HOUGHTON, _Sept._ 7, 1743.
My letters are now at their _ne plus ultra_ of nothingness; so you may
hope they will grow better again. I shall certainly go to town soon, for
my patience is worn out. Yesterday, the weather grew cold; I put on _a
new_ waistcoat for its being winter's birthday--the season I am forced
to love; for summer has no charms for me when I pass it in the country.
We are expecting another battle, and a congress at the same time.
Ministers seem to be flocking to Aix la Chapelle: and, what will much
surprise you, unless you have lived long enough not to be surprised, is,
that Lord Bolingbroke has hobbled the same way too--you will suppose, as
a minister for France; I tell you, no. My uncle [_old_ Horace], who is
here, was yesterday stumping along the gallery with a very political
march: my Lord asked him whither he was going. Oh, said I, to Aix la
Chapelle.
You ask me about the marrying Princesses. I know not a tittle. Princess
Louisa seems to be going, her clothes are bought; but marrying our
daughters makes no conversation. For either of the other two, all
thoughts seem to be dropped of it. The Senate of Sweden design
themselves to choose a wife for their man of Lubeck.
The City, and our supreme governors, the mob, are very angry that there
is a troop of French players at Clifden. One of them was lately
impertinent to a countryman, who thrashed him. His Royal Highness sent
angrily to know the cause. The fellow replied, "he thought to have
pleased his Highness in beating one of them, who had tried to kill his
father and had wounded his brother." This was not easy to answer.
I delight in Prince Craon's exact intelligence! For his satisfaction, I
can tell him that numbers, even here, would believe any story full as
absurd as that of the King and my Lord Stair; or that very one, if
anybody will write it over. Our faith in politics will match any
Neapolitan's in religion. A political missionary will make more converts
in a county progress than a Jesuit in the whole empire of China, and
will produce more preposterous miracles. Sir Watkin Williams, at the
last Welsh races, convinced the whole principality (by reading a letter
that affirmed it), that the King was not within two miles of the battle
of Dettingen. We are not good at hitting off anti-miracles, the only way
of defending one's own religion. I have read an admirable story of the
Duke of Buckingham, who, when James II. sent a priest to him to persuade
him to turn Papist, and was plied by him with miracles, told the doctor,
that if miracles were proofs of a religion, the Protestant cause was as
well supplied as theirs. We have lately had a very extraordinary one
near my estate in the country. A very holy man, as you might be, Doctor,
was travelling on foot, and was benighted. He came to the cottage of a
poor dowager, who had nothing in the house for herself and daughter but
a couple of eggs and a slice of bacon. However, as she was a pious
widow, she made the good man welcome. In the morning, at taking leave,
the saint made her over to God for payment, and prayed that whatever she
should do as soon as he was gone she might continue to do all day. This
was a very unlimited request, and, unless the saint was a prophet too,
might not have been very pleasant retribution. The good woman, who
minded her affairs, and was not to be put out of her way, went about her
business. She had a piece of coarse cloth to make a couple of shifts for
herself and child. She no sooner began to measure it but the yard fell
a-measuring, and there was no stopping it. It was sunset before the good
woman had time to take breath. She was almost stifled, for she was up to
her ears in ten thousand yards of cloth. She could have afforded to have
sold Lady Mary Wortley a clean shift, of the usual coarseness she wears,
for a groat halfpenny.
I wish you would tell the Princess this story. Madame Riccardi, or the
little Countess d'Elbenino, will doat on it. I don't think it will be
out of Pandolfini's way, if you tell it to the little Albizzi. You see I
have not forgot the tone of my Florentine acquaintance. I know I should
have translated it to them: you remember what admirable work I used to
make of such stories in broken Italian. I have heard old Churchill tell
Bussy English puns out of jest-books: particularly a reply about eating
hare, which he translated, "j'ai mon ventre plein de poil." Adieu!
_DEATH OF HIS FATHER--MATTHEWS AND LESTOCK IN THE
MEDITERRANEAN--THOMSON'S "TANCRED AND SIGISMUNDA"--AKENSIDE'S
ODES--CONUNDRUMS IN FASHION._