You will little have expected, my dear Sir, the great event

that happened yesterday. Mr. Pelham(467) is dead! all that

calm, that supineness, of which I have lately talked to you so

much, is at an end! there is no heir to such luck as his. The

whole people of England can never agree a second time upon the

same person for the residence of infallibility; and though so

many have found their interest in making Mr. Pelham the

fermier-general for their Venality, yet almost all have found

too, that it lowered their prices to have but one purchaser.

He could not have died at a more critical time: all the

elections were settled, all bargains made, and much money

advanced: and by the way, though there never was so little a

party, or so little to be made by a seat in Parliament, either

with regard to profit or fame, there never was such established

bribery, or so profuse. And as every thing was settled by his

life, so every thing is thrown into confusion by his death: the

difficulty Of naming, or of who should name the successor, is

almost insurmountable--for you are not such a transmontane as

to imagine that the, person who must sign the warrant will have

the filling it up. The three apparent candidates are Fox,

Pitt, and Murray; all three -with such encumbrances on their

hopes as make them very desperate. The Chancellor hates Fox;

the Duke of Newcastle does not (I don't say, love him, but to

speak in the proper phrase, does not) pretend to love him: the

Scotch abominate him, and they and the Jacobites make use of

his connexion with the Duke to represent him as formidable: the

Princess cannot approve him for the same reason: the law, as in

duty bound to the Chancellor and to Murray, and to themselves,

whom he always attacks, must dislike him. He has his parts and

the Whigs, and the seeming right of succession. Pitt has no

health, no party, and has, what in this case is allowed to

operate, the King's negative. Murray is a Scotchman, and it

has been suspected, of the worst dye: add a little of the

Chancellor's jealousy--all three are obnoxious to the

probability of the other two being disobliged by a preference.

There is no doubt but the Chancellor and the Duke of Newcastle

will endeavour to secure their own power, by giving an

exclusion to Fox: each of them has even been talked of for Lord

Treasurer; I say talked of, though Mr. Pelham died but

yesterday; but you can't imagine how much a million of people

can talk in a day on such a subject! It was even much imagined

yesterday, that Sir George Lee would be the Hulla, to wed the

post, till things are ripe for divorcing him again: he is an

unexceptionable man, sensible, of good character, the

ostensible favourite of the Princess, and obnoxious to no set

of men: for though he changed ridiculously quick on the

Prince's death, yet as every body changed with him, it offended

nobody; and what is a better reason for promoting him now, it

would offend nobody to turn him out again.

In this buzz is all the world at present: as the plot thickens

or opens, you shall hear more. In the mean time you will not

dislike to know a little of the circumstances of this death.

Mr. Pelham was not sixty-one; his florid, healthy constitution

promised long life, and his uninterrupted good fortune as long

power; yet the one hastened his end, and the other was enjoyed

in its full tranquillity but three poor years! i should not

say, enjoyed, for such was his peevishness and suspicions, that

the lightest trifles could poison all that stream of happiness!

he was careless of his health, most intemperate in eating, and

used no exercise. All this had naturally thrown him into a

most scorbutic habit, for which last summer he went to

Scarborough, but stayed there only a month, which would not

have cleansed a scorbutic kitten. The sea-air increased his

appetite, and his flatterers pampered it at their seats on the

road. He returned more distempered, and fell into a succession

of boils, fevers, and St. Anthony's fire--indeed, I think, into

such a carbuncular state of blood as carried off my brother.

He had recovered enough to come to the House of Commons; and

last Friday walked in the Park till he put himself into an

immense sweat; in that sweat he stood at a window to look at

horses, ate immoderately at dinner, relapsed at six that

evening, and died yesterday morning (Wednesday) a quarter

before six. His will was to be opened to-day; he is certainly

dead far from rich.(468) There arc great lamentations, some

joy, some disappointments, and much expectation. As a person

who loves to write history, better than to act in it, you will

easily believe that I confine my sensations on the occasion

chiefly to observation-at least, my care that posterity may

know all about it prevents my indulging any immoderate (grief;

consequently I am as well as can be expected, and ever yours,

etc.

(467) Henry Pelham, chancellor of the exchequer, and first

commissioner of the treasury; only brother of Thomas Duke of

Newcastle.

(468) Walpole, almost the only author who has treated the

memory of Mr. Pelham with disrespect, mentions to his honour,

that he "lived without abusing his power, and died poor." See

Memoires, vol. i. p. 332. By this expression, says Coxe, the

reader will be reminded of a curious coincidence in the

concluding lines of the eulogium inscribed on the base of Mr.

Pitt's statue, by his friend and pupil, the Right Honourable

George Canning, "Dispensing, for more than twenty years, the

favours of the crown, he lived without ostentation, and he died

poor."-E.

200 Letter 94

To Richard Bentley, Esq.

Arlington Street, March 14, 1754.

In the confusion of things, I last week hazarded a free letter

to you by the common post. The confusion is by no means

ceased. However, as some circumstances may have rendered a

desire of intelligence necessary, I send this by the coach,

with the last volume of Sir Charles Grandison, for its

chaperon.

After all the world has been named for chancellor of the

exchequer, and my Lord Chief Justice Lee, who is no part of the

world, really made so pro tempore; Lord Hartington went to

notify to Mr. Fox, that the cabinet council having given it as

their unanimous opinion to the King, that the Duke of Newcastle

should be at the head of the treasury, and he (Mr. Fox)

secretary of state with the management of the House of Commons;

his grace, who had submitted to so oracular a sentence, hoped

Mr. Fox would not refuse to concur in so salutary a measure;

and assured him, that Though the Duke would reserve the sole

disposition of the secret service-money, his grace would bestow

his entire confidence on Mr. Fox, and acquaint him with the

most minute details of that service. Mr. Fox bowed and obeyed-

-and, as a preliminary step, received the Chancellor's(469)

absolution. From thence he attended his--and our new master.

But either grief for his brother's death, or joy for it, had so

intoxicated the new maitre du palais, that he would not ratify

any one of the conditions he had imposed: and though my Lord

Hartington's virtue interposed, and remonstrated on the purport

of the message he had carried, the Duke persisted in assuming

the whole and undivided power himself, and left Mr. Fox no

choice, but of obeying or disobeying, as he might choose. This

produced the next day a letter from Mr. Fox, carried by Lord

Hartington, in which he refused secretary of state, and pinned

down the lie with which the new ministry is to commence. It

was tried to be patched up at the Chancellor's on Friday night,

though ineffectually: and yesterday morning Mr. Fox in an

audience desired to remain secretary at war. The Duke

immediately kissed hands-declared, in the most unusual manner,

universal minister. Legge was to be chancellor of the

exchequer: but I can't tell whether that disposition will hold,

as Lord Duplin is proclaimed the acting favourite. The German

Sir Thomas Robinson was thought on for the secretary's seals;

but has just sense enough to be unwilling to accept them under

so ridiculous an administration. This is the first act of the

comedy.

On Friday this august remnant of the Pelhams went to court for

the first time. At the foot of the stairs he cried and sunk

down: the yeomen of the guard were forced to drag him up under

the arms. When the closet-door opened, he flung himself at his

length at the King's feet, sobbed, and cried "God bless your

Majesty! God preserve your Majesty," and lay there howling and

embracing the King's knees, with one foot so extended, that

Lord Coventry, who was luckily in waiting, and begged the

standers-by to retire with "For God's sake, gentlemen, don't

look at a great man in distress," endeavouring to shut the

door, caught his grace's foot, and made him roar out with pain.

You can have no notion of what points of ceremony have been

agitated about the ears of the family. George Selwyn was told

that my Lady Catharine had not shed one tear: "And pray," said

he, "don't she intend it?" It is settled that Mrs. Watson is

not to cry till she is brought-to-bed.

You love George Selwyn's bon-mots: this crisis has redoubled

them: here is one of his best. My Lord Chancellor is to be

Earl of Clarendon--"Yes," said Selwyn, from the very summit of

the whites of his demure eyes; "and I suppose he will get the

title of Rochester for his son-in-law, my Lord Anson." Do you

think he will ever lose the title of Lord Rochester?

I expected that we should have been overrun with elegies and

panegyrics: indeed, I comforted myself, that one word in all of

them would atone for the rest--the late Mr. Pelham. But the

world seems to allow that their universal attachment and

submission was universal interestedness; there has not been

published a single encomium. Orator Henley alone has held

forth in his praise:-yesterday it was on charming Lady

Catherine. Don't you think it should have been in these words,

in his usual style? Oratory-chapel,--Right reason; madness;

charming Lady Catherine; hell fire," etc.

Monday, March 18.

Almost as extraordinary news as our political, is, that it has

snowed ten days successively, and most part of each day: it is

living in Muscovy, amid ice and revolutions: I hope lodgings

will begin to let a little dear in Siberia! Beckford and

Delaval, two celebrated partisans, met lately at Shaftesbury,

where they oppose one another: the latter said:

"Art thou the man whom men famed Beckford call?"

T'other replied,

"Art thou the much more famous Delaval?"

But to leave politics and change of ministries, and to come to

something of real consequence, I must apply you to my library

ceiling, of which I send you some rudiments. I propose to have

it all painted by Clermont; the principal part in chiaro scuro,

on the design which you drew for the Paraclete: but as that

pattern would be surfeiting, so often repeated in an extension

of twenty feet by thirty, I propose to break and enliven it by

compartments in colours, according to the enclosed sketch,

which you must adjust and dimension. Adieu!

(469) With whom he was at variance.

'202 Letter 95

To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, March 19, 1754.

You will live in the country, and then you are amazed that

people use you ill. Don't mistake me: I don't mean that you

deserve to be ill-treated for living in the country; at least

only by those who love and miss you; but if you inhabited the

town a little, you would not quite so much expect uprightness,

nor be so surprised at ingratitude, and . neglect. I am far

from disposed to justify the great C`u; but when you had

declined being his servant, do you wonder that he will not

serve your friends! I will tell you what, if the news of to-day

holds at all, which is what no one piece of news of this last

fortnight has done, you may be worse used by your cousin as

soon as you please; for he is one of the first upon the list

for secretary of state, in the room of the Duke of Newcastle.

Now again, are you such a rusticated animal as to suppose that

the Duke is dismissed for inability, on the death of his

brother. So far from it, it is already certainly known that it

was he who supported Mr. Pelham, and the impediments and rubs

thrown in the way of' absolute power long ago were the effects

of the latter's timidity and irresolution. The Duke, freed

from that clog, has declared himself sole minister, and the

King has kissed his hand upon it. Mr. Fox, who was the only

man in England that objected to this plan, is to be sent to a

prison which is building on the coast of Sussex, after the

model of Fort l'Ev`eque, under the direction of Mr. Taaffe.

Harry Legge is to be chancellor of the exchequer, but the

declared favour rests on Lord Duplin. Sir George Lyttelton is

to be treasurer of the navy. The parliament is to be dissolved

on the fourth of next month: till when, I suppose, none of the

changes will take place. These are the politics of the day;

but as they are a little fluctuating, notwithstanding the

steadiness of the new first minister, I will not answer that

they will hold true to Greatworth: nothing lasts now but the

bad weather.

I went two days ago, with Lady Ailesbury, and Mr. Conway, and

Miss Anne, to hear the rehearsal of Mrs. Clive's new farce,

which is very droll, with pretty music.

202 Letter 96

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, March 28, 1754.

I promised to write to you again soon, and therefore I do: that

Is, I stick to the letter, not to the essence; for I not Only

have very little to write, but your brother has, I believe,

already told you all that has happened. Mr. Fox received

almost at once a testimonial that he was the most proper for

minister, and a proof that he was not to be so. He on the

Tuesday consented to be secretary of state, with the management

of the House of Commons, and the very next day refused to be

the former, as he found he was not to have the latter. He

remains secretary at war, in rupture with the Duke of

Newcastle, (who, you know, has taken the treasury,) but

declaring against opposition. That Duke is omnipotent; and, to

show that power, makes use of nothing but machines. Sir Thomas

Robinson is secretary of state; Mr. Legge, chancellor of the

exchequer; Lord Duplin,(470) the agent of business.(471)

Yesterday an odd event happened: Lord Gower resigned the privy

seal: it had been for some time promised to the Duke of

Rutland,(472) who having been reported dead, and who really

having voided a quarry of stones, is come to town; and his

brother, a Lord William Manners, better known in the

groom-porter's annals than in those of Europe, and the whole

Manners family having intimated to the Duke of Newcastle that

unless Lord Gower was dismissed in a month, and the Duke of

Rutland instated in his place, they would oppose the prosperous

dawn of the new ministry, that poor Earl, who is inarticulate

with the palsy, has been drawn into a resignation, and is the

first sacrifice to the spirit of the new administration.(473)

You will very likely not understand such politics as these, but

they are the best we have.

Our old good-humoured friend Prince Craon is dead; don't you

think that the Princess will not still despair of looking well

in weeds! My Lord Orford's grandmother(474) is dead too; and

after her husband's death, (whose life, I believe, she has long

known to be not worth a farthing,) has left every thing to her

grandson. This makes me very happy, for I had apprehended,

from Lord Orford's indolence and inattention, and from his

mother's cunning and attention, that she would have wriggled

herself into the best clause in the will; but she is not

mentioned in it, and the Houghton pictures may still be saved.

Adieu! my dear Sir; I don't call this a letter, but a codicil

to my last: one can't write volumes on trifling events.

(470 Eldest son of William Hay, Earl of Kinnoul.

(471) For an account of the political changes which took place

upon the death of Mr. Pelham, see Lord Dover's Preface to these

Letters, vol. i. p. 29.-E.

(472) John Manners, third Duke of Rutland, the father of the

more celebrated Lord Granby. He died in 1779, at the age of

eighty-three.-D.

(473) The Duke of Rutland did not succeed to the privy seal;

but Charles Spencer, second Duke of Marlborough.-D.

(474) Margaret Tuckfield, second wife of Samuel Rolle, of

Haynton in Devonshire; by whom she was mother of Margaret

Countess of Orford, and afterwards married to John Harris, of

Hayne in Devonshire, master of the household to the King.

204 Letter 97

To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, April 24, 1754.

Before I received your letter of March 29th, I had already told

you the state of our politics, as they seemed fixed--at least

for the present. The Duke of Newcastle is alone and all

powerful, and, I suppose, smiles at those who thought that we

must be governed by a succession of geniuses. I don't know

whether there arc not more parts in governing without genius!-

-be it as it will, all the world acquiesces: he has placed all

the orators in whatever offices they demanded, and the New

Parliament, which is almost chosen, will not probably

degenerate from the complaisance of its predecessor. Which of

the popes was it, who being chosen for his insufficience, said,

"I could not have believed that it was so easy to govern!" You

will forgive my smiling in my turn at your begging me to lay

aside family considerations, and tell you if I do not think my

uncle the fittest subject for a first minister. My dear child,

you have forgot that three years are past since I so totally

laid aside all family considerations, as not to speak or even

bow to my uncle. Since the affair of Lord Orford and Miss

Nichol], I have not had the least intercourse with the

Pigwiggin branch; and should be very sorry if there were any

person in the world but you, and my uncle himself, who thought

him proper for minister.

I believe there is no manner of intention of sending Lord

Albemarle to Ireland: the style toward that island is extremely

lofty; and after some faint proposals of giving them some

agreeable governor, violent measures have been resumed: the

Speaker is removed from being chancellor of the exchequer, more

of his friends are displaced, and the Primate, with the

Chancellor and Lord Besborough, are again nominated lords

Justices. These measures must oppress the Irish spirit, or,

what is more likely, inflame it to despair. Lord Rochford

certainly returns to Turin. General Wall, who was in the

highest favour here, and who was really grown fond of England-

-not at all to the prejudice of doing us what hurt he could in

his public character, is recalled, to succeed Don Carvalho and

Lancaster, as secretary of state for foreign affairs. If he

regrets England too much, may not he think of taking Ireland in

his way back?

I shall fill up the remainder of an empty letter with

transcribing some sentences which have diverted me in a very

foolish vulgar book of travels, lately published by one

Drummond,(475) consul at Aleppo. Speaking of Florence, he

says, that the very evening of his arrival, he was carried by

Lord Eglinton and some other English, whom he names, to your

house: "Mr. Mann" (these are his words) "is extremely Polite,

and I do him barely justice in saying he is a fine gentleman,

though indeed this is as much as can be said of any person

whatever; yet there are various ways of distinguishing the

qualities that compose this amiable character, and of these,

he, in my opinion, possesses the most agreeable. He lives in a

fine palace; all the apartments on the ground-floor, which is

elegantly furnished, were lighted up; and the garden was a

little epitome of Vauxhall. These conversationi resemble our

card-assemblies;" (this is called writing travels, to observe

that an assembly is like an assembly!) "and this was remarkably

brilliant, for all the married ladies of fashion in Florence

were present; yet were they as much inferior to the fair part

of a British assembly, especially those of York and Edinburgh,

as a crew of female Laplanders are to the fairest dames of

Florence. Excuse this sally, which is more warm than just; for

even this assembly was not without a few lovely creatures.

Some played at cards, some passed the time in conversation;

others walked from place to place; and many retired with their

gallants into gloomy corners, where they entertained each

other, but in what manner I will not pretend to say; though, if

I may depend upon my information, which, by-the-by, was very

good, their taste and mine would not at all agree. In a word,

these countries teem with more singularities than I choose to

mention." You will conclude I had very little to say when I

had recourse to the observations of such a simpleton; but I

thought they would divert you for a moment, as they did me.

One don't dislike to know what even an Aleppo factor would

write of one-and I can't absolutely dislike him, as he was not

insensible to your agreeableness. I don't believe Orpheus

would think even a bear ungenteel when it danced to his music.

Adieu!

(475) Alexander Drummond, Esq. The work was entitled "Travels

through different Cities of Germany, Italy, Greece, and several

parts of Asia, as far as the banks of the Euphrates."-.

205 Letter 98

To John Chute, Esq.

Arlington Street, April 30, 1754.

My God! Farinelli, what has this nation done to the King of

Spain, that the moment we have any thing dear and precious he

should tear it from us!-This is not the beginning of my letter

to you, nor does it allude to Mr. Bentley; much less is it

relative to the captivity of the ten tribes; nor does the King

signify Benhadad or Tiglath-pileser; nor Spain, Assyria, as Dr.

Pococke or Warburton, misled by dissimilitude of names, or by

the Septuagint, may, for very good reasons, imagine--but it is

literally the commencement of my lady Rich's(476) epistle to

Farinelli on the recall of General Wall, as she relates it

herself. It serves extremely well for my own lamentation, when

I sit down by the waters of Strawberry, and think of ye, O

Chute and Bentley!

I have seen "Creusa,"(477) and more than agree with you: it is

the only new tragedy that I ever saw and really liked. The

plot is most interesting, and, though so complicated quite

clear and natural. The circumstance of so much distress being

brought on by characters, every one good, yet acting

consistently with their principles towards the misfortunes of

the drama, is quite new and pleasing. Nothing offended me but

that lisping Miss Haughton, whose every speech is

inarticulately oracular.

I was last night at a little ball at Lady Anne Furnese's for

the new Lords, Dartmouth and North, but nothing passed worth

relating; indeed, the only event since you left London was the

tragicomedy that was acted last Saturday at the Opera. One of

the dramatic guards fell flat on his face and motionless in an

apoplectic fit. The Princess(478) and her children were there.

Miss Chudleigh, who apparemment had never seen a man fall on

his face before, went into the most theatric fit of kicking and

shrieking that ever was seen. Several other women, who were

preparing their fits, were so distanced that she had the whole

house to herself; and, indeed such a confusion for half an hour

I never saw! The next day, at my Lady Townshend's, old Charles

Stanhope asked what these fits were called? Charles Townshend

replied, "The true convulsive fits, to be had only of the

maker." Adieu! my dear Sir. To-day looks summerish, but we

have no rain yet.

(476) One of the daughters and coheiresses of the Lord Mohun,

killed in a duel with Duke Hamilton.

(477) William Whitehead's tragedy of "Creusa" was brought out

at Drury Lane theatre with considerable applause. Mrs.

Pritchard performed the character of Creusa with great effect;

and as Garrick and Mossop also took parts in it, the

performance was so perfect, that it was hardly possible for it

not to succeed in the representation; yet it has seldom been

revived.-E.

(478) The Princess of Wales, mother to George the Third.-E.

]206 Letter 99

To John Chute, Esq.

Arlington Street, May 14, 1754.

My dear sir,

I wrote to you the last day of last month: I only mention it to

show you that I am- punctual to your desire. It is my only

reason for writing to-day, for I have nothing new to tell you.

The town is empty, dusty, and disagreeable; the country is cold

and comfortless; consequently I daily run from one to t'other',

as if both were so charming that I did not know which to

prefer. I am at present employed in no very lively manner, in

reading a treatise on commerce, which Count Perron has lent me,

of his own writing: this obliges me to go through with it,

though the subject and the style of the French would not engage

me much. It does not want sense.

T'other night a description was given me of the most

extraordinary declaration of love that ever was made. Have you

seen young Poniatowski?(479) he is very handsome. You have

seen the figure of the Duchess of Gordon,(480) who looks like a

raw-boned Scotch metaphysician that has got a red face by

drinking water. One day at the drawing-room, having never

spoken to him, she sent one of the foreign ministers to invite

Poniatowski to dinner with her for the next day. He bowed and

went. The moment the door opened, her two little sons, attired

like Cupids, with bows and arrows, shot at him; and one of them

literally hit his hair, and was very near putting his eye out,

and hindering his casting it to the couch

"Where she another sea-born Venus lay."

The only company besides this Highland goddess were two

Scotchmen, who could not speak a word of any language but their

own Erse; and to complete his astonishment at this allegorical

entertainment, with the dessert there entered a little horse,

and galloped round the table; a hieroglyphic I cannot solve.

Poniatowski accounts for this profusion of kindness by his

great-grandmother being a Gordon: but I believe it is to be

accounted for by * * * * Adieu! my dear Sir.

(479) Stanislaus, the ill-fated King of Poland.

(480) Lady Catherine Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Aberdeen,

widow of Cosmo Duke of Gordon, who died in 1752. She married,

secondly, Colonel Saates Morris.-E.

207 Letter 100

To Richard Bentley, Esq.

Arlington Street, May 18, 1754.

My dear Sir,

Unless you will be exact in dating your letters, you will

occasion me much confusion. Since the undated one which I

mentioned in my last, I have received another as unregistered,

with the fragment of the rock, telling me of one which had set

sail on the 18th, I suppose of last month, and been driven

back: this I conclude was the former undated. Yesterday, I

received a longer, tipped with May 8th. You must submit to

this lecture, and I hope will amend by it. I cannot promise

that I shall correct myself much in the intention I had of

writing to you seldomer and shorter at this time of year. If

you could be persuaded how insignificant I think all I do, how

little important it is even to myself, you would not wonder

that I have not much empressement to give the detail of it to

any body else. Little excursions to Strawberry, little parties

to dine there, and many jaunts to hurry Bromwich, and the

carver, and Clermont, are my material occupations. Think of

sending these 'cross the sea!-The times produce nothing. there

is neither party, nor controversy, nor gallantry, nor fashion,

nor literature-the whole proceeds like farmers regulating

themselves, their business, their views, their diversions, by

the almanac. Mr. Pelham's death has scarce produced a change;

the changes in Ireland, scarce a murmur. Even in France the

squabbles of the parliament and clergy are under the same

opiate influence.--I don't believe that Mademoiselle Murphy

(who is delivered of a prince, and is lodged openly at

Versailles) and Madame Pompadour will mix the least grain of

ratsbane in one another's tea. I, who love to ride in the

whirlwind, cannot record the yawns of such an age!

The little that I believe you would care to know relating to

the Strawberry annals, is, that the great tower is finished on

the outside, and the whole whitened, and has a charming effect,

especially as the verdure of this year is beyond what I have

ever seen it: the grove nearest the house comes on much; you

know I had almost despaired of its ever making a figure. The

bow-window room over the supper-parlour is finished; hung with

a plain blue paper, with a chintz bed and chairs; my father and

mother over the chimney in the Gibbons frame, about which you

know we were in dispute what to do. I have fixed on black and

gold, and it has a charming effect over your chimney with the

two dropping points, which is executed exactly; and the old

grate of Henry VIII. which you bought, is within it. In each

panel around the room is a single picture; Gray's, Sir Charles

Williams's, and yours, in their black and gold frames; mine is

to match yours; and, on each side the doors, are the pictures

of Mr. Churchill and Lady Mary, with their son, on one side,

Mr. Conway and Lady Ailesbury on the other. You can't imagine

how new and pretty this furniture is.-I believe I must get you

to send me an attestation under your hand that you knew nothing

of it, that Mr. Rigby may allow that at least this one room was

by my own direction. - AS the library and great parlour grow

finished, you shall have exact notice.

>From Mabland(481) I have little news to send you, but that the

obelisk is danced from the middle of the rabbit-warren into his

neighbour's garden, and he pays a ground-rent for looking at it

there. His shrubs are hitherto unmolested, Et

MaryboniaCoS(482) gaudet revirescere lucos!

The town is as busy again as ever on the affair of Canning, who

has been tried for perjury. The jury would have brought her in

guilty of perjury, but not wilful, till the judge informed them

that that would rather be an Irish verdict: they then brought

her in simply guilty, but recommended her. In short, nothing

is discovered: the most general opinion is, that she was

robbed, but by some other gipsy. For my own part, I am not at

all brought to believe her story, nor shall, till I hear that

living seven-and-twenty days without eating is among @ one of

those secrets for doing impossibilities, which I suppose will

be at last found out, and about the time that I am dead, even

some art of living for ever.

You was in pain for me, and indeed I was in pain for myself, on

the prospect of the sale of Dr. Mead's miniatures. You may be

easy; it is more than I am quite; for it is come out that the

late Prince of Wales had bought them every one.

I have not yet had time to have your granite examined, but will

next week. If you have not noticed to your sisters any present

of Ormer shells, I shall contradict myself, and accept them for

my Lady Lyttelton,(483) who is making a grotto. As many as you

can send conveniently, and any thing for the same use, will be

very acceptable. You will laugh when I tell you, that I am

employed to reconcile Sir George and Moore;(484) the latter has

been very flippant, say impertinent, on the former's giving a

little place to Bower, in preference to him. Think of my being

the mediator!

The Parliament is to meet for a few days the end of this month,

to give perfection to the Regency-bill. If the King dies

before the end of this month, the old Parliament revives, which

would make tolerable confusion, considering what sums have been

laid out on seats in this. Adieu! This letter did not come

kindly; I reckon it rather extorted from me, and therefore hope

it will not amuse. However, I am in tolerable charity with

you, and yours ever.

(481) A cant name which Mr. Walpole had given to Lord Radnor's

whimsical house and grounds at Twickenham.

(482) Lord Radnor's garden was full of statues, etc. like that

at Marylebone. (gray, in a letter to Wharton, of the 13th of

August in this year says, "By all means see Lord Radnor's place

again. He is a simple old Phobus, but nothing can spoil so

glorious a situation, which surpasses every thing round it."

Works, vol. iii. p. 119.-E).

(483) Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Robert Rich, Bart. was the

second wife of George Lord Lyttelton. She was separated from

her husband and survived him many years.-E.

(484) Author of The World, and some plays and poems. Moore had

written in defence of lord Lyttelton against the Letters to the

Whigs; which were not known to be Walpole's.

209 Letter 101

To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, May 21, 1754.

I did not intend to write to you till after Thursday, when all

your Boscawens, Rices, and Trevors(485) are to dine at

Strawberry Hill; but an event has happened, of which I cannot

delay giving you the instant pleasurable notice: now will you,

according to your custom, be guessing, and, according to your

custom, guessing wrong; but lest you should from my spirits

make any undutiful or disloyal conjectures for me, know, that

the great C`eu(486) of the Vine is dead, and that John the

first was yesterday proclaimed undoubted Monarch. Nay,

champion Dimmock himself shall cut the throat of any Tracy,

Atkins, or Harrison, who shall dare to gainsay the legality of

his title. In' short, there is no more will than was left by

the late Erasmus Shorter of particular memory. I consulted

Madame Rice, and she advised my directing to you at Mrs.

Whettenhall's; to whom I beg as many compliments as if she

wrote herself "La blanche Whitnell." As many to your sister

Harriot and to your brother, who I hear is with you. I am

sure, though both you and I had reason to be peevish with the

poor tigress, that you grieve with me for her death. I do most

sincerely, and for her Bessy: the man-tiger will be so sorry,

that I am sure he will marry again to comfort himself. I am so

tired with letters I have written on this event, that I can

scarce hold the pen. How we shall wish for you on Thursday-and

shan't you be proud to cock your tail at the Vine? Adieu!

(485) The daughters of Mr. Montagu's uncle, John Morley Trevor,

of Glynd in Sussex; Anne, married to General Boscawen; Lucy,

married to Edward Rice, Esq.; and Miss Grace Trevor, who was

living at Bath in 1792.-E.

(486) Anthony Chute, Esq. of the Vine, Hants; who had been

member for Newport, Hants.-E.

210 Letter 102

To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, May 23, 1754.

Pray continue your M`emoires of the war of the Delmontis;(487)

I have received two tomes, and am delighted with them. The

French and Irish Parliaments proceed so heavily, that one

cannot expect to live to the setting up the first standard; and

it is so long since the world has furnished any brisk event,

that I am charmed with this little military entremets. My Lady

Orford will certainly wish herself at Florence again on the

behalf of her old friend:(488) I always wish myself there; and,

according to custom, she and I should not be of the same party:

I cannot help wishing well to the rebellious. You ask, whether

this Countess can deprive her son of her estate?-by no means,

but by another child, which, at her age, and after the variety

of experiments which she has made in all countries, I cannot

think very likely to happen. I sometimes think her succession

not very distant: she is very asthmatic. Her life is as

retired as ever, and passed entirely with her husband, who

seems a martyr to his former fame, and is a slave to her

jealousy. She has given up nothing to him, and pays such

attention to her affairs, that she will soon be vastly rich.

But I won't be talking of her wealth, when the chief purpose of

my writing to-night is, to announce the unexpected riches and

good fortune of our dear Mr. Chute, I say our dear Mr. Chute,

for though you have not reason to be content with him, yet I

know your unchangeable heart-and I know he is so good, that if

you will take this occasion to write him a line of joy, I am

persuaded it will raccommode every thing; and though he will be

far from proving a regular correspondent, we shall all have

satisfaction in the re-establishment of the harmony.-In short,

that tartar his brother is dead: and having made no will, the

whole, and a very considerable whole, falls to our friend.

This good event happened but three days ago, and I wait with

the utmost impatience for his return from the Vine, where he

was at the critical instant. As the whole was in the tyrant's

power, and as every art had been used to turn the vinegar of

his temper against his brother, I had for some time lived

persuaded that he would execute the worst purposes-but let us

forgive him!

I like to see in the Gazette that Goldsworthy(489) is going to

be removed far from Florence: his sting has long been out-and

yet I cannot help feeling glad that even the shadow of a

competitor is removed from you.

We are going to have a week of Parliament-not to taste the new

one, of which there is no doubt, but to give it essence: by the

Regency-bill, if the King had died before it had sat, the old

one must have revived.

There is nothing else in the shape of news but small-pox and

miliary fevers, which have carried off people you did not know.

If I had not been eager to notify Mr. Chute's prosperity to

you, I think I must have deferred writing for a week or two

longer: it is unpleasant to be inventing a letter to send so

far, and must be disappointing when it comes from so far, and

brings so little. Adieu!

(487) This alludes to the proceedings of a mad prior of the

family of the Marchese Delmonti; who, with a party of ruffians,

had seized upon a strong castle called Monta di Santa Maria,

belonging to his brother the Marchese, and situated near

Cortona. From whence he and his band ravaged the neighbouring

country; and it was only with great difficulty that the troops

of the Grand Duke of Tuscany succeeded in dislodging them-D.

(488) Marquis del Monti.

(489) Consul to Lisbon.

211 Letter 103

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, June 5, 1754.

Though I wrote to you but a few days ago, when I told you of

Mr. Chute's good fortune, I must send you a few lines to-night

upon a particular occasion. Mr. Brand,(490) a very intimate

friend of mine, whom I believe you have formerly seen in Italy,

is just set out for Germany on his way to Rome. I know by long

and uninterrupted experience, that my barely saying he is my

friend, will secure for him the kindest reception in the world

from you: it would not express my conviction, if I said a word

more on that head. His story is very melancholy: about six or

seven years ago he married Lady Caroline Pierpoint,(491)

half-sister of Lady Mary Wortley;(492) a match quite of esteem,

she was rather older than he; but never were two people more

completely, more reasonably happy. He is naturally all

cheerfulness and laughter; she was very reserved, but quite

sensible and faultless. She died about this time twelvemonth

of a fever, and left him, with two little children, the most

unhappy man alive. He travels again to dissipate his grief:

you will love him much, if he stays any time with you. His

connexions are entirely with the Duke of Bedford.

I have had another letter from you to-day, with a farther

journal of the Delmonti war, which the rebels seem to be

leaving to the Pope to finish for them. It diverted me

extremely. had I received this letter before Mr. Brand set

out, I would have sent you the whole narrative of the affair of

Lord Orford and Miss -Nicholl; it is a little volume. The

breach, though now by time silenced, was, I assure you, final.

We have had a spurt of Parliament for five days, but it was

prorogued to-day. The next will be a terrible session from

elections and petitions. The Oxfordshire(493) will be endless;

the Appleby outrageous in expense. The former is a revival of

downright Whiggism and Jacobitism,, two liveries that have been

lately worn indiscriminately by all factions. The latter is a

contest between two young Croesus's, Lord Thanet(494) and Sir

James Lowther:(495) that a convert; this an hereditary Whig. A

knowing lawyer said, to-day, that with purchasing tenures,

votes, and carrying on the election and petition,

five-and-fifty thousand pounds will not pay the whole expense--

it makes one start! Good night! you must excuse the

nothingness of a supernumerary letter.

(490) Thomas Brand, of the Hoo, in Hertfordshire.

(491) Daughter of Evelyn, Duke of Kingston, by his second wife.

(492) Lady Mary, in a letter to her daughter, of the 23d of

July, 1753, says, "The death of Lady Carolina naturally raises

the mortifying reflection, on how slender a thread hangs all

worldly prosperity! I cannot say I am otherwise much touched

with it. It is true she was my sister, as it were, and in some

sense; but her behaviour to me never gave me any love, nor her

general conduct any esteem."-E.

(493) This was the great Oxfordshire contest between the

Jacobites and the Whigs. The candidates of the former party

were Viscount Wenman and Sir Edward Turner, Bart. those of the

latter, Viscount Parker, eldest son of the Earl of

Macclesfield, and Sir James Dashwood, Bart. Great sums were

spent on both sides: in the election the Jacobites carried it;

but on petition to the House of Commons, the ministers, as

usual, seated their own friends.-D.

(494) Sackville Tufton, eighth Earl of Thanet.-D.

(495) Sir James Lowther had succeeded his collateral relation,

Henry, third Viscount Lonsdale, in his vast estates. He became

afterwards remarkable for his eccentricities, and we fear, we

must add, for his tyranny and cruelty. Mr. Pitt created him

Earl of Lonsdale, in the year 1784. He died in 1802.-D. [In

1782, he offered to build, and Completely furnish and man, a

ship of war of seventy guns for the service of the country at

his own expense; but the proposal, though sanctioned by the

King, was rendered unnecessary to be carried into execution by

the peace.]

212 Letter 104

To George Montagu, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, Saturday, June 8, 1754.

By my computation you are about returned to Greatworth: I was

so afraid of my letters missing you on the road, that I

deferred till now telling you how much pleasure I shall have in

seeing you and the Colonel at Strawberry. I have long been

mortified that for these three years you have seen it only in

winter: it is now in the height of its greenth, blueth,

gloomth, honey-suckle and seringahood. I have no engagement

till Wednesday se'nnight, when I am obliged to be in town on

law business. You will have this to-morrow night; if I receive

a letter, which I beg you will direct to London, on Tuesday or

Wednesday, I will meet you here whatever day you will be so

good as to appoint. I thank the Colonel a thousand times. I

cannot write a word more; for I am getting into the chaise to

whisk to the Vine for two days, but shall be in town on Tuesday

night. Adieu!

213 Letter 105

To George Montagu, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, June 29, 1754.

I shall take care to send your letter the first time I write to

Mr. Bentley. It is above a fortnight since I heard from him.

I am much disappointed at not having seen you yet; I love you

should execute your intentions while you intend them, because

you are a little apt to alter your mind, and as I have set mine

on your seeing Strawberry Hill this summer, while it is in its

beauty, you will really mortify me by changing your purpose.

It is in vain that you ask for news: I was in town two days

ago, but heard nothing; indeed there were not people enough to

cause or make news. Lady Caroline Petersham had scraped

together a few foreigners, after her christening; but I cannot

say that the party was much livelier than if it had met at

Madame Montandre's.(496) You must let me know a little

beforehand when you have fixed your time for coming, because,

as I am towards flying about on my summer expeditions, I should

be unhappy not to be here just when you would like it. Adieu!

P. S. I supped at White's the other night with the great C`u,

and he was by far more gracious, both on your topic and my own,

than ever I knew him.

(496) Widow of Francis de la Rochefaucauld, Marquis de

Montandre, who came to England with William the Third, and

served in all the wars of that monarch, and of Queen Anne. He

was made a marshal in July 1739, and died in the following

August.-E.

213 Letter 106

To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, July 5, 1754.

I believe you never receive a letter from me at this season of

the year, without wishing for winter, that I might have

something to tell you. Warm weather in England disperses all

the world, except a few old folks, whose day of events is past,

and who contribute nothing to the society of news. There is a

court indeed as near as Kensington, but where the monarch is

old, the courtiers are seldom young: they sun themselves in a

window like flies in autumn, past even buzzing, and to be swept

away in the first hurricane of a new reign. However, as little

novelty as the season or the times produce, there is an

adventuress in the world, who even in the dullest times will

take care not to let conversation stagnate: this

public-spirited dame is no other than a Countess-dowager, my

sister-in-law, who has just notified to the town her intention

of parting from her second husband-a step which, being in

general not likely to occasion much surprise,-she had, however,

taken care to render extraordinary, by a course of inseparable

fondness and wonderful jealousy, for the three years since

these her second nuptials. The testimonials which Mr. Shirley

had received in print from that living academy of love-lore, my

Lady Vane, added to this excessive tenderness of one, little

less a novice, convinced every body that he was a perfect hero.

You will pity poor Hercules! Omphale, by a most unsentimental

precaution, has so secured to her own disposal her whole estate

and jointure, that he cannot command so much as a distaff; and

as she is not inclined to pay much for nothing, her offers on

the article of separation are exceedingly moderate. As yet he

has not accepted them, but is gone to Scarborough, and she into

the west, to settle her affairs, and from thence embarks for

France and Italy. I am sorry she will plague you again at

Florence; but I shall like to hear of what materials she

composes her second volume, and what reasons she will allege in

her new manifestoes: her mother, who sold her, is dead; the

all-powerful minister, who bought her, is dead! whom will she

charge with dragging her. to the bed of this second tyrant,

from whom she has been forced to fly--On her son's account, I

am really sorry for this second `equip`ee: I can't even help

pitying her! at her age nobody can take such steps, without

being sensible of their ridicule, and what snakes must such

passions be, as can hurry one over such reflections? Her

original story was certainly very unhappy; and the forcing so

very young a creature against her inclinations, unjustifiable:

but I much question whether any choice of her own could have

tied down her inclinations to -any temper--at least, I am sure

she had pitched upon a Hercules then, who of all men living was

the least proper to encounter such labours, my Lord

Chesterfield!

I have sent your letter to Mr. Chute, who is at his own Vine;

he had written to you of his own accord, and I trust your

friendship will be re-established as strongly as ever,

especially as there was no essential fault on either side, and

as you will now be prepared not to mind his aversion to

writing. Thank Dr. Cocchi for the book(497) he is so good as

to intend for me; I value any thing from him, though I scarce

understand any thing less than Greek and physic; the little I

knew of the first I have almost forgot, and the other, thank

God! I never had any occasion to know. I shall duly deliver

the other copies.

The French are encroaching extremely upon us in all the distant

parts of the world, especially in Virginia, from whence their

attempts occasion great uneasiness here. For my own part, I

think we are very lucky, when they will be so good as to begin

with us at the farther end. The revocation of the Parliament

of Paris, which is done or doing, is thought very bad for us: I

don't know but it may: in any other time I should have thought

not, as it is a concession or yielding from the throne, and

would naturally spirit up the Parliament to struggle on for

power; but no other age is a precedent for this. As no

oppression would, I believe, have driven them into rebellion,

no concession will tempt them to be more assuming. The King of

France will govern his Parliament by temporizing; the

Parliament of Ireland is governed by being treated like a

French one. Adieu!

(497) An edition of some of the Greek physicians.

215 Letter 107

To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, Saturday, July 6, 1754.

Your letter certainly stopped to drink somewhere by the way, I

suppose with the hearty hostess at the Windmill; for, though

written on Wednesday, it arrived here but this morning: it

could not have travelled more deliberately in the Speaker's

body-coach. I am concerned, because, your fishmonger not being

arrived, I fear you have stayed for my answer. The fish(498)

are apprised that they are to ride over to Park-place, and are

ready booted and spurred; and the moment their pad arrives,

they shall set forth. I would accompany them on a pillion if I

were not waiting for Lady Mary,(499) who has desired to bring a

poor sick girl here for a few days to try the air. You know

how courteous a knight I am to distressed virgins of five years

old, and that my castle-gates are always open to them. You

will, I am sure, accept this excuse for some days: and as soon

as ever my hospitality is completed, I will be ready to obey

your summons, though you should send a water-pot for me. I am

in no fear of not finding you in perfect verdure; for the sun,

I believe, is gone a great way off to some races or other,

where his horses are to run for the King's plate: we have not

heard of him in this neighbourhood. Adieu!

(497) Gold fish.

(499) Lady Mary Churchill.

215 Letter 108

To Sir Richard Bentley, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, July 9, 1754.

I only write a letter for company to the enclosed one. Mr.

Chute is returned from the Vine, and gives you a thousand

thanks for your letter; and if ever he writes, I don't doubt

but it will be to you. Gray and he come hither to-morrow, and

I am promised Montagu and the Colonel(500) in about a

fortnight--How naturally my pen adds, but when does Mr. Bentley

come! I am sure Mr. Wicks wants to ask me the same question

every day--"Speak to it, Horatio!" Sir Charles Williams

brought his eldest daughter hither last week: she is one of

your real admirers, and, without its being proposed to her,

went on the bowling-green, and drew a perspective view of the

castle from the angle, in a manner to deserve the thanks of the

Committee.(501) She is to be married to my Lord Essex in a

Week,(502) and I begged she would make you overseer of the

works at Cashiobury. Sir Charles told me, that on the Duke of

Bedford's wanting a Chinese house at Woburn, he said, "Why

don't your grace speak to mr. Walpole? He has the prettiest

plan in the world for one." --"Oh," replied the Duke, "but

then it would be too dear!" I hope this was a very great

economy, or I am sure ours would be very great extravagance:

only think of a plan for little Strawberry giving the alarm to

thirty thousand pounds a year! My dear sir, it is time to

retrench! Pray send me 'a slice of granite(503) no bigger than

a Naples biscuit.

The monument to my mother is at last erected; it puts me in

mind of the manner of interring the Kings of France: when the

reigning one dies, the last before him is buried. Will you

believe that I have not yet seen the tomb? None of my

acquaintance were in town, and I literally had not courage to

venture alone among the Westminster-boys at the Abbey: they are

as formidable to me as the ship-carpenters at Portsmouth. I

think I have showed you the inscription, and therefore I don't

send it yet].

I was reading t'other day the Life of Colonel Codrington,(504)

who founded the library at All Souls - he left a large estate

for the propagation of the Gospel, and ordered that three

hundred negroes should constantly be constantly employed upon

it. Did one ever hear a more truly Christian charity, than

keeping a perpetuity of three hundred slaves to look after the

Gospel's estate? How could one intend a religious legacy, and

miss the disposition of that estate for delivering three

hundred negroes from the most shocking slavery imaginable?

Must devotion be twisted into the unfeeling interests of trade?

I must revenge myself for the horror this fact has given me,

and tell you a story of Gideon.(505) He breeds his children

Christians: he had a mind to know what proficience his son had

made in his new religion; "So," says he, "I began, and asked

him, who made him; He said 'God.' I then asked him, who

redeemed him? He replied very readily, 'Christ.' Well, then I

was at the end of my interrogatories, and did not know what

other question to put to him. I said, Who--who--I did not know

what to say; at last I said, Who gave you that hat? 'The Holy

Ghost,' said the boy." Did you ever hear a better catechism?

The great cry against Nugent at Bristol was for having voted

for the Jew-bill: one old woman said, "What, must we be

represented by a Jew and an Irishman?" He replied with great

quickness, "My good dame, if you will step aside with me into a

corner, I will show you that I am not a Jew, and that I am an

Irishman."

The Princess(506) has breakfasted at the long Sir Thomas

Robinson's at Whitehall; my Lady Townshend will never forgive

it. The second dowager of Somerset(507) is gone to know

whether all her letters from the living to the dead have been

received. Before I bid you good-night, I must tell you of an

admirable curiosity: I was looking over one of our antiquarian

volumes, and in the description of Leeds is an account of Mr.

Thoresby's famous museum there-what do you think is one of the

rarities?--a knife taken from one of the Mohocks! Whether

tradition is infallible or not, as you say, I think so

authentic a relic will make their history indisputable.

Castles, Chinese houses, tombs, negroes, Jews, Irishmen,

princesses, and Mohocks--what a farrago do I send you! I trust

that a letter from England to Jersey has an imposing air, and

that you don't presume to laugh at any thing that comes from

your mother island. Adieu!

(500) Charles Montagu.

(501) Mr. Walpole, in these letters, calls the Strawberry

committee, those of his friends who had assisted in the plans

and Gothic ornaments of Strawberry Hill.

(502) The lady was married to the Earl of Essex on the 1st of

August. She died in childbed, in July 1759.-E.

(503) Mr. Walpole had commissioned Mr. Bentley to send him a

piece of the granite found in the island of Jersey, for a

sideboard in his dining-room.

(504) Colonel Christopher Codrington. He was governor of the

Leeward Islands, and died at Barbadoes in 1710. He bequeathed

his books, and the sum of ten thousand pounds, for the purpose

of erecting and furnishing the above-mentioned library. He

wrote some Latin poems, published in the "Musae Anglicanae,"

and addressed a copy of English verse to Garth on his

Dispensary.-E.

(505) Sampson Gideon, the noted rich Jew. [In 1759, his only

son, being then in his eleventh year, was created an English

baronet; and, in 1789, advanced to the dignity of Lord

Eardley.]

(506) Of Wales.

(507) Frances, oldest daughter and coheir of the Hon. Henry

Thynne. '

217 Letter 109

To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(508)

Strawberry Hill, August 6, 1754.

>From Sunday next, which is the eleventh, till the four or

five-and-twentieth, I am quite unengaged, and will wait upon

you any of the inclusive days, when your house is at leisure,

and you will summon me; therefore you have nothing to do but to

let me know your own time: or, if this period does not suit

you, I believe I shall be able to come to you any part of the

first fortnight in September; for, though I ought to go to

Hagley, it is incredible how I want resolution to tap such a

journey.

I wish you joy of escaping such an accident as breaking the

Duke's(509) leg; I hope he and you will be known to posterity

together by more dignified wounds than the kick of a horse. As

I can never employ my time better than in being your

biographer, I beg you will take care that I may have no such

plebeian mishaps upon my hands or, if the Duke is to fall out

of battle, he has such delicious lions and tigers, which I saw

the day before yesterday at Windsor, that he will be

exceedingly to blame, if he does not give some of them an

exclusive patent for tearing him to pieces.

There is a beautiful tiger at my neighbour Mr. Crammond's here,

of which I am so fond, that my Lady Townshend says it is the

only thing I ever wanted to kiss. As you know how strongly her

ladyship sympathizes with the Duke, she contrived to break the

tendon of her foot, the very day that his leg was in such

danger. Adieu!

P. S. You may certainly do what you please with the Fable;(510)

it is neither worth giving nor refusing.

(508) Now first printed.

(509) The Duke of Cumberland.

(510) The Entail.

218 Letter 110

To George Montagu, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, Aug 29, 1754.

You may be sure that I shall always be glad to see you whenever

you like to come hither, but I cannot help being sorry that you

are determined not to like the place, nor to let the Colonel

like it; a conclusion I may very justly make, when, I think,

for these four years, you have contrived to visit it only when

there is not a leaf upon the trees. Villas are generally

designed for summer; you are the single person who think they

look best in winter. You have still a more unlucky thought;

which Is, to visit the Vine in October. When I saw it in the

middle of summer, it was excessively damp; you will find it a

little difficult to persuade me to accompany you thither On

stilts, and I believe Mr. Chute Will not be quite happy that

you prefer that season; but for this I cannot answer at

present, for he is at Mr. Morris's in Cornwall. I shall expect

you and the Colonel here at the time you appoint. I engage for

no farther, unless it is a very fine season indeed. I beg my

compliments to Miss Montagu, and am yours ever.

218 Letter 111

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Oct. 6, 1754.

You have the kindest way in the world, my dear Sir, of

reproving my long silence, by accusing yourself. I have looked

at my dates, and though I was conscious Of not having written

to you for a long time, I did not think it had been so long as

three months. I ought to make some excuse, and the truth is

all I can make; if you have heard by any way in the world that

a single event worth mentioning has happened in England for

these three months, I will own myself guilty of abominable

neglect. If there has not, as you know my unalterable

affection for you, you will excuse me, and accuse the times.

Can one repeat often, that every thing stagnates? At present we

begin to think that the world may be roused again, and that an

East Indian war and a West Indian war may beget such a thing as

an European war. In short, the French have taken such cavalier

liberties with some of our forts, that are of great consequence

to cover Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia, that we are actually

despatching two regiments thither. As the climate and other

American circumstances are against these poor men, I pity them,

and think them too many, if the French mean nothing farther;

too few, if they do. Indeed, I am one of those that feel less

resentment when we are attacked so far off: I think it an

obligation to be eaten the last.

You have entertained me much with the progress of the history

of the Delmontis, and obliged me. I wish I could say I was not

shocked at the other part of your letter, where you mention the

re-establishment of the Inquisition at Florence. Had Richcourt

power enough to be so infamous! was he superstitious, fearful,

revengeful, or proud of being a tool of the court of Rome?

What is the fate of the poor Florentines, who are reduced to

regret the Medicis, who had usurped their government! You may

be glad, my dear child, that I am not at Florence; I should

distress your ministerial prudence, your necessary prudence, by

taking pleasure to speak openly of Richcourt as he deserves:

you know my warmth upon power and church power!

The Boccaneri seems to be one of those ladies who refine so

much upon debauchery as to make even matrimony enter into their

scheme of profligacy. I have known more than one instance,

since the days of the Signora Messalina, where the lady has not

been content to cuckold her husband but with another husband.

All passions carried to extremity embrace within their circle

even their opposites. I don't know whether Charles the Fifth

did not resign the empire Out Of ambition of more fame. I must

contradict myself in all passions; I don't believe Sir Robert

Brown will ever be so covetous as to find a pleasure in

squandering.

Mr. Chute is much yours: I am going with him in a day or two to

his Vine, where I shall try to draw him into amusing himself a

little with building and planting; hitherto he has done nothing

with his estate-but good.

You will have observed what precaution I had taken, in the

smallness of the sheet, not to have too much paper to fill; and

yet you see how much I have still upon my hands! As, I assure

you, were I to fill the remainder, all I should say would be

terribly wiredrawn, do excuse me: you shall hear an ample

detail of the first Admiral Vernon that springs out of our

American war; and I promise you at least half a brick of the

first sample that is sent over of any new Porto Bello. The

French have tied up the hands of an

excellent fanfaron, a Major Washington,(511) whom they took,

and engaged not to serve for a year. In his letter, he said,

"Believe me, as the cannon-balls flew over my head. they made a

most delightful sound." When your relation, General Guise, was

marching up to Carthagena, and the pelicans whistled round him,

he said, "What would Chlo`e(512) give for some of these to make

a pelican pie?" The conjecture made that scarce a rodomontade;

but what pity it is, that a man who can deal in hyperboles at

the mouth of a cannon, should be fond of them with a glass of

wine in his hand! I have heard Guise affirm, that the colliers

at Newcastle feed their children with fire-shovels! Good night.

(511) This was the celebrated Liberator of America, who had

been serving in the English army against the French for some

time with much distinction.

(512 ) The Duke of Newcastle's French cook.

220 Letter 112

To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(513)

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 24, 1754.

You have obliged me most extremely by telling me the progress

you have made in your most desirable affair.(514) I call it

progress, for, notwithstanding the authority you have for

supposing there may be a compromise, I cannot believe that the

Duke of Newcastle would have affirmed the contrary so directly,

if he had known of it. Mr. Brudenel very likely has been

promised my Lord Lincoln's interest, and then supposed he

should have the Duke's. However, that is not your affair; if

any body has reason to apprehend a breach of promise, it is

poor Mr. Brudenel. He can never come into competition with

you; and without saying any thing to reflect on him, I don't

know where you can ever have a competitor, and not have the

world on your side. Though the tenure is precarious, I cannot

help liking the situation for you. Any thing that sets you in

new lights, must be for your advantage. You are naturally

indolent and humble, and are content with being perfect in

whatever you happen to be. It is not flattering you to Say,

nor can you deny it, with all your modesty, that you have

always made yourself' master of whatever you have attempted,

and have never made yourself master of any thing without

shining extremely in it. If the King lives, you will have his

favour; if he lives it all, the Prince must have a greater

establishment, and then you will have the King's partiality to

countenance your being removed to some distinguished place

about the Prince: if the King should fail, your situation in

his family, and your age, naturally recommend you to an equal

place in the new household. I am the more desirous of seeing

you at court, because, when I consider the improbability of our

being in a situation to make war, I am earnest to have you have

other opportunities of being one of the first men in this

country, besides being a general. Don't think all I say on

this subject compliment. I can have no view in flattering you;

and You have a still better reason for believing me sincere,

which is, that you know well that I thought the same of you,

and professed the same to you, before I was of an age to have

either views or flattery; indeed, I believe you know me enough

to be sure that I am as void of both now as when I was

fourteen, and that I am so little apt to court any body, that

if you heard me say the same to any body but yourself, you

would easily think that I spoke what I thought.

George Montagu and his brother are here, and have kept me from

meeting you in town: we go on Saturday to the Vine. I fear

there is too much truth in what you have heard of your old

mistress.(515) When husband, wife, lover, and friend tell

every thing, can there but be a perpetual fracas? My dear

Harry, how lucky you was in what you escaped, and in what you

have got! People do sometimes avoid, not always, what is most

improper for them; but they do not afterwards always meet with

what they most deserve. But how lucky you are in every thing!

and how ungrateful a man to Providence if you are not thankful

for so many blessings as it has given you! I won't preach,

though the dreadful history which I have just heard of poor

Lord Drumlanrig(516) is enough to send one to La Trappe. My

compliments to all yours, and Adieu!

(513) Now first printed.

(514) His being appointed groom of the bedchamber to the King,

George the Second.-E.

(515) Caroline Fitzroy, Countess of Harrington.-E.

(516) Only son of Charles third Duke of Queensberry, who was

shot by the accidental discharge of his pistol on his journey

from Scotland to London, in company with his parents and newly-

married wife, a daughter of the Earl of Hopetoun. Lady Mary

Wortley thus alludes to this calamity in a letter to her

daughter:--"The Duchess of Queensberry's misfortune would move

compassion in the hardest heart; yet, all circumstances coolly

considered, I think the young lady deserves most to be pitied,

being left in the terrible situation of a young and, I suppose,

rich widowhood; which is walking blindfold upon stilts amidst

precipices, though perhaps as little sensible of her danger, as

a child of a quarter old would be in the paws of a monkey

leaping on the tiles of a house."-E.

221 Letter 113

To Richard Bentley, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, Nov. 3, 1754.

I have finished all my parties, and am drawing towards a

conclusion here: the Parliament meets in ten days: the House, I

hear, will be extremely full--curiosity drawing as many to town

as party used to do. The minister(517) in the house of Lords

is a new sight in these days.

Mr. Chute and I have been at Mr. Barret's(518) at Belhouse; I

never saw a place for which one did not wish, so totally void

of faults. What he has done is in Gothic, and very true,

though not up to the perfection of the committee. The hall is

pretty; the great dining room hung with good family pictures;

among which is his ancestor, the Lord Dacre who was

hanged.(519) I remember when Mr. Barret was first initiated in

the College of Arms by the present Dean of Exeter(520) at

Cambridge, he was overjoyed at the first ancestor he put up,

who was one of the murderers of Thomas Becket. The

chimney-pieces, except one little miscarriage into total Ionic

(he could not resist statuary and Siena marble), are all of a

good King James the First Gothic. I saw the heronry so fatal

to Po Yang, and told him that I was persuaded they were

descended from Becket's assassin, and I hoped from my Lord

Dacre too. He carried us to see the famous plantations and

buildings of the last Lord Petre. They are the Brobdignag of

the bad taste. The Unfinished house is execrable, massive, and

split through and through: it stands on the brow of a hill,

rather to seek for a prospect than to see one, and turns its

back upon an outrageous avenue which is closed with a screen of

tall trees, because he would not be at the expense of

beautifying the black front Of his house. The clumps are

gigantic, and very ill placed.

George Montagu and the Colonel have at last been here, and have

screamed with approbation through the whole Cu-gamut. Indeed,

the library is delightful. They went to the Vine, and approved

as much. Do you think we wished for you? I carried down

incense and mass-books, and we had most Catholic enjoyment Of

the chapel. In the evenings, indeed, we did touch a card a

little to please George--so much, that truly I have scarce an

idea left that is not spotted with clubs, hearts, spades, and

diamonds. There is a vote of the Strawberry committee for

great embellishments to the chapel, of which it will not be

long before you hear something. It will not be longer than the

spring, I trust, before you see something of it. In the mean

time, to rest your impatience, I have enclosed a scratch of

mine which you are to draw out better, and try if you can give

yourself a perfect idea of the place. All I can say is, that

my sketch is at least more intelligible than Gray's was of

Stoke, from which you made so like a picture.

Thank you much for the box of Guernsey lilies, which I have

received. I have been packing up a few seeds, which have

little merit but the merit they will have with you, that they

come from the Vine and Strawberry. My chief employ in this

part of the world, except surveying my library which has scarce

any thing but the painting to finish, is planting at Mrs.

Clive's, whither I remove all my superabundancies. I have

lately planted the green lane, that leads from her garden to

the common: "Well," said she, "when it is done, what shall we

call it?"-" Why," said I, " what would you call it but Drury

Lane?" I mentioned desiring some samples of your Swiss's(521

abilities: Mr. Chute and I even propose, if he should be

tolerable, and would continue reasonable, to tempt him over

hither, and make him work upon your designs-upon which, you

know, it is not easy to make you work. If he improves upon

your hands, do you think we shall purchase the fee-simple of

him for so many years, as Mr. Smith did of Canaletti?(522) We

will sell to the English. Can he paint perspectives, and

cathedral-aisles, and holy glooms? I am sure you could make

him paint delightful insides of the chapel at the Vine, and of

the library here. I never come up the stairs without

reflecting how different it is from its primitive state, when

my Lady Townshend all the way she came up the stairs, cried

out, "Lord God! Jesus! what a house! It is just such a house

as a parson's, where the children lie at the feet of the bed!"

I cant say that to-day it puts me much in mind of another

speech of my lady's, "That it would be a very pleasant place,

if Mrs. Clive's face did not rise upon it and make it so hot!"

The sun and Mrs. Clive seem gone for the winter.

The West Indian war has thrown me into a new study: I read

nothing but American voyages, and histories of plantations and

settlements. Among all the Indian nations, I have contracted a

particular intimacy with the Ontaouanoucs, a people with whom I

beg you will be acquainted: they pique themselves upon speaking

the purest dialect. How one should delight in the grammar and

dictionary of their Crusca! My only fear is, that if any of

them are taken prisoners, General Braddock is not a kind of man

to have proper attentions to so polite a people; I am even

apprehensive that he would damn them, and order them to be

scalped, in the very worst plantation-accent. I don't know

whether you know that none of the people of that immense

continent have any labials: they tell you que c'est ridicule to

shut the lips in order to speak. Indeed, I was as barbarous as

any polite nation in the world, in supposing that there was

nothing worth knowing among these charming savages. They are

in particular great orators, with this little variation from

British eloquence, that at the end of every important paragraph

they make a present; whereas we expect to receive one. They

begin all their answers with recapitulating what has been said

to them; and their method for this is, the respondent gives a

little stick to each of the bystanders, who is, for his share,

to remember such a paragraph of the speech that is to be

answered. You will wonder that I should have given the

preference to the Ontaouanoucs, when there is a much more

extraordinary nation to the north of Canada, who have but one

leg, and p-- from behind their ear; but I own I had rather

converse for any time with people who speak like Mr. Pitt, than

with a nation of jugglers, who are only fit to go about the

country, under the direction of Taafe and Montagu.(523) Their

existence I do not doubt; they are recorded by P`ere

Charlevoix, in his much admired history of New France, in which

there are such outrageous legends of miracles for the

propagation of the Gospel, that his fables in natural history

seem strict veracity.

Adieu! You write to me as seldom as if you were in an island

where the Duke of Newcastle was sole minister, parties at an

end, and where every thing had done happening. Yours ever.

P. S. I have just seen in the advertisements that there are

arrived two new volumes of Madame de S`evign`e's Letters.

Adieu, my American studies!--adieu, even my favourite

Ontaouanoucs!

(517) The Duke of Newcastle.

(518) Afterwards Lord Dacre.

(519) Thomas ninth Lord Dacre. Going, with other young

persons, one night from Herst Monceaux to steal a deer out of

his neighbour, Sir Nicholas Pelham's park (a frolic not unusual

in those days), a fray ensued, and one of the park-keepers

received a blow that caused his death; and although Lord Dacre

was not present on the spot, but in a distant part of the park,

he was nevertheless tried, convicted, and executed, in 1541.

His honours became forfeited, but were restored to his son in

1562.-E.

(520) Dr. Charles Lyttelton, brother of Lord Lyttelton. He was

first a barrister-at-law, but in 1712 entered into holy orders,

and in 1762 was consecrated Bishop of Carlisle. He died in

1768, unmarried.-E.

(521) Mr. Muntz, a Swiss painter.

(522) Mr. Smith, the English consul at Venice, had engaged

Canaletti for a certain number of years to paint exclusively

for him, at a fixed price, and sold his pictures at an advanced

price to English travellers.

(523) See ant`e 93, letter 35.-E.

224 Letter 114

To Richard Bentley, Esq.

Arlington Street, November 11, 1754.

If you was dead, to be sure you would have got somebody to tell

me so. If you was alive, to be sure in all this time you would

have told me so yourself. It is a month to-day since I

received a line from you. There was a Florentine ambassador

here in Oliver's reign, who with great circumspection wrote to

his court, "Some say the Protector is dead, others say he is

not: for my part, I believe neither one nor t'other." I quote

this sage personage, to show you that I have a good precedent,

in case I had a mind to continue neutral upon the point of your

existence. I can't resolve to believe you dead, lest I should

be forced to write to Mr. S. again to bemoan you; and on the

other hand, it is convenient to me to believe you living,

because I have just received the enclosed from your sister, and

the money from Ely. However, if you are actually dead, be so

good as to order your executor to receive the money, and to

answer your sister's letter. If you are not dead, I can tell

you who is, and at the same time whose death is to remain as

doubtful as yours till to-morrow morning Don't be alarmed! it

is only the Queen-dowager of Prussia. As excessive as the

concern for her is at court, the whole royal family, out of

great consideration for the mercers, lacemen, etc. agreed not

to shed a tear for her till tomorrow morning, when the birthday

will be over; but they are all to rise by six o'clock to-morrow

morning to cry quarts. This is the sum of all the news that I

learnt to-day on coming from Strawberry Hill, except that Lady

Betty Waldegrave was robbed t'other night In Hyde Park, under

the very noses of the lamps and the patrol. If any body is

robbed at the ball at court to-night, you shall hear in my next

despatch. I told you in my last that I had just got two new

volumes of Madame S`evign`e's Letters; but I have been cruelly

disappointed; they are two hundred letters which had been

omitted in the former editions, as having little or nothing

worth reading. How provoking, that they would at last let one

see that she could write so many letters that were not worth

reading! I will tell you the truth: as they are certainly hers,

I am glad to see them, but I cannot bear that any body else

should. Is not that true sentiment? How would you like to see

a letter of hers, describing a wild young Irish lord, a Lord P

* * * *, who has lately made one of our ingenious wagers, to

ride I don't know how many thousand miles in an hour, from

Paris to Fontainebleau? But admire the politesse of that

nation: instead of endeavouring to lame his horse, or to break

his neck, that he might lose the wager, his antagonist and the

spectators showed all the attention in the world to keep the

road clear, and to remove even pebbles out of his way. They

heaped coals of fire upon his head with all the good breeding

of the Gospel. Adieu! If my letters are short, at least my

notes are long.

225 Letter 115

To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, Nov. 16, 1754.

You are over-good to me, my dear Sir, in giving yourself the

trouble of telling me you was content with Strawberry Hill. I

will not, however, tell you, that I am Content with your being

there, till you have seen it in all its greenth and blueth.

Alas! I am sorry I cannot insist upon as much with the Colonel.

Mr. Chute, I believe, was so pleased with the tenebra in his

own chapel, that he has fairly buried himself in it. I have

not even had so much as a burial card from him since.

The town is as full as I believe you thought the room was at

your ball at Waldershare. I hear of nothing but the parts and

merit of Lord North. Nothing has happened yet, but sure so

many English people cannot be assembled long without committing

something extraordinary.

I have seen and conversed with our old friend Cope; I find him

grown very old; I fear he finds me so too; at least as old as I

ever intend to be. I find him very grave too, which I believe

he does not find me.

Solomon and Hesther, as my Lady Townshend calls Mr. Pitt and

Lady Hester Grenville, espouse one another to-day.(524) I know

nothing more but a new fashion which my Lady Hervey has brought

from Paris. It is a tin funnel covered with green ribbon, and

holds water, which the ladies wear to keep their bouquets

fresh. I fear Lady Caroline and some others will catch

frequent colds and sore throats with overturning this

reservoir.

Apropos, there is a match certainly in agitation, which has

very little of either Solomon or Hesther in it. You will be

sorry when I tell you, that Lord Waldegrave certainly

dis-Solomons himself with the Drax. Adieu! my dear Sir; I

congratulate Miss Montagu on her good health, and am ever

yours.

(524) On the ]6th of November, Mr. Pitt married Lady Hester

Grenville, only daughter of Richard Grenville, of Wotton, Esq.,

and of Hester, Countess Temple.-E.

226 Letter 116

To Richard Bentley, Esq.

Arlington Street, Nov. 20, 1754.

IF this does not turn out a scolding letter I am much mistaken.

I shall give way to it with the less scruple, as I think it

shall be the last of the kind; not that you will mend, but I

cannot support a commerce of visions! and therefore, whenever

you send me mighty cheap schemes for finding out longitudes and

philosophers' stones, you will excuse me if I only smile, and

don't order them to be examined by my council. For Heaven's

sake, don't be a projector! Is not it provoking, that, with

the best parts in the world, you should have so gentle a

portion of common sense?(525) But I am clear, that you never

will know the two things in the world that import you the most

to know, yourself and me. Thus much by way of preface: now for

the detail.

You tell me in your letter of November 3d, that the (quarry of

granite might be rented at twenty pounds or twenty shillings, I

don't know which, no matter, per annum. When I can't get a

table out of it, is it very likely you or I should get a

fortune out of it? What signifies the cheapness of the rent?

The cutting and shippage would be articles of some little

consequence! Who should be supervisor? You, who are so good a

manager, so attentive, so diligent, so expeditious, and so

accurate? Don't you think our quarry would turn to account?

Another article, to which I might apply the same questions, is

the project for importation of French wine: it is odd that a

scheme so cheap and so practicable should hitherto have been

totally overlooked. One would think the breed of smugglers was

lost, like the true spaniels, or genuine golden pippins! My

dear Sir, you know I never drink three glasses of my wine-can

you think I care whether, they are sour or sweet, cheap or

dear?--or do you think that I, who am always taking trouble to

reduce my trouble into as compact a volume as I can, would tap

such an article as importing my own wine? But now comes your

last proposal about the Gothic paper. When you made me fix up

mine, unpainted, engaging to paint it yourself, and yet could

never be persuaded to paint a yard of it, till I was forced to

give Bromwich's man God knows what to do it. would you make me

believe that you will paint a room eighteen by fifteen? But,

seriously, if it is possible for you to lay aside visions,

don't be throwing continual discouragements in my way. I have

told you seriously and emphatically that I am labouring your

restoration: the scheme is neither facile nor immediate:-but,

for God's sake! act like a reasonable man. You have a family

to whom you owe serious attention. Don't let me think, that if

you return, you will set out upon every wildgoose chase,

sticking to nothing, and neglecting chiefly the talents and

genius which you have in such excellence, to start projects

which you have too much honesty and too little application ever

to thrive by. This advice is, perhaps, worded harshly: but you

know the heart from which it proceeds, and you know that, with

all my prejudice to it, I can't even pardon your wit, when it

is employed to dress up schemes that I think romantic. The

glasses and Ray's Proverbs you shall have, and some more gold

fish, when I have leisure to go to Strawberry; for you know I

don't suffer any fisheries to be carried on there in my

absence.

I am as newsless as in the dead of summer: the Parliament

produces nothing but elections: there has already been one

division- on the Oxfordshire of two hundred and sixty-seven

Whigs to ninety-seven Tories: you may calculate the burial of

that election easily from these numbers.(526) The Queen of

Prussia is not dead, as I told you in my last. If you have

shed many tears for her, you may set them off to the account of

our son-in-law, the Prince of Hesse, who is turned Roman

Catholic. One is in this age so unused to conversions above

the rank of a housemaid turned Methodist, that it occasions as

much surprise as if one had heard that he had been initiated in

the Eleusinian mysteries. Are not you prodigiously alarmed for

the Protestant interest in Germany?

We have operas, burlettas, cargoes of Italian dancers, and none

good but the Mingotti, a very fine figure and actress. I don't

know a single bon-mot that is new: George Selwyn has not waked

yet for the winter. You will believe that, when I tell you,

that t'other night having lost eight hundred pounds at hazard,

he fell asleep upon the table with near half as much more

before him, and slept for three hours, with every body stamping

the box close at his ear. He will say prodigiously good things

when he does wake. In the mean time, can you be content with

one of Madame S`evign`e's best bons-mots, which I have found

amongst her new letters? Do you remember her German friend the

Princess of Tarente, who was always in mourning for some

sovereign prince or princess? One day Madame de S`evign`e

happening to meet her in colours, made her a low curtsey, and

said, "Madame, je me r`ejouis de la sant`e de l'Europe." I

think I may apply another of her speeches which pleased me, to

what I have said t@ you in the former part of my letter.

Mademoiselle du Plessis had said something she disapproved:

Madame S`evign`e said to her, "Mais que cela est sot; car je

veux vous parler doucement." Adieu!

(525) Cumberland, in his Memoirs, speaking of Mr. Bentley,

says, "There was a certain eccentricity and want of worldly

prudence in my uncle's character, that involved him in

distresses, and reduced him to situations uncongenial with his

feelings, and unpropitious to the cultivation and encouragement

of his talents."-E.

(526) At the close of the Oxfordshire election the sheriff

returned all the four candidates, who all of them petitioned.

Two were chosen upon what was called the new interest, and were

supported by the court; and two by the old interest. The

expense and animosity which this dispute occasioned is

incredible. Even murder was committed upon the place of

elections The friends of the new interest were ultimately voted

to be the sitting members by a majority of 233 against 103.-E.

228 Letter 117

To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, Dec. 1, 1754

You do me justice, my dear Sir,

when you impute the want of my letters to my want of news: as a

proof, I take up my pen again on the first spring-tide of

politics. However, as this is an age of abortions, and as I

have often announced to you a pregnancy of events, which have

soon after been stillborn, I beg you will not be disappointed

if nothing comes of the present ferment. The offenders and the

offended have too often shown their disposition to soothe, or

to be soothed, by preferments, for one to build much on the

duration or implacability of their aversions. In short, Mr.

Pitt has broke with the Duke of Newcastle, on the want of

power, and has alarmed the dozing House of Commons with some

sentences, extremely in the style of his former Pittics. As

Mr. Fox is not at all more in humour, the world expects every

day to see these two commanders, first unite to overturn all

their antagonists, and then worry One another. They have

already mumbled poor Sir Thomas Robinson cruelly. The

Chancellor of the exchequer(527) crouches under the storm, and

seems very willing to pass eldest. The Attorney-General(528)

seems cowed, and unwilling to support a war, of which the world

gives him the honour.(529) Nugent alone, with an intrepidity

worth his country, affects to stand up against the greatest

orator, and against the best reasoner of the age. What will

most surprise you is, that the Duke of Newcastle, who used to

tremble at shadows, appears unterrified at Gorgons! If I

should tell you in my next, that either of the Gorgons has

kissed hands for secretary of state, only smile: snakes are as

easily tamed as lapdogs.

I am glad you have got my Lord of Cork.(530) He is, I know, a

very worthy man, and though not a bright man, nor a man of the

world, much less a good author, yet it must be comfortable to

you now and then to see something besides travelling children,

booby governors, and abandoned women of quality. You say, you

have made my Lord Cork give up my Lord Bolingbroke: it is

comical to see how he is given up here, since the best of his

writings, his metaphysical divinity, have been published.

While he betrayed and abused every man who trusted him, or who

had forgiven him, or to whom he was obliged, he was a hero, a

patriot, and a philosopher; and the greatest genius of the age:

the moment his Craftsmen against Moses and St. Paul, etc. were

published, we have discovered that he was the worst man and the

worst writer in the world. The grand jury have presented his

works, and as long as there are any parsons, he will be ranked

with Tindal and Toland--nay, I don't know whether my father

won't become a rubric martyr, for having been persecuted by

him. Mr. Fraigneau's story of the late King's design of

removing my father and employing, Bolingbroke, is not new to

me; but I can give you two reasons, and one very strong indeed,

that convince me of its having no foundation, though it is much

believed here. During the last year of the late King's life,

he took extremely to New Park, and loved to shoot there, and

dined with my father and a private party, and a good deal of

punch. The Duchess of Kendal, who hated Sir Robert, and

favoured Bolingbroke, and was jealous for herself, grew uneasy

at these parties, and used to put one or two of the Germans

upon the King to prevent his drinking, (very odd preventives!)-

-however, they obeyed orders so well, that one day the King

flew into a great passion, and reprimanded them in his own

language with extreme warmth; and when he went to Hanover,

ordered my father to have the new lodge in the park finished

against his return; which did not look much like an intention

of breaking with the ranger of the Park. But what I am now

going to tell you is conclusive: the Duchess obtained an

interview for Bolingbroke in the King's closet, which not

succeeding, as lord Bolingbroke foresaw it might not at once,

he left a memorial with the King, who, the very next time he

saw Sir Robert, gave it to him.

You will expect that I should mention the progress of the West

Indian war; but the Parliamentary campaign opening so warmly,

has quite put the Ohio upon an obsolete foot. All I know is,

that the Virginians have disbanded all their troops and say

they will trust to England for their defence. The dissensions

in Ireland increase. At least, here are various and ample

fields for speeches, if we are to have new oppositions. You

will believe that I have not great faith in the prospect, when

I can come quietly hither for two or three days to place the

books in my new library. Mr. Chute is with me, and returns you

all your kind speeches with increase. Your two brothers, who

dine at lord Radnor's, have just been here, and found me

writing to you: your brother Gal. would not stay a moment, but

said, , Tell him I prefer his pleasure to my own." I wish, my

dear Sir, I could give you much more, that is, could tell you

more; but unless our civil wars continue, I shall know nothing

but of contested elections: a first session of a Parliament is

the most laborious scene of dulness that I know. Adieu!

(527) Mr. Legge.

(528) Mr. Murray; he was preferred to be attorney-general this

year, in the room of Sir Dudley Ryder, who was made lord chief

justice, on the death of Sir William Lee.

(529) "At this time," says Lord Waldegrave, "Fox had joined

Pitt in a kind of parliamentary opposition. They were both in

office,--the one paymaster, the other secretary at war,-and

therefore could not decently obstruct the public business; but

still they might attack persons, though not things. Pitt

undertook the difficult task of silencing Murray, the

attorney-general, the ablest man, as well as the ablest

debater, in the House of Commons; whilst Fox entertained

himself with the less dangerous amusement of exposing Sir

Thomas Robinson, or rather assisted him whilst he turned

himself into ridicule; for Sir Thomas, though a good secretary

of state -is far as the business of his office, was ignorant

even of the language of the House of Commons controversy; and

when he played the orator, it was so exceedingly ridiculous,

that those who loved and esteemcd him could not always preserve

a friendly composure of countenance." Memoirs, 1). 31.-E.

(530) John Earl of Orrery and Cork, author of a translation of

Pliny's Epistles, a Life of Dr. Swift, etc.

230 Letter 118

To Richard Bentley, Esq.

Arlington Street, Friday, Dec. 13, 1754.

"If we do not make this effort to recover our dignity, we shall

only sit here to register the arbitrary edicts of one too

powerful a subject." Non riconosci tu Faltero viso? Don't you

at once know the style? Shake those words all altogether-, and

see if they can be any thing but the disiecta membra of Pitt?

In short, about a fortnight ago, bomb burst. Pitt, who is

well, is married, is dissatisfied--not With his bride, but with

the Duke of Newcastle; has twice thundered out his

dissatisfaction in Parliament, and was seconded by Fox. The

event was exactly what I dare say you have already foreseen.

Pitt was to be turned out; overtures were made to Fox; Pitt is

not turned out: Fox is quieted with the dignity of

cabinet-counsellor, and the Duke of Newcastle remains

affronted--and omnipotent. The commentary on this text is too

long for a letter; it may be developed some time or other.

This scene has produced a diverting interlude; Sir George

Lyttelton, who could not reconcile his content with Mr. Pitt's

discontents, has been very ill with the cousinhood. In the

grief of his heart, he thought of resigning his place, but

somehow or other stumbled upon a negotiation for introducing

the Duke of Bedford into the ministry again, to balance the

loss of Mr. Pitt. Whatever persuaded him, he thought this

treaty so sure of success that he lost no time to be the agent

of it himself; and whether commissioned or noncommissioned, as

both he and the Duke of Newcastle say, he carried carte

blanche, to the Duke of Bedford, who bounced like a rocket,

frightened away poor Sir George, and sent for Mr. Pitt to

notify the overture. Pitt and the Grenvilles are outrageous;

the Duke of Newcastle disclaims his ambassador, and every body

laughs. Sir George came hither yesterday, to expectorate with

me, as he called it. Think how I pricked up my ears, as high

as King Midas, to hear a Lyttelton vent his grievances against

a Pitt and Grenvilles! Lord Temple has named Sir George the

apostolic nuncio; and George Selwyn says, "that he will

certainly be invited by Miss Ashe among the foreign ministers."

These are greater storms than perhaps you expected yet; they

have occasioned mighty bustle, and whisper, and speculation;

but you see

Pulveris exigui jactu composta quiescunt.

You will be diverted with a collateral incident. * * * * met

Dick Edgecumbe, and asked him with great importance, if he knew

whether Mr. Pitt was out. Edgecumbe, who thinks nothing

important that is not to be decided by dice, and who,

consequently, had never once thought of Pitt's political state,

replied, "Yes." "Ay! how do you know?" "Why, I called at his

door just now, and his porter told me so." Another political

event is, that Lord E. comes into place: he is to succeed Lord

Fitzwalter, who is to have Lord Grantham's pension, -who is

dead immensely rich: I think this is the last of the old

Opposition, of any name, except Sir John Barnard. If you have

curiosity about the Ohio, you must write to ]France: there I

believe they know something about it; here it was totally

forgot till last night, when an express arrived with an account

of the loss of one of the transports off Falmouth, with

eight officers and sixty men on board.

My Lady Townshend has been dying, and was wofully frightened,

and took prayers; but she is recovered now, even of her

repentance. You will not be undiverted to hear that the mob of

Sudbury have literally sent a card to the mob of Bury, to offer

their assistance at a contested election there: I hope to be

able to tell you in my next, that Mrs. Holman(531) has sent

cards to both mobs for her assembly.

The shrubs shall be sent, but you must stay till the holidays;

I shall not have time to go to Strawberry sooner. I have

received your second letter, dated November 22d, about the

Gothic paper. I hope you will by this time have got mine, to

dissuade you from that thought. If you insist upon it, I will

send the paper: I have told you what I think, and will

therefore say no more on that head; but I will transcribe a

passage which I found t'other day in Petronius, and thought not

unapplicable to you: "Omnium herbarum succos Democritus

expressit; et ne lapidum virgultorumque vis lateret, aetatem

inter experimenta consumpsit." I hope Democritus could not

draw charmingly when he threw away his time in extracting tints

from flints and twigs!

I can't conclude my letter without telling you what an escape I

had at the sale of Dr. Mead's library, which goes extremely

dear. In the catalogue I saw Winstanley's views of Audley-inn,

which I concluded was, as it really was, a thin, dirty folio,

worth about fifteen shillings. As I thought it might be

scarce, it might run to two or three guineas. however, I bid

Graham certainly buy it for me. He came the next morning in a

great fright, said he did not know whether he had done very

right or very wrong, that he had gone as far as nine-and-forty

guineas--I started in such a fright! Another bookseller had

luckily had as unlimited a commission, and bid fifty--when my

Graham begged it might be adjourned, till they could consult

their principals. I think I shall never give an unbounded

commission again, even for views of Les Rochers!(532) Adieu!

Am I ever to see any more of your hand-drawing? Adieu! Yours

ever.

(531) The lady of whom the anecdote is told p. 65, ant`e,

letter 22.-E.

(532) Madame de S`evign`e's seat in Bretagne.

231 Letter 119

To Richard Bentley, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, Dec. 24, 1754. '

My dear Sir,

I received your packet of December 6th last night, but

intending to come hither for a few days, and unluckily sent

away by the coach in the morning a parcel of things for you;

you must therefore wait till another bundle sets out, for the

new letters of Madame S`evign`e. Heaven forbid that I should

have said they were bad! I only meant that they were full of

family details, and mortal distempers, to which the most

immortal of us are subject: and I was sorry that the profane

should ever know that my divinity was ever troubled with a sore

leg, or the want of money; though, indeed, the latter defeats

Bussy@s ill natured accusation of avarice; and her tearing

herself from her daughter, then at Paris, to go and save money

in Bretagne to pay her debts, is a perfection of virtue which

completes her amiable character. My lady Hervey has made me

most happy, by bringing me from Paris an admirable copy of the

very portrait that was Madame de Simiane's: I am going to build

an altar for it, under the title of Notre Dame des Rochers!

Well! but you will want to know the contents of the parcel that

is set out. It Contains another parcel, which contains I don't

know what; but Mr. Cumberland sent it, and desired I would

transmit it to you. There arc Ray's Proverbs, in two volumes

interleaved; a few seeds, mislaid when I sent the last; a very

indifferent new tragedy, called "Barbarossa,"(533) now running;

the author(534) unknown, but believed to be Garrick himself.

There is not one word of Barbarossa's real story, but almost

the individual history of Merope; not one new thought, and,

which is the next material want, but one line of perfect

nonsense;

"And rain down transports in the shape of sorrow."

To complete it, the manners are so ill observed, that a

Mahometan princess royal is at full liberty to visit her lover

in Newgate, like the banker's daughter in George Barnwell. I

have added four more "Worlds,"(535) the second of which will, I

think, redeem my lord Chesterfield's character with you for

wit, except in the two stories, which are very flat: I mean

those of two misspelt letters. In the last "World,"(536)

besides the hand, you will find a story of your acquaintance:

BoncoEur means Norborne Berkeley, whose horse sinking up to his

middle in Woburn park, he would not allow that it was any thing

more than a little damp. The last story of a highwayman

happened almost literally to Mrs. Cavendish.

For news, I think I have none to tell you. Mr. Pitt is gone to

the Bath, and Mr. Fox to Newcastle House; and every body else

into the country for the holidays. When Lord Bath was told of

the first determination of turning out Pitt, and letting Fox

remain, he said it put him in mind of a story of the gunpowder

plot. The Lord Chamberlain was sent to examine the vaults

under the Parliament-house, and, returning with his report,

said he had found five-and-twenty barrels of gunpowder; that he

had removed ten of them, and hoped the other fifteen would do

no harm. Was ever any thing so well and so just?

The Russian ambassador is to give a masquerade for the birth of

the little great prince;(537) the King lends him Somerset

House: he wanted to borrow the palace over against me, and sent

to ask it of the cardinal-nephew (538) who replied, "Not for

half Russia."

The new madness is Oratorys. Macklin has set up one, under the

title of The British Inquisition;(539) Foote another against

him; and a third man has advertised another to-day. I have not

heard enough in their favour to tempt me to them, nor do I in

the world know enough to compose another paragraph. I am here

quite alone; Mr. Chute is setting out for his Vine; but in a

day or two I expect Mr. Williams,(540) George Selwyn, and Dick

Edgecumbe. You will allow that when I do admit any body within

my cloister, I choose them well. My present occupation is

putting up my books; and thanks to arches and pinnacles, and

pierced columns, I shall not appear scantily provided. Adieu!

(533) The tragedy of "Barbarossa" met with some success,

principally from the advantages it appeared under, by the

performance of Garrick and Mossop, in the parts of Achmet and

Barbarossa. Garrick also supplied the prologue and epilogue,.

It being mentioned to Dr. Johnson, that Garrick assisted the

author in the composition of this tragedy, "No, Sir," said the

Doctor, "Browne would no more suffer Garrick to write a line in

his play than he would suffer him to mount his pulpit."-E.

(534) The author was the ingenious but unhappy Dr. John Browne,

who was also author of the "Essays on Satire," occasioned by

the death of Pope, and the celebrated "Estimate of the Manners

and Principles of the Times." He had the misfortune to labour

under a constitutional dejection of spirits; and in September

1766, in an interval of deprivation of reason, put a period to

his existence, in his fifty-first year.-E.

(535) No. 92, Reflections on the Drinking Club; No. 98, On the

Italian Opera; No. 100, On Dr. Johnson's Dictionary; and No.

101, Humorous Observations on the English Language; by Lord

Chesterfield.-E.

(536) No. 103, On Politeness; and the Politeness of

Highwaymen.-E.

(537) The Czar Paul the first.

(538) Henry Earl of Lincoln, nephew to the Duke of Newcastle,

to whose title he succeeded.

(539) The British Inquisition was opened in 1754, by a public

ordinary, where every person was permitted, for three shillings

a-head, to drink port, or claret, or whatever liquor he should

choose. This was succeeded by a lecture on oratory. The plan

did not succeed; for while Macklin was engaged in drilling his

waiters, or fitting himself for the rostrum, his waiters, in

return, were robbing him in all directions; so that, in the

February of this year, he was declared a bankrupt, under the

designation of a vintner.-E.

(540) George James Williams, Esq. son of the eminent lawyer,

William Peere Williams.-E.

233 Letter 120

To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, Jan. 7, 1755.

I imagined by your letter the Colonel was in town, and was

shocked at not having been to wait on him; upon inquiry, I find

he is not; and now, can conceive how he came to tell you, that

the town has been entertained with a paper of mine; I send it

you, to show you that this is one of the many fabulous

histories which have been spread in such quantities, and

without foundation.

I shall take care of your letter to Mr. Bentley. Mr. Chute is

at the Vine, or I know he would, as I do, beg his compliments

to Miss Montagu. You do not wish me joy on the approaching

nuptials of Mr. Harris and our Miss Anne. He is so amorous,

that whenever he sits by her, (and he cannot stand by her,) my

Lady Townshend, by a very happy expression, says, "he is always

setting his dress." Have you heard of a Countess Chamfelt, a

Bohemian, rich and hideous, who is arrived here, and is under

the protection of Lady Caroline Petersham @ She has a great

facility at languages, and has already learned, "D--n you, and

kiss me;" I beg her pardon, I believe she never uses the

former, but upon the miscarriage of the latter: in short, as

Doddington says, she has had the honour of performing at most

courts in Europe. Adieu!

234 letter 121

To Richard Bentley, Esq.

Arlington Street, Jan. 9, 1755.

I used to say that one could not go out of London for two days

without finding at one's return that something very

extraordinary had happened; but of late the climate had lost

its propensity to odd accidents. Madness be praised, we are a

little restored to the want of our senses! I have been twice

this Christmas at Strawberry Hill for a few days, and at each

return have been not a little surprised: the last time, at the

very unexpected death of Lord Albemarle,(541) who was taken

ill at Paris, going home from supper, and expired in a few

hours; and last week at the far more extraordinary death of

Montford.(542) He himself, with all his judgment in bets, I

think would have betted any man in England against himself for

self-murder: yet after having been supposed the sharpest

genius of his time, he, by all that appears, shot himself on

the distress of his circumstances; an apoplectic disposition I

believe concurring, either to lower his spirits, or to alarm

them. Ever since Miss * * * * lived with him, either from

liking her himself, as some think, or to tempt her to marry

his lilliputian figure, he has squandered vast sums at Horse-

heath, and in living. He lost twelve hundred a-year by Lord

Albemarle's death, and four by Lord Gage's, the same day. He

asked immediately for the government of Virginia or the

Foxhounds, and pressed for an answer with an eagerness that

surprised the Duke of Newcastle, who never had a notion of

pinning down the relief of his own or any other man's wants to

a day. Yet that seems to have been the case of Montford, who

determined to throw the die of life and death, Tuesday was

Se'nnight, on the answer he was to receive from court; which

did not prove favourable. He consulted indirectly, and at

last pretty directly several people on the easiest method of

finishing life; and seems to have thought that he had been too

explicit; for he invited company to dinner for the day after

his death, and ordered a supper at Whites, where he Supped,

too, the night before. He played at whist till one in the

morning; it was New Year's morning - Lord Robert Bertie drank

to him a happy new year; he clapped his hands strangely to his

eyes! In the morning he had a lawyer and three witnesses, and

executed his will, which he made them read twice over,

paragraph by paragraph: and then asking the lawyer if that

will would stand good, though a man were to shoot himself? and

being assured it would; he said, " Pray stay while I step into

the next room;"=-went into the next room and shot himself. He

clapped the pistol so close to his head, that they heard no

report. The housekeeper heard him fall, and, thinking he had

a fit, ran up with drops, and found his skull and brains shot

about the room You will be charmed with the friendship and

generosity of Sir Francis. Montford a little time since

opened his circumstances to him. Sir Francis said, "Montford,

if it will be of any service to you, you shall see what I have

done for you;" pulled out his will, and read it, where he had

left him a vast legacy. The beauty of this action is

heightened by Sir Francis's life not being worth a year's

purchase. I own I feel for the distress this man must have

felt, before he decided on so desperate an action. I knew him

but little; but he was good-natured and agreeable enough, and

had the most compendious understanding I ever knew. He had

affected a finesse in money matters beyond what he deserved,

and aimed at reducing even natural affections to a kind of

calculations, like Demoivre's. He was asked, soon after his

daughter's marriage, if she was with child: he replied, "upon

my word, I don't know; I have no bet upon it." This and poor

* * * *'s self-murder have brought to light another, which

happening in France, had been sunk; * * * *'s. I can tell you

that the ancient and worshipful company- of lovers are under a

great dilemma, upon a husband and a gamester killing

themselves: I don't know whether they will not apply to

Parliament for an exclusive charter for self-murder.

On the occasion of Montford's story, I heard another more

extraordinary. If a man insures his life, this killing

himself vacates the bargain; This (as in England almost every

thing begets a contradiction) has produced an office for

insuring in spite of self-murder; but not beyond three hundred

pounds. I suppose voluntary deaths were not the bon-ton. of

people in higher life. A man went and insured his life,

securing this privilege of a free-dying Englishman. He

carried the insurers to dine at a tavern, where they met

several other persons. After dinner he said to the

life--and-death brokers, "Gentlemen, it is fit that you should

be acquainted with the company: these honest men are

tradesmen, to whom I was in debt, without any means of paying,

but by your assistance; and now I am your humble servant!" He

pulled out a pistol and shot himself. Did you ever hear of

such a mixture of honesty and knavery?

Lord Rochford is to succeed as groom of the stole. The Duke

of Marlborough is privy-seal, in the room of Lord Gower, who

is dead; and the Duke of Rutland is lord steward. Lord

Albemarle's other offices and honours are still in petto.

When the king first saw this Lord Albemarle, he said, "Your

father had a great many good qualities, but he was a sieve!"-

-It is 'the last receiver into which I should have thought his

Majesty would have poured gold! You will be pleased with the

monarch's politesse. Sir John Bland and Offley made interest

to play at Twelfth-night, and succeeded--not at play, for they

lost 1400 pounds and 1300 pounds. As it is not usual for

people of no higher rank to play, the King thought they would

be bashful about it, and took particular care to do the

honours of his house to them, set only to them, and spoke to

them at his levee next morning.

You love new nostrums and ]Inventions: there is discovered a

method of inoculating the cattle for the distemper-it succeeds

so well that they are not even marked. How we advance rapidly

in discoveries, and in applying every thing to every thing!

Here is another secret, that will better answer your purpose,

and I hope mine too. They found out lately at the Duke of

Argyle's, that any kind of ink may be made of privet: it

becomes green ink by mixing salt of tartar. I don't know the

process; but I am promised it by Campbell, who told me of it

t'other day, when I carried him the true genealogy of the

Bentleys, which he assured me shall be inserted in the next

edition of the Biographia.

There sets out to-morrow morning, by the Southampton wagon,

such a cargo of trees for you, that a detachment of Kentishmen

would be furnished against an invasion if they were to unroll

the bundle. I write to Mr. S * * * * to recommend great care

of them. Observe how I answer your demands: are you as

punctual? The forests in your landscapes do not thrive like

those in' your letters. Here is a letter from G. Montagu; and

then I think I may bid you good-night!

(541) In his "Memoires," Vol. i. p. 366, Walpole says, "He

died suddenly at Paris, where his mistress had sold him to the

French court." A writer in the Quarterly Review, Vol Ixii. p.

5, states that what he here asserts was generally believed in

Paris; for that, in the "M`emoires Secrets," published in

continuation of Bachaumont's Journal, it is said, on occasion

of the Count d'Herouville's death in 1782, that " he had been

talked of for the ministry under Louis XV. and would probably

have obtained it, had it not been for 'son mariage trop

in`egal. Il avait `epous`e la fameuse Lolotte maitresse du

Comte d'Albemarle, l'ambassadeur d'Angleterre, laquelle

servait d'espion au minist`ere de France aupr`es de son amant,

et a touch`e en cons`equence jusqu'`a sa mort une pension de

la cour de 12,000 livres.' But if the French court purchased,

as he reports, and as is sufficiently probable, instructions

of our ambassador, they could have learned from them nothing

to facilitate their own schemes of aggression--nothing but

what they knew before; for the policy of England, defective as

it might be on other points, had this great and paramount

advantage,-that it was open, honest, and straightforward."-E.

(542) Henry Bromley, created Lord Montford of Horse-heath, in

1741. He married Frances, daughter of Thomas Wyndham, Esq.

and sister and heiress of Sir Francis Wyndham, of Trent, in

the county of Somerset.-E.

236 Letter 122

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Jan. 9, 1755.

I had an intention of deferring writing to you, my dear Sir,

till I could wish you joy on the completion of your

approaching dignity:(543) but as the Duke of Newcastle is not

quite so expeditious as my friendship is earnest; and as your

brother tells me that you have had some very unnecessary

qualms, from your silence to me on this chapter, I can no

longer avoid telling you how pleased I am with any accession

of distinction to you and your family; I should like nothing

better but an accession of appointments: but I shall say no

more on this head, where wishes are so barren as mine. Your

brother, who had not time to write by this post, desires me to

tell you that the Duke will be obliged to you, if you will

send him the new map of Rome and of the patrimony of St.

Peter, which his Royal Highness says is just published.

You will have heard long before you receive this, of Lord

Albemarle's(544) sudden death at Paris: every body is so sorry

for him!--without being so: yet as sorry as he would have been

for any body, or as he deserved. Can one really regret a man,

who, with the most meritorious wife(545) and sons(546) in the

world, and with near 15,000 pounds a year from the government,

leaves not a shilling to his family, lawful or illegitimate,

(and both very numerous,) but dies immensely in debt, though,

when he married, he had 90,000 pounds, in the funds, and my

Lady Albemarle brought him 25,000 pounds more, all which is

dissipated to 14,000 pounds! The King very handsomely, and

tired with having done so much for a man who had so little

pretensions to it, immediately gave my Lady Albemarle 1200

pounds a year pension, and I trust will take care of this

Lord, who is a great friend of mine, and what is much better

for him, the first favourite of the Duke. If I were as grave

an historian as my Lord Clarendon, I should now without any

scruple tell you a dream; you would either believe it from my

dignity of character, or conclude from my dignity of character

that I did not believe it myself. As neither of these

important evasions will serve my turn, I shall relate the

following, only prefacing, that I do believe the dream

happened, and happened right among the millions of dreams that

do not hit. Lord Bury was at Windsor with the Duke when the

express of his father's death arrived: he came to town time

enough to find his mother and sisters at breakfast. "Lord!

child," said my Lady Albemarle, "what brings you to town so

early?" He said he had been sent for. Says she "You are not

well!" "Yes," replied Lord Bury, "I am, but a little

flustered with something I have heard." "Let me feel your

pulse," said Lady Albemarle: "Oh!" continued she, "your father

is dead!" "Lord Madam," said Lord Bury, "how could that come

into your head? I should rather have imagined that you would

have thought it was my poor brother William" (who is just gone

to Lisbon for his health). "No," said my Lady Albemarle, "I

know it is your father; I dreamed last night that he was dead,

and came to take leave of me!" and immediately swooned.

Lord Albemarle's places are not yet given away: ambassador at

Paris, I suppose, there will be none; it was merely kept up to

gratify him-besides, when we have no minister we can deliver

no memorials. Lord Rochford is, I quite believe, to be groom

of the stole: that leaves your Turin open--besides such

trifles as a blue garter, the second troop of Guards, and the

government of Virginia.

A death much more extraordinary is that of my Lord Mountford,

who, having all his life aimed at the character of a moneyed

man, and of an artfully money-getting man, has shot himself,

on having ruined himself. If he had despised money, he could

not have shot himself with more deliberate resolution. The

Only points he seems to have considered in so mad an action,

were, not to be thought mad, and which would be the easiest

method of despatching Himself. It is strange that the passage

from life to death should be an object, when One is unhappy

enough to be determined to change one for the other.

I warned you in my last not to wonder if you should hear that

either Mr. Pitt or Mr. Fox had kissed hands for secretary of

state; the latter has kissed the secretary of State's hand for

being a cabinet councillor.(547) The more I see, the more I

am confirmed in my idea of this being the age of abortions.

I have received yours of December 13th, and find myself

obliged to my Lord of Cork for a remembrance of me, which I

could not expect he should have preserved. Lord Huntingdon I

know very well, and like very much: he has parts, great good

breeding, and will certainly make a figure. You are lucky in

such company; yet I wish you had Mr. Brand!

I need not desire you not to believe the stories of such a

mountebank as Taylor:(548) I only wonder that he should think

the names of our family a recommendation at Rome; we are not

conscious of any such merit: nor have any Of our eyes ever

wanted to be put out. Adieu! my dear Sir, my dear Sir Horace.

(543) Mr. Mann was on the ]5th of February created a baronet,

with a reversion to his brother Galfridus.-E.

(544) For an interesting account of this magnificent

spendthrift, see M`emoires de Marmontel.-D.

(545) Lady Anne Lenox, sister of Charles Duke of Richmond.

(546) George Lord Viscount Bury, lord of the bedchamber to the

Duke, and colonel of a regiment; Augustus, captain of a

man-of-war, who was with Lord Anson in his famous expedition;

and William, colonel of the Guards, and aide-de-camp to the

Duke,; the two other sons were very young.

(547) "I proposed an interview between Fox and the Duke of

Newcastle, which produced the following agreement-that Fox

should be called up to the cabinet council; that employments

should be given to some of his friends, who were not yet

provided for; and that others, who had places already, should

be removed to bigger stations. Fox, during the whole

negotiation, behaved like a man of sense and a man of honour;

very frank, very explicit, and not very unreasonable."

Waldegrave's Memoirs.-E.

(548) A quack oculist. [Generally called the Chevalier Taylor. He

published his travels in 1762; in which he styled himself

"Ophthalmiator Pontifical, Imperial, Royal," etc.]

238 Letter 123

To Richard Bentley, Esq.

Arlington Street, Feb. 8, 1755.

My dear sir,

By the wagon on Thursday there set out for Southampton a lady

whom you must call Phillis, but whom George Montagu and the

Gods would name Speckle-belly. Peter begged her for me; that

is, for you; that is, for Captain Dumaresque, after he had

been asked three guineas for another. I hope she will not be

poisoned with salt-water, like the poor Poyangers.(549) If

she should, you will at least observe, that your commissions

are not stillborn with me, as mine are with you. I draw(550)

a spotted dog, the moment you desire it.