E.

(806) Robert Rochfort, created Lord Belfield in Ireland in

1737, Viscount Belfield in 1751, and Earl of Belvedere in

1756. His second wife, whom be married in 1736, was the Hon.

Mary Molesworth. D.

(807) Richard, third Viscount Molesworth, in Ireland. He had

been aide-de-camp to the great Duke of Marlborough, and in

that capacity distinguished himself greatly at the battle of

Ramilies. He became afterwards master-general of the ordnance

in Ireland, and commander of the forces in that kingdom, and a

field-marshal. He died in 1758.-D.

(808) Fordo, the infamous Lord Grey of werke, and his

sister-in-law, Lady Henrietta Berkeley, whose "Love Letters,"

under these romantic names, were published in three small

volumes. They are supposed to have been compiled by Mrs.

Behn.-D. [Lord Grey commanded the horse at Sedgmoor, and is

accused of flying at the first charge, and preserving his life

by giving evidence against his associates. He married Lady

Mary, daughter of George, first Earl of Berkeley, and died in

1701.)

320 Letter 105

To Sir Horace Mann.

May 4, 1743.

The King was detained four or five days at Sheerness but

yesterday we heard that he was got to Helvoetsluys. They

talk' of an interview between him and his nephew of Prussia-I

never knew any advantage result from such conferences. We

expect to hear of the French attacking our army, though there

are accounts of their retiring, which would necessarily

produce a peace-I hope so! I don't like to be at the eve, even

of an Agincourt; that, you know, every Englishman is bound in

faith to expect: besides, they say my Lord Stair has in his

pocket, from the records of the Tower, the original patent,

empowering us always to conquer. I am told that Marshal

Noailles is as mad as Marshal Stair. Heavens! twice fifty

thousand men trusted to two mad captains, without one Dr.

Monroe(809) over

them!

I am sorry I could give you so little information about King

Theodore; but my lord knew nothing of him, and as little of

any connexion between Lord Carteret and him. I am sorry you

have him on your

hands. He quite mistakes his

province: an adventurer should come hither;(810) this is the

soil for mobs and patriots it is the country of

the world to make one's fortune - with parts never so scanty,

one's dulness is not discovered, nor one's dishonesty, till

one obtains the post one wanted-and then, if they do not come

to light-why, one slinks into one's green velvet bag,(811) and

lies so snug! I don't approve of your hinting at the

falsehoods(812) of Stosch's intelligence; nobody

regards it but the King , it pleases

him-e basta.

I was not in the House at Vernon's frantic speech;(813) but I

know he made it, and have heard him pronounce several such:

but he has worn out even laughter, and did not make impression

enough on me to remember till the next post that he had

spoken.

I gave your brother the translated paper; he will take care of

it. Ceretesi is gone to Flanders with Lord Holderness. Poor

creature!

he was reduced, before he went, to borrow five guineas of Sir

Francis Dashwood. How will he ever scramble back to Florence?

We are likely at last to have no opera next year: Handel has

had a palsy, and can't compose; and the Duke of Dorset has set

himself strenuously to oppose it, as Lord Middlesex is the

impresario, and must ruin the house of Sackville by a course

of these follies. Besides what he will lose this year, he has

not paid his share to the losses of the last; and yet is

singly undertaking another for next season, with

the almost certainty of losing

between four or five thousand pounds, to which the

deficiencies of the opera generally amount now. The

Duke of Dorset has desired the King

not to subscribe; but Lord Middlesex is so obstinate, that

this will probably only make him lose a

thousand pounds more.

The Freemasons are in so low repute now in England, that one

has scarce heard the proceedings at Vienna against them

mentioned. I believe nothing but a persecution could bring

them into vogue again here. You know, as great as our follies

are, we even grow tired of them, and are always changing.

(809) Physician of Bedlam-

"Those walls where Folly holds her throne,

And laughs to think Monroe would take her down."-E.

(810) He afterwards came to England, where he suffered much

from poverty and destitution, and was finally arrested by his

creditors and confined in the King,'s Bench prison. He was

released from thence under the Insolvent Act, having

registered the kingdom of Corsica for the use of his

creditors. Shortly after this event he died, December 11,

1756, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Anne's, Soho,

where Horace Walpole erected a marble slab to his memory. He

was an adventurer, whose name was Theodore Anthony, Baron

Newhoff, and was born at Metz, in 1686. Walpole, who had seen

him, describes him as "a comely, middle-sized man, very

reserved, and affecting much dignity,"-D.

(811) The secretaries of state and lord treasurer carry their

papers in a green velvet bag.

(812) Stosch used to pretend to send over an exact journal of

the life of the Pretender and his sons, though he had been

sent out of Rome at the Pretender's request, and must have

had very bad, or no intelligence, of

what passed in that family.

(813) The admiral had recently said, in the House of Commons,

that "there was not, on this side Hell, a nation so burthened

with taxes as England."-E.

322 Letter 106

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, May 12, 1743.

It is a fortnight since I got any of your letters, but I will

expect two at once. I don't tell you by way of news, because

you will have had expresses, but I must talk of the great

Austrian victory!(814) We have not heard the exact

particulars yet, nor whether it was Kevenhuller or lobkowitz

who beat the Bavarians; but their general, Minucci, is

prisoner. At first, they said Seckendorffe was too; I am glad

he is not: poor man, he has suffered enough by the house of

Austria! But my joy is beyond the common, for I flatter myself

this victory will save us one: we talk of nothing, but its

producing a peace, and then one's friends will return.

The Duchess of Kendal(815) is dead-eighty-five years old: she

was a year older than her late King. Her riches were immense;

but I believe my Lord Chesterfield will get nothing by her

death-but his wife: (816) she lived in the house with the

duchess, where he had played away all his credit.

Hough,(817) the good old Bishop of Worcester, is dead too. I

have been looking at the "Fathers in God" that have been

flocking over the way this Morning to Mr. Pelham, who is just

come to his new house. This is absolutely the ministerial

street Carteret has a house here too; and Lord Bath seems to

have lost his chance by quitting this street. Old Marlborough

has made a good story of the latter; she says, that when he

found he could not get the privy seal, he begged that at least

they would offer it to him, and upon his honour he would not

accept it, but would plead his vow of never taking a place; in

which she says they humoured him. The truth is, Lord Carteret

did hint an offer to him, upon which he went with a nolo

episcopari to the King-he bounced, and said, "Why I never

offered it to you:" upon which he recommended my Lord

Carlisle, with equal Success.

Just before the King went, he asked my Lord Carteret, " Well,

when am I to get rid of those fellows in the Treasury?" They

are on so low a foot, that somebody said Sandys had hired a

stand of hackney-coaches, to look like a levee.

Lord Conway has begged me to send you a commission, which you

will oblige me much by executing. It is to send him three

Pistoia barrels for guns: two of them, of two feet and a half

in the barrel in length; the smallest of the inclosed buttons

to be the size of the bore, hole, or calibre, of the two guns.

The third barrel to be three feet and an inch in length; the

largest of these buttons to be the bore of it; these feet are

English measure. You will be so good to let me know the price

of them.

There has happened a comical circumstance at Leicester House:

one of the Prince's coachmen, who used to drive the Maids of

Honour, was so sick of them, that he has left his son three

hundred pounds, upon condition that he never carries a Maid of

Honour!

Our journey to Houghton is fixed to Saturday se'nnight; 'tis

unpleasant, but I flatter myself that I shall get away in the

beginning of August. Direct your letters as you have done all

this winter; your brother will take care to send them to me.

Adieu!

(814) There was no great victory this year till the battle of

Dettingen, which took place in June; but the Austrians

obtained many advantages during the spring over the Bavarians

and the French, and obliged the latter to recross the

Rhine.-D.

(815) Erangard Melusina Schulembergh, the mistress of George

I. George I. created her Duchess of Munster and Marchioness

of Dungannon in Ireland in 1719; Ind Duchess of Kendal,

Countess of Feversham, and Baroness of Glastonbury. in

England, in 1723. All these honours were for life only. He

also persuaded the Emperor to create her Princess of eberstein

in the Roman empire in 1723.-D.

(816) Melusina Schulembergh, Countess of Walsingham, niece of

the Duchess of Kendal, and her heiress.

(817) Hough Was a man of piety, ability, and integrity, and

had distinguished himself early in his life by his resistance

to the arbitrary proceedings of James II. against Magdalen

College, Oxford, of which he was the president. Pope, with

much justice, speaks of "Hough's unsullied mitre."-D. [He was

nominated Bishop of Oxford in 1690; and translated to

Worcester in 1717.]

323 Letter 107

To Sir Horace Mann.

May 19, 1743.

I am just come tired from a family dinner at the Master of the

Rolls;(818) but I have received two letters from you since my

last, and will write to you, though my head aches with maiden

sisters' healths, forms, and Devonshire and Norfolk. With

yours I received one from Mr. Chute, for which I thank him a

thousand times, and will answer as soon as I get to Houghton.

Monday is fixed peremptorily, though we have had no rain this

month; but we travel by the day of the week, not by the day of

the sky.

We are in more confusion than we care to own. There lately

came up a highland regiment from Scotland, to be sent abroad.

One heard of nothing but their good discipline and quiet

disposition. When the day came for their going to the water

side, an hundred and nine of them mutinied, and marched away

in a body. They did not care to go where it would not be

equivocal for what King they fought. Three companies of

dragoons are sent after them. If you happen to hear of any

rising don't be surprised-I shall not, I assure you. Sir

Robert Monroe, their lieutenant-colonel, before their leaving

Scotland, asked some of the ministry, " "But suppose there

should be any rebellion in Scotland, what should we do for

these eight hundred men?" It was answered, "Why, there would

be eight hundred fewer rebels there."

"Utor permisso, caudeque pilos ut equinae

Paulatim cello; demo unum, demo etiam unum,

Dum-"

My dear child, I am surprised to hear you enter so seriously

into earnest ideas of my lord's passing into Italy! Could you

think (however he, you, or I might wish it) that there could

be any probability of it? Can you think his age could endure

it, or him so indifferent, so totally disministered, as to

leave all thoughts of what he has been, and ramble like a boy,

after pictures and statues? Don't expect it.

We had heard of the Duke of Modena's command before I had your

letter. I am glad, for the sake of the duchess, as she is to

return to France. I never saw any body wish anything more!

and indeed, how can one figure any particle of pleasure

happening to the daughter of the Regent,(819) and a favourite

daughter too, full of wit and joy, buried in a dirty, dull

Italian duchy, with an ugly, formal object for a husband, and

two uncouth sister-princesses for eternal companions? I am so

near the eve of going into Norfolk, that I imagine myself

something in her situation, and married to some Hammond or

Hoste (820) who is Duke of Wootton or Darsingham. I remember

in the fairy tales where a yellow dwarf steals a princess, and

shows her his duchy, of which he is very proud: among the

blessings of grandeur, of which he makes her mistress, there

is a most beautiful ass for her palfrey, a blooming meadow of

nettles and thistles to walk in, and a fine troubled ditch to

slake her thirst, after either of the above mentioned

exercises.

Adieu! My next will be dated from some of the doleful castles

in the principality of your forlorn friend, the duchy of

Reepham.

(818) William Fortescue, master of the rolls, a relation of

Margaret Lady Walpole. ffortescue was made master of the rolls

in 1741, and continued so until his death in 1749. He was the

friend and correspondent of Pope, and assisted the poet in

drawing up the humorous report, "Stradling versus Stiles." He

was a man of great humour, talents, and integrity.]

(819) Mademoiselle de Valois, who had made herself notorious

during the regency of her father, by her intrigue with the

Duke of Richelieu. She consented to marry the Duke of Modena,

in order to obtain the liberty of her lover, who was confined

in the Bastille, for conspiring against the Regent. The Duke

of Richelieu, in return, followed her afterwards secretly to

Modena.-D.

(820) The Hammonds and Hostes are two Norfolk families, nearly

allied to the Walpoles.

324 letter 108

To Sir Horace Mann.

Houghton, Jan. 4, 1743.

I wrote, this week to Mr. Chute, addressed to you; I could not

afford two letters in one post from the country, and in the

dead of summer. I have received one from you of May 21st,

since I came I must tell you a smart dialogue between your

father and me the morning we left London: he came to wish my

lord a good journey: I found him in the parlour. "Sir," said

he, "I may ask you how my son does; I think you hear from him

frequently: I never do." I replied, "Sir, I write him kind

answers; pray do you do so?" He coloured, and said with a

half mutter, "Perhaps I have lived too long for him!" I

answered shortly, "Perhaps you have." My dear child, I beg

your pardon, but I could not help this. When one loves any

body, one can't help being warm for them at a fair

opportunity. Bland and Mr. Legge were present-your father

could have stabbed me. I told your brother Gal, who was glad.

We are as private here as if we were in devotion-. there is

nobody with us now but Lord Edgecumbe and his son. The Duke

of Grafton and Mr. Pelham come next week, and I hope Lord

Lincoln with them. Poor Lady Sophia is at the gasp of her

hopes; all is concluded for his match with Miss Pelham. It is

not to be till the winter. He is to have all Mr. Pelham and

the Duke of Newcastle can give or settle; unless Lady

Catherine should produce a son, or the duchess should die, and

the duke marry again.

Earl Poulett(821) is dead, and makes vacant another riband.

I imagine Lord Carteret will have one; Lord Bath will ask it.

I think they should give Prince Charles(822) one of the two,

for all the trouble he saves us. The papers talk of nothing

but a suspension of arms: it seems toward, for at least we

hear of no battle, though there are so many armies looking at

one another.

Old Sir Charles Wager(823) is dead at last, and has left the

fairest character. I can't help having a little private

comfort, to think that Goldsworthy-but there is no danger.

Madox of St. Asaph has wriggled himself into the see of

Worcester. He makes haste; I remember him only domestic

chaplain to the late Bishop of Chichester.(824) Durham is not

dead, as I believe I told you from a false report.

You tell me of dining with Madame de Modene,(824) but you

don't tell me of being charmed with her. I like her

excessively-I don't mean her person, for she is as plump as

the late Queen; but, sure her face is fine; her eyes vastly

fine! and then she is as agreeable as one should expect the

Regent's daughter to be. The Princess and she must have been

an admirable contrast; one has all the good breeding of a

French court, and the other all the ease of it. I have almost

a mind to go to Paris to see her. She was so excessively

civil to me. You don't tell me if the Pucci goes into France

with her.

I like the Genoese selling Corsica! I think we should follow

their example and sell France; we have about as good a title,

and very near as much possession. At how much may they value

Corsica? at the rate of islands it can't go for much.

Charles the Second sold Great Britain and Ireland to Louis

XIV. for 300,000 pounds. a-year, and that was reckoned

extravagantly dear. Lord Bolingbroke took a single hundred

thousand for them, when they were in much better repair.

We hear to-day that the King goes to the army on the 15th N.

S. that is, to-day; but I don't tell it you for certain.

There has been much said against his commanding it, as it is

only an army of succour, and not acting as principal in the

cause. In my opinion, his commanding will depend upon the

more or less probability of its acting at all. Adieu!

(821) John, first Earl of Poulett, knight of the garter. He

died, aged upwards of eighty, on the 28th May 1743.-D.

(822) Prince Charles of Lorraine, the queen of Hungary's

general against the French.-D.

(823) This distinguished admiral died on the 24th of May, in

his seventy-seventh year; at which time he was member for West

looe. A splendid monument was erected to his memory in

Westminster Abbey.-E.

(824) Dr. Waddington.

(825) It was not the Duchess of Modena, but the Duke's second

sister, who went to Florence.

326 letter 109

To Sir Horace Mann.

Houghton, June 10, 1743.

You must not expect me to write you a very composed, careless

letter; my spirits are all in agitation! I am at the eve of a

post that may bring me the most dreadful news! we expect

to-morrow the news of a decisive battle. Oh! if you have any

friend there, think what apprehensions I (826) must have of

such a post! By yesterday's letters, our army was within

eight miles of the French, who have had repeated orders to

attack them. Lord Stair and Marshal Noailles both think

themselves superior, and have pressed for leave to fight. The

latter call themselves fourscore thousand; ours sixty. Mr.

Pelham and Lord Lincoln come to Houghton to-morrow, so we are

sure of hearing as soon as possible, if any thing has

happened. By this time the King must be with them.- My fears

for one or two friends have spoiled me for any English hopes-I

cannot dwindle away the French army-every man in it appears to

my imagination as big as the sons of Anak! I am conjuring up

the ghosts of all who have perished by French ambition, and am

dealing out commissions to these spectres,

"-To sit heavy on their souls to-morrow!"

Alas! perhaps that glorious to-morrow was a dismal yesterday

at least, perhaps it was to me! The genius of England might

be a mere mercenary man of the world, and employed all his

attention to turn aside cannonballs from my Lord Stair, to

give new edge to his new Marlborough's sword: was plotting

glory for my Lord Carteret, or was thinking of furnishing his

own apartment in Westminster Hall with a new set of

trophies-who would then take care of Mr. Conway? You, who are

a minister, will see all this in still another light, will

fear our defeat, and will foresee the train of

consequences.-Why, they may be wondrous ugly; but till I know

what I have to think about my own friends, I cannot be wise in

my generation.

I shall now only answer your letter; for till I have read

to-morrow's post, I have no thoughts but of a battle.

I am angry at your thinking that I can dislike to receive two

or three of your letters at once. Do you take me for a child,

and imagine, that though I may like one plum-tart, two may

make me sick? I now get them regularly; so I do but receive

them, I am easy.

You are mistaken about the gallery; so far from unfurnishing

any part of the house, there are several pictures undisposed

of, besides numbers at Lord Walpole's, at the Exchequer, at

Chelsea, and at New Park. Lord Walpole has taken a dozen to

Stanno, a small house, about four miles from hence, where he

lives with my lady Walpole's vicegerent.(827) You may imagine

that her deputies are no fitter than she is to come where

there is In a modest, unmarried girl.(828)

I will write to London for the life of Theodore, though you

may depend upon its being a Grub Street piece, without one

true fact. Don't let it prevent your undertaking his Memoirs.

Yet I should say Mrs. Heywood,(829) or Mrs. Behn(830) were

fitter to write his history.

How slight you talk of Prince Charles's victory at Brunau! We

thought it of vast consequence; so it was. He took three

posts afterwards, and has since beaten the Prince of Conti,

and killed two thousand men. Prince Charles civilly returned

him his baggage. The French in Bavaria are quite

dispirited-poor wretches! how one hates to wish so ill as one

does to fourscore thousand men!

There is yet no news of the Pembroke. The Dominichin has a

post of honour reserved in the gallery. My Lord says, as to

that Dalton's Raphael, he can say nothing without some

particular description of the picture and the size, and some

hint at the price, which you have promised to get. I leave

the residue of my paper for tomorrow: I tremble, lest I should

be forced to finish it abruptly! I forgot to tell you that I

left a particular commission with my brother Ned, who is at

Chelsea, to get some tea-seed from the physic-garden; and he

promised me to go to Lord Islay, to know what cobolt and

zingho(831) are, and where they are to be got.

Saturday morning.

The post is come: no battle! Just as they were marching

against the French, they received orders from Hanover not to

engage, for the Queen's generals thought they were inferior,

and were positive against fighting. Lord Stair, with only the

English, proceeded, and drew out in order; but though the

French were then so vastly superior, they did not attack him.

The King is now at the army, and, they say, will endeavour to

make the Austrians fight. It wilt make great confusion here

if they do not. The French are evacuating Bavaria as fast as

possible, and seem to intend to join all their force together.

I shall still dread all the events of this campaign. Adieu!

(826) Mr. Conway the most intimate friend of Horace Walpole,

was now serving in Lord Stair's army.

(827) Miss Norsa; she was a Jewess, and had been a singer.

(828) Lady Maria Walpole.

(829) Eliza Heywood, a voluminous writer of indifferent

novels; of which the best known is one called "Betsy

Thoughtless." She was also authoress of a work entitled "The

Female Spectator." - Mrs. Heywood was born in 1693, and died

in 1756.-D.

(830) Mrs. Afra Behn, a woman whose character and writings

were equally incorrect. Of her plays, which were seventeen in

number, Pope says,

"The stage how loosely does Astrea tread,

Who fairly puts all characters to bed."

Her novels and other productions were also marked with similar

characteristics. She died in 1689-D.

(831) Cobalt and Zinc, two metallic substances; the former

composed of silver, copper, and arsenic, the latter of tin and

iron.-D.

328 letter 110

To Sir Horace Mann.

Houghton, June 20, 1743.

I have painted the Raphael to my lord almost as fine as

Raphael himself could; but he will not think of it-. he will

not give a thousand guineas for what he never saw. I wish I

could persuade him. For the other hands, he has already fine

ones of every one of them. There are yet no news of the

Pembroke: we row impatient.

I have made a short tour to Euston this week with the Duke of

Grafton, who came over from thence with Lord Lincoln and Mr.

Pelham. Lord Lovel and Mr. Coke carried me and brought me

back. It is one of the most admired seats in England-in my

opinion, because Kent has a most absolute disposition of it.

Kent is now so fashionable, that, like Addison's Liberty, he

"Can make bleak rocks and barren mountains smile."

I believe the duke wishes he could make them green too. The

house is large and bad; it was built by Lord Arlington, and

stands, as all old houses do for convenience of water and

shelter, in a hole; so it neither sees, nor is seen: he has no

money to build another. The park is fine, the old woods

excessively so: they are much grander than Mr. Kent's passion

clumps-that is, sticking a dozen trees here and there, till a

lawn looks like the ten of spades. Clumps have their beauty;

but in a great extent of country, how trifling to scatter

arbours, where you should spread forests! He is so unhappy in

his heir apparent,(832) that he checks his hand in almost

every thing he undertakes. Last week he heard a new complaint

of his barbarity. A tenant of Lord Euston, in

Northamptonshire, brought him his rent: the Lord said it

wanted three and sixpence: the tenant begged he would examine

the account, that it would prove exact-however, to content

him, he would willingly pay him the three and sixpence. Lord

E. flew into

a rage, and vowed he would write

to the Duke to have him turned out of a little place he has in

the post-office of thirty pounds a-year. The poor man, who

has six children, and knew nothing of my lord's

being upon no terms of power with

his father, went home and shot himself!

I know no syllable of news '. but that my Lady

Carteret is dead at Hanover, and Lord Wilmington dying. So

there will be to let a first

minister's ladyship and a first

lordship of the Treasury. We have nothing from the army,

though the King has now been there some time. As new a thing

as it is, we don't talk much about it.

Adieu! the family are gone a fishing: I thought I stayed at

home to write to you, but I have so little to say that I don't

believe you will think so.

(832) George, Earl of Euston, who died in the lifetime of his

father. He seems to have been a man of the most odious

character. He has been already mentioned in the course

of these letters, upon the

occasion of his marriage with the ill-fated lady Dorothy

Boyle, who died from his ill-treatment of her. Upon a picture

of lady Dorothy at the Duke of Devonshire's at Chiswick, is

the following touching inscription, written by her mother,

which commemorates her virtues and her fate:-

"lady Dorothy Boyle,

Born May the 14th, 1724.

She was the comfort and joy of her parents, the delight of all

who knew her angelick of temper, and the admiration of all who

saw her beauty. She was marry'd October the 10th, 1741, and

delivered (by death) from misery, May the 2nd, 1742. This

picture was drawn seven weeks after her death (from memory) by

her most affectionate mother, Dorothy Burlington."-D.

329 letter 111

To Sir Horace Mann.

Friday noon, July 29, 1743.

I don't know what I write-I am all a flurry of thoughts-a

battle-a victory! I dare not yet be glad-I know no

particulars of my friends. This instant my lord has had a

messenger from the Duke of Newcastle, who has sent him a copy

of Lord Carteret's letter from the field of battle. The King

was in all the heat of the fire, and safe--the Duke is wounded

in the calf of the leg, but slightly; Duc d'Aremberg in the

breast; General Clayton and Colonel Piers are the only

officers of note said to be killed-here is all my trust! The

French passed the Mayne that morning with twenty-five thousand

men, and are driven back. We have lost two thousand, and they

four-several of their general officers, and of the Maison du

Roi, are taken prisoners: the battle lasted from ten in the

morning till four. The Hanoverians behaved admirably. The

Imperialists(833) were the aggressors; in short, 'In all

public views, it is all that could be wished-the King in the

action, and his son wounded-the Hanoverians behaving well-the

French beaten: what obloquy will not all this wipe out!

Triumph, and write it to Rome! I don't know what our numbers

were; I believe about thirty thousand, for there were twelve

thousand Hessians and Hanoverians who had not joined them. O!

in my hurry, I had forgot the place-you must talk of the

battle of Dettingen!

After dinner. My child, I am calling together all my

thoughts, and rejoice in this victory as much as I dare; for

in the raptures of' conquest, how dare I think that my Lord

Carteret, or the rest of those who have written, thought just

of whom I thought? The post comes in tomorrow morning, but it

is not sure that we shall learn any particular certainties so

soon as that. Well! how happy it is that the King has had

such an opportunity of distinguishing himself'!(834) what a

figure he will make! They talked of its being below his

dignity to command an auxiliary army: my lord says it will not

be thought below his dignity to have sought dangers These were

the flower of the French troops: I flatter myself they will

tempt no more battles. such, and we might march from one end

of France to the other. So we are in a French war, at least

well begun! My lord has been drinking the healths of Lord

Stair and Lord Carteret: he says, "since it was well done, he

does not care by whom it was done." He thinks differently

from the rest of the world: he thought from the first, that

France never missed such an opportunity as when they undertook

the German war, instead of joining with Spain against us. If

I hear any more tomorrow before the post goes out, I will let

you know. Tell me if this is the first you hear of the

victory: I would fain be the first to give you so much

pleasure.

Saturday morning.

Well, my dear child, all is safe! I have not so much as an

acquaintance hurt. The more we hear the greater it turns out.

Lord Cholmondeley writes my lord from London that we gained

the victory with only fifteen regiments, not eleven thousand

men, and SO not half in number to the French. I fancy their

soldiery behaved ill, by the Gallantry of their officers; for

Ranby, the King'S private surgeon, writes that he alone has

150 officers of distinction desperately wounded under his

care. Marquis Fenelon's son is among the prisoners, and says

Marshal Noailles is dangerously wounded; so is Duc d'Aremberg.

Honeywood's regiment sustained the attack, and are almost all

killed: his natural son has five wounds, and cannot live. The

horse were pursuing when the letters came away, so there is no

certain account of the slaughter. Lord Albemarle had his

horse shot under him. In short, the victory is complete.

There is no describing what one hears of the spirits and

bravery of our men. One of them dressed himself up in the

belts of three officers, and swore he would wear them as long

as he lived. Another ran up to Lord Carteret, who was in a

coach near the action the whole time, and said, "Here, my

lord, do hold this watch for me; I have just killed a French

officer and taken it, and I will go take another."

Adieu! my dear Sir: May the rest of the war be as glorious as

the beginning!

(833) The Bavarians.

(834) Frederick the Great, in his "Histoire de mon Temps,"

gives the Following account of George the Second at the battle

of Dettingen. "The King was on horseback, and rode forward to

reconnoitre the enemy: his horse, frightened at the

cannonading, ran away with his Majesty, and nearly carried him

into the midst of the French lines: fortunately, one of his

attendants succeeded in stopping him. George then abandoned

his horse, and fought on foot, at the head of his Hanoverian

battalions. With his sword drawn, and his body placed in the

attitude of a fencing-master, who is about to make a lunge in

carte, he continued to expose himself, without Circling, to

the enemy's fire."-D.

To Mr. Chute.

My dear Sir, I wish you joy, and you wish me joy, and Mr.

Whithed, and Mr. Mann, and Mrs. Bosville, etc. Don't get

drunk and get the gout. I expect to be drunk with hogsheads

of the Mayne-water, and with odes to his Majesty and the Duke,

and Te Deums. Patapan begs you will get him a dispensation

from Rome to go and hear the thanksgiving at St. Paul's. We

are all mad-drums, trumpets, bumpers, bonfires! The mob are

wild, and cry, "Long live King George and the Duke of

Cumberland, and Lord Stair and Lord Carteret, and General

Clayton that's dead!" My Lord Lovel says, "Thanks to the gods

that John(835) has done his duty!"

Adieu! my dear Dukes of Marlborough! I am ever your

JOHN DUKE OF MARLBOROUGh.

(835) John Bull.-D.

331 Letter 112

To Sir Horace Mann.

Houghton, July 4, 1743.

I hear no particular news here, and I don't pretend to send

you the common news; for as I must have it first from London,

you will have it from thence sooner in the papers than in my

letters. There have been great rejoicings for the victory;

which I am convinced is very considerable by the pains the

Jacobites take to persuade it is not. My Lord Carteret's

Hanoverian articles have much offended; his express has been

burlesqued a thousand ways. By all the letters that arrive,

the loss of the French turns out more considerable than by the

first accounts: they have dressed up the battle into a victory

for themselves-I hope they will always have such! By their not

having declared war with us, one should think they intended a

peace. It is allowed that our fine horse did us no honour -

the victory was gained by the foot. Two of their princes of

the blood, the Prince de Dombes, and the Count d'Eu(836) his

brother, were wounded, and several of their first nobility.

Our prisoners turn out but seventy-two officers, besides the

private men; and by the printed catalogue, I don't think of

great family. Marshal Noailles's mortal wound is quite

vanished, and Duc d'Aremberg's shrunk to a very slight one.

The King's glory remains in its first bloom.

Lord Wilmington is dead. I believe the civil battle for his

post will be tough. Now we shall see what service Lord

Carteret's Hanoverians will do him. You don't think the

crisis unlucky for him, do you? If you wanted a treasury,

should you choose to have been in Arlington Street,(837) or

driving by the battle of Dettingen? You may imagine our Court

wishes for Mr. Pelham. I don't know any one who wishes for

Lord Bath but himself-I believe that is a pretty substantial

wish.

I have got the Life of King Theodore, but I don't know how to

convey it--I will inquire for some way.

We are quite alone. You never saw any thing so unlike as

being here five months out of place, to the congresses of a

fortnight in place. but you know the "Justum et tenacem

propositi virum" can amuse himself without the "Civium ardor!"

As I have not so much dignity of character to fill up my time,

I could like a little more company. With all this leisure,

you may imagine that I might as well be writing an ode or so

upon the victory; but as I cannot build upon the Laureate's

place till I know whether Lord Carteret or Mr. Pelham will

carry the Treasury, I have vounded my compliments to a slender

collection of quotations against I should have any occasion

for them. Here are some fine lines from Lord Halifax's (838)

poem on the battle of the Boyne-

"The King leads on, the King does all inflame,

The King!-and carries millions in the name."

Then follows a simile about a deluge, which you may imagine,

but the next lines are very good -

"So on the foe the firm battalions prest,

And he, like the tenth wave, drove on the rest.

Fierce, gallant, young, he shot through every place,

Urging their flight, and hurrying on the chase,

He hung upon their rear, or lighten'd in their face."

The next are a magnificent compliment, and, as far as verse

goes, to be sure very applicable.

"Stop, stop! brave Prince, allay that inner flame;

Enough is given to England and to fame.

Remember, Sir, you in the centre stand;

Europe's divided interests you command,

All their designs uniting in your hand.

Down from your throne descends the golden chain

Which does the fabric of our world sustain,

That once dissolved by any fatal stroke,

The scheme of all our happiness is broke."

Adieu! my dear Sir: pray for peace!

(836) The two sons of the Duke du Maine, a natural son, but

legitimated, of Lewis the Fourteenth, by Madame de

Montespan.-E.

(837) Where Mr. Pelham lived.

(838) Charles Montagu, Earl of Halifax, the "Bufo" of Pope

"Proud as Apollo, on his forked hill

Sate full-blown Bufo, I)uff'd by every quill;

Fed with soft dedication all day long,

Horace and he went hand in hand in song."-E.

333 Letter 113

To Sir Horace Mann.

Houghton, July 11, 1743.

The Pembroke is arrived! Your brother slipped a slice of paper

into a letter which he sent me from you the other day, with

those pleasant words, "The Pembroke is arrived." I am going to

receive it. I shall be in town the end of this week, only stay

there about ten days, and wait on the Dominichin hither. Now

I tremble! If it should not stand the trial among the number

of capital pictures here! But it must; It will.

O, sweet lady!(839) What shall I do about her letter? I must

answer it-and where to find a penful of Italian in the world,

I know not. Well, she must take what she can get: gold and

silver I have not, but what I have I give unto her. Do you

say a vast deal of my concern for her illness, and that I

could not find decompounds and superlatives enough to express

myself. You never tell me a syllable from my sovereign lady

the princess: has she forgot me? What is become of Prince

Beauvau?(840) is he warring against us? Shall I write to Mr.

Conway to be very civil to him for my sake, if he is taken

prisoner? We expect another battle every day. Broglio has

joined Noailles, and Prince Charles is on the Neckar.

Noailles says, "Qu'il a fait une folie, mais qu'il est pr`et

`a la r`eparer." There is great blame thrown on Baron Ilton,

the Hanoverian General for having hindered the Guards from

en(,aging. If they had, and the horse, who behaved

wretchedly, had done their duty, it is agreed that there would

be no second engagement. The poor Duke is in a much worse way

than was at first apprehended: his wound proves a bad one; he

is gross, and has had a shivering fit, which is often the

forerunner of a mortification. There has been much thought of

making knights-banneret, but I believe the scheme is laid

aside; for, in the first place, they are never made but on the

field of battle, and now it was not thought on till some days

after; and besides, the King intended to make some who were

not actually in the battle.

Adieu! Possibly I may hear something in town worth telling

you.

(839) Madame Grifoni.

(840) Son of Prince Craon.

334 letter 114

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, July 19.

Here am I come a-Dominichining! and the first thing, I hear

is, that the Pembroke must perform quarantine fourteen days

for coming from the Mediterranean, and a week airing. It is

forty days, if they bring the plague from Sicily. I will bear

this misfortune as heroically as I can; and considering I have

London to bear it in, may possibly support it well enough.

The private letters from the army all talk of the King's going

to Hanover, 2nd of August, N. S. If he should not, one shall

be no longer in pain for him; for the French have repassed the

Rhine, and think only of preparing against Prince Charles, who

is marching sixty-two thousand men, full of conquest and

revenge, to regain his own country. I most cordially wish him

success, and that his bravery may recover what his abject

brother gave up so tamely, and which he takes as little

personal pains to regain. It is not at all determined whether

we are to carry the war into France. It is ridiculous enough!

we have the name of war with Spain, without the thing and war

with France, without the name!

The maiden heroes of the Guards are in great wrath with

General Ilton, who kept them out of harm's way. They call him

"the Confectioner," because he says he preserved them.

The week before I left Houghton my father had a most dreadful

accident: it had near been fatal; but he escaped miraculously.

He dined abroad, and went up to sleep. As he was coming down

again, not quite awakened, he was surprised at seeing the

company through a glass-door which he had not observed: his

foot slipped, and he, who is now entirely unwieldy and

helpless, fell at once down the stairs against the door,

which, had it not been there, he had dashed himself to pieces,

in a stone hall. He cut his forehead two inches long to the

pericranium, and another gash upon his temple; but, most

luckily, did himself' no other hurt, and was quite well again

before I came away.

I find Lord Stafford (841) married to Miss Cantillon; they are

to live half the year in London, half in Paris. Lord Lincoln

is soon to marry his cousin Miss Pelham: it will be great joy

to the whole house of Newcastle.

There is no determination yet come about the Treasury. Most

people wish for Mr. Pelham; few for Lord Carteret; none for

Lord Bath. My Lady TOWnshend said an admirable thing the

other day to this last: he was complaining much of a pain in

his side-"Oh!" said she, "that can't be; you have no side."

I have a new cabinet for my enamels and miniatures Just come

home, which I am sure you would like: it is of rosewood; the

doors inlaid with carvings in ivory.' I wish you could see

'It! Are you to be forever ministerial sans rel`ache? Are you

never to have leave to come and "settle your private affairs,"

as the newspapers call it?

A thousand loves to the Chutes. Does my sovereign lady yet

remember me, or has she lost with her eyes all thought of m!

Adieu!

P.S. Princess Louisa goes soon to her young Denmark: and

Princess Emily, it is now said, will have the man of Lubeck.

If he had missed the crown of Sweden, he was to have taken

Princess Caroline, because, in his private capacity, he was

not a competent match for the now-first daughter of England.

He is extremely handsome; it is fifteen years since Princess

Emily was so.

(841) William-Matthias, third Earl of Stafford. He died in

1751 without issue.-E.

335 letter 115

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, July 31, 1743.

If I went by my last week's reason for not writing to you, I

should miss this post too, for I have no more to tell you than

I had then; but at that rate, there would be great vacuums in

our correspondence. I am still here, waiting for the

Dominichin and the rest of the things. I have incredibly

trouble about them, for they arrived just as the quarantine

was established. Then they found out that the Pembroke had

left the fleet so long before the infection in Sicily began,

and had not touched at any port there, that the admiralty

absolved it. Then the things were brought up; then they were

sent back to be aired; and still I am not to have them in a

week. I tremble for the pictures; for they are to be aired at

the rough discretion of a master

of a hoy, for nobody I could send would be suffered to go

aboard. The city is outrageous; for you know, to merchants

there is no plague so dreadful as a stoppage of their trade.

The regency are so temporizing and timid, especially in this

inter-ministerium, that I am in great apprehensions of our

having the plague an island, so many ports, no power absolute

or active enough to establish the necessary precautions, and

all are necessary! And now it is on the continent too! While

confined to Sicily there were hopes: but I scarce conceive

that it will stop in two or three villages in Calabria. My

dear child, Heaven preserve you from it! I am in the utmost

pain on its being so near you. What will you do! whither will

you go, if it reaches Tuscany? Never think of staying in

Florence: shall I get you permission to retire out of that

State, in case of danger? but sure you would not hesitate on

such a crisis!

We have no news from the army: the minister there communicates

nothing to those here. No answer comes about the Treasury.

All is suspense: and clouds of breaches ready to burst. now

strange is this jumble! France with an unsettled ministry;

England with an unsettled one; a victory just gained over

them, yet no war ensuing, or declared from either side; our

minister still at Paris, as if to settle an amicable

intelligence of the losses on both sides! I think there was

Only wanting for Mr. Thompson to notify to them in form our

victory over them, and for Bussy(843) to have civil letters of

congratulation-'tis so well-bred an age!

I must tell you a bon-mot of Winnington. I was at dinner with

him and Lord Lincoln and Lord Stafford last week, and it

happened to be a maigre day of which Stafford was talking,

though, you may believe, without any scruples; "Why," said

Winnington, "what a religion is yours! they let you eat

nothing, and vet make you swallow every thing!"

My dear child, you will think when I am going to give you a

new commission, that I ought to remember those you give me.

Indeed I have not forgot one, though I know not how to execute

them. The Life of King Theodore is too big to send but by a

messenger; by the first that goes you shall have it. For

cobolt and zingho, your brother and I have made all inquiries,

but almost in vain, except that one person has told him that

there Is some such thing in Lancashire; I have written thither

to inquire. For the tea-trees, it is my brother-'s fault,

whom I desired, as he is at Chelsea, to get some from the

Physic-garden: he forgot it; but now I am in town myself, if

possible, you shall have some seed. After this, I still know

not how to give you a commission, for you over-execute; but on

conditions uninfringeable, I will give you one. I have begun

to collect drawings: now, if you will at any time buy me any

that you meet with at reasonable rates, for I will not give

great prices, I shall be much obliged to you. I would not

have above one, to be sure, of any of the Florentine school,

nor above one of any master after the immediate scholars of

Carlo Maratti. For the Bolognese school, I care not how many;

though I fear they will be too dear. But Mr. Chute

understands them. One condition is, that if he collects

drawings as well as prints, there is an end of the commission;

for you shall not buy me any, when he perhaps would like to

purchase them. The other condition is, that you regularly set

down the prices you pay; otherwise, if you send me any without

the price, I instantly return them unopened to your brother:

this, upon my honour, I will most strictly perform.

Adieu! write me minutely the history of the plague. If it

makes any progress towards you, I shall be a most unhappy man.

I am far from easy on our own account here.

(843) Mr. Thompson and the Abb`e de Bussy were the English and

French residents.

336 letter 117

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Aug. 14, 1743.

I should write to Mr. Chute to-day, but I won't till next

post: I will tell you why presently. Last week I did not

write at all; because I was every day waiting for the

Dominichin, etc. which I at last got last night-But oh! that

etc.! It makes me write to you, but I must leave it etc. for I

can't undertake to develop it. I can find no words to thank

you from my own fund; but Must apply an expression of the

Princess Craon's to myself, Which the number of charming

things you have sent me absolutely melts down from the

bombast, of which it consisted when she sent it me. "Monsieur,

votre g`en`erosit`e," (I am not sure it was not "votre

magnificence,") "ne me laisse rien `a d`esirer de tout ce qui

se trouve de pr`ecieux en Angleterre, dans la Chine, et aux

Indes." But still this don't express etc. The charming Madame

S`evign`e, who was still handsomer than Madame de Craon, and

had infinite wit, condescended to pun on sending her daughter

an excessively fine pearl necklace-"Voil`a, ma fille, un

pr`esent passant tous les pr`esents pass`es et pr`esents!" Do

you know that these words reduced to serious meaning, are not

sufficient for what you have sent me! If I were not afraid of

giving you all the trouble of airing and quarantine which I

have had with them, I would send them to you back again! It is

well our virtue is out of the ministry! What reproach it

would undergo! Why, my dear child, here would be bribery in

folio! How would mortals stare at such a present as this to

the son of a fallen minister! I believe half of it would

reinstate us again though the vast box of essences would not

half sweeten the treasury after the dirty wretches that have

fouled it since.

The Dominichin is safe; so is every thing. I cannot think it

of the same hand with the Sasso Ferrati you sent me. This

last is not so manier`e as the Dominichin; for the more I look

at it, the more I am convinced it is of him. It goes down

with me to-morrow to Houghton. The Andrea del Sarto is

particularly fine! the Sasso Ferriti particularly graceful-oh!

I should have kept that word for the Magdalen's head, which is

beautiful beyond measure. Indeed, my dear Sir, I am glad,

after my confusion is a little abated, that your part of the

things is so delightful; for I am very little satisfied with

my own purchases. Donato Creti's(844) copy is a wretched, raw

daub; the beautiful Virgin of the original he has made

horrible. Then for the statue, the face is not so broad as my

nail, and has not the turn of the antique. Indeed, La Vall`ee

has done the drapery well, but I can't pardon him the head.

My table I like; though he has stuck in among the ornaments

two vile china jars, that look like the modern japanning by

ladies. The Hermaphrodite, on my seeing it again, is too

sharp and hard-in short, your present has put me out of humour

with every thing of my own. You shall hear next week how my

lord is satisfied with his Dominichin. I have received the

letter and drawings by Crewe. By the way, my drawings of the

gallery are as bad as any thing of my own ordering. They gave

Crewe the letter for you at the-office, I believe, for I knew

nothing of his going, or I had sent you the Life of King

Theodore.

I was interrupted in my letter this morning by the Duke of

Devonshire, who called to see the Dominichin. Nobody knows

pictures better: he was charmed with it, and did not doubt its

Dominichinality.

I find another letter from you to-night of August 6th, and

thank you a thousand times for your goodness about Mr. Conway:

but I believe I told you, that as he is in the Guards, he was

not engaged. We hear nothing but that we are going to cross

the Rhine. All we know is from private letters: the Ministry

hear nothing. When the Hussars went to Kevenhuller for

orders, he said, "Messieurs, l'Alsace est

`a vous; je n'ai point d'autres ordres `a vous donner." They

have accordingly taken up their residence in a fine chateau

belonging to the Cardinal de Rohan, as Bishop of Strasbourg.

We expect nothing but war; and that war expects nothing but

conquest.

Your account of our officers was very false; for, instead of

the soldiers going on without commanders, some of them were

ready to go without their soldiers. I am sorry you have such

plague with your Neptune(845) and the Sardinian-we know not of

them scarce.

I really forget any thing of an Italian greyhound for the

Tesi. I promised her, I remember, a black spaniel-but how to

send it! I did promise one of the former to Marquis Mari at

Genoa, which I absolutely have not been able to get yet,

though I have often tried; but since the last Lord Halifax

died, there is no meeting with any of the breed. If I can, I

will get her one. I am sorry you are engaged in the opera. I

have found it a most dear undertaking. I was not in the

management: Lord Middlesex was chief. We were thirty

subscribers, at two hundred pounds each, which was to last

four years, and no other demands ever to be made. Instead of

that, we have been made to pay fifty-six pounds over and above

the subscription in one winter. I told the secretary in a

passion, that it was the last money I would ever pay for the

follies of directors.

I tremble at hearing that the plague is not over, as we

thought, but still spreading. You will see in the papers That

Lord Hervey is dead-luckily, I think. for himself; for he had

outlived the last inch of character. Adieu!

(844) A copy of a celebrated picture by Guido at Bologna, of

the Patron Saints of that city. VOL. 1. 29.-D.

(845) Admiral Matthews.

338 letter 117

To John Chute, Esq.(846)

Houghton, August 20, 1743.

Indeed, my dear Sir, you certainly did not use to be stupid,

and till you give me more substantial proof that you are so, I

shall not believe it. As for your temperate diet and milk

bringing about such a metamorphosis, I hold it impossible. I

have such lamentable proofs every day before my eyes of the

stupefying qualities of beef, ale, and wine, that I have

contracted a most religious veneration for your spiritual

nouriture. Only imagine that I here every day see men, who

are mountains of roast beef, and only seem just roughly hewn

out into the outlines of human form, like the giant-rock at

Pratolino! I shudder when I see them brandish their knives in

act to carve, and look on them as savages that devour one

another. I should not stare at all more than I do, if yonder

alderman at the lower end of the table was to stick his fork

into his neighbour's jolly cheek, and cut a brave slice of

brown and fat. Why, I'll swear I see no difference between a

country gentleman and a sirloin; whenever the first laughs, or

the latter is cut, there runs out the same stream of gravy!

Indeed, the sirloin does not ask quite so many questions. I

have an aunt here, a family piece of goods, an old remnant of

inquisitive hospitality and economy, who, to all intents and

purposes is as beefy as her neighbours. She wore me so down

yesterday with interrogatories, that I dreamt all night she

was at my ear with who's and why's, and when's and where's,

till at last in my very sleep I cried out, For God in heaven's

sake, Madam, ask me no more questions!