How shall I tell you the greatest curiosity of the story? The whole plan
and execution of the second act was laid and adjusted by my Lady Suffolk
herself and Will. Chetwynd, Master of the Mint, Lord Bolingbroke's
Oroonoko-Chetwynd;[1] he fourscore, she past seventy-six; and, what is
more, much worse than I was, for added to her deafness, she has been
confined these three weeks with the gout in her eyes, and was actually
then in misery, and had been without sleep. What spirits, and
cleverness, and imagination, at that age, and under those afflicting
circumstances! You reconnoitre her old court knowledge, how charmingly
she has applied it! Do you wonder I pass so many hours and evenings with
her? Alas! I had like to have lost her this morning! They had poulticed
her feet to draw the gout downwards, and began to succeed yesterday, but
to-day it flew up into her head, and she was almost in convulsions with
the agony, and screamed dreadfully; proof enough how ill she was, for
her patience and good breeding makes her for ever sink and conceal what
she feels. This evening the gout has been driven back to her foot, and I
trust she is out of danger. Her loss will be irreparable to me at
Twickenham, where she is by far the most rational and agreeable company
I have.
[Footnote 1: Oroonoko-Chetwynd, M.P. for Plymouth. He was called
Oroonoko and sometimes "Black Will," from his dark complexion.]
I don't tell you that the Hereditary Prince [of Brunswick][1] is still
expected and not arrived. A royal wedding would be a flat episode after
a _real_ fairy tale, though the bridegroom is a hero. I have not seen
your brother General yet, but have called on him, When come you
yourself? Never mind the town and its filthy politics; we can go to the
Gallery at Strawberry--stay, I don't know whether we can or not, my hill
is almost drowned, I don't know how your mountain is--well, we can take
a boat, and always be gay there; I wish we may be so at seventy-six and
eighty! I abominate politics more and more; we had glories, and would
not keep them: well! content, that there was an end of blood; then perks
prerogative its ass's ears up; we are always to be saving our liberties,
and then staking them again! 'Tis wearisome! I hate the discussion, and
yet one cannot always sit at a gaming-table and never make a bet. I wish
for nothing, I care not a straw for the inns or the outs; I determine
never to think of them, yet the contagion catches one; can you tell
anything that will prevent infection? Well then, here I swear,--no, I
won't swear, one always breaks one's oath. Oh, that I had been born to
love a court like Sir William Breton! I should have lived and died with
the comfort of thinking that courts there will be to all eternity, and
the liberty of my country would never once have ruffled my smile, or
spoiled my bow. I envy Sir William. Good night!
[Footnote 1: The Duke of Brunswick, who was mortally wounded in 1806 at
the battle of Jena. He had come, as is mentioned in the next letter, to
marry the King's sister.]
_MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF BRUNSWICK: HIS POPULARITY._