having intended a journey into Warwickshire to see Lady

Hertford while my lord is in Ireland, and having accordingly

ordered my letters thither, though without going, I did not

receive yours of the 22d till last week; and though you

desired an immediate acknowledgment of it, I own I did defer

till I could tell you I had been at Linton,(820) from whence I

returned yesterday. I had long promised your brother a visit;

the immediate cause was very melancholy, and I must pass over it

rapidly-in short, I am going to place an urn in the church there

to our dear Gal.! If I could have divested myself of that

thought, I should have passed my time very happily; the house is

fine, and stands like the citadel of Kent; the whole county is

its garden. So rich a prospect scarce wants my Thames. Mr. and

Mrs. Foote(821) are settled there, two of the most agreeable and

sensible people I ever met. Their eldest boy has the finest

countenance in the world; your nephew

Hory(822) was there too, and has a sweetness of temper, as if

begot between your brother and you, and not between him and his

Tusephone. Your eldest brother has not only established your

sister Foote there, which looks well, but dropped very agreeable

hints about Hory.

Your letter has confirmed my satisfaction about your situation

about which indeed I am easy. I am persuaded you will remain at

Florence as long as King George has any minister there. I do

not imagine that a recall obliges you to return home;

whether you could get your appointments continued is very

different. It is certainly far from unprecedented: nay, more

than one have received them at home--but that is a favour far

beyond my reach to obtain. Should there be occasion, you must

try all your friends, and all that have professed themselves so;

your Mr. Pelham(823) might do something. In the mean time,

neglect none of the ministers. If you could wind into a

correspondence with Colonel Yorke,(824) at the Hague, he may be

of great service to you. That family is very Powerful: the

eldest brother, Lord Royston,(825) is historically curious and

political: if without its appearing too forced, you could at any

time send him uncommon letters, papers, manifestoes', and things

of that sort, it might do good service. My dear child, I can

give you better advice than assistance: I believe I have told

you before, that I should rather hurt you than serve you by

acting openly for you.

I told you in my last Admiral Boscawen's affair too strongly:

he is not disgraced nor dismissed, but seems to reckon himself

both. The story is far from exactly known: what I can sift out

is, that he indulged himself in a great latitude in a most

profitable station, was recalled against his inclination, for

the present expedition; not being easily met, a second

commander was appointed, whom it seems he did not much care to

serve under at first. He does not serve at all, and his

Boscawenhood is much more Boscawened; that is surely in the

deepest shade. The wind has blown so constantly west for nearly

three weeks, that we have not only received no mails from the

continent, but the transports have been detained in the Downs,

and the secret expedition has remained at anchor. I have prayed

it might continue, but the wind has got to the east to-day.

Having never been prejudiced in favour of this exploit, what

must I think of it when the French have had such long notice?

We had a torrent of bad news yesterday from America, Lord

Loudon has found an army of twenty-one thousand French, gives

over the design on Louisbourg, and retires to Halifax.

Admiral Holbourn writes, that they have nineteen ships to his

seventeen, and he cannot attack them. It is time for England to

slip her own cables, and float away into some unknown

ocean!

Between disgraces and an inflammation in my eyes, it is time to

conclude my letter. My eyes I have certainly weakened with

using them too much at night. I went the other day to

Scarlet's to buy green spectacles; he was mighty assiduous to

give me a pair that would not tumble my hair. "Lord! Sir," said

I, "when one is come to wear spectacles, what signifies how one

looks?"

I hope soon to add another volume to your packet from my

press. I shall now only print for presents; or to talk in a

higher style, I shall only give my Louvre editions to

privy-councillors and foreign ministers. Apropos! there is a

book of this sacred sort which I wish I could by your means

procure: it is the account, with plates, of what has been found

at Herculaneum. You may promise the King of Naples in return

all my editions. Adieu! my dear Sir.

Sept. 4.

I had sealed this up, and was just sending it to London, when I

received yours of the 13th of this month. I am charmed with the

success of your campaign at Leghorn-a few such generals or

ministers would give a revulsion to our affairs.

You frighten me with telling me of innumerable copies taken of

my inscription on the Pope's picture: some of our bear-leaders

will pick it up, send it over, and I shall have the horror of

seeing it in a magazine. Though I had no scruple of sending the

good old man a cordial, I should hate to have it published at

the tail of a newspaper, like a testimonial from one of Dr.

Rock's patients! You talk of the Pope's enemies; who are they?

I thought at most he could have none but at our

bonfires on the fifth of November.

(820) In Kent, the seat of Edward Louisa Mann, brother of sir

Horace.

(821) Sister of Sir Horace.

(822) Horace, only son of Galfridus Mann.

(823) Thomas. afterwards Lord Pelham.

(824) Sir Joseph Yorke, K. B. third son of the chancellor

Hardwicke: created Lord Dover in 1788, and died without issue in

1792.-E.

(825) Afterwards second Earl of Hardwicke.-D.

395 Letter 238

To George Montagu, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 8, 1757.

How I laughed at your picture of the shrine of Notre Dame de

Straberri, and of the vows hung up there! I little thought that

when I converted my castle into a printing office, the next

transformation Would be into an hospital for the "filles

repenties" from Mrs. Naylor's and Lady Fitzroy's.(826) You will

treat the enclosed I trust with a little more respect; not for

the sake of the hero, but of the poet. The poet, poor soul! has

had a relapse, but is again recovering. As I know no earthly

history, you must accept the sonnet as if it was written into my

letter; and therefore supposing this the end of the third page,

I bid you good night.

(826) Elizabeth, daughter of Colonel Cosby, governor of New

York, by Lucy Montagu, aunt of George Montagu, and widow of Lord

Augustus Fitzroy; by whom she had two sons, Au_gusttis Henry,

afterwards Duke of Grafton, and General Fitzroy, who was created

Lord Southampton.-E.

396 Letter 239

To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.(827)

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 13, 1757.

Madam,

After all the trouble your ladyship has been so good as to take

voluntarily, you will think it a little hard that I

should presume to give you more; but it is a cause, Madam, in

which I know you feel, and I can suggest new motives to your

ladyship's zeal. In short, Madam, I am on the crisis of

losing Mademoiselle de l'Enclos's picture, or of getting both

that and her letters to Lady Sandwich. I enclose Lord

Sandwich's letter to me, which will explain the whole. Madame

Greffini, I suppose, is Madame Graphigny;(828) whom some of your

ladyship's friends, if not yourself, must know; and she might be

of use, if she could be trusted not to detain so tempting a

treasure as the letters. From the effects being sealed up, I

have still hopes; greater, from the goodness your ladyship had

in writing before. Don't wonder, Madam, at my eagerness:

besides a good quantity Of natural impatience, I am now

interested as an editor and printer. Think what pride it would

give me to print original letters of Ninon at Strawberry Hill!

If your ladyship knows any farther means of serving me, of

serving yourself, good Mr. Welldone, as the widow Lackit says in

Oroonoko, I need not doubt your employing them. Your ladyship

and I are of a religion, with regard to certain

saints, that inspires more zeal than such trifling temptations

as persecution and fagots infuse into bigots of other sects. I

think a cause like ours might communicate ardour even to my Lady

Stafford. If she will assist in recovering, Notre Dame des

Amours, I will add St. Raoul(829) to my calendar. I am hers and

your ladyship's most obedient and faithful humble servant.

(827) Lady Hervey was only daughter of Brigadier-General

Nicholas Lepel. She was maid of honour to Queen Caroline, and

was one of the principal ornaments of her court. In 1720, she

was married to John Lord Hervey, eldest son of John Earl of

Bristol, by whom she had four sons and four daughters. She died

in September, 1768. A collection of her Letters, with a Memoir

and Illustrative Notes, by Mr. Croker, was published in 1821.-E.

(828) Madame de Graffigny, the author of "Lettres d'une

Peruvienne," and several dramatic pieces. She died in the

following year. A collection of her works, in four volumes, was

published at Paris in 1788.-E.

(829) A favourite cat of Lady Stafford's.

396 Letter 240

To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, Sept. 20(830)

My dear Sir,

I have been roving about Hampshire with Mr. Chute, and did not

receive your very kind note till yesterday, or I should

certainly not have deferred a moment to thank you for it, and

to express my great concern for Miss Montagu's bad health. You

do me justice when you reckon on my feeling most sincerely for

you: but let me ask why you will not bring her to town? She

might not only have more variety of assistance, but it would be

some relief to you: it must be dreadful, with your tenderness

and feeling, to have nobody to share and divert your uneasiness.

I did not, till on the road the day before yesterday, hear the

catastrophe of poor Sir John Bland, and the execrable villany,

or, what our ancestors would have called, the humours of

Taaffe. I am extremely sorry for Bland! He was very

good-natured, and generous and well-bred; but never was such

infatuation - I can call it by no term but flirting away his

fortune and his life; he seemed to have no passion for play

while he did it, nor sensibility when it ruined him but I fear

he had both! What judgments the good people in the city (I mean

the good in their own style, moneyed) will construe upon

White's, when two of the most remarkable members have

despatched themselves in nine months!

I shall be most sincerely glad to receive another letter to

tell me that Miss Montagu mends: you have both my most hearty

wishes. Yours ever.

(830) This letter is misplaced: the date of the year is

1755.-E.

397 Letter 241

To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 29, 1757.

For how many years have I been telling you that your country

was mad, that your country was undone! It does not grow wiser;

it does not grow more prosperous! You can scarce have

recovered your astonishment at the suspension of arms(831)

concluded near Stade. How do you behave on these lamentable

occasions? Oh! believe me, it is comfortable to have an

island to hide one's head in! You will be more surprised when

you hear that it is totally disavowed here. The clamour is

going to be extreme--no wonder, when Kensington is the

headquarters of murmur. The commander-in-chief is recalled--

the late Elector(832) is outrageous. On such an occasion you

may imagine that every old store of malice and hatred is

ransacked: but you would not think that the general is now

accused of cowardice! As improbable as that is, I do not know

whether it may not grow your duty as a minister to believe

it-and if it does, you must be sure not to believe, that with

all this tempest the suspension was dictated from hence. Be

that as it may, the general is to be the sacrifice. The

difficulty will be extreme with regard to the Hessians, for

they are in English pay. The King of Prussia will be another

victim: he says we have undone him, without mending our own

situation. He expected to beat the Prince de Soubize by

surprise, but he, like the Austrians, declined a battle, and

now will be reinforced by Richelieu's army, who is doomed to be

a hero by our absurdities. Austrians, French, Russians, Swedes,

can the King of Prussia not sink under all these!

This suspension has made our secret expedition forgot by all

but us who feel for particulars. It is the fashion now to

believe it is not against the coast of France; I wish I could

believe so!

As if all these disgraces were foreign objects not worth

attending to, we have a civil war at home; literally so in many

counties. The wise Lords, to defeat it, have made the

Militia-bill so preposterous that it has raised a rebellion.

George Townshend, the promoter of it for popularity, sees it not

only most unpopular in his own county, but his father, my Lord

Townshend, who is not the least mad of your countrymen, attended

by a parson, a barber, and his own servants, and in his own long

hair, which he has let grow, raised a mob against the execution

of the bill, and has written a paper against it, which he has

pasted up on the doors of four churches near him. It is a good

name that a Dr. Stevens has given to our present situation, (for

one cannot call it a Government,) a Mobocracy.

I come to your letters which are much more agreeable subjects.

I think I must not wish you joy of the termination of the

Lorrain reign, you have lately taken to them, but I

congratulate the Tuscans. Thank you extremely for the trouble

you have given yourself in translating my inscription, and for

the Pope's letter: I am charmed with his beautiful humility, and

his delightful way of expressing it. For his ignorance about my

father, I impute it to some failure of his memory. I should

like to tell him that were my father still minister, I trust we

should not make the figure we do--at least he and England fell

together! If it is ignorance, Mr. Chute says it is a

confirmation of the Pope's deserving the inscription, as he

troubles his head so little about disturbing the peace of

others. But our enemies need not disturb us-we do their

business ourselves. I have one, and that not a little

comfort, in my politics ; this suspension will at least

prevent further hostilities between us and the Empress-Queen,

and that secures my dear you.

When I have done thinking of politics, and that is always in an

instant, unless such as you and Mr. Conway are involved in them,

I am far from passing my time disagreeably. My mind is of no

gloomy turn, and I have a thousand ways of amusing

myself. Indeed of late I have been terribly frightened lest I

must give them all up; my fears have gone to extravagance; do

not wonder; my life is not quite irrational, and I trembled to

think that I was growing fit only to consort with dowagers.

What an exchange, books and drawings, and every thing of that

sort, for cards! In short, for ten weeks I have had such pains

in my eyes with the least application, that I thought I should

lose them, at least that they would be useless. I was told that

with reading and writing at night I had strained and relaxed the

nerves. However, I am convinced that though this is partly the

case, the immediate uneasiness came from a cold, which I caught

in the hot weather by giving myself Florentine airs, by lying

with my windows open, and by lying on the

ground without my waistcoat. After trying forty 'you should do

this's,'(833) Mr. Chute has cured me -with a very simple

medicine: I will tell it you, that you may talk to Dr. Cocchi

and about my eyes too. It is to bathe and rub the outsides all

round, especially on the temples, with half a teaspoonful of

white spirit of lavender (not lavender-water) and half of

Hungary-water. I do this night and morning, and sometimes in

the day: in ten days it has taken off all the uneasiness; I can

now read in a chaise, which I had totally lost, and for five or

six hours by candle-light, without spectacles or

candle-screen. In short, the difference is incredible.

Observe that they watered but little, and were less inflamed;

only a few veins appeared red, whereas my eyes were remarkably

clear. I do not know whether this would do with any humour, but

that I never had. It is certain that a young man who for above

twelve years had studied the law by being read to, from vast

relaxation of the nerves, totally recovered the use of his eyes.

I should think I tired you with this detail, if I was not sure

that you cannot be tired with learning any thing for the good of

others. As the medicine is so hot, it must not be let into the

eyes, nor I should think be continued too long.

I approve much of your letter to Mr. Fox; I will give it to him

at his return, but at present he is on a tour. How

scrupulous you are in giving yourself the trouble to send me a

copy--was that needful? or are you not always full of

attentions that speak kindness? Your brother will take care to

procure the vases when they come, and is inquiring for the

liqueurs.

I am putting up a stone in St. Ann's churchyard for your old

friend King Theodore; in short, his history is too remarkable to

be let perish. Mr. Bentley says that I am not only an

antiquarian, but prepare materials for future antiquarians. You

will laugh to hear that when I sent the inscription to the

vestry for the approbation of the ministers and churchwardens,

they demurred, and took some days to consider whether they

should suffer him to be called King of Corsica. Happily they

have acknowledged his title! Here is the inscription; over it is

a crown exactly copied from his coin:

"Near this place is interred

Theodore King of Corsica,

Who died in this perish Dec. 11, 1756,

Immediately after leaving the King's-Bench Prison,

By the benefit of the Act of Insolvency.

In consequence of which he registered

His Kingdom of Corsica

For the use of his Creditors.

The Grave, great teacher, to a level brings

heroes and beggars, galley-slaves and kings.

But Theodore this lesson learn'd, ere dead;

Fate pour'd its lessons on his living head,

Bestow'd a kingdom and denied him bread.

I think that at least it cannot be said of me, as it was of the

Duke of Buckingham entombing Dryden,

"And help'd to bury whom he help'd to starve."

I would have served him, if a King, even in a gaol, could he

have been an honest man. Our papers say, that we are bustling

about Corsica; I wish if we throw away our own liberty, that we

may at least help others to theirs! Adieu! my dear Sir.

(831) Known by the appellation of the Convention of

Closter-Severn, concluded by the Duke of Cumberland with

Marshal Richelieu; by which he agreed for himself and army not

to serve again against the French during the war.-D.

(832) George II.; he had ordered his son to make the

capitulation, and then disavowed him.

(833) Sic, in MS.-D.

400 Letter 242

To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(834)

Arlington Street, Saturday, Oct. 8, 1757.

My dearest Harry,

But one person in the world may pretend to be so much

overjoyed as I am at your return.(835) I came hither to-day,

on purpose to learn about you; but how can you ask me such a

question, as do I think you are come too safe? is this a time

of day to question your spirit? I know but two things on

earth I esteem more, your goodness and your sense. You cannot

come into dispute; but by what I have picked up at my Lady

Townshend's, I find there is a scheme of distinguishing

between the land and the sea. The King has been told, that

Sir Edward Hawke had written, that, after waiting two days, he

asked the officers how long it would be before they took a

resolution; That if they would not attack, he should carry the

fleet home.(836) I should not entirely credit this report, if

Mr. Keith, who was present, had not dropped, in a dry way,

that some distinction would be shown to Captain Howe and

Captain Greaves. What confirms my opinion is, that I have

never received the letter you say you sent me by the last

express. I suppose it is detained, till proper emissaries

have made proper impressions; but we will not let it pass so.

If you had not bid me, I should not have given you this

intelligence, for your character is too sacred to be trifled

with; and as you are invulnerable by any slanders, it is

proper you should know immediately even what may be meditated.

The Duke is expected every hour. As he must not defend

himself, his case will be harder than yours. I was to go to

Bath on Monday, but will certainly not go without seeing you:

let me know your motions, and I will meet you any where. As I

know your scrupulousness about saying any thing I say to you

privately, I think it necessary. to tell you, that I don't

mean to preclude you from communicating any part of this

letter to those with whom it may be proper for you to consult;

only don't let more weight be given to my intelligence than it

deserves. I have told you exactly where and what I heard. It

may not prove so, but there is no harm in being prepared.

(834) Now first printed.

(835) From the Expedition to Rochfort. The expedition, under

Sir Edward Hawke, sailed early in September, and, on the 28th,

attacked the Isle of Aix; after which it returned to Spithead,

without attempting to land the troops.-E.

(836) On the 22d, Mr. Beckford writes to Mr. Pitt. "I hear

that Admiral Hawke says, the land-general has acted in a very

unbecoming manner, and will declare his sentiments to

Parliament. I hope he will: that, if possible, the mystery

may be unravelled. I have often lamented the fatality

attending conjunct commands. The French avoid them in all

their expeditions; for rank is perfectly settled among the

land and sea officers, and the eldest commission carries the

command." Chatham Correspondence, vol. i. p. 279.-E.

401 Letter 243

To The Earl Of Strafford.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 11, 1757.

My dear lord,

You will have seen or heard that the fleet is returned. They

have brought home nothing but one little island, which is a

great deal more than I expected, having neither thought so

despicably of France, or so considerably of ourselves, as to

believe they were exposed to much damage. My joy for Mr.

Conway's return is not at all lessened by the clamour on this

disappointment. Had he been chief commander, I should be very

sure the nothing he had done was all he could do. As he was

under orders, I wait with patience to hear his general's

vindication.

I hope the Yorkists have not knocked out your brains for

living in a county. In my neighbourhood they have insulted

the Parliament in person.(837) He called in the Blues,

instead of piquing himself on dying in his curule chair in the

stable-yard at Ember-court. So entirely have we lost our

spirit, that the standing army is forced to defend us against

the people, when we endeavour to give them a militia, to save

them from a standing army; and that the representative of the

Parliament had rather owe his life to the Guards than die in

the cause of a militia. Sure Lenthall's ghost will come and

pull him by the nose!

I hope you begin to cast a southward look, and that my lady's

chickens and ducklings are old enough to go to a day-school,

and will not want her any longer.

My Lord Townshend and George are engaged in a paper-war

against one another, about the militia. That bill, the

suspension at Stade, and the late expedition, which has cost

millions, will find us in amusements this winter. It is

lucky, for I despair of the Opera. The Mattei has sent

certificates to prove that she is stopped by an inundation.

The certificates I suppose can swim. Adieu, my dear lord!

(837) Mr. Onslow, the Speaker.

402 Letter 244

To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 12, 1757.

I shall Write you but a short letter for more reasons than

one--there are you blushing again for your country! We have

often behaved extravagantly, and often shamefully-this time we

have united both. I think I will not read a newspaper this

month, till the French have vented all their mirth. If I had

told You two months ago that this magnificent expedition was

designed against Rochfort, would you have believed me? Yet we

are strangely angry that we have not taken it! The clamour

against Sir John Mordaunt is at high-water-mark, but as I was

the dupe of clamour last year against one of the bravest of

men,(838) I shall suspend my belief till all is explained.

Explained it will be somehow or other: it seems to me that we

do nothing but expose ourselves in summer, in order to furnish

inquiries for the winter; and then those inquiries expose us

again. My great satisfaction is, that Mr. Conway is not only

returned safe, but that all the world agrees that it is not

his fault that he is SO. He is still at Portsmouth to see the

troops disembark. Hawke is come, and was graciously

received.--poor Sir John Mordaunt, who was sent for, was

received -as ill. I tell you no particulars of their

campaign, for I know it slightly, and will wait till I know it

exactly.

The Duke came last night. You will not hear much more of his

affair: he will not do himself justice, and it proves too

gross, to be possible to do him injustice.

I think all the comfort we extract from a thousand bitter

herbs, is, that the Russians are gone back, gone

precipitately, and as yet we don't know why.

I have received yours of the 17th of last month, and you may

quiet your fears about posts: we have received all that each

has written, except my last, which could not be arrived at

Florence when yours came away. Mine was of the 29th of last

month, and had many particulars; I hope not too many to stop

its journey!

To add to the ill-humour, our papers are filled with the new

loss of Fort William-Henry, which covered New York. That

opulent and proud colony between their own factions and our

folly is in imminent danger; but I will have done--nay, if we

lose another dominion. I think I will have done writing to

you, I cannot bear to chronicle so many disgraces. Adieu!

(838) Admiral Byng.

403 Letter 245

To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 13, 1757.

If you have received mine of Tuesday, which I directed to

Portsmouth, you will perceive how much I agree with you. I am

charmed with your sensible modesty. When I talked to you of

defence, it was from concluding that you had all agreed that

the attempt(839) was impracticable, nay, impossible; and from

thence I judged that the ministry intended to cast the blame

of a wild project upon the officers. That they may be a

little willing to do that, I still think-but I have the joy to

find that it cannot be thrown on you. As your friend, and

fearing, if I talked for you first, it would look like doubt

of your behaviour, at least that you had bid me defend you at

the expense of your friends, I said not a word, trusting that

your innocence would break out and make its way. I have the

satisfaction to find it has already done so. It comes from

all quarters but your own, which makes it more honourable. My

Lady Suffolk told me last night, that she heard all the seamen

said they wished the general had been as ready as Mr. Conway.

But this is not all: I left a positive commission in town to

have the truth of the general report sent me without the least

disguise: in consequence of which I am solemnly assured that

your name is never mentioned but with honour; that all the

violence, and that extreme, is against Sir John Mordaunt and

Mr. Cornwallis. I am particularly sorry for the latter, as I

firmly believe him as brave as possible.

This situation of things makes me advise, what I know and find

I need not advise, your saying as little as possible in your

own defence, nay, as much as you can with any decency for the

others. I am neither acquainted with, nor care a straw about,

Sir John Mordaunt; but as it is known that you differed with

him, it will do you the greatest honour to vindicate him,

instead of disculpating yourself. My most earnest desire

always is, to have your character continue as amiable and

respectable as possible. There is no doubt but the whole will

come out, and therefore your justification not coming from

yourself will set it in a ten times better light. I shall go

to town to-day to meet your brother; and as I know his

affection for you will make him warm in clearing you, I shall

endeavour to restrain that ardour, of which you know I have

enough on the least glimmering of a necessity: but I am sure

you will agree with me, that, on the representation I have

here made to you, it is not proper for your friends to appear

solicitous about you.

The city talk very treason, and, connecting the suspension at

Stade with this disappointment,(840) cry out, that the general

had positive orders to do nothing, in order to obtain gentler

treatment of Hanover. They intend in a violent manner to

demand redress, and are too enraged to let any part of this

affair remain a mystery.

I think, by your directions, this will reach you before you

leave Bevismount: I would gladly meet you at Park-place, if i

was not sure of seeing you in town a day or two afterwards at

farthest; which I will certainly do, if you let me know.

Adieu!

(839) On Rochfort.

(840) "In all these complicated machines," writes Lord

Chesterfield to his son, on the 4th of this month, "there are

so many wheels within wheels, that it is always difficult and

sometimes impossible, to guess which of them gives direction

to the whole. Mr. Pitt is convinced that the principal wheel,

or if you will, spoke in the wheel, came from Stade."-E.

404 Letter 246

To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, Oct 18, 1757.

You never begged news at a worse time; for though I should

tell you much, I have neither time nor inclination, This

sounds brusque, but I will explain it. With regard to the

expedition, I am so far easy about Mr. Conway that he will

appear with great honour, but it is not pleasant to hear him

complicated with others in the mean time. He cannot speak

till forced. In short, there are twenty delicacies not for a

letter. The big event is, the Duke's resignation. He is not

so patient as Mr. Conway under unmerited reproach, and has

thrown up every thing, regiment and all. You and I wish for a

Fronde, but I don't expect one. At worst it will produce

M`emoires de la Fronde. I rejoice that all your family is

well, and beg my compliments to them. For this time you must

excuse a very short letter; I am only in town for this evening

to meet Mr. Conway, and I snatch a moment, that you might not

think me neglectful of you, which I certainly never will be.

Adieu!

404 Letter 247

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Oct. 24, 1757.

It is impossible not to write to you upon the great event(841)

that has happened, and yet it is difficult to know how to

write upon it. Considering your situation, it is improper to

make harsh comments: Europe, I suppose, will not be so

delicate. Our ministers have kept the article out of our own

papers; but they have as little power over foreign gazettes,

as weight with foreign powers. In short, the Duke is arrived,

was very ill received, and without that, would have done, what

he did immediately, resign all his commissions. He does not,

like his brother,(842) go into opposition. He is even to make

his Usual appearances. He treated Munchausen,(843) who had

taken great liberties with his name, with proper severity--I

measure my words extremely, not for my own sake, but yours.

General Mordaunt has demanded an inquiry. The form is not

settled yet; nor can it be soon, as Sir Edward Hawke is gone

upon a cruise with the fleet. I put a quick end to this

letter; I have no more facts to tell you; reflections you will

make yourself. In the uncertainty of this reaching you, it is

better to say no more. Adieu!

(841) The Duke of Cumberland's resignation of the command of

the army.

(842) Frederick Prince of wales.

(843) The minister for Hanover.

405 Letter 248

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Nov. 20, 1757.

I do not like to find that our correspondence is certainly

deranged. I have received but one letter from you for a great

while; it is of October 8th, and complaining on your side too.

You say my last was Sept. 3d. Since that I wrote on the 29th,

on the 13th, and 24th of last month. I have omitted a month,

waiting to see if you got my letters, and to have something

decisive to tell you. Neither has happened, and yet I know

you will be unhappy not to hear from me, which makes me write

now. Our Parliament was suddenly put off to the first of next

month), on news that the King Of Prussia had made a separate

peace with France;- as the Speech was prepared to ask money

for him, it was necessary to set it to a new tune; but we have

been agreeably surprised with his gaining a great victory over

the Prince de Soubize;(844) but of this we have only the first

imperfect account, the wind detaining his courier or

aide-de-camp on the other side still. It is prodigious how we

want all the good news we can amass together! Our fleet

dispersed by a tempest in America, where, into the bargain, we

had done nothing, the uneasiness on the convention at Stade,

which, by this time, I believe we have broken, and on the

disappointment about Rochfort, added to the wretched state of

our internal affairs; all this has reduced us to a most

contemptible figure. The people are dissatisfied, mutinous,

and ripe for insurrections, which indeed have already appeared

on the militia and on the dearness of corn, which is believed

to be owing to much villany in the dealers. But the other day

I saw a strange sight, a man crying corn, "Do you want any

corn?" as they cry knives and scissors. To add to the

confusion, the troubles in Ireland, which Mr. Conway had

pacified, are broke out afresh, by the imprudence of the Duke

of Bedford and the ambition of the primate.(845) The latter

had offered himself to the former, who rejected him, meaning

to balance the parties, but was insensibly hurried into Lord

Kildare's,(846) to please mr. Fox. The primate's faction have

passed eleven resolutions on pensions and grievances, equal to

any in 1641, and the Duke of Bedford's friends dared not say a

word against them.(847) The day before yesterday a messenger

arrived from him for help; the council will try to mollify;

but Ireland is no tractable country. About what you will be

more inquisitive, is the disappointment at Rochfort, and its

consequences. Sir John Mordaunt demanded an inquiry which the

city was going to demand. The Duke of Marlborough, Lord

George Sackville, and General Waldegrave have held a public

inquest, with the fairness of which people are satisfied; the

report is not to be made to the King till to-morrow, for which

I shall reserve my letter. You may easily imagine, that with

all my satisfaction in Mr. Conway's behaviour, I am very

unhappy about him: he is more so; having guarded and gained

the most perfect character in the world by the severest

attention to it, you may guess what he feels under any thing

that looks like a trial. You will see him more like himself,

in a story his aide-de-camp, Captain Hamilton,(848) tells of

him. While they were on the isle of Aix, Mr. Conway was so

careless and so fearless as to be trying a burning-glass on a

bomb--yes, a bomb, the match of which had been cut short to

prevent its being fired by any accidental sparks of tobacco.

Hamilton snatched the glass out of Mr. Conway's hand before he

had at all thought what he was about. I can tell you another

story of him, that describes all his thought for others, while

so indifferent about himself. Being with my Lady Ailesbury in

his absence, I missed a favourite groom they used to have; she

told me this story. The fellow refused to accompany Mr.

Conway on the expedition, unless he would provide for his

widow in case of accidents. Mr. C., who had just made his

will and settled his affairs, replied coolly, "I have provided

for her." The man, instead of being struck, had the command

of himself to ask how? He was told, she would have two

hundred pounds. Still uncharmed, he said it was too little!

Mr. Conway replied he was sorry he was not content; he could

do no more; but would only desire him to go to Portsmouth and

see his horses embarked. He refused. If such goodness would

make one adore human nature, such ingratitude would soon cure

one!

Mr. Fox was going to write to you, but I took all the

compliments upon myself, as I think it is better for you to be

on easy than ceremonious terms. To promote this, I have

established a correspondence between you; he will be glad if

you will send him two chests of the best Florence wine every

year. The perpetuity destroys all possibility of your making

him presents Of it. I have compounded for the vases, but he

would not hear, nor must you think of giving him the wine,

which you must transact with your brother and me. The best of

Florence which puzzled James and me so much, proves to be Lord

Hertford's drams. We have got something else from Florence,

not your brother James and I, but the public: here is arrived

a Countess Rena, of whom my Lord Pembroke bought such

quantities of Florence, etc. I shall wonder if he deals with

her any more, as he has the sweetest wife(849) in the world,

and it seems to be some time since La Comtessa was so. Tell

me more of her history; antique as she is, she is since my

time.. Alas! every thing makes me think myself old since I

have worn out my eyes, which, notwithstanding the cure I

thought Mr. Chute had made upon them, are of very little use

to me. You have no notion how it mortifies me: when I am

wishing to withdraw more and more from a world of which I have

had satiety, and which I suppose is as tired of me, how

vexatious not to be able to indulge a happiness that depends

only on oneself, and consequently the only happiness proper

for people past their youth! I have often deluded you with

promises of returning to Florence for pleasure, I now threaten

you with it for your plague; for if I am to become a tiresome

old fool, at least it shall not be in my own country. In the

mean time, I must give you a commission for my press. I have

printed one book, (of which two copies are ready for you and

Dr. Cocchi,) and I have written another - it is a Catalogue of

the Royal and Noble Authors of England. Richard 1. it seems

was, or had a mind to pass for, a Proven`cal poet; nay, some

of those compositions are extant, and you must procure them

for me: Crescimbeni says there are some in the library of San

Lorenza at Florence, in uno de' Codici Provenzali, and others

nel 3204 della Vaticana.(850) YOU Will oblige and serve me

highly if you can get me copies. Dr. Cocchi certainly knows

Crescimbeni's Commentary on the Lives of the Proven`cal

Poets.(851)

I shall wind up this letter, Which is pretty long for a blind

man without spectacles, with an admirable bon-mot. Somebody

asked me at the play the other night what was become of Mrs.

Woffington; I replied, she is taken off by Colonel Caesar.

Lord Tyrawley said, "I suppose she was reduced to aut Caesar

aut Nullus."

The monument about which you ask you shall see in a drawing,

when finished; it is a simple Gothic arch, something in the

manner of the columbaria: a Gothic columbarium is a new

thought of my own, of which I am fond, and going(852) to

execute one at Strawberry. That at Linton is to have a

beautiful urn, designed by Mr. Bentley, as the whole is, with

this plain, very true inscription, "Galfrido Mann, amicissimo,

optimo, qui obiit--H. W. P."

Thank you for the King of Prussia's letter, though I had seen

it before. It is lively and odd. He seems to write as well

with Voltaire as he fights as well without the French--or

without us.

Monday night.

The report is made, but I have not yet seen it, and this

letter must go away this minute. I hear it names no names,

says no reason appears why they did not land on the 25th, and

gives no merit to all Mr. Conway's subsequent proposals for

landing. Adieu!

(844) The battle of Rosbach.

(845) Dr. Stone, Archbishop of Armagh.

(846) Lady Kildare was sister of Lady Caroline Fox.

(847)) Walpole, in his Memoires of George II., states that

"the Duke of Bedford, on the death of the King's sister, the

Queen Dowager of Prussia, who had privately received a pension

of eight Hundred pounds a-year out of the Irish establishment,

had obtained it for his wife's sister, Lady Waldegrave."-E.

(848) Afterwards Sir William Hamilton, appointed, in 1764,

envoy to the court of Naples, where he resided during the long

period of thirty-six years; and where, "wisely diverting," in

the language of Gibbon, "his correspondence from the secretary

of state to the Royal Society and British Museum, he passed

his time in elucidating a country of inestimable value to the

naturalist and antiquarian." He returned to England in 1800,

and died in 1803.-E.

(849) Elizabeth, sister of the Duke of Marlborough.

(850) Walpole, in his Royal Authors, says, "I have had both

repositories carefully searched. The reference to the Vatican

proves a new inaccuracy of the author; there is no work of

King Richard. In the Laurentine library is a sonnet written

by the King, and sent to the Princess Stephanetta, wife of

Hugh de Daux, which I have had transcribed with the greatest

exactness." Works, vol. i. p. 252.-E.

(851) "Commentarii intorno alla sua Istoria della Volgar

Poesia." In 1803, Mr. Matthias, the author of the Pursuits of

Literature, published an edition of the commentaries, detached

from the historical part, in three volumes, 12mo.-E.

(852) It was not executed.

408 Letter 249

To George Montagu, Esq.

Sunday evening.

I leave Mr. M`untz in commission to do the honours of

Strawberry to you: if he succeeds well, will you be troubled

with him in your chaise to london on Wednesday?

He will tell you the history of' Queen Mab being attacked-not

in her virtue, but in her very palace: if all this does not

fill up the evening, and you shall have no engagement to your

aunt Cosby, or to your grandmother, you know how welcome you

will be at Clivden. Adieu!

408 Letter 250

To George Montagu, Esq.

Dec. 23, 1757.

You, who have always cultivated rather than stifled tender

sensations, well know how to feel for me, who have at last

lost my dear friend, Mr. Mann, not unexpectedly certainly; but

I never could find that one grew indifferent to what pains, as

one does to what pleases one. With all my consciousness of

having been more obliged to your brother than I could possibly

deserve, I think I should have trespassed on his kindness, and

have asked him to continue his favours to Mr. Mann's son and

brother, if I had not known that he was good beyond doubt: it

is just necessary for me, as transferring my friendship to the

family, to tell you, that if the contrary should be

insinuated, they do continue the business.

Had I any thing to tell you, it would be unpardonable in me to

communicate my grief to you and neglect your entertainment,

but Mr. Pitt's gout has laid up the nation; we adjourn

to-morrow for the holidays, and have not had a single

division. Mr. Pitt, Mr. Fox, France, and the King of Prussia

will not leave us idle much longer. Adieu! I am most

unaffectedly grieved, and most unfeignedly yours.

409 Letter 251

To Dr. Ducarel.(853)

Arlington Street, Dec. 25, 1757.

Sir,

The Dean of Exeter(854) having showed me a letter in which you

desire the name of the MS. which contains the illumination I

wished to see, I take the liberty of troubling you with this.

The book is called "The Dictes and Sayings of the

Philosophers: translated out of Latyn into Frenshe, by Messire

Jehan de Jeonville; and from thence rendered into English, by

Earl Rivers."(855)--I am perfectly ashamed, Sir, of giving you

so much trouble, but your extreme civility and good-nature,

and your great disposition to assist in any thing that relates

to literature, encouraged me to make my application to you;

and the politeness with which you received it I shall always

acknowledge with the greatest gratitude. The Dean desired me

to make his excuses to you for not writing himself; and my

Lord Lyttelton returns you a thousand thanks for your kind

offers of communication, and proposes to wait on you himself

and talk those matters over with you. I shall not fail of

paying my respects to you on Friday next, at one o'clock; and

am, Sir, yours, etc.

(853) Dr. Andrew Coltee Ducarel. This eminent arcaeologist

was born at Caen in Normandy, but educated at Eton and at

Oxford. He had recently been appointed librarian at Lambeth

palace.-E.

(854) Dr.Jeremiah Milles. In 1765 he was appointed president

of the Society of Antiquaries. The Doctor was a strenuous

advocate for the authenticity of Rowley's Poems; "thereby

proving himself," says the author of the Pursuits of

Literature, "a pleasant subject for that chef-d'oeuvre of wit

and poetry, the 'Archaeological Epistle,' written by Mr.

Mason."-E.

(855) Antony Widville, Earl Rivers, Lord Scales and Newsells.

The dismal catastrophe of this accomplished lord, in his

forty-first year, is well known--

"--Rivers, Vaughan, and Grey

Ere this lie shorter by the head at Pomfret."

The book is supposed to be the second ever printed in England

by Caxton: it contains an illumination representing the Earl

introducing Caxton to Edward the Fourth, his Queen, and the

Prince. "The most remarkable circumstance attending it," says

Walpole, in his Noble Authors, "is the gallantry of the Earl,

who omitted to translate part of it, because it contained

sarcasms of Socrates against the fair sex."-E.

410 Letter 252

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Jan, 11, 1758.

You express so much concern and tenderness for Mr. Conway and

me in your letter of Dec. 17th, which I received two days ago,

that I am impatient and happy to tell you, that after keeping

the report of the court-martial a week, the King yesterday

approved the sentence, which is a full acquittal of Sir John

Mordaunt, and was unanimous. If the commander-in-chief is so

fully cleared, what must the subordinate generals be? There

are still flying whispers of its being brought into Parliament

in some shape or other, but every public and private reason, I

say reason, forbid it. Sure this is not a season to relume

heats, when tranquility is so essential and so established!

In a private light who can wish to raise such a cloud of

enemies as the whole army, who murmur grievously at hearing

that an acquittal is not an acquittal; who hold it tyranny, if

they are not to be as safe by their juries as the rest of

their fellow-subjects; and who think a judgment of twenty-one

general officers not to be trifled with. I tremble if any

rashness drives the army to distinguish or think themselves

distinguished from the civil government.

You are by this time, I suppose, in weepers for princess

Caroline;(856) though her state of health has been so

dangerous for years, and her absolute confinement for many of

them, her disorder was in a manner new and sudden, and her

death unexpected by herself, though earnestly her wish. her

goodness was constant and uniform, her generosity immense, her

charities most extensive--in short I, no royalist, could be

lavish in her praise. What will divert you is, that the Duke

of Norfolk's and Lord Northumberland's upper servants have

asked leave to put themselves in mourning, not out of regard

for this admirable Princess, but to be more sur le bon ton. I

told the Duchess I supposed they would expect her to mourn

hereafter for their relations.

Well, it seems I guessed better about Sir James Grey than he

knew about himself. Sir Benjamin Keene is dead;(857) I dined

to-day where Colonel Grey did; he told me it is a year and a

half since the King named his brother for Spain, and that he

himself was told but yesterday that Sir James was too well at

Naples to be removed,(858) and that reasons of state called

for somebody else. Would they called for you! and why not?

You are attached to nobody; your dear brother had as much

reason to flatter himself with Mr. Pitt's favour, as he was

marked by not having Mr. Fox's. Your not having the least

connexion with the latter cannot hurt you. Such a change, for

so great an object, would overrule all my prudence: but I do

not know whether it were safe, to hint it'. especially as by

this time, at least before your application could come, it

must be disposed of. Lord Rochfort wishes it, Lord Huntingdon

has asked it; Lord Tyrawley and Lord Bristol(859) are talked

of. I am so afraid of ticklish situations for you, that in

case of the latter's removal, I should scarce wish you Turin.

I cannot quit this chapter without lamenting Keene! my father

had the highest opinion of his abilities, and indeed his late

Negotiations have been crowned with proportionate success. He

had great wit, agreeableness, and an indolent good-humour that

was very pleasing: he loved our dearest Gal.!

The King of Prussia is quite idle; I think he has done nothing

this fortnight but take Breslau, and Schweidnitz, and ten or a

dozen generals, and from thirty to fifty thousand prisoners--

in this respect he contradicts the omne majus continet in se

minus. I trust he is galloping somewhere or other with only a

groom to get a victory. Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick has

galloped a little from one: when we were expecting that he

would drive the French army into the sea, and were preparing

to go to Harwich to see it, he turned back, as if he wanted to

speak with the King of Prussia. In a street very near me they

do not care to own this; but as my side of Arlington Street is

not ministerial, we plain-dealing houses speak our mind about

it. Pray, do not you about that or any thing else; remember

you are an envoy, and though you must not presume to be as

false as an ambassador, yet not a grain of truth is consistent

with your character. Truth is very well for such simple

people as me, with my Fari quae sentiat, which my father left

me, and which I value more than all he left me; but I am

errantly wicked enough to desire you should lie and prosper.

I know you don't like my doctrine, and therefore I compound

with you for holding your tongue. Adieu! my dear child--shall

we never meet! Are we always to love one another at the

discretion of a sheet of paper? I would tell you in another

manner that I am ever yours.

P. S. I will not plague you with more than a postscript on my

eyes: I write this after midnight quite at my ease; I think

the greatest benefit I have found lies between old rum and

elder-water, (three spoonfuls of the latter to one of the

former,) and dipping my head in a pail of cold water every

morning the moment I am out of bed. This I am told may affect

my hearing, but I have too constant a passion for my eyes to

throw away a thought on any rival.

(856) Third daughter of King George the Second; who died at

St. James's on the 28th of December, in the forty-fifth year

of her age.-E.

(857) Sir Benjamin Keene died at Madrid on the 15th of

December. He was the eldest son of Charles Keene, Esq. of

Lynn, in Norfolk. His remains were brought to England-, and

buried at Lynn, near those of his parents.-E.

(858) Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in a letter to her daughter,

dated Venice, April 3, says, "Sir James Grey was universally

esteemed during his residence here: but, alas! he is gone to

Naples. I wish the maxims of Queen Elizabeth were revived,

who always chose men whose birth or behaviour would make the

nation respected, people being apt to look upon them as a

sample of their countrymen. If those now employed are so--

Lord have mercy upon us! How much the nation has suffered by

false intelligence, I believe you are very sensible of; and

how impossible it is to obtain truth either from a fool or a

knave." Works, Vol. iii. P. 155.-E.

(859) The Earl of Bristol was at this time British Minister at

the court of Turin. He was appointed ambassador extraordinary

to the court of Spain in the following June.-E.

411 Letter 253

To Dr. Ducarel.

Arlington Street, January 12, 1758.

I have the pleasure to let you know, that his grace the

Archbishop(860) has, with the greatest politeness and

goodness, sent me word, by the dean of Exeter, that he gives

me leave to have the illumination copied, on a receipt either

at your chambers, or at my own house, giving you a receipt for

it. As the former would be so inconvenient to me as to render

this favour useless, I have accepted the latter with great

joy; and will send a gentleman of the exchequer, my own

deputy, to you, Sir@ on Monday next, with my receipt, and

shall beg the favour of you to deliver the MS. to him, Mr.

Bedford. I would wait On you myself, but have caught cold at

the visit I made you yesterday, and am besides going to

Strawberry Hill, from whence I propose to bring you a little

print, which was never sold, and not to be had from any body

else; which is, the arms of the two Clubs at Arthur's;(861) a

print exceedingly in request last year. When I have more

leisure, for at this time of the year I am much hurried, I

shall be able, I believe, to pick you out some other

curiosities; and am, Sir, etc.

(860) Dr. Matthew Hutton. He died in the following April, and

was succeeded in the archbishopric by Dr. Secker.

(861) Designed by Mr. Walpole's friend, Lord Edgecumbe, and

engraved by Grinion.

412 Letter 254

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Feb. 9, 1758.

One would not have believed that I could so long have wanted

something to form a letter; but I think politics are gone into

winter-quarters: Mr. Pitt is in bed with the gout, and the

King of Prussia writing sonnets to Voltaire; but his Majesty's

lyre is not half so charming as his sword: if he does not take

care, Alexander will ride home upon his verses. All England

has kept his birthday; it has taken its place in our calendar

next to Admiral Vernon's(862) and my Lord Blakeney's; and the

people, I believe, begin to think that Prussia is some part

of' Old England. We had bonfires and processions,

illuminations and French horns playing out of windows all

night.

In the mean time there have been some distant grumblings of a

war with Spain, which seem blown over: a new Russian army in

March has taken its place. The Duke of Richelieu is said to

be banished for appropriating some contributions(863) to his

own use: if he does not take care to prove that he meant to

make as extravagant a use of them as ever Marquis Catiline

did, it will be a very bourgeoise termination of such a

gallant life! By the rage of expense in our pleasures, in the

midst of such dearness and distress, one would think we had

opportunities of contributions too! The simple Duke of St.

Albans,(864) who is retired to Brussels for debt, has made a

most sumptuous funeral in public for a dab of five months old

that he had by his cookmaid. But our glaring extravagance is

the CONSTANT high price given for pictures: the other day at

Mr. Furnese's(865) auction a very small Gaspar sold for

seventy-six guineas; and a Carlo Maratti, which too I am

persuaded was a Giuseppe Chiari, lord Egremont bought at the

rate of two hundred and sixty pounds. Mr. Spencer(866) gave

no less than two thousand two hundred pounds for the Andrea

Sacchi and the Guido from the same collection. The latter is

of very dubious originality: my father, I think, preferred the

Andrea Sacchi to his own Guido, and once offered seven hundred

pounds for it, but Furnese said, "Damn him, it is for him; he

shall pay a thousand." There is a pewterer, one Cleeve, who

some time ago gave one thousand pounds for four very small

Dutch pictures. I know- but one dear picture not sold,

Cooper's head of Oliver Cromwell, an unfinished miniature;

they asked me four hundred pounds for it! But pictures do not

monopolize extravagance; I have seen a little ugly shell

called a Ventle-trap sold for twenty-seven guineas. However,

to do us justice, we have magnificence too that is well

judged. The Palmyra and Balbec are noble works to be

undertaken and executed by private men.(867) There is now

established a Society for the encouragement of Arts, Sciences,

and Commerce, that is likely to be very serviceable;(868) and

I was pleased yesterday with a very grand seigneurial design of

the Duke of Richmond,(869) who has collected a great many fine

casts of the best antique statues, has placed them in a large

room in his garden, and designs to throw it open to encourage

drawing. I have offered him to let my eagle be cast.

Adieu! If any thing happens, I will not, nor ever do wait for

a regular interval Of Writing to you.

(862) On Admiral Vernon's taking Porto Bello in 1740, the

populace of London celebrated his birthday; and some doubts

arising on the specific day, they celebrated it again, and I

think continued to do so for two or three subsequent years.

(863) He plundered the Electorate so indecently, that on his

return to Paris having built a pavilion in his garden, it was

nicknamed le Pavillon d'Hanovre.

(864) The third Duke of that title.

(865) Henry Furness had been a lord of the treasury. He was a

friend of Lord Bath, and personally an enemy to Sir Robert

Walpole.

(866) John first Earl Spencer.

(867) Robert Wood, Esq. under secretary of state, Mr. Dawkins,

and Mr. Bouverie. For a notice of these splendid works, see

ant`e, p. 191, letter 89.-E.

(868) Mr. William Shipley, of Northampton, being persuaded

that a society to give premiums, in the manner of one in

Ireland, would be highly beneficial to the country, came to

London several times in the year 1752 and 1753, and talked

about it to Mr. Henry Baker, who was of the same opinion, but

doubted the possibility of bringing it into effect. However,

in 1753, a general recommendation of such a society was drawn

up, printed, and dispersed; and indefatigable pains taken by

Mr. Shipley to put it into the hands of persons of quality and

fortune, this scheme was carried into execution. See

Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, vol. v. p. 275.-E.

(869) Charles Lenox, third Duke of Richmond. His grace had

recently ordered a room to be opened at his house in

Whitehall, containing a large collection of original plaster

casts from the best antique busts and statues at Rome -and

Florence, to which all artists, and youths above twelve years

of age, had access. For the encouragement of genius, he also

bestowed two medals annually on those who executed the two

best models.-E.

413 Letter 255

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Feb. 10, 1758.

This campaign does not open with the vivacity of the last; the

hero of the age has only taken Schweidnitz yet--he had fought

a battle Or two by this time last year. But this is the case

of Fame. A man that astonishes at first, soon makes people

impatient if he does not continue in the same andante key. I

have heard a good answer of one of the Duke of Marlborough's

generals, who dining with him at a city feast, and being

teased by a stupid alderman, who said to him, "Sir, yours must

be a very laborious employment!" replied, "Oh, no; we fight

about four hours in a morning, and two or three after dinner,

and then we have all the rest of the day to ourselves." I

shall not be quite so impatient about our own campaign as I

was last year, though we have another secret expedition on

foot--they say, to conquer France, but I believe we must

compound for taking the Isle of Wight, whither we are sending

fourteen thousand men. The Hero's uncle(870 reviewed them

yesterday in Hyde Park on their setting out. The Duke of

Marlborough commands, and is, in reality, commanded by Lord

George Sackville. We shall now see how much greater generals

we have than Mr. Conway, who has pressed to go in any

capacity, and is not suffered!

Mr. Pitt is again laid up with the gout, as the Duke of

Bedford is confined in Ireland by it. - His grace, like other

Kings I have known, is grown wonderfully popular there since

he was taken prisoner and tied hand and foot. To do faction

justice, it is of no cowardly nature; it abuses while it

attacks, and loads with panegyric those it defeats. We have

nothing in Parliament but a quiet straggle for an extension of

the Habeas Corpus.(871) It passed our House swimmingly, but

will be drowned with the same ease in the House of Lords. On

the new taxes we had an entertaining piece of pomp from the

Speaker: Lord Strange (it was in a committee) said, "I will

bring him down from the gallery." and proposed that the

Speaker should be exempt from the place tax. He came down,

and besought not to be excepted--lord Strange persisted-so did

the Speaker. After the debate, Lord Strange going out said,

"Well, did I not show my dromedary well?" I should tell you

that one of the fashionable sights of the winter has been a

dromedary and camel, the proprietor of which has entertained

the town with a droll variety of advertisements.

You would have been amazed, had you been here at Sir luke

Schaub's auction of pictures. He had picked up some good old

copies cheap when he was in Spain during the contentions there

between the houses of Austria and Bourbon, and when many

grandees being confiscated, the rest piqued themselves on not

profiting of their spoils. With these Sir Luke had some fine

small ones, and a parcel of Flemish, good in their way. The

late Prince offered him twelve thousand pounds for the whole,

leaving him the enjoyment for his life. As he knew the twelve

thousand would not be forthcoming, he artfully excused himself

by saying he loved pictures so much that he knew he should

fling away the money. Indeed, could he have touched it, it

had been well; the collection was indubitably not worth four

thousand pounds. It has sold for near eight!(872) A

Copy(873) of the King of France's Raphael went for seven

hundred pounds. A Segismonda, called by Corregio, but

certainly by Furoni his scholar, was bought in at upwards of

four hundred pounds. In short, there is Sir James Lowther,

Mr. Spencer, Sir Richard Grosvenor, boys with twenty and

thirty thousand a-year, and the Duchess of Portland,(874) Lord

Ashburnham, Lord Egremont, and others with near as much, who

care not what they give. I want to paint my coat and sell it

off my back--there never Was such a season. I am mad to have

the Houghton pictures sold now; what injury to the creditors

to have them postponed, till half of these vast estates are

spent, and the other half grown ten years older!

Lord Corke Is not the editor of Swift's History;(875) but one

Dr. Lucas, a physicianed apothecary, who some years ago made

such factious noise in Ireland(876)--the book is already

fallen into the lowest contempt. I wish you joy of the success

of the Cocchi family; but how three hundred crowns a year

sound after Sir Luke Schaub's auction! Adieu! my dear Sir.

(870) George II. uncle of the King of Prussia.

(871) Lord Chesterfield, in a letter to his son of the 8th,

says, "Every thing goes smoothly in Parliament: the King of

Prussia has united all our parties in his support, and the

Tories have declared that they will give Mr. Pitt unlimited

credit for this session: there has not been one single

division yet upon public points, and I believe will not."-E.

(872) The three days' sale produced seven thousand seven

hundred and eighty-four pounds five shillings.-E.

(873) It was purchased by the Duchess Dowager of Portland, for

seven hundred and three pounds ten shillings.-E.

(874) Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley, only daughter of Edward

Harley, second Earl of Oxford, and heiress of the vast

possessions of the Newcastle branch of the Cavendishes. She

married William Bentinck, second Duke of Portland.-D.

(875) Swift's "History of the Four last Years of Queen Anne,"

was first published in this year.-E.

(876) Dr. Johnson, in a review of Dr. Lucas's Essay on Waters,

which appeared in the Literary Magazine for 1756, thus speaks

of him: "The Irish ministers drove him from his native country

by a proclamation, in which they charge him with crimes of which

they never intended to be called to the proof, and

oppressed him by methods equally irresistible by guilt and

innocence: let the man thus driven into exile, for having been

the friend of his country, be received in every other place as

a confessor of liberty; and let the tools of power be taught

in time, that they may rob, but cannot impoverish." In 1761,

Dr. Lucas was elected representative for Dublin. He died in

1771, and a statue to his honour is erected in the Royal

Exchange of Dublin.-E.'

415 Letter 256

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Feb. 23, 1758.

Though the inactivity of our parliamentary winter has let me

be correspondent, I am far from having been so remiss as the

posts have made me seem. I remember to have thought that I

had no letter on board the packet that was taken; but since

the 20th of November I have writ to you on December 14,

January 11, February 9. The acquittal of General Mordaunt

would, I thought, make you entirely easy about Mr. Conway.

The paper war on their subject is still kept up; but all

inquiries are at an end. When Mr. Pitt, who is laid up with

the gout, is a little cool again, I think he has too much

eagerness to perform something of `eclatt, to let the public

have to reproach him with not employing so brave a man and so

able as Mr. Conway. Though your brothers do not satisfy your

impatience to know, you must a little excuse them; the eldest

lives out of the world, and James not in that world from

whence he can learn or inform you. Besides our dear Gal.'s

warmth of friendship, he had innumerable opportunities of

intelligence. He, who lent all the world money for nothing,

had at least a right to know something.

I shall be sorry on my account if one particular(877) letter

has miscarried, in which I mentioned some trifles that I

wished to purchase from Stosch's collection. As you do not

mention any approaching sale, I will stay to repeat them till

you tell me that you have received no such letter.

Thank you for the `eloge on your friend poor Cocchi; you had

not told me of his death, but I was prepared for it, and heard

it from Lord Huntingdon. I am still more obliged to you for

the trouble you have given yourself about King Richard. You

have convinced me of Crescimbeni's blunder as to Rome. For

Florence, I must intreat you to send me 'another copy, for

your copyist or his original have made undecipherable

mistakes; particularly in the last line; La Mere Louis is

impossible to be sense: I should wish, as I am to print it, to

have every letter of the whole sonnet more distinct and

certain than most of them are. I don't know how to repay you

for all the fatigue I give you. Mr. Fox's urns are arrived,

but not yet delivered from the Custom-house. You tell me no

more of Botta;(878) is he invisible in dignity, like

Richcourt; or sunk to nothing, like our Poor old friend the

Prince?(879) Here is a good epigram on the Prince de Soubize,

with which I must conclude, writing without any thing to tell

you, and merely to show you that I do by no means neglect you;

Soubize, apr`es ses grands exploits,

Peut b`atir un palais qui ne lui co`ute gu`ere;

Sa Femme lui fournit le bois,

Et chacun lui jette la pierre.

(877) The letter of Dec. 17th, which was lost.

(878) Marshal Botta, commander at Florence for the Emperor

Francis.

(879) The Prince de Craon, chief of the council, superseded by

the Comte de Richcourt.

416 Letter 257

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, March 21, 1758.

Between my letters of Nov. 20th and Jan. 11th, which you say

you have received, was one of Dec. 11th lost, I suppose in

the packet: what it contained, it is impossible for me to

recollect; but I conclude the very notices about the

expedition, the want of which troubled you so much. I have

nothing now to tell you of any moment; writing only to keep up

the chain of our 'correspondence, and to satisfy you that

there is nothing particular.

I forgot in my last to say a word of our East Indian hero,

Clive, and his victories; but we are growing accustomed to

success again! There is Hanover retaken!--if to have Hanover

again is to have success! We have no news but what is

military; Parliaments are grown idle things, or busy like

quarter-sessions. Mr. Pitt has been in the House of Commons

but twice this winter, yet we have some grumblings: a

Navy-bill of Mr. George Grenville, rejected last year by the

Lords, and passed again by us, has by Mr. Fox's underhand

management been made an affair by the Lords; yet it will pass.

An extension of the Habeas corpus, of forty times the

consequence, is impeded by the same dealings, and IS not

likely to have so prosperous an issue. Yet these things

scarce make a heat within doors, and scarce conversation

without.

Our new Archbishop(880) died yesterday; but the church loses

its head with as little noise as a question is now carried or

lost in Parliament.

Poor Sir Charles Williams is returned from Russia, having lost

his Senses upon the road. This is imputed to a lady at

Hamburgh, who gave him, or for whom he took some assistance to

his passion; but we hope he will soon recover.

The most particular thing I know is what happened the other

day: a frantic Earl of Ferrars(881) has for this twelvemonth

supplied conversation by attempting to murder his wife, a

pretty, harmless young woman, and every body that took her

part. having broken the peace, to which the House of Lords

tied him last year, the cause was trying again there on Friday

last. Instead of attending it, he went to the assizes at

Hertford to appear against a highwayman, one Page, of

extraordinary parts and escapes. The Earl had pulled out a

pistol, but trembled so that the robber turned, took it out of

his hand quietly, and said, "My lord, I know you always carry

more pistols about you; give me the rest." At the trial, Page

pleaded that my lord was excommunicated, consequently could

not give evidence, and got acquitted.(882)

There is just published Swift's History of the Four last Years

of Queen Anne: Pope and Lord Bolingbroke always told him it

would disgrace him, and persuaded him to burn it. Disgrace

him indeed it does, being a weak libel, ill-written for style,

uninformed, and adopting the most errant mob-stories.(883) He

makes the Duke of Marlborough a coward, Prince Eugene an

assassin, my father remarkable for nothing but impudence, and

would make my Lord Somers any thing but the most amiable

character in the world, if unfortunately he did not praise him

while he tries to abuse.

Trevor(884) of Durham is likely to go to Canterbury. Adieu!

(880) Archbishop Hutton. He was succeeded by Secker.

(881) Laurence Shirley, fourth Earl of Ferrars, who, in

January 1760, shot his land-steward, for which he was tried in

Westminster-hall, by his peers, in the following April, and

executed at Tyburn.-E.

(882) At the ensuing Rochester assizes he was tried for

robbing a Mr. Farrington, and executed.-E.

(883) Swift himself, in his Journal to Stella, calls it "his

grand business," and pronounced it "the best work he had ever

written."-E.

(884) Dr. Richard Trevor. This did not happen.

418 Letter 258

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, April 14, 1758.

As you was disappointed of any intelligence that might be in it

(I don't know what was), I am sorry my letter of December 14th

miscarried; but with regard to my commissions in Stosch's

collection, it did not signify, since they propose to sell it

in such great morsels. If they are forced to relent, and

separate it, what I wish to have, and had mentioned to you,

were, "his sculptured gems that have vases on them, of which he

had a large ring box:" the following modern medals, "Anglia

resurges," I think, of Julius III.; "the Capitol; the

Hugonotorum Strages; the Ganymede, a reverse of a Pope's medal,

by Michael Angelo; the first medal of Julius III.;" all these

were in silver, and very fine; then the little Florentine coin

in silver, with Jesus Rex noster on the reverse: he had,

besides, a fine collection of drawings after nudities and

prints in the same style, but you may believe I am not old

enough to give much for these. I am not very anxious about

any, consequently am not tempted to purchase wholesale.

Thank you for the second copy of King Richard; my book is

finished; I shall send it you by the first opportunity. I did

receive the bill of lading for Mr. Fox's wine; and my reason

for not telling you how he liked his vases was, because I did

not, nor do yet know, nor does he; they are at Holland House,

and will not be unpacked till he settles there: I own I have a

little more impatience about new things.

My letters will grow more interesting to you, I suppose, as the

summer opens: we have had no Winter campaign, I mean, no

parliamentary war. You have been much misinformed about the

King's health--and had he been ill, do you think that the

recovery of Hanover would not cure him? Yesterday the new

convention with the King of Prussia was laid before the houses,

and is to be considered next week: I have not yet read it, and

only know that he is to receive from us two millions in three

years, and to make no peace without us. I hope he will make

one for us before these three years are expired. A great camp

is forming in the Isle of Wight, reckoned the best spot for

defence or attack. I suppose both will be tried reciprocally;

Sir Charles Williams's disorder appears to have been

lightheadedness from a fever; he goes about again; but the

world, especially a world of enemies, never care to give up

their title to a man's madness, and will consequently not

believe that he is yet in his senses.(885)

Lord Bristol certainly goes to Spain; no successor is named for

Turin. You know how much I love a prescriptive situation for

you, and how I should fear a more eminent one--and yet you see

I notify Turin being open, if you should care to push for it.

It is not to recommend it to you that I tell you of it, but I

think it my duty as your friend not to take upon me to decide

for you without acquainting you.

I rejoice at Admiral Osborn's Success. I am not patriot enough

to deny but that there are captains and admirals whose glory

would have little charms for me; but Osborn was a steady friend

of murdered Byng!

The Earl and Countess of Northumberland have diverted the town

with a supper, which they intended should make their court to

my Lady Yarmouth; the dessert was a chasse at Herenhausen, the

rear of which was brought up by a chaise and six containing a

man with a blue riband and a lady sitting by him! Did you ever

hear such a vulgarism! The person complimented is not half so

German, and consequently suffered martyrdom at this clumsy

apotheosis of her concubinage. Adieu!

(885) On hearing, at Padua, of Sir Charles's indisposition,

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in a letter to her daughter, the

Countess of Bute, on the 17th of July, breaks out into the

following striking reflections:--"I hear that my old

acquaintance is much broken, both in his spirits and

constitution. How happy might that man have been, if there had

been added to his natural and acquired endowments a dash of

morality! If he had known how to distinguish between false and

true felicity; and, instead of seeking to increase an estate

already too large, and hunting after pleasures that have made

him rotten and ridiculous, he had bounded his desires of

wealth, and followed the dictates of his conscience! His

servile ambition has gained him two yards of red riband and an

exile into a miserable country, where there is no society, and

so little taste, that I believe he suffers under a dearth of

flatterers. This is said for the use of your growing sons,

whom I hope no golden temptations will induce to marry women

they cannot love, or comply with measures they do not approve.

All the happiness this world can afford is more within reach

than is generally supposed. A wise and honest man lives to his

own heart, without that silly splendour that makes him a prey

to knaves, and which commonly ends in his becoming one of the

fraternity." Works, vol. iii. p. 160.-E.

419 Letter 259

To The Rev. Dr. Birch.

Arlington Street, May 4, 1758.

Sir,

I thought myself very unlucky in being abroad when you were so

good as to call here t'other day. I not only lost the pleasure

of your company, but the opportunity of obtaining from you

(what however I will not despair of) any remarks you may have

made on the many errors which I fear you found in my book.(886)

The hurry in which it was written, my natural carelessness and

insufficiency, must have produced many faults and mistakes. As

the curiosity of the world, raised I believe only by the

smallness Of the number printed, makes it necessary for me to

provide another edition, I should be much obliged to whoever

would be enough my friend to point out my wrong judgments and

inaccuracies,--I know nobody, Sir, more capable Of both offices

than yourself, and yet I have no pretensions to ask so great a

favour, unless your own zeal for the cause of literature should

prompt you to undertake a little of this task. I shall be

always ready to correct my faults, never to defend them.

(886) " The Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors," of which

Walpole had just printed three hundred copies, at the

Strawberry Hill press.-E.

420 Letter 260

To George Montagu, Esq.

Arlington Street, May 4, 1758.

You are the first person, I believe, that ever thought of a

Swiss transcribing Welsh, unless, like some commentator on the

Scriptures, you have discovered great affinity between those

languages, and that both are dialects of the Phoenician. I

have desired your brother to call here to-day, and to help us

in adjusting the inscriptions. I can find no Lady Cutts in

your pedigree, and till I do, cannot accommodate her with a

coronet.

My book is marvellously in fashion, to my great astonishment.

I did not expect so much truth and such notions of liberty

would have made their fortune in this our day. I am preparing

an edition for publication, and then I must expect to be a

little less civilly treated. My Lord Chesterfield tells every

body that he subscribes to all my opinions; but this mortifies

me about as much as the rest flatter me I cannot, because it is

my own case, forget how many foolish books he has diverted

himself with commending The most extraordinary thing I have

heard about mine is, that it being talked of at lord Arran's

table, Doctor King, the Dr. King of Oxford, said of the passage

on my father; "It is very modest, very genteel, and VEry TRUE."

I asked my Lady Cardigan if she would forgive my making free

with her grandmother;(887) she replied very sensibly, "I am

sure she would not have hindered any body from writing against

me; why should I be angry at any writing against her?"

The history promised you of Dr. Brown is this. Sir Charles

Williams had written an answer to his first silly volume of the

Estimate,(888) chiefly before he came over, but finished while

he was confined at Kensington. Brown had lately lodged in the

same house, not mad now, though he has been so formerly. The

landlady told Sir Charles, and offered to make affidavit that

Dr. Brown was the most profane cursor and swearer that ever

came into her house. Before I proceed in my history, I will

tell you another anecdote of this great performer: one of his

antipathies is the Opera, yet the only time I ever saw him was

in last Passion-week singing the Romish Stabat mater with the

Mingotti, behind a harpsichord at a great concert at my Lady

Carlisle's. Well--in a great apprehension of Sir Charles

divulging the story of his swearing, Brown went to Dodsley in a

most scurrilous and hectoring manner, threatening Dodsley if he

should publish any thing personal against him; abusing Sir

Charles for a coward and most abandoned man, and bidding

Dodsley tell the latter that he had a cousin in the army who

would call Sir Charles to account for any reflections on him,

Brown. Stay; this Christian message from a divine, who by the

way has a chapter in his book against duelling, is not all:

Dodsley refused to carry any such message, unless in writing.

The Doctor, enough in his senses to know the consequences of

this, refused; and at last a short verbal message, more

decently worded, was agreed on. To this Sir Charles made

Dodsley write down this answer: "that he could not but be

surprised at Brown's message, after that he Sir Charles, had,

at Ranby's desire, sent Brown a written assurance that he

intended to say nothing personal of him--nay, nor should yet,

unless Brown's impertinence made it necessary." This proper

reply Dodsley sent: Brown wrote back, that he should send an

answer to Sir Charles himself; but bid Dodsley take notice,

that printing the works of a supposed lunatic might be imputed

to the printer himself, and which he, the said Doctor, should

chastise. Dodsley, after notifying this new and unprovoked

insolence to me, Fox, and Garrick, the one friend of Sir

Charles, the other of Brown, returned a very proper, decent,

yet firm answer, with assurances of repaying chastisement of

any sort. Is it credible? this audacious man sent only a card

back, saying, "Footman's language I never return, J. Brown."

You know how decent, humble, inoffensive a creature Dodsley is;

how little apt to forget or disguise his having been a footman!

but there is no exaggerating this behaviour by reflections. On

the same card he tells Dodsley that he cannot now accept, but

returns his present of the two last volumes of his collection

of poems, and assures him that they are not soiled by the

reading. But the best picture of him is his own second volume,

which beats all the Scaligers and Scioppins's for vanity and

insolent impertinence. What is delightful; in the first volume

he had deified Warburton, but the success of that trumpery has

made Warburton jealous, and occasioned a coolness--but enough

of this jackanapes.

Your brother has been here, and as he is to go to-morrow, and

the pedigree is not quite finished, and as you will be

impatient, and as it is impossible for us to transcribe Welsh

which we cannot read without your assistance, who don't

understand it neither, we have determined that the Colonel

should carry the pedigree to you; you will examine it and bring

it with you to Strawberry, where it can be finished under your

own eye, better than it is possible to do without. Adieu! I

have not writ so long a letter this age.

(887) Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough.

(888) Estimate of the Manners of the Times. See ant`e, p. 232,

letter 119.-E.

422 Letter 261

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, May 31, 1758.

This is rather a letter of thanks than of course, though I have

received, I verily believe, three from you since my last.

Well, then, this is to thank you for them too--chiefly for that

of to-day, with the account of the medals you have purchased

for me from Stosch, and those your own munificence bestows on

me. I am ashamed to receive the latter; I must positively know

what you paid for the former; and beg they may all be reserved

till a very safe opportunity. The price for the Ganymede is so

monstrous that I must not regret not having it--yet if ever he

should lower, I should still have a hankering, as it is one of

the finest medals I ever saw. Are any of the others in silver?

old Stosch had them so. When any of the other things I

mentioned descend to more mortal rates, I would be sorry to

lose them.

Should not you, if you had not so much experienced the

contrary, imagine that services begot gratitude? You know they

don't--Shall I tell you what they do beget?--at best,

expectations of more services. This is my very case now--you

have just been delivered of one trouble for me--I am going to

get you with twins--two more troubles. In the first place, I

shall beg you to send me a case of liqueurs; in the next all

the medals in copper of my poor departed friend the Pope, for

whom I am as much concerned as his subjects have reason to be.

I don't know whether I don't want samples of his coins, and the

little pieces struck during the sede vacante. I know what I

shall want, any authentic anecdotes of the conclave. There!

are there commissions enough? I did receive the Pope's letter

on my inscription, and the translation of the epitaph on

Theodore, and liked both much, and thought I had thanked you

for them--but I perceive I am not half so grateful as

troublesome.

Here is the state of our news and politics. We thought our

foreign King(889) on the road to Vienna: he is now said to be

prevented by Daun, and to be reduced to besiege Olmutz, which

has received considerable supplies. Accounts make Louisbourgh

reduced to wait for being taken by us as the easiest way of

avoiding being starved.--In short, we are to be those unnatural

fowl, ravens that carry bread. But our biggest of all

expectations is from our own invasion of France, which took

post last Sunday; fourteen thousand landmen, eighteen ships of

the line, frigates, sloops, bombs, and four volunteers, Lord

Downe, Sir James Lowther, Sir John Armitage, and Mr. Delaval--

the latter so ridiculous a character, that it has put a stop to

the mode that was spreading. All this commanded by Lord Anson,

who has beat the French; by the Duke of Marlborough, whose name

has beaten them; and by Lord George Sackville, who is to beat

them. Every port and town on the coast of Flanders and France

have been guessed for the object. It is a vast armament,

whether it succeeds or is lost.

At home there are seeds of quarrels. Pratt the

attorney-general has fallen on a necessary extension of the

Habeas Corpus to private cases. The interpreting world

ascribes his motive to a want of affection for my Lord

Mansfield, who unexpectedly is supported by the late

Chancellor, the Duke of Newcastle, and that part of the

ministry; and very expectedly by Mr. Fox, as this is likely to

make a breach between the united powers. The bill passed

almost unanimously through our House. It will have a very

different fate in the other, where Lord Temple is almost single

in its defence, and where Mr. Pitt seems to have little

influence. If this should produce a new revolution, you will

not be surprised. I don't know that it will; but it has

already shown how little cordiality subsists since the last.

I had given a letter for you to a young gentleman of Norfolk,

an only son, a friend of Lord Orford, and of much merit, who

was going to Italy with Admiral Broderick. He is lost in that

dreadful catastrophe of the Prince George--it makes one regret

him still more, as the survivors mention his last behaviour

with great encomiums.

Adieu! my dear child! -when I look back on my letter, I don't

know whether there would not be more propriety in calling you

my factor.

P. S. I cannot yet learn who goes to Turin: it was offered upon

his old request, to my Lord Orford but he has declined it.

(889) The King of Prussia.

423 Letter 262

To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Arlington Street, June 4, 1758.

The Habeas Corpus is finished, but only for this year. Lord

Temple threatened to renew it the next; on which Lord Hardwicke

took the party of proposing to order the judges to prepare a

bill for extending the power of granting the writ in vacation

to all the judges. This prevented a division; though Lord

Temple, who protested alone t'other day, had a flaming protest

ready, which was to have been signed by near thirty. They sat

last night till past nine. Lord Mansfield spoke admirably for

two hours and twenty-five minutes. Except Lord Ravensworth and

the Duke of Newcastle, whose meaning the first never knows

himself, and the latter's nobody else, all who spoke spoke

well: they were Lord Temple, Lord Talbot, Lord Bruce, and Lord

Stanhope, for; Lord Morten, Lord Hardwicke, and Lord Mansfield,

against the bill.(890) T'other day in our House, we had Lady

Ferrars' affair: her sister was heard, and Lord Westmoreland,

who had a seat within the bar. Mr. Fox opposed the settlement;

but it passed.

The Duke of Grafton has resigned. Norborne Berkeley has

converted a party of pleasure into a campaign, and is gone with

the expedition,(891) without a shirt but what he had on, and

what is lent him. The night he sailed he had invited women to

supper. Besides him, and those you know, is a Mr. Sylvester

Smith. Every body was asking, "But who is Sylvester Smith?"

Harry Townshend replied, "Why, he is the son of Delaval, who

was the son of Lowther, who was the son of Armitage, who was

the son of Downe."(892)

The fleet sailed on Thursday morning. I don't know why, but

the persuasion is that they will land on this side Ushant, and

that we shall hear some events by Tuesday or Wednesday. Some

believe that Lord Anson and Howe have different destinations.

Rochfort, where there are twenty thousand men, is said

positively not to be the place. the King says there are eighty

thousand men and three marshals in Normandy and Bretagne.

George Selwyn asked General Campbell, if the ministry had yet

told the King the object?

Mademoiselle de l'Enclos is arrived,(893) to my supreme

felicity. I cannot say very handsome or agreeable: but I had

been prepared on the article of her charms. I don't say, like

Henry VIII. of Anne of Cleves, that she is a Flanders mare,

though to be sure she Is rather large: on the contrary, I bear

it as well as ever prince did who was married by proxy-and she

does not find me fricass`e dans de la neige."(894) Adieu!

P. S. I forgot to tell you of another galanterie I have had, -a

portrait of Queen Elizabeth left here while I was out of town.

The servant said it was a present, but he had orders not to say

from whom.

(890) Lord Bute thus bewails the fate of the bill, in a letter

to Mr. Pitt of the same day: "What a terrible proof was Friday,

in the House of Lords, of the total loss of public spirit, and

the most supreme indifference to those valuable rights, for the

obtaining which our ancestors freely risked both life and

fortune! These are dreadful clouds that hang over the future

accession, and damp the hopes I should otherwise entertain of

that important day." Chatham Correspondence, vol. i. p. 317.-E.

(891) The expedition against St. Maloes.

(892) All these gentlemen had been volunteers on successive

expeditions to the coast of France.

(893) The portrait of ninon de l'Enclos.

(894) Madame de S`evign`e, in her letters to her daughter,

reports that Ninon thus expressed herself relative to her son,

the Marquis de Sevign`e, who was one of her lovers.

424 Letter 263

To Dr. Ducarel.

June, 1758.

I am very much obliged to you for the remarks and hints you

sent me on my Catalogue. They will be of use to me; and any

observations of my friends I shall be very thankful for, and

disposed to employ, to make my book, what it is extremely far

from being, more perfect. I was very glad to hear, Sir, that

the present Lord Archbishop of Canterbury has continued you in

an employment for which nobody is so fit, and in which nobody

would be so useful. I wish all manner of success to, as well

as continuance of, your labours; and am, etc. etc.

425 Letter 264

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, Sunday morning, June 11, 1758.

This will not depart till to-morrow, by which time probably

there will be more news, but I am obliged to go into the

country to-day, and would not let so much history set out,

without my saying a word of it, as I know you trust to no

gazette but mine. Last Thursday se'nnight our great expedition

departed from Portsmouth--and soon separated; lord Anson with

the great ships to lie before Brest, and Commodore Howe,(895)

our naval hero, with the transports and a million of small fry

on the secret enterprise. At one o'clock on Thursday night,

alias Friday morning a cutter brought advice that on Sunday

night the transports had made land in Concalle Bay, near St.

Maloes, had disembarked with no opposition or loss, except of a

boatswain and two sailors, killed from a little fort, to which

Howe was near enough to advise them not to resist. However,

some peasants in it fired and then ran away. Some prisoners

have assured our troops that there is no force within twenty

leagues. This may be apocryphal, a word which, as I am left at

liberty, I always interpret false. It is plain, however, that

we were not expected at St. Maloes at least. We are in violent

impatience to hear the consequences--especially whether we have

taken the town, in which there is but one battalion, many old

houses of wood, and the water easily to be cut off.

If you grow wise and ask me with a political face, whether St.

Maloes is an object worth risking fourteen thousand of our best

troops, an expense of fifty thousand pounds, and half of the

purplest blood of England, I shall toss up my head with an air

of heroism and contempt, and only tell you--There! there is the

Duke Of Marlborough in the heart of France; (for in the heroic

dictionary the heart and the coast signify the same thing;)

what would you have? Did Harry V. or Edward III mind whether it

was a rich town or a fishing town, provided they did but take a

town in France? We are as great as ever we were in the most

barbarous ages, and you are asking mercantile Questions with

all the littleness of soul that attends the improvements in

modern politics! Well! my dear child, I smile, but I tremble-.

and though it is pleasanter to tremble when one invades, than

when one is invaded, I don't like to be at the eve even of an

Agincourt. There are so many of my friends upon heroic ground,

that I discern all their danger through all their laurels.

Captain Smith, aide-de-camp to Lord George Sackville, dated his

letter to the Duke of Dorset, "from his Majesty's dominions in

France." Seriously, what a change is here! His Majesty, since

this time twelvemonth, had not only recovered his dominions in

Germany, but is on the acquiring foot in France. What heads,

what no heads must they have in France! Where are their

Cardinals, their Saxes, their Belleisles? Where are their

fleets, their hosts, their arts, their subsidies? Subsidies,

indeed! Where are ours? we pay none, or almost none, and are

ten times greater than when we hired half Europe. In short,

the difference of our situation is miraculous; and if we can

but keep from divisions at home, and the King of Prussia does

not prosper too fast for us, we may put France and ourselves

into situations to prevent them from being formidable to us for

a long season. Should the Prussian reduce too suddenly the

Empress-Queen to beg and give him a secure peace, considering

how deep a stake he still plays for, one could not well blame

his accepting it--and then we should still be to struggle with

France.

But while I am politicising, I forget to tell you half the

purport of my letter--part indeed you will have heard; Prince

Ferdinand's passage of Rhine, the most material circumstance of

which, in my opinion, is the discovery of the amazing weakness

of the French in their army, discipline, councils, and conduct.

Yesterday, as If to amuse us agreeably till we hear again from

St. Maloes, an express arrived of great conquests and captures

which three of our ships have made on the river Gambia, to the

destruction of the French trade and settlements there. I don't

tell you the particulars, because I don't know them, and

because you see them in the gazette. In one week we strike a

medal with Georgius, Germanicus, Gallicus, Africanus.

Mr. M'Kinsy, brother of Lord Bute, has kissed hands for Turin;

you remember him at Florence. He is very well-bred, and you

will find him an agreeable neighbour enough.

I have seen the vases at Holland-house, and am perfectly

content with them: the forms are charming. I assure you Mr.

Fox and Lady Caroline do not like them less than I do. Good

night! am not I a very humane conqueror to condescend to write

so long a letter?

(895) Richard, after the death of his elder brother, Viscount

Howe.

426 Letter 265

To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

June 16, 1758, 2 o'clock noon.

Well, my dear Harry! you are not the only man in England who

have not conquered France!(896) Even Dukes of Marlborough have

been there without doing the business. I don't doubt but your

good heart has even been hoping, in spite of your

understanding, that our heroes have not only taken St. Maloes,

but taken a trip cross the country to burn Rochefort, only to

show how easy it was. We have waited with astonishment at not

hearing that the French court was removed in a panic to Lyons,

and that the Mesdames had gone off in their shifts with only a

provision of rouge for a week. Nay, for my part, I expected to

be deafened with encomiums on my Lord Anson's continence, who,

after being allotted Madame Pompadour as his share of the

spoils, had again imitated Scipio, and, in spite of the

violence of his temperament, had restored her unsullied to the

King of France. Alack! we have restored nothing but a quarter

of a mile of coast to the right owners. A messenger arrived in

the middle of the night with an account that we have burned two

frigates and an hundred and twenty small fry; that it was found

impossible to bring up the cannon against the town; and that,

the French army approaching the coast, Commodore Howe, with the

expedition of Harlequin as well as the taciturnity, re-embarked

our whole force in seven hours, volunteers and all, with the

loss only of one man, and they are all gone to seek their

fortune somewhere else. Well! in half a dozen more wars we

shall know something of the coast of France. Last war we

discovered a fine bay near Port l'Orient: we have now found out

that we know nothing of St. Maloes. As they are popular

persons, I hope the city of London will send some more gold

boxes to these discoverers. If they send a patch-box to Lord

George Sackville, it will hold all his laurels. As our young

nobility cannot at present travel through France, I suppose

that is a method for finishing their studies. George Selwyn

says he supposes the French ladies will have scaffolds erected

on the shore to see the English go by. But I won't detain the

messenger any longer; I am impatient to make the Duchess(897)

happy, who I hope will soon see the Duke returned from his

coasting voyage.

The Churchills will be with you next Wednesday, and I believe I

too; but I can take my own word so little, that I will not give

it you. I know I must be back at Strawberry on Friday night;

for Lady Hervey and Lady Stafford are to be there with me for a

few days from to-morrow se'nnight. Adieu!

(896) Alluding to the expedition against Rochefort, the year

before, in which Mr. Conway was second in command.

(897) Lady Mary Bruce, Duchess of Richmond, only child of the

Countess of Ailesbury by her first marriage.

She was at Park-place with her mother during the Duke of

Richmond's absence, who was a volunteer upon this expedition

427 Letter 266

To The Earl Of Strafford.

Arlington Street, June 16, 1758.

My dear lord,

Dear lord, I stayed to write to you, in obedience to your

commands, till I had something worth telling you. St. Maloes

is taken by storm. The Governor leaped into the sea at the

very name of the Duke of Marlborough. Sir James Lowther put

his hand into his pocket, and gave the soldiers two hundred and

fifty thousand pounds to drink the King's health on the top of

the great church. Norborne Berkeley begged the favour of the

Bishop to go back with him and see his house in

Gloucestershire. Delaval is turned capuchin, with remorse, for

having killed four thousand French with his own hand. Commodore

Howe does nothing but talk of what he has done. Lord Downe, who

has killed the intendant, has sent for Dupr`e(898) to put in

his place; and my Lord Anson has ravished three abbesses, the

youngest of whom was eighty-five. Sure, my lord, this account

is glorious enough! Don't you think one might 'bate a little of

it? How much will you give up? Will you compound for the town

capitulating, and for threescore men of war and two hundred

privateers burned in the harbour? I would fain beat you down as

low as I could. What,

if we should not have taken the town? Shall you be very much

shocked, if, after burning two ships of fifty-four and

thirty-six guns, and a bushel of privateers and smallware, we

had thought it prudent to leave the town where we found it, and

had re-embarked last Monday in seven hours, (the despatch of

which implies at least as much precipitation as conduct,) and

that of all the large bill of fare above, nothing should be

true but Downe's killing the intendant; who coming out to

reconnoitre, and not surrendering, Downe, at the head of some

grenadiers, shot him dead. In truth, this is all the truth, as

it came in the middle Of the night; and if your lordship is

obstinately bent on the conquest of France, you must wait till

we have found another loophole into it, which it seems our

fleet is gone to look for. I fear it is not even true that we

have beat them in the Mediterranean! nor have I any hopes but

in Admiral Forbes, who must sail up the Rhone, burn Lyons, and

force them to a peace at once.

I hope you have had as favourable Succession of sun and rain as

we have. I go to Park-place next week, where I fancy I Shall

find our little Duchess(899) quite content with the prospect of

recovering her Duke, without his being provided with laurels like

a boar's head. Adieu! my dear lord. My best compliments to my

lady and her whole menagerie.

(898) A French master.

(899) of richmond.

428 Letter 267

To Sir Horace Mann.

Strawberry Hill, June 18, 1758.

I write to you again so soon, only to laugh at my last letter.

What a dupe was I! at my years to be dazzled with glory! to be

charmed with the rattle of drums and trumpets, till I fancied

myself at Cressy or Poictiers! In the middle of all this dream

of conquest, just when I had settled in what room of my castle

I would lodge the Duke of Alen`con or Montpensier, or whatever

illustrious captive should be committed to the custody of

Seneschal Me, I was awakened with an account of our army having

re-embarked, after burning some vessels at St. Maloes. This is

the history, neither more nor less, of this mighty expedition.

They found the causeway broken up, stayed from Tuesday night

till Monday morning in sight of the town; agreed it was

impregnable; heard ten thousand French (which the next day here

were erected into thirty thousand) were coming against them;

took to their transports, and are gone to play at hide and seek

somewhere else. This campaign being rather naked, is coloured

over with the great damage we have done, and with the fine

disposition and despatch made for getting away--the same

colours that would serve to paint pirates or a flight.

However, the city is pleased; and Mr. Pitt maintains that he

never intended to take St. Maloes, which I believe, because

when he did intend to have Rochefort taken last year, he sent

no cannon; this year, when he never meant to take St. Maloes,

he sent a vast train of artillery. Besides, one of the most

important towns in France, lying some miles up in the country,

was very liable to be stormed; a fishing town on the coast is

naturally impracticable. The best side of the adventure is,

that they were very near coming away without attempting the

conflagration, and only thought of it by chance--then indeed

Diripuere focos--

Atqui omnis facibus Pubes accingitur atris.

Perhaps the metamorphosis in Virgil of the ships into mermaids

is not more absurd than an army of twelve or thirteen thousand

of the flower of our troops and nobility performing the office

of link-boys, making a bonfire, and running away! The French

have said well, "les Anglois viennent nous casser des vitres

avec des guin`ees."(900) We have lost six men, they five, and

about a hundred vessels, from a fifty-gun ship to a

mackerel-boat.

I don't only ask my own pardon for swelling out my imagination,

but yours, for making you believe that you was to be

representative of the Black Prince or Henry V. I hope you had

sent no bullying letter to the conclave on the (,authority of

my last letter, to threaten the cardinals, that if they did not

elect the Archbishop of Canterbury Pope, you would send for

part of the squadron from St. Maloes to burn Civita Vecchia. I

had promised you the duchy of Bretagne, and we have lost

Madras!

Our expedition is still afloat--whither bound, I know not; but

pray don't bespeak any more laurels; wait patiently for what

they shall send you from the Secretary's office.

I gave your brother James my new work to send you-I grieve that

I must not, as usual, send a set for poor Dr. Cocchi. Good

night!

(900) "Mr. Pitt's friends exult on the destruction of three

French ships of war, and one hundred and thirty privateers and

trading ships, and affirm that it stopped the march of three

score thousand men, who were going to join the Comte de

Clermont's army. On the other hand, Mr. Fox and company call

it breaking windows with guineas, and apply the fable of the

mountain and the mouse." Lord Chesterfield.-E.

430 Letter 268

To Sir David Dalrymple.(901)

Strawberry Hill, June 29, 1758.

Sir,

Inaccurate and careless, as I must own my book is,(902) I

cannot quite repent having let it appear in that state, since

it has procured me so agreeable and obliging a notice from a

gentleman whose approbation makes me very vain. The trouble

you have been so good as to give yourself, Sir, is by no means

lost upon me; I feel the greatest gratitude for it, and shall

profit not only of your remarks, but with your permission of

your very words, wherever they will fall in with my text. The

former are so judicious and sensible, and the latter so well

chosen, that if it were not too impertinent to propose myself

as an example, I should wish, Sir, that you would do that

justice to the writers of your own country, which my ignorance

has made me execute so imperfectly and barrenly.

Give me leave to say a few words to one or two of your notes.

i should be glad to mention more instances of Queen Elizabeth's

fondness for praise,(903) but fear I have already been too

diffuse on her head. Bufo(904) is certainly Lord Halifax: the

person at whom you hint is more nearly described by the name of

Bubo, and I think in one place is even called Bubb.(905) The

number of volumes of Parthenissa I took from the list of Lord

Orrery's(906) writings in the Biographia: it is probable,

therefore, Sir, that there were different editions of that

romance. You will excuse my repeating once more, Sir, my

thanks for your partiality to a work so little worthy of your

favour. I even flatter myself that whenever you take a journey

this way, you will permit me to have the honour of being

acquainted with a gentleman to whom I have so particular an

obligation.

(901) Now first collected. This eminent lawyer, antiquary, and

historian was born in 1726. He was educated at Eton, and

afterwards studied civil law at Utrecht. In 1748, he was

called to the Scotch bar, and in 1766 made a judge of session,

when he assumed the name of Lord Hailes. Boswell states, that

Dr. Johnson, in 1763, drank a bumper to him "as a man of worth,

a scholar, and a wit." His "Annals of Scotland" the Doctor

describes as "a work which has such a stability of dates, such

a certainty of facts, and such a punctuality of citation, that

it must always sell." He wrote several papers in the World and

Mirror. He died in 1792.-E.

(902) The Royal and Noble Authors.-E.

(903) Queen Elizabeth, who had turned Horace's Art of Poetry

into English, having been offended with Sir Francis Bacon, the

Earl of Essex, to recommend him again to favour, artfully told

her, that his suit was not so much for the good of Bacon, as

for her own honour, that those excellent translations of hers

might be known to those who could best judge of them.-E.

(904) In Pope's Prologue to the Satires--

"Proud as Apollo on his forked hill,

Sat full-blown Bufo puff'd by many a quill."-E.

(905) Bubb Dodington--

"And then for mine obligingly mistakes

The first lampoon Sir Will, or Bubo makes."-E.

(906) Roger Boyle, Earl of Orrery. His Parthenissa, a romance

in six books, appeared in folio in 1677.

431 Letter 269

To John Chute, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, June 29, 1758.

The Tower-guns have sworn through thick and thin that Prince

Ferdinand has entirely demolished the French, and the

city-bonfires all believe it. However, as no officer is yet

come, nor confirmation, my crackers suspend their belief. Our

great fleet is stepped ashore again near Cherbourg; I suppose,

to singe half a yard more of the coast. This is all I know;

less, as you may perceive, than any thing but the Gazette.

What is become of Mr. Montagu? Has he stolen to Southampton,

and slipped away a-volunteering like Norborne Berkeley, to

conquer France in a dirty shirt and a frock? He might gather

forty load more of laurels in my wood. I wish I could flatter

myself that you would come with him.

My Lady Suffolk has at last entirely submitted her barn to our

ordination. As yet it is only in Deacon;s orders; but will

very soon have our last imposition of hands. Adieu! Let me

know a word of you.

431 Letter 270

To George Montagu, Esq.

Strawberry Hill, July 6, 1758.

You may believe I was thoroughly disappointed in not seeing you

here, as I expected. I grieve for the reason, and wish you had

told me that your brother was quite recovered. Must I give you

over for the summer? sure you are in my debt.

That regiments are going to Germany is certain; which, except

the Blues) I know not. Of all secrets I am not in any Irish

ones. I hope for your sake, your Colonel(907) is not of the

number; but how can you talk in the manner you do of Prince

Ferdinand! Don't you know that, next to Mr. Pitt and Mr.

Delaval, he is the most fashionable man in England? Have not

the Tower-guns, and all the parsons in London, been ordered to

pray for him? You have lived in Northamptonshire till you are

ignorant that Hanover is in Middlesex, as the Bishop's palace

at Chelsea is in the diocese of Winchester. In hopes that you

will grow better acquainted with your own country, I remain

your affected Horatius Valpolhausen.

(907) Mr. Montagu's brother.

432 Letter 271

To The Rev. Dr. Birch.

Arlington Street, July 8, 1758.

Sir,

As you have been so good as to favour me with your assistance,

I flatter myself you will excuse my begging it once more. I am

told that you mentioned to Dr. Jortin a Lord Mountjoy, who

lived in the reign of Henry VIII. as an author. Will you be so

good as to tell me any thing you know of him, and what he

wrote. I shall entreat the favour of this notice as soon as

possibly you can; because my book is printing off, and I am

afraid of being past the place where he must come in. I am

just going out of town, but a line put into the Post any night

before nine o'clock will find me next morning at Strawberry

Hill.

432 Letter 272

To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(908)

Arlington Street, July 8, 1758.

You have made me laugh; do you think I found much difficulty to

persist in thinking as well of you as I used to do, though you

have neither been so great a Poliorcetes as Almanzor, who could

take a town alone, nor have executed the commands of another

Almanzor, who thought he could command the walls of a city to

tumble down as easily as those of Jericho did to the march of

Joshua's first regiment of Guards? Am I so apt to be swayed by

popular clamour. But I will say no more on that head. As to

the wording of the sentence, I approve your objection; and as I

have at least so little of the author in me as to be very

corrigible, I will, if you think proper, word the beginning

thus:--

"In dedicating a few trifles(909) to you, I have nothing new to

tell the world. My esteem still accompanies your merit, on

which 'it was founded, and to which, with such abilities as

mine, I can only bear testimony; I must not pretend to

vindicate it. If your virtues," etc. It shall not be said

that I allowed prejudice and clamour to be the voice of the

world against you. I approve, too, the change of "proposed"

for "would have undertaken;" but I cannot like putting in

"prejudice and malice." When One accuses others of malice, one

is a little apt to feel it; and if I could flatter myself that

such a thing as a Dedication would have weight, or that any

thing of mine would last, I would have it look as dispassionate

as possible. When after some interval I assert coolly that you

was most wrongfully blamed, I shall be believed. If I seem

angry, it will look like a party quarrel still existing.

Instead of resenting your not being employed in the present

follies, I think you might write a letter of thanks to my Lord

Ligonier, Or to Mr. Pitt, or even to the person who is

appointed to appoint generals himself,(910) to thank them for

not exposing you a second year. All the puffs in the

newspapers cannot long stifle the ridicule which the French

will of course propagate through all Europe on the foolish

figure we have made. You shall judge by one sample: the Duc

d'Aiguillon has literally sent a vessel with a flag of truce to

the Duke of Marlborough, with some teaspoons which, in his

hurry, he left behind him. I know the person who saw the

packet before it was delivered to the Blenheimeius. But what

will you say to this wise commander himself? I am going to tell

you no secret, but what he uttered publicly at the levee. The

King asked him, if he had raised great contributions?

"Contributions, Sir! we saw nothing but old women." What

becomes of the thirty thousand men that made them retire with

such expedition to their transports? My Lord Downe, as decently

as he can, makes the greatest joke of their enterprise, and has

said at Arthur's, that.,five hundred men posted with a grain of

common sense would have cut them all to pieces. I was not less

pleased at what M. de Monbagon, the young prisoner, told

Charles Townshend t'other day at Harley's: he was actually at

Rochfort when you landed, where he says they had six thousand

men, most impatient for your approach, and so posted that not

one of you would ever have returned. This is not an evidence

to be forgot.

Howe and Lord George Sackville are upon the worst terms, as the

latter is with the military too. I can tell you some very

curious anecdotes when I see you; but what I do not choose, for

particular reasons, to write. What is still more curious, when

Lord George kissed hands at Kensington, not a word was said to

him.

How is your fever? tell me, when you have a mind to write, but

don't think it necessary to answer my gazettes; indeed I don't

expect it.

(908) Now first printed.

(909) The little Volume of Fugitive Pieces, printed this year

at the Strawberry Hill press.

(910) The King.-E.

433 Letter 273

To Sir Horace Mann.

Arlington Street, July 8, 1758.

If you will not take Prince Ferdinand's victory at Crevelt in

full of all accounts, I don't know what you will do--autrement,

we are insolvent. After dodging about the coasts of Normandy

and Bretagne, our armada is returned; but in the hurry of the

retreat from St. Maloes, the Duke of Marlborough left his

silver teaspoons behind. As he had generously sent back an old

woman's finger and gold ring, which one of our soldiers had cut

off, the Duc d'Aiguillon has sent a cartel-ship with the

prisoner-spoons. How they must be diverted with this

tea-equipage, stamped with the Blenheim eagles! and how plain

by this sarcastic compliment what they think of US! Yet We

fancy that we detain forty thousand men on the coast from

Prince Clermont's army! We are sending nine thousand men to

Prince Ferdinand; part, those of the expedition: the remainder

are to make another attempt; perhaps to batter Calais with a

pair of tea-tongs.

I am sorry for the Comte de la Marche, and much more sorry for

the Duc de Gisors.(911) He was recommended to me when he was

in England; I knew him much, and thought as well of him as all

the world did. He was graver, and with much more application

to improve himself, than any young Frenchman of quality I ever

saw. How unfortunate Belleisle is, to have outlived his

brother, his only son, and his hearing! You will be charmed

with an answer of Prince Ferdinand to our Princess Gouvernante

of Holland.(912) She wrote by direction of the States to

complain of his passing over the territories of the Republic.

He replied, "That he was sorry, though he had barely crossed

over a very small corner of their dominions; and should not

have trespassed even there, if he had had the same Dutch guides

to conduct him that led the French army last year to Hanover."

I congratulate 'you on your regale from the Northumberlands.

How seldom people think of all the trouble and expense they put

you to--I amongst the rest! Apropos, if they are not bespoken,

I will not trouble you for the case of drams. Lord Hertford

has given me some of his; the fashion is much on the decline,

and never drinking any myself, these will last me long enough

and considering that I scarce ever give you a commission, but

somehow or other ends at your expense, (witness the medals you

gave me of your own,) it is time for me to check my pen that

asks so flippantly. As I am not mercenary, I cannot bear to

turn you to account; if I was, I should bear it very easily:

but it is ridiculous to profit of one's friends, when one does

not make friendships with that view.

Methinks you don't make a Pope very fast. The battle of

Crevelt has restored him a little, or the head of our church

was very declining. He said the other day to Lady Coventry in

the drawing-room, "Don't look at me, I am a dismal figure; I

have entirely lost one eye."Adieu!

(911) Only son of Marshal Belleisle; he was killed at the

battle of Crevelt: the Comte de la Marche was not.

(912) Anne, eldest daughter of George II. and Princess Dowager

of Orange.

434 Letter 274

To The Hon. H. S. Conway.

Strawberry Hill, July 21, 1758.

Your gazette, I know, has been a little idle; but we volunteer

gazettes, like other volunteers, are not easily tied down to

regularity and rules. We think we have so much merit, that we

think we have a right to some demerit too; and those who depend

upon us, I mean us gazettes, are often disappointed, A

common-foot newspaper may want our vivacity, but is ten times

more useful. Besides, I am not in town, and ten miles out of

it is an hundred miles out of it for all the purposes of news .

You know, of course, that Lord George Sackville refused to go

a-buccaneering again, as he called it; that my friend Lord

Ancram, who loves a dram of any thing, from glory to brandy, is

out of order; that just as Lord Panmure was going to take the

command,@e missed an eye; and that at last they have routed out

an old General Blighe from the horse armoury in Ireland, who is

to undertake the codicil to the expedition. Moreover, you know

that Prince Edward is bound 'prentice to Mr. Howe.(913) All

this you have heard; yet, like my cousin the Chronicle, I

repeat what has been printed in every newspaper of the week,

and then finish with one paragraph of spick and span. Alack!

my postscript is not very fortunate: a convoy of twelve

thousand men, etc. was going to the King of' Prussia, was

attacked unexpectedly by five thousand Austrians, and cut

entirely to pieces; provisions, ammunition, etc. all taken.

The King instantly raised the siege, and retreated with so much

precipitation, that he was forced to nail up sixty pieces of

cannon. I conclude the next we hear of him will be a great

victory-. if he sets over night in a defeat, he always rises

next morning in a triumph--at least, we that have nothing to do

but expect and admire, shall be extremely disappointed if he

does not. Besides, he is three months debtor to Fame.

The only private history of any freshness is, my Lady

Dalkeith's christening; the child had three godfathers: and I

will tell you why: they had thought of the Duke of Newcastle,

my Lord and George Townshend: but of two Townshends and his

grace, God could not take the word of any two of them, so all

three were forced to be bound.

I draw this comfort from the King of Prussia's defeat, that it

may prevent the folly of another expedition: I don't know how

or why, but no reason is a very good one against a thing that

has no reason in it. Eleven hundred men are ill from the last

enterprise. Perhaps Don William Quixote(914) and Admiral

Amadis(915) may determine to send them to the Danube: for, as

no information ever precedes their resolutions, and no

impossibilities ever deter them, I don't see why the Only thing

worthy their consideration should not be, how glorious and

advantageous an exploit it would be, if it could be performed.

Why did Bishop Wilkins try to fly? Not that he thought it

practicable, but because it would be very convenient. As he

did not happen to be a particular favourite of the city of

London, he was laughed at: they prepossessed in his favour, and

he would have received twenty gold boxes, though twenty people

had broken their neck off St. Paul's with trying the

experiment.

I have heard a whisper, that you do not go into Yorkshire this

summer. Is it true? It is fixed that I go to Ragley(916) on

the 13th of next month; I trust you do so too. have you had

such deluges for three weeks well counted, as we have? If I

had not cut one of my perroquet's wings, and there were an

olive-tree in the country, I would send to know where there is

a foot of dry land.

You have heard, I suppose,--if not, be it known to you,--that

Mr. Keppel, the canon of Windsor, espouses my niece Laura; yes,

Laura.(917) I rejoice much; so I receive your compliments upon

if, lest you as it sometimes happens, forget to make them.

Adieu!

July 22.

For the pleasure of my conscience I had written all the above

last night, expecting Lord Lyttelton, the Dean, and other

company, This morning I receive yours; and having already told

you all I know, I have only a few paragraphs to answer.

I am pleased that you are pleased about my book:(918) you shall

see it very soon; though there will scarce be a new page:

nobody else shall see it till spring. In the first place, the

prints will not be finished: in the next, I intend that two or

three other things shall appear before it from my press, of

other authors; for I will not surfeit people with my writings,

nor have them think that I propose to find employment alone for

a whole press--so far from it, I intend to employ it no more

about myself.