[Footnote 2: A name given to the Duke of Cumberland for his severities
to his prisoners after the battle of Culloden.]
The Houses sit, but no business will be done till after the holidays.
Anstruther's affair will go on, but not with much spirit. One wants to
see faces about again! Dick Lyttelton, one of the patriot officers, had
collected depositions on oath against the Duke for his behaviour in
Scotland, but I suppose he will now throw his papers into Hamlet's
grave?
Prince George, who has a most amiable countenance, behaved excessively
well on his father's death. When they told him of it, he turned pale,
and laid his hand on his breast. Ayscough said, "I am afraid, Sir, you
are not well!"--he replied, "I feel something here, just as I did when I
saw the two workmen fall from the scaffold at Kew." Prince Edward is a
very plain boy, with strange loose eyes, but was much the favourite. He
is a sayer of things! Two men were heard lamenting the death in
Leicester Fields: one said, "He has left a great many small
children!"--"Ay," replied the other, "and what is worse, they belong to
our parish!" But the most extraordinary reflections on his death were
set forth in a sermon at Mayfair chapel. "He had no great parts (pray
mind, this was the parson said so, not I), but he had great virtues;
indeed, they degenerated into vices: he was very generous, but I hear
his generosity has ruined a great many people: and then his
condescension was such, that he kept very bad company."
Adieu! my dear child; I have tried, you see, to blend so much public
history with our private griefs, as may help to interrupt your too great
attention to the calamities in the former part of my letter. You will,
with the properest good-nature in the world, break the news to the poor
girl, whom I pity, though I never saw. Miss Nicoll is, I am told,
extremely to be pitied too; but so is everybody that knew Whithed! Bear
it yourself as well as you can!
_CHANGES IN THE MINISTRY AND HOUSEHOLD--THE MISS GUNNINGS--EXTRAVAGANCE
IN LONDON--LORD HARCOURT, GOVERNOR OF THE PRINCE OF WALES._