ARLINGTON STREET, _April_ 16, 1761.
You are a very mule; one offers you a handsome stall and manger in
Berkeley Square, and you will not accept it. I have chosen your coat, a
claret colour, to suit the complexion of the country you are going to
visit; but I have fixed nothing about the lace. Barrett had none of
gauze, but what were as broad as the Irish Channel. Your tailor found a
very reputable one at another place, but I would not determine rashly;
it will be two or three-and-twenty shillings the yard; you might have a
very substantial real lace, which would wear like your buffet, for
twenty. The second order of gauzes are frippery, none above twelve
shillings, and those tarnished, for the species is out of fashion. You
will have time to sit in judgment upon these important points; for
Hamilton your secretary told me at the Opera two nights ago, that he had
taken a house near Bushy, and hoped to be in my neighbourhood for four
months.
I was last night at your plump Countess's, who is so shrunk, that she
does not seem to be composed of above a dozen hassocs. Lord Guildford
rejoiced mightily over your preferment. The Duchess of Argyle was
playing there, not knowing that the great Pam was just dead, to wit,
her brother-in-law. He was abroad in the morning, was seized with a
palpitation after dinner and was dead before the surgeon could arrive.
There's the crown of Scotland too fallen upon my Lord Bute's head![1]
Poor Lord Edgecumbe is still alive, and may be so for some days; the
physicians, who no longer ago than Friday se'nnight persisted that he
had no dropsy, in order to prevent his having Ward, on Monday last
proposed that Ward should be called in, and at length they owned they
thought the mortification begun. It is not clear it is yet; at times he
is in his senses, and entirely so, composed, clear, and rational; talks
of his death, and but yesterday, after such a conversation with his
brother, asked for a pencil to amuse himself with drawing. What parts,
genius, and agreeableness thrown away at a hazard table, and not
permitted the chance of being saved by the villainy of physicians!
[Footnote 1: Lord Bute used his influence in favour of Scotchmen with so
little moderation that he raised a prejudice against the whole nation,
which found a vent in Wilkes's _North Briton_ and Churchill's bitter and
powerful satire, "The Prophecy of Famine."]
You will be pleased with the Anacreontic, written by Lord Middlesex upon
Sir Harry Bellendine: I have not seen anything so antique for ages; it
has all the fire, poetry, and simplicity of Horace.
Ye sons of Bacchus, come and join
In solemn dirge, while tapers shine
Around the grape-embossed shrine
Of honest Harry Bellendine.
Pour the rich juice of Bourdeaux's wine,
Mix'd with your falling tears of brine,
In full libation o'er the shrine
Of honest Harry Bellendine.
Your brows let ivy chaplets twine,
While you push round the sparkling wine,
And let your table be the shrine
Of honest Harry Bellendine.
He died in his vocation, of a high fever, after the celebration of some
orgies. Though but six hours in his senses, he gave a proof of his usual
good humour, making it his last request to the sister Tuftons to be
reconciled; which they are. His pretty villa, in my neighbourhood, I
fancy he has left to the new Lord Lorn. I must tell you an admirable
_bon mot_ of George Selwyn, though not a new one; when there was a
malicious report that the eldest Tufton was to marry Dr. Duncan, Selwyn
said, "How often will she repeat that line of Shakspeare,