Chapter 17

Anecdotes of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough-and of Catherine Duchess of Buckingham.

I have done with royal personages: shall I add a codicil on some remarkable characters that I remember? As I am writing for young ladies, I have chiefly dwelt on heroines of your own sex; they, too, shall compose my last chapter: enter the Duchesses of Marlborough and Buckingham.

Those two women were considerable personages in their day. The first, her own beauty, the superior talents of her husband in war, and the caprice of a feeble princess, raised to the highest pitch of power; and the prodigious wealth bequeathed to her by her lord, and accumulated in concert with her, gave her weight in a free country. The other, proud of royal, though illegitimate birth, was, from the vanity of that birth, so zealously attached to her expelled brother, the Pretender, that she never ceased labouring to effect his restoration; and, as the opposition to the House of Brunswick was composed partly of principled Jacobites-of Tories, who either knew not what their own principles were, or dissembled them to themselves, and of Whigs, who, from hatred of the minister, both acted in concert with the Jacobites and rejoiced in their assistance-two women of such wealth, rank, and enmity to the court, were sure of great attention from all the discontented.

The beauty of the Duchess of Marlborough had always been of the scornful and imperious kind, and her features and air announced nothing that her temper did not confirm; both together, her beauty and temper, enslaved her heroic lord. One of her principal charms was a prodigious abundance of fine fair hair. One day at her toilet, in anger to him, she cut off those commanding tresses, and flung them in his face. Nor did her insolence stop there, nor stop till it had totally estranged and worn out the patience of the poor Queen, her mistress. The Duchess was often seen to give her Majesty her fan and gloves, and turn away her own head, as if the Queen had offensive smells.

Incapable of due respect to superiors, it was no wonder she treated her children and inferiors with supercilious contempt. Her eldest daughter (121) and she were long at variance, and never reconciled. When the young Duchess exposed herself by placing a monument and silly epitaph, of her own composition and bad spelling, to Congreve, in Westminster Abbey, her mother, quoting the words, said, "I know not what pleasure she might have in his company, but I am sure it was no honour."(122) With her youngest daughter, the Duchess of Montagu, old Sarah agreed as ill. "I wonder," said the Duke of Marlborough to them, "that you cannot agree, you are so alike!" Of her granddaughter, the Duchess of Manchester, daughter of the Duchess of Montagu, she affected to be fond. One day she said to her, "Duchess of Manchester, you are a good creature, and I love you mightily-but you have a mother!"-"And she has a mother!" answered the Duchess of Manchester, who was all spirit, justice, and honour, and could not suppress sudden truth.

One of old Marlborough's capital mortifications sprang from a granddaughter. The most beautiful of her four charming daughters, Lady Sunderland,(123) left two sons,(124) the second Duke of Marlborough, and John Spencer, who became her heir, and Anne Lady Bateman, and Lady Diana Spencer, whom I have mentioned, and who became Duchess of Bedford. The Duke and his brother, to humour their grandmother, were in opposition, though the eldest she never loved. He had good sense, infinite generosity, and not more economy than was to be expected from a young man of warm passions and such vast expectations. He was modest and diffident too, but could not digest total dependence on a capricious and avaricious grandmother. HIS sister, Lady Bateman, had the intriguing spirit of her father and grandfather, Earls of Sunderland. She was connected with Henry Fox, the first Lord Holland, and both had great influence over the Duke of Marlborough. What an object would it be to Fox to convert to the court so great a subject as the Duke! Nor was it much less important to his sister to give him a wife, who, with no reasons for expectation of such shining fortune, should owe the obligation to her. Lady Bateman struck the first stroke, and persuaded her brother to marry a handsome young lady, who, unluckily, was daughter of Lord Trevor, who had been a bitter enemy to his grandfather, the victorious Duke. The grandam's rage exceeded all bounds. Having a portrait of Lady Bateman, she blackened the face, and wrote on it, "Now her outside is as black as her inside." The duke she turned out of the little lodge in Windsor Park; and then pretending that the new Duchess and her female cousins (eight Trevors) had stripped the house and gardens, she had a puppet-show made with waxen figures, representing the Trevors tearing up the shrubs, and the Duchess carrying off the chicken-coop under her arm.

Her fury did but increase when Mr. Fox prevailed on the Duke to go over to the court. With her coarse intemperate humour, she said, "that was the Fox that had stolen her goose." Repeated injuries at last drove the Duke to go to law with her. Fearing that even no lawyer would come up to the Billingsgate with which she was animated herself, she appeared in the court of justice, and with some wit and infinite abuse, treated the laughing public with the spectacle of a woman who had held the reigns of empire, metamorphosed into the widow Black-acre. Her grandson, in his suit, demanded a sword set with diamonds, given to his grandsire by the Emperor. "I retained it," said the beldam, " lest he should pick out the diamonds and pawn them."

I will repeat but one more instance of her insolent asperity, which produced an admirable reply of the famous Lady Mary -Wortley Montague. Lady Sundon had received a pair of diamond ear-rings as a bribe for procuring a considerable post in Queen Caroline's family for a certain peer; and, decked with those jewels, paid a visit to the old Duchess; who, as soon as she was gone, said, "What an impudent creature, to come hither with her bribe in her ear!" "Madam," replied Lady Mary Wortley, who was present, "how should people know where wine' is sold, unless a bush is hung out?"

The Duchess of Buckingham was as much elated by owing her birth to James II.(125) as the Marlborough was by the favour of his daughter. Lady Dorchester,(126) the mother of the former, endeavoured to curb that pride, and, one should have thought, took an effectual method, though one few mothers would have practised. "You need not be so vain," said the old profligate, "for you are not the King's daughter, but Colonel Graham's." Graham was a fashionable man of those days and noted for dry humour. His legitimate daughter, the Countess of Berkshire, was extremely like to the Duchess of Buckingham: "Well! well!" said Graham, "Kings are all powerful, and one must not complain; but certainly the same man begot those two women." To discredit the wit of both parents, the Duchess never ceased labouring to restore the House of Stuart, and to mark her filial devotion to it. Frequent were her journeys to the Continent for that purpose. She always stopped at Paris, visited the church where lay the unburied body of James, and wept over it. A poor Benedictine of the convent, observing her filial piety, took notice to her grace that the velvet pall that covered the coffin was become threadbare-and so it remained.

Finding all her efforts fruitless, and perhaps aware that her plots were not undiscovered by Sir Robert Walpole, who was remarkable for his intelligence, she made an artful double, and resolved to try what might be done through him himself. I forget how she contracted an acquaintance with him: I do remember that more than once he received letters from the Pretender himself, which probably were transmitted through her. Sir Robert always carried them to George II. who endorsed and returned them. That negotiation not succeeding. the Duchess made a more home push. Learning his extreme fondness for his daughter, (afterwards Lady Mary Churchill,) she sent for Sir Robert, and asked him if he recollected what had not been thought too great a reward to Lord Clarendon for restoring the royal family? He affected not to understand her. "Was not he allowed," urged the zealous Duchess, "to match his daughter to the Duke of York?" Sir Robert smiled, and left her.

Sir Robert being forced from court, the Duchess thought the moment (127) favourable, and took a new journey to Rome; but conscious of the danger she might run of discovery, she made over her estate to the famous Mr. Pulteney (afterwards Earl of Bath), and left the deed in his custody. What was her astonishment, when on her return she redemanded the instrument!-It was mislaid-he could not find it-he never could find it! The Duchess grew clamorous. At last his friend Lord Mansfield told him plainly,- he could never show his face unless he satisfied the Duchess. Lord Bath did then sign a release to her of her estate. The transaction was recorded in print by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, in a pamphlet that had great vogue, called a Congratulatory Letter, with many other anecdotes of the same personage, and was not less acute than Sir Charles's Odes on the same here. The Duchess dying not long after Sir Robert's entrance into the House of Lords, Lord Oxford, one of her executors, told him there, that the Duchess had struck Lord Bath out of her will, and made him, Sir Robert, one of her trustees in his room. "Then," said Sir Robert, laughing, @ I see, my lord, that I have got Lord Bath's place before he has got mine." Sir Robert had artfully prevented the last. Before he quitted the King, he persuaded his Majesty to insist, as a preliminary to the change, that Mr. Pulteney should go into the House of Peers, his great credit lying in the other house; and I remember my father's action when he returned from court and told me what he had done-,, I have turned the key of the closet on him,"-making that motion with his hand. Pulteney had jumped at the proffered earldom, but saw his error when too late; and was so enraged at his own oversight, that, when he went to take the oaths in the House of Lords, he dashed his patent on the floor, and vowed he would never take it up-but he had kissed the King's hand for it, and it was too late to recede.

But though Madam of Buckingham could not effect a coronation to her will, she indulged her pompous mind with such puppet-shows as were appropriate to her rank. She had made a funeral for her husband as splendid as that of the great Marlborough: she renewed that pageant for her only son, a weak lad, who died under age; and for herself; and prepared and decorated -waxen dolls of him and of herself to be exhibited in glass-cases in Westminster Abbey. It was for the procession at her son's burial that she wrote to old Sarah of Marlborough to borrow the triumphal car that had transported the corpse of the Duke. "It carried my Lord Marlborough," replied the other, and shall never be used for any body else." "I have consulted the undertaker," replied the Buckingham, and he tells me I may have a finer for twenty pounds."

One of the last acts of Buckingham's life was marrying a grandson she had to a daughter of Lord Hervey. That intriguing man, sore, as I have said, at his disgrace, cast his eyes every where to revenge or exalt himself. Professions or recantations of any principles cost him nothing: at least the consecrated day which was appointed for his first interview with the Duchess made it presumed, that to obtain her wealth, with her grandson for his daughter, he must have sworn fealty to the House of Stuart. It was on the martyrdom of her grandfather: she received him in the great drawing-room of Buckingham House, seated in a chair of state, in deep mourning, attended by her women in like weeds, in memory of the royal martyr.

It will be a proper close to the history of those curious ladies to mention the anecdote of Pope relative to them. Having drawn his famous character of Atossa, he communicated it to each Duchess, pretending it was levelled at the other. The Buckingham believed him: the Marlborough had more sense, and knew herself, and gave him a thousand pounds to suppress it;-and yet he left the copy behind him!(128)

Bishop Burnet, from absence of mind, had drawn as strong a picture of herself to the Duchess of Marlborough, as Pope did under covert of another lady. Dining with the Duchess after the Duke's disgrace, Burnet was comparing him to Belisarius: "But how," said she, "could so great a general be so abandoned?" "Oh! Madam," said the Bishop, "do not you know what a brimstone of a wife he had'!"

Perhaps you know this anecdote, and perhaps several others that I have been relating. No matter; they will go under the article of my dotage-and very properly-I began with tales of my nursery, and prove that I have been writing in my second childhood.

H. W. January 13th, 1789.

(121) The Lady Henrietta, married to Lord Godolphin, who, by act of Parliament, succeeded as Duchess of Marlborough. She died in 1738, childless; and the issue of her next sister, Lady Sunderland, succeeded to the duchy of Marlborough.-E.

(122) "For reasons," says Dr. Johnson, "either not known, or not mentioned, Congreve bequeathed a legacy of about ten thousand pounds to the Duchess; the accumulation of attentive parsimony, which, though to her superfluous and useless, might have given great assistance to the ancient family from which he descended, at that time, by the imprudence of his relation, reduced to difficulties and distress."-E.

(123) Lady Sunderland was a great politician; and having, like her mother, a most beautiful head of hair, used, while combing it at her toilet, to receive men whose votes or interests she wished to influence.

(124) She had an elder son, who died young, while only Earl of Sunderland. He had parts, and all the ambition of his parents and of his family (which his younger brother had not); but George II. had conceived such an aversion to his father, that he would not employ him. The young Earl at last asked Sir Robert Walpole for an ensigncy in the Guards. The minister, astonished at so humble a request from a man of such consequence, expressed his surprise. "I ask it," said the young lord, "to ascertain whether it is determined that I shall never have any thing." He died soon after at Paris.

(125) By Catherine Sedley, created by her royal lover Countess of Dorchester for life.-E.

(126) Lady Dorchester is well known for her wit, and for saying that she wondered for what James chose his mistresses: "We are none of us handsome," said she; "and if we have wit, he has not enough to find it out." But I do not know whether it is as public, that her style was gross and shameless. Meeting the Duchess of Portsmouth and Lady Orkney, the favourite of King William, at the drawing-room of George the First, "God!" said she, "who would have thought that we three whores should have met here?" Having, after the King's abdication, married Sir David Collyer, by whom she had two sons, she said to them, " If any body should call you sons of a whore, you must bear it; for you are so: but if they call you bastards, fight till you die; for you are an honest man's sons." Susan, Lady Bellasis, another of King James's mistresses, had wit too, and no beauty. Mrs. Godfrey had neither. Grammont has recorded why she was chosen.

(127) I am not quite certain that, writing by memory at the distance of fifty years, I place that journey exactly at the right period, nor whether it did not take place before Sir Robert's fall. Nothing material depends on the precise period.

(128) The story is thus told by Dr. Warton:-" These lines were shown to her grace, as if they were intended for the portrait of the Duchess of Buckingham; but she soon stopped the person who was reading them to her, as the Duchess of Portland informed me, and called out aloud, "I cannot be so imposed upon; I see plainly enough for whom they are designed;" and abused Pope most plentifully on the subject: though she was afterwards reconciled to him, and courted him, and gave him a thousand pounds to suppress this portrait, which he a accepted, it is said, by the persuasion of Mrs. M. Blount; and, after the Duchess's death, it was printed in a folio sheet, 1746, and afterwards inserted in his Moral Essays. This is the greatest blemish on our poet's moral character."-E.

The following extracts from Letters of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, were copied by me from the original letters addressed to the Earl of Stair, left by him to Sir David Dalrymple, his near relative, and lent to me by Sir David's brother, Mr. Alexander Dalrymple, long employed as Geographer in the service of the East India company. They formed part of a large volume of ms. letters, chiefly from the same person.

The Duchess of Marlborough's virulence, her prejudices, her style of writing, are already well known, and every line of these extracts will only serve to confirm the same opinion of all three. But it will, probably, be thought curious thus to be able to compare the notes of the opposite political parties, and their different account of the same trifling facts, magnified by the prejudices of both into affairs of importance.

January, 1840

EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS OF SARAH, DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH, TO THE EARL OF STAIR, ILLUSTRATIVE OF "THE REMINISCENCES." (NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.)

(See Reminiscences, p. 97.)

London, Feb. 24th, 1738. . . . . As to Norfolk House, (129) I have heard there is a great deal of company, and that the Princess of Wales, tho' so very young, behaves so as to please every body; and I think her conversation is much more proper and decent for a drawing-room than the wise queen Caroline's was, who never was half an hour without saying something shocking to some body or other, even when she intended to oblige, and generally very improper discourse for a public room.

[See p. 98. Reminiscences, Chapter Vii]

London, December 24th, 1737. My Lord, I received the favour of yours of the 17th December yesterday. I have nothing material to say to you since my last. His Majesty saw the Queen's women servants first, which was a very mournful sight, for they all cried extremely; and his Majesty was so affected that he began to speak, but went out of the room to recover himself. And yesterday he saw the foreign ministers and his horses, which I remember Dean Swift gives a great character of; and was very sorry to leave them for the conversation of his countrymen in England.; and I think he was much in the right.

[See P. 98. Reminiscences, Chapter Vii)

Marlborough House, Nov. 15, 1737. It is not many days since I wrote to your lordship by post, but one can't be sure those letters are sent. However, I have a mind to give you an account of what, perhaps, you may not have so particularly from any other hand. This day, se'nnight the Queen was taken extremely ill; the physicians were sent for, and from the account that was given, they treated her as if she had the gout in her stomach: but, upon a thorough investigation of the matter, a surgeon desired that she would put her hand where the pain was that she complained of, which she did; and the surgeon, following her hand with his, found it was a very large rupture, which had been long Concealed. Upon this, immediately they cut it, and some little part of the gut, which was discoloured. Few of the knowing people have had any hopes for many days; for they still apprehend a mortification, and she can't escape it unless the physicians can make something pass thro' her, which they have not yet been able to do in so many days. The King and the Royal Family have taken leave of her more than once; and his Majesty has given her leave to make her will, which she has done; but I fancy it will be in such a manner that few, if any, will know what her money amounts to. Sir Robert Walpole was in Norfolk, and came to -London but last night. I can't but think he must be extremely uneasy at this misfortune; for I have a notion that many of his troops will slacken very much, if not quite leave him, when they see he has lost his sure support. But there is so much folly, and mean corruption, etc.

London, December 1st, 1737. . . . . As to what has passed in the Queen's illness, and since her death, one can't depend on much one hears; and they are things that it is no great matter whether they are true or false. But one thing was odd: whether out of folly, or any thing else, I can't say, but the Duke of Newcastle did not send Sir Robert Walpole news of her illness, nor of her danger, as soon as he might have done; and after he came to town, which was but a few days before she died, and when she could no more live than she can now come out of her coffin, the physicians, and all that attended her, were ordered to say she was better, and that they had some hopes. What the use of that was I cannot conceive. And the occasion of her death is still pretended to be a secret: yet it is known that she had a rupture, and had it for many years; that she had imposthumes that broke, and that some of the guts were mortified. This is another mystery which I don't comprehend; for what does it signify what one dies of, except the pain it gives more than common dissolutions? etc.

[See p. 100. Reminiscences, Chapter Vii)

I AM Of the opinion, from woful experience, that, from flattery and want of understanding, most princes are alike; and, therefore, it is to no purpose to argue against their passions, but to defend ourselves, at all events, against them.

[See P. 100. Reminiscences, Chapter VII]

Wimbledon, 17th Aug. 1737. There has been a very extraordinary quarrel at court, which, I believe, nobody will give you so exact an account of as myself. The 31st of last month the Princess fell in labour. The King and Queen both knew that she was to lie in -,it St. James's, where every thing was prepared. It was her first child, and so little a way to London, that she thought it less hazard to go immediately away from Hampton Court to London, where she had all the assistance that could be, and every thing prepared, than to stay at Hampton Court, where she had nothing, and might be forced to make use of a country midwife. There was not a minute's time to be lost in debating this matter, nor in ceremonials; the Princess begging earnestly of the Prince to carry her to St. James's, in such a hurry that gentlemen went behind the coach like footmen. They got to St. James's safe, and she was brought to bed in one hour after. Her Majesty followed them as soon as she could, but did not come till it was all over. However, she expressed a great deal of anger to the Prince for having carried her away, tho' she and the child were very well. I should have thought it had been most natural for a grandmother to have said she had been mightily frightened, but was glad it was so well over. The Prince said all the respectful and dutiful things imaginable to her and the King, desiring her Majesty to support the reasons which made him go away as he did without acquainting his Majesty with it: and, I believe, all human creatures will allow that this was natural, for a man not to debate a thing of this kind, nor to lose a minute's time in ceremony, which was very useless, considering that it is a great while since the King has spoke to him, or taken the least notice of him. The Prince told her Majesty he intended to go that morning to pay his duty to the King, but she advised him not. This was Monday morning, and she said Wednesday was time enough; and, indeed, in that I think her Majesty was in the right. the Prince submitted to her counsel, and only writ a most submissive and respectful letter to his Majesty, giving his reasons for what he had done. And this conversation ended, that he hoped his Majesty would do him the honour to be godfather to his daughter, and that he would be pleased to name who the godmothers should be; and that he left all the directions of the christening to his Majesty's pleasure. The queen answered that it would be thought the asking the King to be godfather was too great a liberty, and advised him not to do it. When the Prince led the Queen to her coach, which she would not have had him done, there was a great concourse of people; and, notwithstanding all that had passed before, she expressed so much kindness that she hugged and kissed him with great passion. the King, after this, sent a message in writing, by my Lord Essex, in the following words:-that his Majesty looked upon what the Prince had done, in carrying the Princess to London in such a manner, as a deliberate indignity offered to himself and to the Queen, and resented it in the highest degree, and forbid him the Court. I must own I cleared Sir Robert in my own mind of this counsel, thinking he was not in town: but it has proved otherwise, for he was in town; and the message is drawn up in such a manner that nobody doubts of its being done by sir Robert. All the sycophants and agents of the court spread millions of falsities on this occasion; and all the language there was, that this was so great a crime that even those who went with the Prince ought to be proscribed. How this will end nobody yet knows; at least I am sure I don't; but I know there was a council today held at Hampton court. I have not heard yet of any christening being directed, but for that I am in no manner of pain: for, if it be never christened, I think 'tis in a better state than a great many devout people that I know. Some talk as if they designed to take the child away from the Princess, to be under the care of her Majesty, who professes vast kindness to the Princess; and all the anger is at the Prince. Among common subjects I think the law is, that nobody that has any interest in an estate is to have any thing to do with the person who is heir to it. What prejudice this sucking child can do to the crown I don't see; but, to be sure, her Majesty will be very careful of it. What I apprehend most. is, that the crown will be lost long before this little Princess can possibly enjoy it; and, if what I have heard to-day be true, I think the scheme of France is going to open; for I was told there was an ambassador to come from France whose goods had been landed in England, and that they have been sent back. But I won't answer for the truth of that, as I will upon every thing else in this letter.

[See p. 100. Reminiscences, Chapter VII]

June 20th, 1738. My Lord, I write to you this post, to give you an account of what I believe nobody else will so particularly, that Madame Walmond (130) was presented in the drawing-room to his Majesty on Thursday. As she arrived some days before, there can be no doubt that it was not the first meeting, tho' the manner of her reception had the appearance of it; for his Majesty went up to her and kissed her on both sides, which is an honour, I believe, never any lady had from a king in public. And when his Majesty went away, Lord Harrington presented the great men in the ministry and the foreign ministers in the drawing-room; the former of which performed their part with the utmost respect and submission. This is, likewise, quite new; for, though all kings have had mistresses, they were attended at their own lodgings, and not in so public a manner. I conclude they performed that ceremony too; but they could not lose the first opportunity of paying their respects, though ever so improperly.

These great men were, the Duke of Newcastle, Sir Robert Walpole, my Lord Wilmington, my Lord Harrington, and Mr. Pelham. My Lord Hervey had not the honour to be on the foot of a minister. . . .

I have nothing more to say, but that this Madame Walmond is at present in a mighty mean dirty lodging in St. James's Street. Her husband came with her, but he is going away; and that house that was Mr. Seymour's, in Hyde Park, which opens into the King's garden, is fitting up for her; -and the Duchess of Kendal's lodgings are making ready for her at St. James's. There is nothing more known at present as to the settlement, but that directions are given for one upon the establishment of Ireland. perhaps that mayn't exceed the Duchess of Kendal's, which was three thousand pounds a-year. But 'tis easy for the first minister to increase that as she pleases.

[See p. 101.]

London, December 3rd, 1737. I saw one yesterday that dined with my Lord Fanny, (131) who, as soon as he had dined, was sent for to come up to his Majesty, and there is all the appearance that can be of great favour to his lordship. I mentioned him in my last, and I will now give you an account of some things concerning his character, that I believe you don't know. What I am going to say I am sure is as true as if I had been a transactor in it myself. And I will begin the relation with Mr. Lepelle, my Lord Fanny's wife's father, having made her a cornet in his regiment as soon as she was born, which is no more wrong to the design of an army than if she had been a son: and she was paid many years after she was a maid of honour. She was extreme forward and pert; and my Lord Sunderland got her a pension of the late King, it being too ridiculous to continue her any longer an officer in the army. And into the bargain, she was to be a spy; but what she could tell to deserve a pension, I cannot comprehend. However, King George the First used to talk to her very much; and this encouraged my Lord Fanny and her to undertake a very extraordinary project: and she went to the drawing-room every night, and publicly attacked his Majesty in a most vehement manner, insomuch that it was the diversion of all the town; which alarmed the Duchess of Kendal, and the ministry that governed her, to that degree, lest the King should be put in the opposers' hands, that they determined to buy my Lady H- off; and they gave her 4000 pounds to desist, which she did, and my Lord Fanny bought a good house with it, and furnished it very well.

[See p. 106. Reminiscences, Chapter IX]

London, March 19th, 1738. My Lord, I have received the favour of yours of the 11th by the post, but not that which you mention by another hand. And since you can like such sort of accounts as I am able to give you, I will continue to do it. I think it is very plain now that Sir Robert don't think it worth his while to make any proposals where it was once suspected he would. And his wedding was celebrated as if he had been King of France, and the apartments furnished in the richest manner: crowds of people of the first quality being presented to the bride, who is the daughter of a clerk that sung the psalms in a church where Dr. Sacheverell was. After the struggle among the court ladies who should have the honour of presenting her, which the Duchess of Newcastle obtained, it was thought more proper to have her presented by one of her own family; otherwise it would look as if she had no alliances: and therefore that ceremony was performed by Horace Walpole's wife, who was daughter to my tailor, Lumbar. I read in a print lately, that an old gentleman, very rich, had married a maiden lady with two fatherless children but the printer did not then know the gentleman's name.

March 27th, 1738. 'I think I did not tell you that the Duke of Dorset waited on my Lady Walpole to congratulate her marriage, with the same ceremony as if it had been one of the Royal Family, with his white staff, which has not been used these many years, but when they attend the Crown. But such a wretch as he is I hardly know; and his wife, whose passion is only money, assists him in his odious affair with Lady Betty Jermyn, who has a great deal to dispose of; who, notwithstanding the great pride of the Berkeley family, married an innkeeper's son. But indeed there was some reason for that; for she was ugly, without a portion, and in her youth had an unlucky accident with one of her father's servants; and by that match she got money to entertain herself all manner of ways. I tell you these things, which did not happen in your time of knowledge, which is a melancholy picture of what the world is come to; for this strange woman has had a great influence over many.

Feb. 24th. 1738. Monday next is fixed for presenting Mrs. Skerrit at court: and there has been great solicitation from the court ladies who should do it, in which the Duchess of Newcastle has succeeded, and all the apartment is made ready for Sir Robert's lady, at his house at the Cockpit. (132) I never saw her in my life, but at auctions; but I remember I liked her as to behaviour very well, and I believe she has a great deal of sense: and I am not one of the number that wonder so much at this match; for the King of France married Madame de Maintenon, and many men have done the same thing. But as to the public, I do believe never was any man so great a villain as Sir Robert.

Wednesday, Feb. 16th, 1741. .....Some changes are made as to employments; but very few are brought in but such as will be easily governed, and brought to act so as to keep their places. I have inquired often about your lordship, who I have not yet heard named in this alteration. And I have been told that Lords Chesterfield and Gower are to have nothing in the government, which I think a very ill sign of what is intended; because that can be for no reason but because you are all such men as are incapable of ever being prevailed on by any arts to act any thing contrary to honour and the true interests of our country.

(129) Where the Prince and Princess of Wales then resided.

(130 Welmoden.

(131 John, Lord Hervey, so called by Pope.

(132) Where the Prince and Princess of Wales then resided.

Correspondence of Horace walpole Earl of Orford

121 Letter 1 To Richard West, Esq. (133) King's College, Nov 9, 1735,

Dear West, You expect a long letter from me, and have said in verse all that I intended to have said in far inferior prose. I intended filling three or four sides with exclamations against a University life; but you have showed me how strongly they may be expressed in three or four lines. I can't build without straw; nor have I the ingenuity of the spider, to spin fine lines out of dirt: a master of a college would make but a miserable figure as a hero of a poem, and Cambridge sophs are too low to introduce into a letter that aims not at punning:

Haud equidem invideo vati, quem pulpita pascunt.

But why mayn't we hold a classical correspondence? I can never forget the many agreeable hours we have passed in reading Horace and Virgil; and I think they are topics will never grow stale. Let us extend the Roman empire, and cultivate two barbarous towns o'er -run with rusticity and Mathematics. The creatures are so used to a circle, that they Plod on in the same eternal round, with their whole view confined to a punctum, cujus nulla est pars: "Their time a moment, and a point their space."

Orabunt causas melius, coelique meatus Describent radio, et surgentia sidera dicent Tu coluisse novem Musas, Romane, memento; Hae tibi crunt artes. . . .

We have not the least poetry stirring here; for I can't call verses on the 5th of November and 30th of January by that name, more than four lines on a chapter in the New Testament is an epigram. Tydeus (134) rose and set at Eton: he is only known here to be a scholar of King's. Orosmades and Almanzor are just the same; that is, I am almost the only person they are acquainted with, and consequently the only person acquainted with their excellencies. Plato improves every day; so does my friendship with him. These three divide my whole time, though I believe you will guess there is no quadruple alliance; (135) that was a happiness which I only enjoyed when you was at Eton. A short account of the Eton people at Oxford would much oblige, my dear West, your faithful friend, H. WALPOLE.

(133) Richard West was the only son of the Right Honourable Richard West, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, by Elizabeth, daughter of the celebrated Dr. Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury. When this correspondence commences, Mr. West was nineteen years old, and Mr. Walpole one year younger. [West died on the 1st of January, 1742, at the premature age of twenty-six. He had a great genius for poetry. His correspondence with Gray, and several of his poems, are included in the collection of letters published by Mr. Mason. West's father published an able discourse of treasons and bills of attainder, and a tract on the manner of creating peers. He also wrote several essays in "The Freethinker;" and was the reputed author of a tragedy called "Hecuba;" which was performed at Drury Lane theatre in 1726.]

(134) Tydeus, Orosmades, Almanzor, and Plato, were names which had been given by them to some of their Eton schoolfellows.

(135) Thus as boys they had called the intimacy formed at Eton between Walpole, Gray, West, and Ashton.

1736

122 Letter 2 To George Montagu, Esq. (136) King's College, May 2, 1736.

Dear Sir, Unless I were to be married myself, I should despair ever being able to describe a wedding so well as you have done: had I known your talent before, I would have desired an epithalamium. I believe the princess (137) will have more beauties bestowed on her by the occasional poets, than even a painter would afford her. They will cook up a new Pandora, and in the bottom of the box enclose Hope, that all they have said is true. A great many, out of excess of good breeding, having heard it was rude to talk Latin before women, propose complimenting her in English; which she will be much the better for. I doubt most of them instead of fearing their compositions should not be understood, should fear they should: they write they don't know what, to be read by they don't know who. You have made me a very unreasonable request, which I will answer with another as extraordinary: you desire I would burn your letters; I desire you would keep mine. I know but of one way of making what I send you useful, which is, by sending you a blank sheet: sure you would not grudge three-pence for a half-penny sheet, when you give as much for one not worth a farthing. You drew this last paragraph on you by your exordium, as you call it, and conclusion. I hope, for the future, our correspondence will run a little more glibly, with dear George, and dear Harry; not as formally as if we were playing a game at chess in Spain and Portugal; and Don Horatio was to have the honour Of specifying to Don Georgio, by an epistle, whether he would move. In one point I would have our correspondence like a game at chess; it should last all our lives-but I hear you cry check; adieu! Dear George, yours ever.

(136) George Montagu was the son of Brigadier-General Edward Montagu, and nephew to the Earl of Halifax. He was member of parliament for Northampton, usher of the black rod in Ireland during the lieutenancy of the Earl of Halifax, ranger of Salsey Forest, and private secretary to Lord North when chancellor of the exchequer. [And of him "it is now only remembered," says the "Quarterly Review," vol. xix. p. 131, "that he was a gentleman-like body of the vieille cour, and that he was usually attended by his brother John, (the Little John of Walpole's correspondence,) who was a midshipman at the age of sixty, and found his chief occupation in carrying about his brother's snuff-box."]

(137) Augusta, Princess of Saxe-Gotha, married, in April, 1736, to Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales.

123 Letter 3 To George Montagu, Esq. King's College, May 6, 1736.

Dear George, I agree with you entirely in the pleasure you take in talking over old stories, but can't say but I meet every day with new circumstances, which will be still more pleasure to me to recollect. I think at our age 'tis excess of joy, to think, while we are running over past happinesses, that it is still in our power to enjoy as great. Narrations of the greatest actions of other people are tedious in comparison of the serious trifles that every man can call to mind of himself while he was learning those histories. Youthful passages of life are the chippings of Pitt's diamond, set into little heart-rings with mottos; the stone itself more worth, the filings more gentle and agreeable. Alexander, at the head of the world, never tasted the true pleasure that boys of his own age have enjoyed at the head of a school. Little intrigues, little schemes, and policies engage their thoughts; and, at the same time that they are laying the foundation for their middle age of life, the mimic republic they live in furnishes materials of conversation for their latter age; and old men cannot be said to be children a second time with greater truth from any one cause, than their living over again their childhood in imagination. To reflect on the season when first they felt the titillation of love, the budding passions, and the first dear object of their wishes! how unexperienced they gave credit to all the tales of romantic loves! Dear George, were not the playing fields at Eton food for all manner of flights? No old maid's gown, though it had been tormented into all the fashions from King James to King George, ever underwent so many transformations as those poor plains have in my idea. At first I was contented with tending a visionary flock, and sighing some pastoral name to the echo of the cascade under the bridge. How happy should I have been to have had a kingdom only for the pleasure of being driven from it, and living disguised in an humble vale! As I got further into Virgil and Clelia, I found myself transported from Arcadia to the garden of Italy; and saw Windsor Castle in no other view than the Capitoli immobile saxum. I wish a committee of the House of Commons may ever seem to be the senate; or a bill appear half so agreeable as a billet-doux. You see how deep you have carried me into old stories; I write of them with pleasure, but shall talk of them with more to you. I can't say I am sorry I was never quite a schoolboy: an expedition against bargemen, or a match at cricket, may be very pretty things to recollect; but, thank my stars, I can remember things very near as pretty. The beginning of my Roman history was spent in the asylum, or conversing in Egeria's hallowed grove; not in thumping and pommelling king Amulius's herdsmen. I was sometimes troubled with a rough creature or two from the plough; one, that one should have thought, had worked with his head, as well as his hands, they were both so callous. One of the most agreeable circumstances I can recollect is the Triumvirate, composed of yourself, Charles,(138) and Your sincere friend.

(138) Colonel Charles Montagu, afterwards Lieutenant-General, and Knight of the Bath, and brother of George Montagu. He married Elizabeth Villiers, Viscountess Grandison, daughter of the Earl of Grandison.

124 Letter 4 To George Montagu, Esq. King's College, May 20, 1736.

Dear George: You will excuse my not having written to you, when you hear I have been a jaunt to Oxford. As you have seen it, I shall only say I think it one of the most agreeable places I ever set my eyes on. In our way thither we stopped at the Duke of Kent's, (139) at Wrest. (140) On the great staircase is a picture of the duchess; (141) I said it was very like; oh, dear sir! said Mrs. Housekeeper, it's too handsome for my lady duchess; her grace's chin is much longer than that.

In the garden are monuments in memory of Lord Harold (142) Lady Glenorchy, (143) the late duchess,(144) and the present duke. At Lord Clarendon's (145) at Cornbury,(146) is a prodigious quantity of Vandykes; but I had not time to take down any of their dresses. By the way, you gave me no account of the last masquerade. Coming back, we saw Easton Neston,(147) a seat of Lord Pomfret, where in an old greenhouse is a wonderful fine statue of Tully, haranguing a numerous assembly of decayed emperors, vestal virgins with new noses, Colossuses, Venuses, headless carcases, and carcaseless heads, pieces of tombs, and hieroglyphics.(148) I saw Althorp(149) the same day, where are a vast many pictures-some mighty good; a gallery with the Windsor beauties, and Lady Bridgewater(150) who is full as handsome as any of them; a bouncing head of, I believe, Cleopatra, called there the Duchess of Mazarine. The park is enchanting. I forgot to tell you I was at Blenheim, where I saw nothing but a cross housekeeper, and an impertinent porter, except a few pictures, a quarry of stone that looked at a distance like a great house, and about this quarry, quantities of inscriptions in honour of the Duke of Marlborough, and I think of her grace too.

Adieu! dear George, Yours ever.

The verses are not published.

(139) Henry de Grey, Duke, Marquis, and Earl of Kent, son of Anthony Earl of Kent, and Mary, daughter of Lord Lucas. [The duke, who had been so created in 1710, having lost all his sons during his lifetime, obtained a new patent in 1740, creating him Marquis Grey, with remainder to his grand-daughter Jemima Campbell, daughter of his eldest daughter, Lady amabel Grey, by her husband John, third Earl of Breadalbane. On the death of the duke, in June 1740, the marquisate of Grey and barony of Lucas, together with the Wrest House and all the vast estates of the duke, devolved upon his grand-daughter, Lady Jemima Campbell, then Lady Jemima Royston, she having married Philip Viscount Royston, eldest son of the Earl of Hardwicke, by whom she had two daughters, Amabel married in July 1772, to Lord Polwarth, only son of the Earl of Marchmont, created a peer of Great Britain by the title of Baron Hume of Berwick, and who died in 1781 without issue: her ladyship was advanced to the dignity of Countess de Grey by letters patent, in 1816, with remainder of that earldom to her sister Mary Jemima, wife of Thomas second Lord Grantham, and that lady's male issue. Lady Grantham died in 1830; and upon the death of the countess, in 1833, she was succeeded under the patent by her nephew Lord Grantham, the present Earl de Grey.]

(140) Wrest House in Bedfordshire. [It is remarkable that, from the death of the Duke of Kent, Wrest House has never remained a second generation in the same family, but has descended successively through females to the families of Yorke Earl of Hardwicke, Hume Earl of Marchmont, and is now vested in that of Robinson Lord Grantham, the great-great-grandson of the duke.)

(141) Lady Sophia Bentinck, second wife of the Duke of Kent, and daughter to William Earl of Portland.

(142) Anthony Earl of Harold, eldest son of the Duke of Kent. [Married to Lady Mary Grafton, daughter of the Earl of Thanet. He died without issue, in 1723, in consequence of an ear of barley sticking in his throat. His widow, who survived many years, afterwards married John first Earl Gower.]

(143) Amabella, eldest daughter of the Duke of Kent, married to John Campbell, Lord Viscount Glenorchy, son of Lord Breadalbane.

(144) Jemima, eldest daughter of Lord Crewe, and first wife of the Duke of Kent.

(145) Henry Earl of Clarendon and Rochester, son of Laurence Earl of Rochester.

(146) In the county of Oxford.

(147) Easton Neston, the ancient family seat of the Fermor family, had been rebuilt by Sir William Fermor who was elevated to the peerage by the title of Baron Lempster of Lempster, or Leominster, county of Hereford; and whose only son Thomas, second baron, was advanced to the earldom of Pomfret in 1721.-E.

(148) Part of the invaluable collection of the great Earl of Arundel. They had been formerly purchased by John Lord Jefferies, Baron of Wem; and in 1755 were presented by his daughter, the Countess-dowager of Pomfret, to the University of Oxford.-E.

(149) The seat of Charles, fifth Earl of Sunderland; who, upon the demise of his aunt Henrietta, eldest daughter of John Duke of Marlborough, succeeded to the honours of his illustrious grandfather. Althorp is now the seat of Earl Spencer. An account of the mansion, its pictures, etc. was published by Dr. Dibdin, in 1822, under the title of "Edes Althorpianae," as a supplement to his "Bibliotheca Spenceriana."-E.

(150) Elizabeth, third daughter of the great Duke of Marlborough, and wife of Scroop, Earl and afterwards first Duke of Bridgewater. She died, however, previous to her husband's advancement to the dukedom.-E.

126 Letter 5 To George Montagu, Esq. King's College, May 30, 1736.

Dear George, You show me in the prettiest manner how much you like Petronius Arbiter; I have heard you commend him, but I am more pleased with your tacit approbation of writing like him, prose interspersed with verse: I shall send you soon in return some poetry interspersed with prose; I mean the Cambridge congratulation with the notes, as you desired. I have transcribed the greatest part of what was tolerable at the coffee-houses; but by most of what you will find, you will hardly think I have left any thing worse behind. There is lately come out a new piece, called A Dialogue between Philemon and Hydaspes on false religion, by one Mr. Coventry,(151) A.M., and fellow, formerly fellow-commoner, of Magdalen. He is a young man, but 'tis really a pretty thing. If you cannot get it in town, I will send it with the verses. He accounts for superstition in a new manner, and I think a Just One; attributing it to disappointments in love. He don't resolve it all into that bottom; ascribes it almost wholly as the source of female enthusiasm; and I dare say there's ne'er a girl from the age of fourteen to four-and-twenty, but will subscribe to his principles, and own, if the dear man were dead that she loves, she would settle all her affection on heaven, whither he was gone.

Who would not be an Artemisia, and raise the stately mausoleum to her lord; then weep and watch incessant over it like the Ephesian matron!

I have heard of one lady, who had not quite so great a veneration for her husband's tomb, but preferred lying alone in one, to lying on his left hand; perhaps she had an aversion to the German custom of left-handed wives. I met yesterday with a pretty little dialogue on the subject of constancy tis between a traveller and a dove

LE PASSANT. Que fais tu dans ce bois, plaintive Tourturelle?

LA ToURTURELLE. Je g`emis, j'ai perdu ma compagne fidelle.

LE PASSANT. Ne crains tu pas que l'oiseleur Ne te fasse mourir comme elle?

La Tourturelle. Si ce n'est lui, ce sera ma douleur.

'Twould have been a little more apposite, if she had grieved for her lover. I have ventured to turn it into that view, lengthened it, and spoiled it, as you shall see.

P.-Plaintive turtle, cease your moan; Hence away; In this dreary wood alone Why d'ye stay?

T.-These tears, alas! you see flow For my mate! P.-Dread you not from net or bow His sad fate?

T.-If, ah! if they neither kill, Sorrow will.

You will excuse this gentle nothing, I mean mine, when I tell you, I translated it out of pure good-nature for the use of a disconsolate wood-pigeon in our grove, that was made a widow by the barbarity of a gun. She coos and calls me so movingly, 'twould touch your heart to hear her. I protest to you it grieves me to pity her. She is so allicholy as any thing. I'll warrant you now she's as sorry as one of us would be. Well, good man, he's gone, and he died like a lamb. She's an unfortunate woman, but she must have patience; tis what we must all come to, and so as I was saying, Dear George, good bye t'ye, Yours sincerely.

P. S. I don't know yet when I shall leave Cambridge.

(151) Mr. Henry Coventry was the son of Henry Coventry, Esq. who had a good estate in Cambridgeshire. He was born in 1710, and died in 1752. He wrote four additional Dialogues. The five were republished shortly after his death, by his cousin, the Rev. Francis Coventry. The following is transcribed from the MSS. of the Rev. W. Cole:-

"When Henry Coventry first came to the University, he was of a religious turn of mind, as was Mr. Horace Walpole; even so much so as to go with Ashton, his then great friend, to pray with the prisoners in the Castle. Afterwards, both Mr. Coventry and Mr. Walpole took to the infidel side of the question."-E.

127 Letter 6 To Richard West, Esq. King's College, Aug. 17, 1736.

Dear West, Gray is at Burnham,(152) and, what is surprising, has not been at Eton. Could you live so near it without seeing it? That dear scene of our quadruple-alliance would furnish me with the most agreeable recollections. 'Tis the head of our genealogical table, that is since sprouted out into the two branches of Oxford and Cambridge. You seem to be the eldest son, by having got a whole inheritance to yourself; while the manor of Granta is to be divided between your three younger brothers, Thomas of Lancashire, [153] Thomas of London [154] and Horace. We don't wish you dead to enjoy your seat, but your seat dead to enjoy you. I hope you are a mere elder brother, and live upon what your father left you, and in the way you 'were brought up in, poetry: but we are supposed to betake ourselves to some trade, as logic, philosophy, or mathematics. If I should prove a mere younger brother, and not turn to any Profession, would you receive me, and supply me out of your stock, where you have such plenty? I have been so used to the delicate food of Parnassus, that I can never condescend to apply to the grosser studies of Alma Mater. Sober cloth of syllogism colour suits me ill; or, what's worse, I hate clothes that one must prove to be of no colour at all. If the Muses coelique vias et sidera monstrent, and qua vi maria alta lumescant. why accipiant: but 'tis thrashing, to study philosophy in the abstruse authors. I am not against cultivating these studies, as they are certainly useful; but then they quite neglect all polite literature, all knowledge of this world. Indeed, such people have not much occasion for this latter; for they shut themselves up from it, and study till they know less than any one. Great mathematicians have been of great use; but the generality of them are quite unconversible: they frequent the stars, sub pedibusque vident nubes, but they can't see through them. I tell you what I see; that by living amongst them, I write of nothing else: my letters are all parallelograms, two sides equal to two sides; and every paragraph an axiom, that tells you nothing but what every mortal almost knows. By the way, your letters come under this description; for they contain nothing but what almost every mortal knows too, that knows you-that is, they are extremely agreeable, which they know you are capable of making them:-no one is better acquainted with it than Your sincere friend.

(152) in Buckinghamshire, where his uncle resided.

(153) Thomas Ashton. He was afterwards fellow of Eton College, rector of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate-street, and preacher to the Society of Lincoln's-inn. It was to him that Mr. Walpole addressed the poetical epistle from Florence, first published in Dodsley's collection of poems.

(154) Thomas Gray, the poet.

1737

128 Letter 7 To George Montagu Esq. King's College, March 20, 1737.

Dear George, The first paragraph in my letter must be in answer to the last in yours; though I should be glad to make you the return you ask, by waiting on you myself. 'Tis not in my power, from more circumstances than One, which are needless to tell you, to accompany you and Lord Conway(155) to Italy: you add to the pleasure it would give me, by asking it so kindly. You I am infinitely obliged to, as I was capable, my dear George, of making you forget for a minute that you don't propose stirring from the dear place you are now in. Poppies indeed are the chief flowers in love nosegays, but they seldom bend towards the lady; at least not till the other flowers have been gathered. Prince Volscius's boots were made of love-leather, and honour-leather; instead of honour, some people's are made of friendship; but since you have been so good to me as to draw on this, I can almost believe you are equipped for travelling farther than Rheims. 'Tis no little inducement to make me wish myself in France, that I hear gallantry is not left off there; that you may be polite and not be thought awkward for it. You know the pretty men of the age in England use the women with no more deference than they do their coach- horses, and have not half the regard for them that they have for themselves. The little freedoms you tell me you use take off from formality, by avoiding which ridiculous extreme we are dwindled into the other barbarous one, rusticity. If you had been at Paris, I should have inquired about the new Spanish ambassadress, who, by the accounts we have thence, at her first audience of the queen, sat down with her at a distance that suited respect and conversation. Adieu, dear George, Yours most heartily.

(156) Francis Seymour Conway, son of Francis Seymour, Lord Conway, and Charlotte, daughter of John Shorter, Esq. [Sister to Lady Walpole, the mother of Horace, and with her co-heiress of John Shorter, Esq. lord-mayor of London in 1688, who died during his mayoralty, from a fall off his horse, under Newgate, as he was going to proclaim Bartholomew Fair. Lady Walpole died in the August of the year in which the present letter was written, and Sir Robert soon afterwards married @Miss Skerrit. Walpole's well-known fondness for his mother is alluded to by Gray, in a letter to West, dated 22d August, 1737:-" But while I write to you, I hear the bad news of lady Walpole's death, on Saturday night last. Forgive me if the thought of what my poor Horace must feel on that account obliges me to have done."]

129 Letter 8 To George Montagu, Esq. Christopher Inn, Eton.

The Christopher. Lord! how great I used to think anybody just landed at the Christopher! But here are no boys for me to send for-here I am, like Noah, just returned into his old world again, with all sorts of queer feels about me. By the way, the clock strikes the old cracked sound-I recollect so much, and remember so little-and want to play about-and am so afraid of my playfellows-and am ready to shirk Ashton and can't help making fun of myself-and envy a dame over the way, that has just locked in her boarders, and is going to sit down in a little hot parlour to a very bad supper, so comfortably! and I could be so jolly a dog if I did not fat, which, by the way, is the first time the word was ever applicable to me. In short, I should be out of all bounds if I was to tell you half I feel, how young again I am one minute, and how old the next. But do come and feel with me, when you will-to-morrow-adieu! If I don't compose myself a little more before Sunday morning, when Ashton is to preach, I shall certainly be in a bill for laughing at church; but how to belt it, to see him in the pulpit, when the last time I saw him here, was standing up funking at a conduit to be catechised. Good night; yours.

1739

130 Letter 9 To Richard West, Esq. Paris, April 21, N. S. 1739. (157)

Dear West, You figure us in a set of pleasures, which, believe me, we do not find; cards and eating are so universal, that they absorb all variation of pleasures. The operas, indeed, are much frequented three times a week; but to me they would be a greater penance than eating maigre: their music resembles a gooseberry tart as much as it does harmony. We have not yet been at the Italian playhouse; scarce any one goes there. Their best amusement, and which in some parts, beats ours, is the comedy three or four of the actors excel any we have: but then to this nobody goes, if it is not one of the fashionable nights; and then they go, be the play good or bad-except on Moli`ere's nights, whose pieces they are quite weary of. Gray and I have been at the Avare to-night; I cannot at all commend their performance of it. Last night I was in the Place de Louis le Grand (a regular octagon, uniform, and the houses handsome, though not so large as Golden Square), to see what they reckoned one of the finest burials that ever was in France. It was the Duke de Tresmes, governor of Paris and marshal of France. It began on foot from his palace to his parish-church, and from thence in coaches to the opposite end of Paris, to b interred in the church of the Celestins, where is his family-vault. About a week ago we happened to see the grave digging, as we went to see the church, which is old and small., but fuller of fine ancient monuments than any, except St. Denis, which we saw on the road, and excels Westminster; for the windows are all ' painted in mosaic, and the tombs as fresh and well preserved as if they were of yesterday. In the Celestins' church is a votive column to Francis II., which says, that it is one assurance of his being immortalised, to have had the martyr Mary Stuart for his wife. After this long digression, I return to the burial, which was a most vile thing. A long procession of flambeaux and friars; no plumes, trophies, banners, led horses, scutcheons, or open chariots; nothing but friars, white, black, and grey, with all their trumpery. This goodly ceremony began at nine at night, and did not finish till three this morning; for, each church they passed, they stopped for a hymn and holy water. By the bye, some of these choice monks, who watched the body while it lay in state, fell asleep one night, and let the tapers catch fire of the rich velvet mantle lined with ermine and powdered with gold flower-de-luces, which melted the lead coffin, and burnt off the feet of the deceased before it awakened them. The French love show; but there is a meanness runs through it all. At the house where I stood to see this procession, the room was hung with crimson damask and gold, and the windows were mended in ten or a dozen places with paper. At dinner they give you three courses; but a third of the dishes is patched up with sallads, butter, puff-paste, or some such miscarriage of a dish. None, but Germans, wear fine clothes; but their coaches are tawdry enough for the wedding of Cupid and Psyche. You would-laugh extremely at their signs: some live at the Y grec, some at Venus's toilette, and some at the sucking cat. YOU would not easily guess their notions of honour: I'll tell you one: it is very dishonourable for any gentleman not to be 'in @he army, or in the king's service as they call it, and it is no dishonour to keep public gaming-houses: there are at least an hundred and fifty people of the first quality in Paris who live by it. You may go into their houses at all hours of the night, And find hazard, pharaoh, etc. The men who keep the hazard tables at the duke de Gesvres' pay him twelve guineas each night for the privilege. Even the princesses of the blood are dirty enough to have shares in the banks kept at their houses. We have seen two or three of them; but they are not young, nor remarkable but for wearing their red of a deeper dye than other women, though all use it extravagantly.

The weather is still so bad, that we have not made any excursions to see Versailles and the environs, not even walked in the Tuileries; but we have seen almost every thing else that is worth seeing in Paris, though that is very considerable. They beat us vastly in buildings, both in number and magnificence. The tombs of Richelieu and Mazarin at the Sorbonne and the College de Quatre Nations are wonderfully fine, especially the former. We have seen very little of the people themselves, who are not inclined to be propitious to strangers, especially if they do not play and speak the language readily. There are many English here: Lord Holderness, Conway(158) and Clinton, (159) and Lord George Bentinck; (160) Mr. Brand,(161) Offley, Frederic, Frampton, Bonfoy, etc. Sir John Cotton's son and a Mr. Vernon of Cambridge passed through Paris last week. We shall stay here about a fortnight longer, and then go to Rheims with Mr. Conway for two or three months. When you have nothing else to do, we shall be glad to hear from you; and any news. If we did not remember there was such a place as England, we should know nothing of it: the French never mention it, unless it happens to be in one of their proverbs! Adieu! Yours ever.

To-morrow we go to the Cid. They have no farces but petites pieces like our "Devil to Pay."

(157) Mr. Walpole left Cambridge towards the end of the year 1738, and in March, 1739, began his travels by going to Paris, accompanied by Mr. Gray.

(158) Francis, second Lord Conway, in 1750, created Viscount Beauchamp and Earl of Hertford, and in 1793, Earl of Yarmouth and Marquis of Hertford. He was the elder brother of General Conway, and grandfather of the present Marquis.

(159) Hugh Fortescue, in whose favour the abeyance into which the barony of Clinton had fallen on the death of Edward, thirteenth Baron Clinton, was terminated by writ of summons, in 1721. He was created, in 1746, Lord Fortescue and Earl of Clinton; and died unmarried, in 1751.-E.

(160) Son of Henry, second Earl and first Duke of Portland; he died in 1759.-E.

(161) Mr. Brand of the Hoo, in Hertfordshire, who afterwards married Lady Caroline Pierrepoint, daughter of the Duke of Kingston by his second wife, and half-sister of Lady Mary Wortley.-E.

132 Letter 10 To Richard West, Esq. >From Paris, 1739.

Dear West, I should think myself to blame not to try to divert you, when you tell me I can. From the air of your letter you seem to want amusement, that is, you want spirits. I would recommend to you certain little employments that I know of, and that belong to you, but that I imagine bodily exercise is more suitable to your complaint. If you would promise me to read them in the Temple garden, I would send you a little packet of plays and pamphlets that we have made up, and intend to dispatch to 'Dick's' the first opportunity.-Stand by, clear the way, make room for the pompous appearance of Versailles le Grand!--But no: it fell so short of my idea of it, mine, that I have resigned to Gray the office of writing its panegyric.(162) He likes it. They say I am to like it better next Sunday; when the sun is to shine., the king is to be fine, the water-works are to play, and the new knights of the Holy Ghost are to be installed! Ever since Wednesday, the day we were there, we have done nothing but dispute about it. They say, we did not see it to advantage, that we ran through the apartments, saw the garden en passant, and slubbered over Trianon. I say, we saw nothing. However, we had time to see that the great front is a lumber of littleness, composed of black brick, stuck full of bad old busts, and fringed with gold rails. The rooms are all small, except the great gallery, which is noble, but totally wainscoted with looking-glass. The garden is littered with statues and fountains, each of which has its tutelary deity. In particular, the elementary god of fire solaces himself in one. In another, Enceladus, in lieu of a mountain, is overwhelmed with many waters. There are avenues of water-pots, who disport themselves much in squirting up cascadelins. In short, 'tis a garden for a great child. Such was Louis Quatorze, who is here seen in his proper colours, where he commanded in person, unassisted by his armies and his generals, left to the pursuit of his own puerile ideas of glory.

We saw last week a place of another kind, and which has more the air of what it would be, than anything I have yet met with: it was the convent of the Chartreux. All the conveniences, or rather (if there was such a word) all the adaptments are assembled here, that melancholy, meditation, selfish devotion, and despair would require. But yet 'tis pleasing. Soften the terms, and mellow the uncouth horror that reigns here, but a little, and 'tis a charming solitude. It stands on a large space of ground, is old and irregular. The chapel is gloomy: behind it, through some dark passages, you pass into a large obscure hall, which looks like a combination-chamber for some hellish council. The large cloister surrounds their buryingground. The cloisters are very narrow and very long, and let into the cells, which are built like little huts detached from each other. We were carried into one, where lived a middle-aged man not long initiated into the order. He was extremely civil, and called himself Dom Victor. We have promised to visit him often. Their habit is all white: but besides this he was infinitely clean in his person; and his apartment and garden, which he keeps and cultivates without any assistance, was neat to a degree. He has four little rooms, furnished in the prettiest manner, and hung with good prints. One of them is a library, and another a gallery. He has several canary-birds disposed in a pretty manner in breeding-cages. in his garden was a bed of good tulips in bloom, flowers and fruit-trees, and all neatly kept. They are permitted at certain hours to talk to strangers, but never to one another, or to go out of their convent. But what we chiefly went to see was the small cloister, with the history of St. Bruno their founder, painted by Le Sceur. It consists of twenty-two pictures, the figures a good deal less than life. But sure they are amazing! I don't know what Raphael may be in Rome, but these pictures excel all I have seen in Paris and England. The figure of the dead man who spoke at his burial, contains all the strongest and horridest ideas of ghastliness, hypocrisy discovered, and the height of damnation, pain and cursing. A Benedictine monk, who was there at the same time, said to me of this picture C'est une fable, mais on la croyoit autrefois. Another, who showed me relics in one of their churches, expressed as much ridicule for them. The pictures I have been speaking of are ill preserved, and some of the finest heads defaced, which was done at first by a rival of Le Soeur's. Adieu! dear West, take care of your health; and some time or other we will talk over all these things with more pleasure than I have had in seeing them.

Yours ever.

(162) For Gray's description of Versailles, which he styles " a huge heap of littleness," see his letter to West of the 22nd of May, 1739. (Works, by Mitford, vol. ii. P. 46).edited by the Rev. John Mitford.-E.

134 Letter 11 To Richard West, Esq. Rheims, (163) June 18, 1739, N. S.

Dear West, How I am to fill up this letter is not easy to divine. I have consented that Gray shall give an account of our situation and proceedings; (164) and have left myself at the mercy of my own' invention--a most terrible resource, and which I shall avoid applying to if I can possibly help it. I had prepared the ingredients for a description of a ball, and was just ready to serve it up to you, but he has plucked it from me. However, I was resolved to give you an account of a particular song and dance in it, and was determined to write the words and Sing the tune just as I folded up my letter: but as it would, ten to one, be opened before it gets to you, I am forced to lay aside this thought, though an admirable one. Well, but now I have put it into your head, I suppose you won't rest without it. For that individual one, believe me 'tis nothing without the tune and the dance; but to stay your stomach, I -will send you one of their vaudevilles or Ballads, (165) which they sing at the comedy after their petites pi`eces.

You must not wonder if all my letters resemble dictionaries, with French on one side and English on t'other; I deal in nothing else at present, and talk a couple of words of each language alternately, from morning till night. This has put my mouth a little out of tune at present but I am trying to recover the use of it by reading the newspapers aloud at breakfast, and by shewing the title-pages of all my English books. Besides this, I have paraphrased half of the first act of your new GustavUS (166) which was sent us to Paris: a most dainty performance, and just what you say of it. Good night, I am sure you must be tired: if you are not, I am. yours ever.

(163) Mr. Walpole, with his cousin Henry Seymour Conway and Mr. Gray, resided three months at Rheims, principally to acquire the French language.

(164) Gray's letter to West has not been preserved; but one addressed to his mother, on the 21 st of June, containing an account of Rheims and the society, is printed in his Works, vol. ii. p. 50.-E.

(165) This ballad does not appear.

(166) The tragedy of "Gustavus Vasa," by Henry Brooke, author of "The Fool of Quality." It was rehearsed at Drury Lane; but, as it was supposed to satirize Sir Robert Walpole, it was prohibited to be acted. This, however, did Brooke no injury, as he was encouraged to publish the play by subscription.-E.

134 Letter 12 To Richard West, Esq. Rheims, July 20, 1739.

Gray says, Indeed you ought to write to West.-Lord, child, so I would, if I knew what to write about. If I were in London and he at Rheims, I would send him volumes about peace and war, Spaniards, camps, and conventions; but d'ye think he cares sixpence to know who is gone to Compiegne, and when they come back, or who won and lost four livres at quadrille last night at Mr. Cockbert's?--No, but you may tell him what you have heard of Compiegne; that they have balls twice a week after the play, and that the Count d'Eu gave the king a most flaring entertainment in the camp, where the Polygone was represented in flowering shrubs. Dear West, these are the things I must tell you; I don't know how to make 'em look significant, unless you will be a Rhemois for a little moment.(167) I wonder you can stay out of the city so long, when we are going to have all manner of diversions. The comedians return hither from Compiegne in eight days, for example; and in a very little of time one attends the regiment of the king, three battalions and an hundred of officers; all men of a certain fashion, very amiable, and who know their world. Our women grow more gay, more lively, from day to day, in expecting them; Mademoiselle la Reine is brewing a wash of a finer dye, and brushing up her eyes for their arrival. La Barone already counts upon fifteen of them: and Madame Lelu, finding her linen robe conceals too many beauties, has bespoke one of gauze.

I won't plague you any longer with people you don't know, I mean French ones; for you must absolutely hear of an Englishman that lately appeared at Rheims. About two days ago, about four o'clock in the afternoon, and about an hour after dinner,-from all which you may conclude we dine at two o'clock,-as we were picking our teeth round a littered table and in a crumby room, Gray in an undress, Mr. Conway in a morning gray coat, and I in a trim white night-gown and slippers, very much out of order, with a very little cold, a message discomposed us all of a sudden, with a service to Mr. Walpole from Mr. More, and that, if he pleased, he would wait on him. We scuttled upstairs in great confusion, but with no other damage than the flinging down two or three glasses and the dropping a slipper by the way. Having ordered the room to be cleaned out, and sent a very civil response to Mr. More, we began to consider who Mr. More should be. Is it Mr. More of Paris! No. Oh, 'tis Mr. More, my Lady Teynham's husband? No, it can't be he. A Mr. More, then, that lives in the Halifax family? No. In short, after thinking of ten thousand more Mr. Mores, we concluded it could never be a one of 'em. By this time Mr. More arrives; but such a Mr. More! a young gentleman out of the wilds of Ireland, who has never been in England, but has got all the ordinary language of that kingdom; has been two years at Paris, where he dined at an ordinary with the refugee Irish, and learnt fortification-,, which he does not understand at all, and which yet is the only thing he knows. In short, he is a young swain of very uncouth phrase, inarticulate speech, and no ideas. This hopeful child is riding post into Lorrain, or any where else, he is not certain; for if there is a war he shall go home again: for we must give the Spaniards another drubbing, you know; and if the Dutch do but join us, we shall blow up all the ports in Europe; for our ships are our bastions, and our ravelines, and our hornworks; and there's a devilish wide ditch for 'em to pass, which they can't fill up with things-Here Mr. Conway helped him to fascines. By this time I imagine you have laughed at him as much, and were as tired of him as we were; but he's gone. This is the day that Gray and I intended for the first of a southern circuit; but as Mr. Selwyn and George Montagu design us a visit here, we have put off our journey for some weeks. When we get a little farther, I hope our memories will brighten: at present they are but dull, dull as Your humble servant ever.

P. S. I thank you ten thousand times for your last letter: when I have as much wit and as much poetry in me, I'll send you as good an one. Good night, child!

(167) The three following paragraphs are a literal translation of French expressions to the same imports.

136 Letter 13 To Richard West, Esq. >From a Hamlet among the Mountains of Savoy, Sept. 28, 1739, N. S.

Precipices, mountains, torrents, wolves, rumblings, Salvator Rosa-the pomp of our park and the meekness of our palace! Here we are, the lonely lords of glorious, desolate prospects. I have kept a sort of resolution which I made, of not writing to you as long as I staid in France: I am now a quarter of an hour out of it, and write to you. Mind, 'tis three months since we heard from you. I begin this letter -among the clouds; where I shall finish, my neighbour Heaven probably knows: 'tis an odd wish in a mortal letter, to hope not to finish it on this side the atmosphere. You will have a billet tumble to you from the stars hen you least think of it; and that I should write it too! Lord, how potent that sounds! But I am to undergo many transmigrations before I come to "yours ever." Yesterday I was a shepherd of Dauphin`e; to-day an Alpine savage; to-morrow a Carthusian monk; and Friday a Swiss Calvinist. I have one quality which I find remains with me in all worlds and in all aethers; I brought it with me from your world, and am admired for it in this-'tis my esteem for you: this is a common thought among you, and you will laugh at it, but it is new here: as new to remember one's friends in the world one has left, as for you to remember those you have lost.

Aix in Savoy, Sept. 30th.

We are this minute come in here, and here's an awkward abb`e this minute come in to us. I asked him if he would sit down. Oui, oui, oui. He has ordered us a radish soup for supper, and has brought a chess-board to play with Mr. Conway. I have left 'em in the act, and am set down to write to you. Did you ever see any thing like the prospect we saw yesterday? I never did. We rode three leagues to see the Grande Chartreuse; (168) expected bad roads and the finest convent in the kingdom. We were disappointed pro and con. The building is large and plain, and has nothing remarkable but its primitive simplicity; they entertained us in the neatest manner, with eggs, pickled salmon, dried fish, conserves, cheese, butter, grapes, and figs, and pressed us mightily to lie there. We tumbled into the hands of a lay-brother, who, unluckily having the charge of the meal and bran, showed us little besides. They desired us to set down our names in the list of strangers, where, among others, we found two mottos of our countrymen, for whose stupidity and brutality we blushed. The first was of Sir j * * * D * * *, who had wrote down the first stanza of justum et tenacem, altering the last line to Mente quatit Carthusiana. The second was of one D * *, Coelum ipsum petimus stultitia; et hic ventri indico bellum. The Goth!-But the road, West, the road! winding round a prodigious mountain, and surrounded with others, all shagged with hanging woods, obscured with pines, or lost in clouds! Below, a torrent breaking through cliffs, and tumbling through fragments of rocks! Sheets of @cascades forcing their silver speed down channelled precipices, and hasting into the roughened river at the bottom! Now and then an old foot-bridge, with a broken rail, a leaning cross, a cottage, or the ruin of an hermitage! This sounds too bombast and too romantic to one that has not seen it, too cold for one that has. If I could send you my letter post between two lovely tempests that echoed each other's wrath you might have some idea of this noble roaring scene, as you were reading it. Almost on the summit, upon a fine verdure, but without any prospect, stands the Chartreuse. We staid there two hours, rode back through this charming picture, wished for a painter, wished to be poets! Need I tell you we wished for you? Good night!

Geneva, Oct. 2.

By beginning a new date, I should begin a new letter; but I have seen nothing yet, and the Post is going Out: 'tis a strange tumbled dab, and dirty too, I am sending you; but what can I do? There is no possibility of writing such a long history over again. I find there are many English in the town; Lord Brook, (169) Lord Mansel, (170) Lord Hervey's eldest son,(171) and a son of-of Mars and Venus, or of Antony and Cleopatra, or, in short, of-. This is the boy, in the bow of whose hat Mr. Hedges pinned a pretty epigram. I don't know if you ever heard it; I'll suppose you never did, because it will fill up my letter:

"Give but Cupid's dart to me, Another Cupid I shall be: No more distinguish'd from the other, Than Venus would be from my mother."

Scandal says, Hedges thought the two last very like; and it says too, that she was not his enemy for thinking so.

Adieu! Gray and I return to Lyons in three days. Harry stays here. Perhaps at our return we may find a letter from you: it ought to be very full of excuses, for you have been a lazy creature: I hope you have, for I would not owe your silence to any other reason. Yours ever.

(168) It was on revisiting it, when returning to England after his unfortunate quarrel with Walpole, that Gray inscribed his beautiful "Alcaic Ode" in the album of the fathers of this monastery. Gray's account of this grand scene, where "not a precipice, not a torrent, not a cliff, but is pregnant with religion and poetry," will be found in his letter to West, dated Turin, Nov. 16, N. S. 1739. Works, vol. ii. p. 69.-E.

(169) Francis Lord Brooke, advanced to the dignity of Earl Brooke in 1746.-E.

(170) Thomas Lord Mansell, who died in 1743, without issue. He was succeeded in the title by his uncles Christopher and Bussy; and, On the death of the latter in 1744, it became extinct.-E.

(171) George William Hervey, who succeeded his grandfather as Earl of Bristol in 1751, and died Unmarried in 1775.-E.

138 Letter 14 To Richard West, Esq. Turin, Nov. 11, 1739, N. S.

So, as the song says, we are in fair Italy! I wonder we are; for on the very highest precipice of Mount Cenis, the devil of discord, in the similitude of sour wine, had got amongst our Alpine savages, and set them a-fighting with Gray and me in the chairs: they rushed him by me on a crag, where there was scarce room for a cloven foot. The least slip had tumbled us into such a fog, and such an eternity, as we should never have found our way out of again. We were eight days in coming hither from Lyons; the four last in crossing the Alps. Such uncouth rocks, and such uncomely inhabitants! My dear West, I hope I shall never see them again! At the foot of Mount Cenis we were obliged to quit our chaise, which was taken all to pieces and loaded on mules; and we were carried in low arm-chairs on poles, swathed in beaver bonnets, beaver gloves, beaver stockings, muffs, and bear-skins. When we came to the top, behold the snows fallen! and such quantities, and conducted by such heavy clouds that hung glouting, that I thought we could never have waded through them. The descent is two leagues, but steep and rough as O * * * * father's face, over which, you know, the devil walked with hobnails in his shoes. But the dexterity and nimbleness of the mountaineers are inconceivable: they run with you down steeps and frozen precipices, where no man, as men are now, could possibly walk. We had twelve men and nine mules to carry us, our servants, and baggage, and were above five hours in this agreeable jaunt The day before, I had a cruel accident, and so extraordinary an one, that it seems to touch upon the traveller. I had brought with me a little black spaniel of King Charles's breed; but the prettiest, fattest, dearest creature! I had let it out of the chaise for the air, and it was waddling along close to the head of the horses, on the top of the highest Alps, by the side of a wood of firs. There darted out a young wolf, seized poor dear Tory (172) by the throat, and, before we could possibly prevent it, sprung up the side of the rock and carried him off. The postilion jumped off and struck at him with his whip, but in vain. I saw it and screamed, but in vain; for the road was so narrow, that the servants that were behind could not get by the chaise to shoot him. What is the extraordinary part is, that it was but two o'clock, and broad sunshine. It was shocking to see anything one loved run away with to so horrid a death. .... .

Just coming out of Camber, which is a little nasty old hole, I copied an inscription set up at the end of a great road, which was practised through an immense solid rock by bursting it asunder with gunpowder. The Latin is pretty enough, and so I send it you:

"Carolus Emanuel II. Sab. dux, Pedem. princeps, Cypri rex,public`a felicitate part`a, singulorum commodis intentus, breviorem securioremque viam regiam, natur`a occlusam, Romanis intentatam, mteris desperatam, dejectis scopulorum repagulus, aquata montiuminiquitate, quae cervicibus imminebant precipitia pedibus substernens, aeternis populorum commerciis patefecit. A.D. 1670."

We passed the Pas de Suze, where is a strong fortress on a rock, between two very neighbouring mountains; and then, through a fine avenue of three leagues, we at last discovered Tturin:--

"E l'un k l'altro mostra, ed in tanto oblia La noia, e'l mal 'delta passata via."'

'Tis really by far one of the prettiest cities I have seen; not one of your large straggling ones that can afford to have twenty dirty suburbs, but, clean and compact, very new and very regular. The king's palace is not of the proudest without, but of the richest within; painted, gilt, looking-glassed, very costly, but very tawdry; in short, a very popular palace. We were last night at the Italian comedy-the devil of a house and the devil of actors! Besides this, there is a sort of an heroic tragedy, called "La rapprentatione dell' Anima Damnata."(173) A woman, a sinner, comes in and makes a solemn prayer to the Trinity: enter Jesus Christ and the Virgin: he scolds, and exit: she tells the woman her son is very angry, but she don't know, she will see what she can do. After the play we were introduced to the assembly, which they call the conversazione: there were many people playing at ombre, pharaoh, and a game called taroc, with cards so high, (174) to the number of seventy-eight. There are three or four English here Lord Lincoln,(175) with Spence,(176) your professor of poetry; a Mr. B*** and a Mr. C*** a man that never utters a syllable. We have tried all stratagems to make him speak. Yesterday he did at last open his mouth, and said Bec. all laughed so at the novelty of the thing that he shut it again, and will never speak more. I think you can't complain now of my not writing to you. What a volume of trifles! I wrote just the fellow to it from Geneva; had it you? Farewell! Thine.

(172) This incident is described also by Gray in one of his letters to his mother. "If the dog," he adds, "had not been there, and the creature had thought fit to lay hold of one of the horses, chaise and we, and all, must inevitably have tumbled above fifty fathoms perpendicularly down the precipice."-E.

(173) This representation is also mentioned by Spence, in a letter to his mother:-"In spite of the excellence," he says, "of the actors, the greatest part of the entertainment to me was the countenances of the people in the pit and boxes. When the devils were like to carry off the Damned Soul, every body was in the utmost consternation and when St. John spoke so obligingly to her, they were ready to cry out for joy. When the Virgin appeared on the stage, every body looked respectful; and, on several words spoke by the actors, they pulled off, their hats, and crossed themselves. What can you think of a people, where their very farces are religious, and where they are so religiously received? It was from such a play as this (called Adam and Eve) that Milton when he was in Italy, is said to have taken the first hint for his divine poem of "Paradise Lost." What small beginnings are there sometimes to the greatest things!-E.

(174) In the manuscript the writing of this word is extraordinary tall.

(175) Henry ninth Earl of Lincoln, who having, in 1744, married Catherine, eldest daughter and heiress of the Right Honourable Henry Pelham, inherited, in 1768, the dukedom of Newcastle-under-Line at the demise of the countess's uncle, Thomas Pelham Holles, who, in 1756, had been created Duke of Newcastle-under-Line, with special remainder to the Earl of Lincoln.-E.

(176) The Rev. Joseph Spence, the author of one of the best collections of ana the English language possesses-the well-known "Anecdotes, Observations, and Characters of Books and Men," of which the best edition is that edited by Singer.-E.

140 Letter 15 To Richard West, Esq. >From Bologna, 1739.

I don't know why I told Ashton I would send you an account of what I saw: don't believe it, I don't intend it. Only think what a vile employment 'tis, making catalogues! And then one should have that odious Curl (177) get at one's letters, and publish them like Whitfield's Journal, or for a supplement to the Traveller's Pocket Companion. Dear West, I protest against having seen any thing but what all the world has seen; nay, I have not seen half that, not-some of the most common things; not so much as a miracle. Well, but you don't expect it, do you? Except pictures. and statues, we are not very fond of sights; don't go a-staring after crooked towers and conundrum staircases. Don't you hate, too, a jingling epitaph (178) of one Procul and one Proculus that is here? Now and then we drop in at a procession, or a high-mass, hear the music, enjoy a strange attire, and hate the foul monkhood. Last week, was the feast of the Immaculate Conception. On the eve we went to the Franciscans' church to hear the academical exercises. There were moult and moult clergy, about two dozen dames, that treated one another with illustrissima and brown kisses, the vice-legate, the gonfalonier, and some senate. The vice-legate, whose conception was not quite so immaculate, is a young personable person, of about twenty, and had on a mighty pretty cardinal-kind of habit; 'twould make a delightful masquerade dress. We asked his name: Spinola. What, a nephew of the cardinal-legate? Signor, no: ma credo che gli sia qualche cosa. He sat on the right hand with the gonfalonier in two purple fauteuils. Opposite was a throne of crimson damask, with the device of the Academy, the Gelati; and trimmings of gold. Here sat at a table, in black, the head of' the academy, between the orator and the first poet At two semicircular tables on either hand sat three poets and three; silent among many candles. The chief made a little introduction, the orator a long Italian vile harangue. Then the chief, the poet, and the poets,-who were a Franciscan, an Olivetan, an old abb`e, and three lay,-read their compositions; and to-day they are pasted up in all parts of the town. As we came out of the church, we found all the convent and neighbouring houses lighted all over with lanthorns of red and yellow paper, and two bonfires. But you are sick of this foolish ceremony; I'll carry you to no more -. I will only mention, that we found the Dominicans' church here in mourning for the inquisitor: 'twas all hung with black cloth, furbelowed and festooned with yellow gauze. We have seen a furniture here in a much prettier taste; a gallery of Count Caprara's: in the panels between the windows are pendent trophies of various arms taken by one of his ancestors from the Turks. They are whimsical, romantic, and have a pretty effect. I looked about, but could not perceive the portrait of the lady at whose feet they were indisputably offered. In coming out of Genoa we were more lucky; found the very spot where Horatio and Lothario were to have fought, "west of the town, a mile among the rocks."

My dear West, in return for your epigrams of Prior, I will transcribe some old verses too, but which I fancy I can show you in a sort of a new light. They are no newer than Virgil, and what is more odd, are in the second Georgic. 'Tis, that I have observed that he not only excels when he is like himself, but even when he is very like inferior poets: you will say that they rather excel by being like him: but mind, they are all near one another:

"Si non ingenter oribus domus alta superbis Mane sa@atame totis vomit Eedibus uridam:"

And the four next lines; are they not just like Martial? In the following he is as much Claudian"

"Illum non populi fasces, non purpura regum Flexit, et infidos agitans discordia fratres; Aut conjurato descendens Dacus ab Istro."

Then who are these like?

"nec ferrea jura, insanumque forum, aut populi tabularia vidit. Sollicitant alii remis freta ceca, ruuntque In ferrum, penetrant aulas et limina regum. Hic petit excidiis urbem miseresque Penates, Ut gemma, bibat, et Sarrano indormiat ostro."

Don't they seem to be Juvenal's?-There are some more, which to me resemble, Horace; but perhaps I think so from his having some on a parallel subject. Tell me if I am mistaken; these are they:

"Interea dulces pendent eircum oscula nati: Casta pudicitiam servat domus-"

inclusively to the end of these:

"Hanc olim veteres vitam colti`ere Sabini Hanc Remus et frater: sic fortis Etruria crevit, Scilicet et retum facta est pulcherrima Roma."

If the imagination is whimsical; well at least, 'tis like me to have imagined it. Adieu, child! We leave Bologna to-morrow. You know 'tis the third city in Italy for pictures: knowing that, you know all. We shall be three days crossing the Apennine to Florence: would it were over!

My dear West, I am yours from St. Peter's to St. Paul's!

(177) Edmund Curll, the well-known bookseller. The letters between Pope and many of his friends falling into Curll's hands, they were by him printed and sold. As the volume contained some letters from noblemen, Pope incited a prosecution against him in the House of Lords for breach of privilege; but, when the orders of the House were examined, none of them appeared to have been infringed: Curll went away triumphant, and Pope was left to seek some other remedy.-E.

(178) The Epitaph on the outside of the wall of the church of St. Proculo-

Si procul `a Proculo Proculi campana fuisset, Jam procul `a Proculo Proculus ipse foret. A.D. 1392.

142 Letter 16 To Richard West, Esq. Florence, Jan. 24, 1740, N. S.

Dear West, I don't know what volumes I may send you from Rome; from Florence I have little inclination to send you any. I see several things that please me calmly, but `a force d'en avoir vu I have left off screaming Lord! this! and Lord! that! To speak sincerely, Calais surprised me more than any thing I have seen since. I recollect the joy I used to propose if I could but once see the great duke's gallery; I walk into it now with as little emotion as I should into St. Paul's. The statues are a congregation of good sort of people, that I have a great deal of unruffled regard for. The farther I travel the less I wonder at any thing: a few days reconcile one to a new spot, or an unseen custom; and men are so much the same every where, that one scarce perceives any change of situation. The same weaknesses, the same passions that in England plunge men into elections, drinking, whoring, exist here, and show themselves in the shapes of Jesuits, Cicisbeos, and Corydon ardebat Alexins. The most remarkable thing I have observed since I came abroad, is, that there are no people so obviously mad as the English. The French, the Italians, have great follies, great faults; but then they are so national, they cease to be striking. In England, tempers vary so excessively, that almost every one's faults are peculiar to himself. I take this diversity to proceed partly from our climate, partly from our government: the first is changeable, and makes us queer; the latter permits our queernesses to operate as they please. If one could avoid contracting this queerness, it must certainly be the most entertaining to live in England, where such a variety of incidents continually amuse. The incidents of a week in London would furnish all Italy with news for a twelvemonth. The only two circumstances of moment in the life of an Italian, that ever give occasion to their being mentioned, are, being married, and in a year after taking a cicisbeo. Ask the name, the husband, the wife, or the cicisbeo, of any person, et voila qui est fini. Thus, child, 'tis dull dealing here! Methinks your Spanish war is little more livel By the gravity of the proceedings, one would think both nations were Spaniard. Adieu! Do you remember my maxim, that you used to laugh at? Every body does every thing, and nothing comes on't. I am more convinced of it now than ever. I don't know whether S***w,'s was not still better, Well, gad, there is nothing in nothing. You see how I distil all my speculations and improvements, that they may lie in a small compass. Do you remember the story of the prince, that, after travelling three years, brought home nothing but a nut? They cracked it: in it was wrapped up a piece of silk, painted with all the kings, queens, kingdoms. and every thing in the world: after many unfoldings, out stepped a little dog, shook his ears, and fell to dancing a saraband. There is a fairy tale for you. If I had any thing as good as your old song, I would send it too; but I can only thank you for it, and bid you good night. Yours ever.

P. S. Upon reading my letter, I perceive still plainer the sameness that reigns here; for I find I have said the same thing ten times over. I don't care, I have made out a letter, and that was all my affair.

143 Letter 17 To Richard West, Esq. Florence, February 27, 1740, N. S.

Well, West, I have found a little unmasqued moment to Write to you; but for this week past I have been so muffled up in my domino, that I have not had the command of my elbows. But what have you been doing all the mornings? Could you not write then?-No, then I was masqued too; I have done nothing but slip out of my domino into bed, and out of bed into my domino. The end of the Carnival is frantic, bacchanalian; all the morn one makes parties in masque to the shops and coffee-houses, and all the evening to the operas and balls. Then I have danced, good gods! how have I danced! The Italians are fond to a degree of our country dances: Cold and raw-they only know by the tune; Blowzybella is almost Italian, and Buttered peas is Pizelli ag buro. There are but three days more; but the two last are to have balls all the morning at the fine unfinished palace of the Strozzi; and the Tuesday night a masquerade after supper: they sup first, to eat gras, and not encroach upon Ash-Wednesday. What makes masquerading more agreeable here than in England, is the great deference that is showed to the disguised. Here they do not catch at those little dirty opportunities of saying any ill-natured thing they know of you, do not abuse you because they may, or talk gross bawdy to a woman of quality. I found the other day, by a play of Etheridge's, that we have had a sort of Carnival even since the Reformation; Ytis in "She would if She could," they talk of going a-mumming in Shrove-tide.(179)-After talking so much of diversions, I fear you will attribute to them the fondness I own I contract for Florence; but it has so many other charms, that I shall not want excuses for my taste. The freedom of the Carnival has given me opportunities to make several acquaintances.; and if I have no found them refined, learned, polished, like some other cities, yet they are civil, good-natured, and fond of the English-. Their little partiality for themselves, opposed to the violent vanity of the French, makes them very amiable in my eyes. I can give you a comical instance of their great prejudice about nobility; it happened yesterday. While we were at dinner at Mr. Mann'S. (180) word was brought by his secretary, that a cavalier demanded audience of him upon an affair of honour. Gray and I flew behind the curtain of the door. An elderly gentleman, whose attire was not certainly correspondent to the greatness of his birth, entered, and informed the British minister, that one Martin. an English painter, had left a challenge for him at his house, for having said Martin was no gentleman. He would by no means have spoke of the duel before the transaction of it, but that his honour, his blood, his etc. would never permit him to fight with one who was no cavalier; which was what he came to inquire of his excellency. We laughed loud laughs, but unheard: his fright or his nobility had closed his ears. But mark the sequel: the instant he was gone, my very English curiosity hurried me out of the gate St. Gallo; 'twas the place and hour appointed. We had not been driving about above ten minutes, but out popped a little figure, pale but cross, with beard unshaved and hair uncombed, a slouched hat, and a considerable red cloak, in which was wrapped, under his arm, the fatal sword that was to revenge the highly injured Mr. Martin, painter and defendant. I darted my head out of the coach, just ready to say, " Your servant, Mr. Martin," and talk about the architecture of the triumphal arch that was building there; but he would not know me, and walked off. We left him to wait for an hour, to grow very cold and very valiant the more it grew past the hour of appointment. We were figuring all the poor creature's huddle of thoughts, and confused hopes of victory or fame, of his unfinished pictures, or his situation upon bouncing into the next world. You will think us strange creatures; but 'twas a pleasant sight, as we knew the poor painter was safe. I have thought of it since, and am inclined to believe that nothing but two English could have been capable of such a jaunt. I remember, 'twas reported in London, that the plague was at a house in the city, and all the town went to see it.

I have this instant received your letter. Lord! I am glad I thought of those parallel passages, since it made you translate them. 'Tis excessively near the original; and yet, I don't know, 'tis very easy too.-It snows here a little to-night, but it never lies but on the mountains. Adieu! Yours ever.

P.S. What is the history of the theatres this winter?

(179) Sir Charles Etheridge. "She would if She could," was brought out at the Duke of York's theatre in February, 1668: Pepys, who was present, calls it "a silly, dull thing; the design and end being mighty insipid."-E.

(180) Sir Horace Mann, created a baronet in 1755. He was appointed minister plenipotentiary from England to the court of Florence in 1740, and continued so until his death, on the 6th November 1786.-E.

145 Letter 18 To The Hon. Henry Seymour Conway, (181) Florence, March 6, 1740, N. S.

Harry, my dear, one would tell you what a monster you are, if one were not sure your conscience tells you so every time you think of me. At Genoa, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and thirty-nine, I received the last letter from you; by your not writing to me since, I imagine you propose to make this a leap year. I should have sent many a scold after you in this long interval, had I known where to have scolded; but you told me you should leave Geneva immediately. I have despatched sundry inquiries into England after you, all fruitless. At last drops in a chance letter to Lady Sophy Farmor, (182) from a girl at Paris, that tells her for news, Mr. Henry Conway is here. Is he, indeed? and why was I to know it only by this scrambling way? Well, I hate you for this neglect, but I find I love you well enough to tell you so. But, dear now, don't let one fall into a train of excuses and reproaches; if the god of indolence is a mightier deity with you than the god of caring for one, tell me, and I won't dun you; but will drop your correspondence as silently as if I owed you money.

If my private consistency was of no weight with you, yet, is a man nothing who is within three days' journey of a conclave? Nay, for what you knew, I might have been in Rome. Harry, art thou so indifferent, as to have a cousin at the election of a pope (183) without courting him for news? I'll tell you, were I any where else, and even Dick Hammond were at Rome, I think verily I should have wrote to him. Popes, cardinals, adorations, coronations, St. Peter's! oh, what costly sounds! and don't you write to one yet? I shall set out in about a fortnight, and pray then think me of consequence.

I have crept on upon time from day to day here; fond of Florence to a degree: 'tis infinitely the most agreeable of all the places I have seen since London: that you know one loves, right or wrong, as one does one's nurse. Our little Arno is not bloated and swelling like the Thames, but 'tis vastly pretty, and, I don't know how, being Italian, has something visionary and poetical in its stream. Then one's unwilling to leave the gallery, and-but-in short, one's unwilling to get into a postchaise. I am surfeited with mountains and inns, as if I had eat them. I have many to pass before I see England again, and no Tory to entertain me on the road? Well, this thought makes me dull, and that makes me finish. Adieu! Yours ever.

P. S. Direct to me, (for to be sure you will not be so outrageous as to leave me quite off), recornmand4 i Mons. Mann, Ministre de sa Majest`e Britannique @ Florence.

(181) Second Son of Francis first Lord Conway. by Charlotte Shorter, his third wife. He was afterwards secretary in Ireland during the vice-royalty of William fourth Duke of Devonshire; groom of the bedchamber to George II. and George III.; secretary of state in 1765; lieutenant-general of the ordnance in 1770; commander in chief in 1782; and a field- marshal in 1793. This correspondence commences when Mr. Walpole was twenty-three years old, and Mr. Conway two years younger. They had gone abroad together, with Mr. Gray, in the year 1739, had spent three months together at Rheims, and afterwards separated at Geneva.

(182) Daughter of the first Earl of Pomfret, and married,, in 1744, to John second Lord Carteret and first Earl of Granville.-E.

(183) As successor of Clement XII., who died in the eighty-eighth year of his age, and the tenth of his pontificate, on the 6th Feb. 1740. The cardinals being uncertain whom to choose, Prosper Lamberteri, the learned and tolerant Archbishop of Ancona, said, with his accustomed good-humour, "If you want a saint, choose Gotti; if a politician, Aldrosandi: but if a good man, take me." His advice was followed, and he ascended the papal throne as Benedict XIV.-E.

146 Letter 19 To Richard West, Esq. Siena, March 22, 1740, N. S.

Dear West, Probably now you will hear something of the Conclave: we have left Florence, and are got hither on the way to a pope. In three hours' time we have seen all the good contents of this city: 'tis old, and very snug, with very few inhabitants. You must not believe Mr. Addison about the wonderful Gothic nicety of the dome: the materials are richer, but the workmanship and taste not near so good as in several I have seen. We saw a college of the Jesuits, where there are taught to draw above fifty boys: they are disposed in long chambers in the manner of Eton, but cleaner. N. B. We were not bolstered; (184) so we wished you with us. Our Cicerone, who has less classic knowledge, and more superstition than a colleger, upon showing 147 us the she-wolf, the arms of Siena, told us that Romolus and Remus were nursed by a wolf, per la volonta di Dio, si pu`o dire; and that one might see by the arms, that the same founders built Rome and Siena. Another dab of Romish superstition, not unworthy of Presbyterian divinity, we met with in a book of drawings: 'twas the Virgin standing on a tripod composed of Adam, Eve, and the Devil, to express her immaculate conception.

You can't imagine how pretty the country is between this and Florence; millions of little hills planted with trees, and tipped with villas or convents. We left unseen the great Duke's villas and several palaces in Florence, till our return from Rome: the weather has been so cold, how could one go to them? In Italy they seem to have found out how hot their climate is, but not how cold; for there are scarce any chimneys, and most of the apartments painted in fresco so that one has the additional horror of freezing with imaginary marble. The men hang little earthen pans of coals upon their wrists, and the women have portable stoves under their petticoats to warm their nakedness, and carry silver shovels in their pockets, with which their Cicisbeos stir them-Hush! by them, I mean their stoves. I have nothing more to tell you; I'll carry my letter to Rome and finish it there.

R`e di Coffano, March 23, where lived one of the three kings. The King of Coffano carried presents of myrrh, gold, and frankincense, I don't know where the devil he found them; for in all his dominions we have not seen the value of a shrub. We have the honour of lodging under his roof to-night. lord! such a place, such an extent of ugliness! A lone inn upon a black mountain, by the side of an old fortress! no curtains or windows, only shutters! no testers to the beds! no earthly thing to eat but some eggs and a few little fishes! This lovely spot is now known by the name of Radi-cofani. Coming down a steep hill with two miserable hackneys, one fell under the chaise; and while we were disengaging him, a chaise came by with a person in a red cloak, a white handkerchief on its head, and a black hat: we thought it a fat old woman; but it spoke in a shrill little pipe, and proved itself to be Senesini. (185) I forgot to tell you an inscription I copied from the portal of the dome of Siena:

Annus centenus Roma seraper est jubilenus: Crimina laxantur si penitet ista dortantur; Sic ordinavit Bonifacius et roboravit.

Rome, March 26

We are this instant arrived, tired and hungry! O! the charming city-I believe it is-for I have not seen a syllable yet, only the Pons Milvius and an obelisk. The Cassian and Flaminian ways were terrible disappointments; not one Rome tomb left; their very ruins ruined. The English are numberless. My dear West, I know at Rome you will not have a grain of pity for one; but indeed 'tis dreadful, dealing with schoolboys just broke loose, or old fools that are come abroad at forty to see the world, like Sir Wilful Witwould.

I don't know whether you will receive this, or any other I write; but though I shall write often, you and Ashton must not wonder if none come to you; for though I am harmless in my nature, my name has some mystery in it.(186) Good night! I have no more time or paper. Ashton, child, I'll write to you next post. Write us no treasons, be sure!

(184) An Eton phrase.

(185) Francesco Bernardi, better known by the name of Senesino, a celebrated singer, who, having been engaged for the opera company formed by Handel in 17@20, remained here as principal singer until 1726, when the state of his health compelled him to return to Italy. In 1730 he revisited England, where he remained until about 1734. He was the contemporary, if not the rival of Farinelli; and Mr. Hogarth, in his "Memoirs of the Musical Drama," (i. 431,) tells us, that when Senesino and Farinelli were in England together, they had not for some time the opportunity of hearing each other, in consequence of their engagements at different theatres. At last, however, they were both engaged to sing on the same stage. Senesino had the part of a furious tyrant, and Farinelli the part of an unfortunate hero in chains; but, in the course of the first act, the captive so softened the heart of the tyrant, that Senesino, forgetting his stage character, ran to Farinelli, and embraced him in his own.-E.

(186) He means the name of Walpole at Rome, where the Pretender and many of his adherents then resided.

148 letter 20 To Richard West, Esq. Rome, April 16th, 1740, N. S.

I'll tell you, West, because one is amongst new things, you think one can always write new things. When I first came abroad, every thing struck me, and I wrote its history: but now I am grown so used to be surprised, that I don't perceive any flutter in myself when I meet with any novelties; curiosity and astonishment wear off, and the next thing is, to fancy that other people nnow as much of places as One's Self; or, at least, one does not remember that they do not. It appears to me as odd to write to you of St. Peter's, as it would do to you to write of Westminster Abbey. Besides, as one looks at churches, etc. with a book of travels in one's hand, and sees every thing particularized there, it would appear transcribing, to write upon the same subjects. I know you will hate me for this declaration; I remember how ill I used to take it when any body served me so that was travelling. Well, I will tell you something, if you will love me: You have seen prints of the ruins of the temple of Minerva Medica; you shall only hear its situation, and then figure what a villa might be laid out there. 'Tis in the middle of a garden: at a little distance are two subterraneous grottos, which were the burial-places of the liberti of Augustus. There are all the niches and covers of the urns and the inscriptions remaining; and in one, very considerable remains of an ancient stucco Ceiling with paintings in grotesque. Some of the walks would terminate upon the Castellum Aquae Martioe, St. John Lateran, and St. Maria Maggiore, besides other churches; the walls of the garden would be two aqueducts. and the entrance through one of the old gates of Rome. This glorious spot is neglected, and only serves for a small vineyard and kitchen-garden.

I am very glad that I see Rome while it yet exists: before a great number of years are elapsed, I question whether it will be worth seeing. Between the ignorance and poverty of the present Romans, every thing is neglected and falling to decay; the villas are entirely out of repair, and the palaces so ill kept, that half the pictures are spoiled by damp. At the villa Ludovisi is a large oracular head of red marble, colossal, and with vast foramina for the eyes and mouth: the man that showed the palace said it was un ritratto della famiglia? The Cardinal Corsini has so thoroughly pushed on the misery of Rome by impoverishing it, that there is no money but paper to be seen. He is reckoned to have amassed three millions of crowns. You may judge of' the affluence the nobility live in, when I assure you, that what the chief princes allow for their own eating is a testoon a day; eighteen pence: there are some extend their expense to five pauls, or half a crown: Cardinal Albani is called extravagant for laying out ten pauls for his dinner and supper. You may imagine they never have any entertainments: so far from it, they never have any company. The princesses and duchesses particularly lead the dismallest of lives. Being the posterity of popes, though of worse families than the ancient nobility, they expect greater respect than my ladies the countesses and marquises will pay them; consequently they consort not, but mope in a vast palace with two mniserable tapers, and two or three monsignori, whom they are forced to court and humour, that they may not be entirely deserted. Sundays they do issue forth in a most unwieldy coach to the Corso.

In short 'child, after sunset one passes one's time here very ill; and if I did not wish for you in the mornings, it would be no compliment to tell you that I do in the evening. Lord! how many English I could change for you, and yet buy you wondrous cheap! And, then French and Germans I could fling into the bargain by dozens. Nations swarm here. You will have a great fat French cardinal garnished with thirty abb`es roll into the area of St. Peter's, gape, turn short, and talk of the chapel of Versailles. I heard one of them say t'other day, he had been at the Capitale. One asked of course how he liked it-.Oh! il y a assez de belles choses.

Tell Ashton I have received his letter, and will write next post but I am in a violent hurry and have no more time; so Gray finishes this delicately.

NOT so delicate; nor indeed would his conscience suffer him to write to you, till he received de vos nouvelles, if he had not the tail of another person's letter to use by way of evasion. I sha'n't describe, as being in the only place in the world that deserves it which may seem an odd reason-but they say as how it's fulsome, and every body does it (and I suppose every body says the same thing); else I should tell'you a vast deal about the Coliseum, and the Conclave, and the Capitol, and these matters. A-propos du Colis`ee, if you don't know what it is, the Prince Borghese will be very capable of giving you some account of it, who told an Englishman that asked what it was built for: "They say 'twas for Christians to fight with tigers in." We are just come from adoring a great piece of the true cross, St. Longinus's spear, and St. Veronica's handkerchief; all of which have been this evening exposed to view in St. Peter's. In the same place, and on the same occasion last night, Walpole saw a poor creature naked to the waist discipline himself with a scourge filled with iron prickles, till he made hii-nself a raw doublet, that he took for red satin torn, and showing the skin through. I should tell you, that he fainted away three times at the sight, and I twice and a half at the repetition of it. All this is performed by the light of a vast fiery cross, composed of hundreds of little crystal latmps, which appears through the great altar under the grand tribuna, as if hanging by itself in the air. All the confraternities of the city resort thither in solemn procession, habited in linen frocks, girt with a cord, and their heads covered with a cowl all over, that has only two holes before to see through. Some of these are all black, others parti-coloured and white: and with these masqueraders that vast church is filled, who are seen thumping their breasts, and kissing the pavement with extreme devotion. But methinks I am describing:-'tis an ill habit; but this, like every thing else will wear off We have sent you our compliments by a friend of yours, and correspondent in a corner, who seems a very agreeable man; one Mr. Williams; I am sorry he staid so little a while in Rome. I forget Porto-Bello (187) all this while; pray let us know where it is, and whether you or Ashton had any hand in the taking of'it. Duty to the admiral. Adieu! Ever yours,

T. GRAY.

(187) Porto-Bello, taken from the Spaniards by Admiral Vernon, with six ships only, On the 21st Nov. 1740. By the articles of the capitulation, the town was not to be plundered, nor the inhabitants molested in the smallest degree; and the governor and inhabitants expressed themselves in the highest terms, when speaking of the humanity and generosity with which they had been treated by the admiral and the officers of the squadron under his command.-E.

150 Letter 21 To The Hon. H. S. Conway. Rome, April, 23, 1740, N. S.

As I have wrote you two such long letters lately, my dear Hal, I did not hurry myself to answer your last; but choose to write to poor SelWyn (188) Upon his illness. I pity you excessively upon finding him in such a situation- what a shock it must have been to you! He deserves so much love from all that know him, and you owe him so much friendship, that I can scarce conceive a greater shock. I am very glad you did not write to me till he was out of danger; for this great distance would have added to my pain, as I must have waited so long for another letter. I charge you, don't let him relapse into balls: he does not love them, and, if you please, your example may keep him out of them. You are extremely pretty people to be dancing and trading with French poulterers and pastry cooks, when a hard frost is starving half the nation, and the Spanish war ought to be employing the other half. We are much more public spirited here; we live upon the public news, and triumph abundantly upon the taking Porto-Bello. If you are not entirely debauched with your balls, you must be pleased with an answer of Lord Harrington's (189) to the governor of Rome. He asked him what they had determined about the vessel that the Spaniards took under the canon of Civita Vecchia, whether they had restored it to the English? The governor said, they had done justice. My lord replied, "If you had not, we should have' done it ourselves." Pray reverence our spirit, Lieutenant Hal.

Sir, MoscovitEO (190) is not a pretty woman, and she does sing ill; that's all.

My dear Harry, I must now tell you a little about myself, and answer your questions. How I like the inanimate part of Rome you will soon perceive at my arrival in England; I am far gone in medals, lamps, idols, prints, etc." and all the small commodities to the purchase of which I can attain; I would buy the Coliseum if I could: Judge. My mornings are spent in the most agreeable manner; my evenings ill enough. Roman conversations are dreadful things! such untoward mawkins as the princesses! and the princes are worse. Then the whole city is littered with French and German abb`es, who make up a dismal contrast with the inhabitants. The conclave is far from enlivening us; its secrets don't transpire. I could give you names of this cardinal and that, that are talked of, but each is contradicted the next hour. I was there t'other day to visit one of them, and one of the most agreeable, Alexander Albani. I had the opportunity of two cardinals making their entry: upon that occasion the gate is unlocked, and their eminences come to talk to their acquaintance over the threshold. I have received great civilities from him I named to you, and I wish he were out, that I might receive greater: a friend of his does the honours of Rome for him; but you know that it is unpleasant to visit by proxy. Cardinal Delei, the object of the Corsini faction, is dying; the hot weather will probably despatch half a dozen more. Not that it is hot yet; I am now writing to you by my fireside.

Harry, you saw Lord Deskfoord (191) at Geneva; don't you like him? He is a mighty sensible man. There are few young people have so good understandings. He is mighty grave, and so are you; but you can both be pleasant when you have a mind. Indeed, one can make you pleasant, but his solemn Scotchery is a little formidable: before you 1 can play the fool from morning to night, courageously. Good night. I have other letters to write, and must finish this. Yours ever.

(188) John Selwyn, elder brother of George Augustus Selwyn. He died about 1750.

(189)William Marquis of Hartington. He succeeded his father as fourth Duke of Devonshire in 1755.-E.

(190) Notwithstanding she laboured under such disadvantages-and want of beauty and want of talent are serious ones to a cantatrice,-it will be seen from Walpole's letter to Mann, 5th Nov. 1741, that the Moscovita, on her arrival here, received six hundred guineas for the season, instead of four hundred, the salary previously given to the , second woman;" and became, moreover, the mistress of Lord Middlesex, the director of the opera.-E.

(191) Son of the Earl of Findlater and Seafield, who succeeded his father in 1764, and died in 1770.-E.

152 Letter 22 To Richard West, Esq. Rome, May 7, 1740, N. S.

Dear West, 'Twould be quite rude and unpardonable in one not to wish you joy upon the great conquests that you are all committing all over the world. We heard the news last night from Naples, that Admiral Haddock (192) had met the Spanish convoy going to Majorca, and taken it all, all; three thousand men, three colonels, and a Spanish grandee. We conclude it is true, for the Neapolitan Majesty mentioned it at dinner. We are going thither in about a week, to wish him joy of it too. 'Tis with some apprehensions we go too, of having a pope chosen in the interim: that would be cruel, you know. But, thank our stars, there is no great probability of it. ' Feuds and contentions run high among the eminences. A notable one happened this week. Cardinal Zinzendorff and two more had given their votes for the general of the Capucins: he is of the Barberini family, not a cardinal, but a worthy man. Not effecting any thing, Zinzendorff voted for Coscia, and declared it publicly. Cardinal Petra reproved him; but the German replied, he thought Coscia as fit to be pope as any of them. It seems, his pique to the whole body is, their having denied a daily admission of a pig into the conclave for his eminence's use who, being much troubled with the gout, was ordered by his mother to bathe his leg in pig's blood every morning.

Who should have a vote t other day but the Cardinalino of Toledo! Were he older, the Queen of Spain might possibly procure more than one for him, though scarcely enough.

Well, but we won't talk Politics: shall we talk antiquities? Gray and I discovered a considerable curiosity lately. In an unfrequented quarter of the Colonna garden lie two immense fragments of marble, formerly part of a frieze to some building; 'tis not known of what. They are of Parian marble: which may give one some idea of the magnificence of the rest of the building for these pieces were at the very top. Upon inquiry, we were told they had been measured by an architect, who declared they were larger than any member of St. Peter's. The length of one of the pieces is above sixteen feet. They were formerly sold to a stonecutter for five thousand crowns, but Clement XI. would not permit them to be sawed, annulled the bargain, and laid a penalty of twelve thousand crowns upon the family if they parted with them. I think it was a right judged thing. Is it not amazing, that so vast a structure should not be known of, or that it should be so entirely destroyed? But indeed at Rome this is a common surprise; for, by the remains one sees of the Roman grandeur in their structures, 'tis evident that there must have been more pains taken to destroy those piles than to raise them. They are more demolished than any time or chance could have effected. I am persuaded that in an hundred years Rome will not be worth seeing; 'tis less so now than one would believe. All the public pictures are decayed or decaying; the few ruins cannot last long; and the statues and private collections must be sold, from the great poverty of the families. There are now selling no less than three of the principal collections, the Barberini, the Sacchetti, and Ottoboni: the latter belonged to the cardinal who died in the conclave. I must give you an instance of his generosity, or rather ostentation. When Lord Carlisle was here last year, who is a great virtuoso, he asked leave to see the cardinal's collection of cameos and intaglios. Ottoboni gave leave, and ordered the person who showed them to observe which my lord admired most. My lord admired many: they were all sent him the next morning. He sent the cardinal back a fine gold repeater; who returned him an acate snuff box, and more cameoes of ten times the value. Voila qui est fini! Had my lord produced more golden repeaters, it would have been begging more cameos. Adieu, my dear West! You see I write often and much, as you desired it. Do answer one now and then, with any little job that is done in England. Good night. Yours ever.

(192) This report, which proved unfounded, was grounded on the fact, that on the 18th of April his Majesty's ships Lenox, Kent, and Orford, commanded by Captains Mayne, Durell, and Lord Augustus Fitzroy, part of Admiral Balchen's squadron being on a cruise about forty leagues to the westward of Cape Finisterre, fell in with the Princessa, esteemed the finest ship of war in the Spanish navy, and captured her, after an engagement of five hours.-E.

(193) Henry fourth Earl of Carlisle, grandfather of the present Earl. In 1742, he married Isabella, the daughter of William fourth Lord Byron, and died in 1758.-E.

(194) Cardinal Ottoboni, Dean of the Sacred College, who died in 1740: he had been made a cardinal in 1689.-E.

153 Letter 23 To Richard West, Esq. Naples, June 14, 1740, N. S.

Dear West, One hates writing descriptions that are to be found in every book of travels; but we have seen something to-day that I am sure you never read of, and perhaps never heard of. Have you ever heard of a subterraneous town? a whole Roman town, with all its edifices, remaining under ground? Don't fancy the inhabitants buried it there to save it from the Goths: they were buried with it themselves; which is a caution we are not told that they ever took. You remember in Titus's time there were several cities destroyed by an eruption of Vesuvius, attended with an earthquake. Well, this was one of them, not very considerable, and then called Herculaneum. (195) Above it has since been built Portici, about three miles from Naples, where the King has a villa. This under-ground city is perhaps one of the noblest curiosities that ever has been discovered. It was found out by chance, about a year and half ago. They began digging, they found statues; they dug, further, they found more. Since that they have made a very considerable progress, and find continually. You may walk the compass of a mile; but by the misfortune of the modern town being overhead, they are obliged to proceed with great caution, lest they destroy both one and t'other. By this occasion the path is very narrow, just wide enough and high enough for one man to walk upright. They have hollowed, as they found it easiest to work, and have carried their streets not exactly where were the ancient ones, but sometimes before houses, sometimes through them. You would imagine that all the fabrics were crushed together; on the contrary., except some columns, they have found all the edifices standing upright in their proper ' situation. There is one inside of a temple quite perfect, with the middle arch, two columns, and two pilasters. It is built of brick plastered over, and painted with architecture almost all the insides of the houses are in the same manner; and, what is very particular the general ground of all the painting is red. Besides this temple, they make out very plainly an amphitheatre: the stairs, of white marble and the seats are very perfect; the inside was painted in the same colour with the private houses, and great part cased with white marble. They have found among other things some fine statues, some human bones, some rice, medals, and a few paintings extremely fine. These latter are preferred to all the ancient paintings that have ever been discovered. We have not seen them yet, as they are kept in the King's apartment, whither all these curiosities are transplanted; and 'tis difficult to see them-but we shall. I forgot to tell you, that in several places the beams of the houses remain, but burnt to charcoal; so little damaged that they retain visibly the grain of the wood, but upon touching crumble to ashes. What is remarkable, there are no other marks or appearance of fire, but what are visible on these beams.

There might certainly be collected great light from this reservoir of antiquities, if a man of learning had the inspection of it; if he directed the working, and would make a journal of the discoveries. But I believe there is no judicious choice made of directors. There is nothing of the kind known in the world; I mean a Roman city entire of that age, and that has not been corrupted with modern repairs. (196) Besides scrutinising this very carefully, I should be inclined to search for the remains of the other towns that were partners with this in the general ruin. 'Tis certainly an advantage to the learned world, that this has been laid up so long. Most of the discoveries in Rome were made in a barbarous age, where they only ransacked the ruins in quest of treasure, and had no regard to the form and being of the building; or to any circumstances that might give light to its use and history. I shall finish this long account with a passage which Gray has observed in Statius, and which correctly pictures out this latent city:-

Haec ego Chalcidicis ad te, Marcelle, sonabam Littoribus, fractas ubi Vestius egerit iras, Emula Trinacriis volvens incendia flammis. Mira fides! credetne viram ventura propago, Cum segetes iterum, cum jam haec deserta virebunt, Infra urbes populosque premi? SyLv. lib. iv. epist. 4.

Adieu, my dear West! and believe me yours ever.

(195) Some excavations were made at Herculaneum in 1709 by the Prince d'Elbeuf; but, thirty years elapsed after the prince had been forbidden to dig further, before any more notice was taken of them. In December 1738 the King of the two Sicilies was at Portici, and gave orders for the prosecution of these subterranean labours. There had been an excavation in the time of the Romans; and another so lately as 1689. In a letter from Gray to his mother, he describes their visits to Herculaneum; but, not mentioning it by name, Mason supposed it had not then been discovered to be that city. It is evident, from this observation of Walpole, that Mason's opinion was unfounded.-E.

(196) Pompei a was not then discovered.

155 Letter 24 To The Hon. H. S. Conway. R`e di Cofano, vulg. Radicofani, July 5, 1740, N. S.

You will wonder, my dear Hal, to find me on the road from Rome: why, intend I did to stay for a new popedom, but the old eminences are cross and obstinate, and will not choose one the Holy Ghost does not know when. There is a horrid thing called the mallaria, that comes to Rome, every summer, and kills one, and I did not care for being killed so far from Christian burial. We have been jolted to death; my servants let us come without springs to the chaise, and we are wore threadbare: to add to our disasters, I have sprained my ancle, and have brought it along, laid upon a little box of baubles that I have bought for presents in England. Perhaps I may pick you out some little trifle there, but don't depend upon it; you are a disagreeable creature and may be I shall not care for you. Though I am so tired in this devil of a place, yet I have taken it into my head, that it is like Hamilton's Bawn, (197) and I must write to you. 'Tis the top of a black barren mountain, a vile little town at the foot of an old citadel: yet this, know you, was the residence of one of the three kings that went to Christ's birth-day; his name was Alabaster, Abarasser, or some such thing; the other two were kings, one of the East, the other of Cologn. 'Tis this of Cofano, who was represented in an ancient painting found in the Palatine Mount, now in the possession of Dr. Mead; he was crowned by Augustus. Well, but about writing-what do you think I write with? Nay, with a pen; there was never a one to be found in the whole circumference but one, and that was in the possession of the governor, and had been used time out of mind to write the parole with : I was forced to send to borrow it. It was sent me under the conduct of a sergeant and two Swiss, with desire to return it when I should have done with it. 'Tis a curiosity, and worthy to be laid up with the relics which we have just been seeing- in a small hovel of Capucins, on the side of the hill, and which were all brought by his Majesty from Jerusalem. Among other things of great sanctity there is a set of gnashing of teeth, the grinders very entire; a bit of the worm that never dies, preserved in spirits; a crow of St. Peter's cock, very useful against Easter; the crisping and curling, frizzling and frowncing of Mary Magdalen, which she cut off on growing devout. The good man that showed us all these commodities was got into such a train of calling them the blessed this, and blessed that, that at last he showed us a bit of the blessed fig-tree that Christ cursed.

Florence, July 9.

My dear Harry, We are come hither, and I have received another letter from you with Hosier's Ghost. Your last put me in pain for you, when you talked of going to Ireland; but now I find your brother and sister go with you, I am not much concerned. Should I be? You have but to say, for my feelings are extremely at your service to dispose as you please. Let us see: you are to come back to stand for some place; that will be about April. 'Tis a sort of thing I should do, too; and then we should see one another, and that would be charming; but it is a sort of thing I have no mind to do; and then we shall not see one another, unless you would come hither-but that you cannot do: nay, I would not have you, for then I shall be gone. So! there are many @ that just signify nothing at all. Return I must sooner than I shall like. I am happy here to a degree. I'll tell you my situation. I am lodged with Mr. Mann, (198) the best of creatures. I have a terreno all to myself, with an open gallery on the Arno, where I am now writing to you. Over against me is the famous Gallery; and, on either hand, two fair bridges. Is not this charming and cool? The air is so serene, and so secure, that one sleeps with all the windows and doors thrown open to the river, and only covered with a slight gauze to keep away the gnats. Lady Pomfret (199) has a charming conversation once a week. She has taken a vast palace and a vast garden, which is vastly commode, especially to the cicisbeo-part of mankind, who have free indulgence to wander in pairs about the arbours. You know her daughters : Lady Sophia (200) is still, nay she must be, the beauty she was: Lady Charlotte, (201) is much improved, and is the cleverest girl in the world; speaks the purest Tuscan, like any Florentine. The Princess Craon (202) has a constant pharaoh and supper every night, where one is quite at one's ease. I am going into the country with her and the prince for a little while, to a villa of the Great Duke's. The people are good-humoured here and easy; and what makes me pleased with them, they are pleased with me. One loves to find people care for one, when they can have no view in it.

You see how glad I am to have reasons for not returning; I wish I had no better.

As to Hosier's Ghost, (203) I think it very easy, and consequently pretty; but, from the ease, should never have guessed it Glover's. I delight in your, "the patriots cry it up, and the courtiers cry it down, and the hawkers cry it up and down," and your laconic history of the King and Sir Robert, on going to Hanover, and turning out the Duke of Argyle. The epigram, too, you sent me on the same occasion is charming.

Unless I sent you back news that you and others send me, I can send you none. I have left the conclave, which is the only stirring thing in this part of the world, except the child that the Queen of Naples is to be delivered of in August. There is no likelihood the conclave will end, unless the messages take effect which 'tis said the Imperial and French ministers have sent to their respective courts for leave to quit the Corsini for the Albani faction: otherwise there will never be a pope. Corsini has lost the only one he could have ventured to make pope, and him he designed; 'twas Cenci, a relation of the Corsini's mistress. The last morning Corsini made him rise, stuffed a dish of chocolate down his throat, and would carry him to the scrutiny. The poor old creature went, came back, and died. I am sorry to have lost the sight of the pope's coronation, but I might have stayed for seeing it till I had been old enough to be pope myself.

Harry, what luck the chancellor has! first, indeed, to be in himself so great a man; but then in accidents: he is made chief justice and peer, when Talbot is made chancellor and peer: (204) Talbot dies in a twelvemonth, and leaves him the seals at an age when others are scarce made solicitors: (205)-then marries his son into one of the first families of Britain, (206) obtains a patent for a marquisate and eight thousand pounds a year after the Duke of Kent's death: the duke dies in a fortnightt, and leaves them all! People talk of Fortune's wheel, that is always rolling: my Lord Hardwicke has overtaken her wheel, and rolled with it. I perceive Miss Jenny (207) would not venture to Ireland, nor stray so far from London; I am glad I shall always know where to find her within threescore miles. I must say a word to my lord, which, Harry, be sure you don't read. ["My dear lord, I don't love troubling you with letters, because I know you don't love the trouble of answering them; not that I should insist on that ceremony, but I hate to burthen any one's conscience. Your brother tells me he is to stand member of parliament: without telling me so, I am sure he owes it to you. I am sure you will not repent setting him up; nor will he be ungrateful to a brother who deserves so much, and whose least merit is not the knowing how to employ so great a fortune."]

There, Harry,-I have done. Don't suspect me: I have said no ill of you behind your back. Make my best compliments to Miss Conway. (208)

I thoght I had done, and lo, I had forgot to tell you, that who d'ye think is here?-Even Mr. More! our Rheims Mr. More! the fortification, hornwork, ravelin, bastion Mr. More! which is very pleasant sure. At the end of the eighth side, I think I need make no excuse for leaving off; but I am going to write to Selwyn, and to the lady of the mountain; from whom I have had a very kind letter. She has at last received the Chantilly brass. Good night: write to me from one end of the world to t'other. Yours ever.

(197) A large old house, two miles from the seat of Sir Arthur Acheson, near Market-hill, and the scene of Swift's humorous poem, "The Grand Question debated, whether Hamilton's Bawn should be turned into a barrack or a malt- house."-E.

(198) Afterwards Sir Horace Mann. He was at this time resident at Florence from George II.

(199) Henrietta Louisa, wife of Thomas Earl of Pomfret. [She was the daughter of John Lord Jefferies, Baron of Wem. Lady Pomfret, who was the friend and correspondent of Frances Duchess of Somerset, retired from the court upon the death of Queen Caroline in 1737.]

(200) Afterwards married to John Lord Carteret, who became Earl of Granville on the death of his mother in the year 1744.

(201) Lady Charlotte Fermor married, in August 1746, William Finch, brother of Daniel seventh Earl of Winchelsea, by whom she had issue a son, George, who, on the death of his uncle, in 1769, succeeded to the earldom. Her ladyship was governess to the children of George III., and highly esteemcd by him and his royal consort.-E.

(202) The Princess Craon was the favourite mistress of Leopold the last Duke of Lorrain, who married her to M. de Beauveau, and prevailed on the Emperor to make him a prince of the empire. They at this time resided at Florence, where Prince Craon was at the head of the council of regency.

(203) This was a party ballad (written by Glover, though by some at the time ascribed to Lord Bath,) on the taking of Porto-Bello by Admiral Vernon. "The case of Hosier," says Bishop Percy, in his admirable Reliques, vol. ii. p. 382, where the song is preserved, "The case of Hosier, which is here so pathetically represented, was briefly this. In April 1726, that commander was sent with a strong fleet into the Spanish West Indies to block up the galleons in the port of that country, or, should they presume to come out, to seize and carry them to England: he accordingly arrived at Bastimentos, near Porto-Bello; but, being employed rather to overawe than attack the Spaniards, with whom it was probably not our interest to go to war, he continued long inactive on this station. He afterwards removed to Carthagena, and remained crusing in those seas, till the greater part of his men perished deplorably by the diseases of that unhealthy Climate. This brave man, seeing his best officers and men thus daily swept away, his ships exposed to inevitable destruction, and himself made the sport of the enemy, is said to have died of a broken heart.-E.

(204) Philip Yorke Lord Hardwicke was the son of an attorney at Dover, and was introduced by the Duke of Newcastle to Sir Robert Walpole. He was attorney-general, and when Talbot, the solicitor-general, was preferred to him in the contest for the chancellorship, Sir Robert made him chief justice for life, with an increased salary. He was an object of aversion to Horace Walpole, who, in his Memoirs, tells us, "in the House of Lords, he was laughed at, in the cabinet despised." Upon which it is very properly observed by the noble editor of those memoirs, Lord Hollan,-"Yet, in the course of the work, Walpole laments Lord Hardwicke's influence in the cabinet, where he would have us believe that he was despised, and acknowledges that he exercised a dominion nearly absolute over that house of Parliament which, he would persuade his readers, laughed at him. The truth is, that, wherever this great magistrate is mentioned, Lord Orford's resentments blind his judgment and disfigure his narrative."-E.

(205) charles Talbot baron Talbot was, on the 29th Nov. 1733, made lord high chancellor and created a baron; and, dying in Feb. 1737, was succeeded by Lord Hardwicke. There is a story current, that Sir Robert Walpole, finding it difficult to prevail on Yorke to quit a place for life, for the higher but more precarious dignity of chancellor, worked upon his jealousy, and said that if he persisted in refusing the seals, he must offer them to Fazakerly. "Fazakerly!" exclaimed Yorke, "impossible! he is certainly a Tory, perhaps a Jacobite." "It's all very true," replied Sir Robert, taking out his watch; " but if by one o'clock you do not accept my offer, Fazakerly by two becomes lord keeper of the great seal, and one of the staunchest Whigs in all England!" Yorke took the seals and the peerage.-E.

(206) That of Grey, Duke of Kent, see avove.-E.

(207) Miss Jane Conway, half-sister to Henry Seymour Conway. She died unmarried in 1749.

(208) Afterwirds married to John Harris, Esq. of Hayne in Devonshire.

159 Letter 25 To Richard West, Esq. Florence, July 31, 1740, N. S.

Dear West, I have advised with the most notable antiquarians of this city on the meaning of Thur gut Luetis. I can get no satisfactory interpretation. In my own opinion 'tis Welsh. I don't love offering conjectures on a language in which I have hitherto made little proficiency, but I will trust you with my explication. You know the famous Aglaughlan, mother of Cadwalladhor, was renowned for her conjugal virtues, and grief on the death of her royal spouse. I conclude this medal was struck in her regency, by her express order, to the memory of her lord, and that the inscription Thur gut Luetis means no more than her dear Llewis or Llewellin.

In return for your coins I send you two or three of different kinds. The first is a money of one of the kings of Naples; the device, a horse; the motto, Equitas regni. This curious pun is on a coin in the Great Duke's collection, and by great chance I have met with a second. Another is, a satirical medal struck on Lewis XIV.; 'tis a bomb, covered with flower-de-luces, bursting; the motto, Se ipsissimo. The last, and almost the only one I ever saw with a text well applied, is a German medal with a Rebellious town besieged and blocked up; the inscription, This kind is not expelled but by fasting. Now I mention medals, have they yet struck the intended one on the taking of Porto-Bello? Admiral Vernon will shine in our medallic history. We have just received the news of the bombarding Carthagena, and the taking Chagre. (209) We are in great expectation of some important victory obtained by the squadron under Sir John Norris. we are told the Duke is to be of the expedition; is it true? (210) All the letters, too, talk of France suddenly declaring war; I hope they will defer it for a season, or one shall be obliged to return through Germany.

The conclave still subsists, and the divisions still increase; it was very near separating last week, but by breaking into two popes; they were on the dawn of a schism. Aldovrandi had thirty-three voices for three days, but could not procure the requisite two more; the Camerlingo having engaged his faction to sign a protestation against him and each party were inclined to elect. I don't know whether one should wish for a schism or not; it might probably rekindle the zeal for the church in the powers of Europe which has been so far decaying. On Wednesday we expect a third she-meteor. Those learned luminaries the Ladies Pomfret and Walpole are to be joined by the Lady Mary Wortley Montague. You have not been witness to the rhapsody of mystic nonsense which these two fair ones debate incessantly, and consequently cannot figure what must be the issue of this triple alliance: we have some idea of it. Only figure the coalition of prudery, debauchery, sentiment, history, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, and metaphysics; all, except the second, understood by halves, by quarters, or not at all. You shall have the journals of this notable academy. Adieu, my dear West! Yours ever,

Hor. Walpole.

Though far unworthy to enter into so learned and political a correspondence, I am employed pour barbouiller une page de 7 pounces et demie en hauteur, et `a en largeur; and to inform you that we are at Florence, a city of Italy, and the capital of Tuscany: the latitude I cannot justly tell, but it is governed by a prince called Great Duke; an excellent place to employ all one's animal sensations in, but utterly contrary to one's rational powers. I have struck a medal upon myself: the device is thus 0, and the motto Nihilissimo, which I take in the most concise manner to contain a full account of my person, sentiments, occupations, and late glorious successes. If you choose to be annihilated too, you cannot do better than undertake this journey. Here you shall get up at twelve o'clock, breakfast till three, dine till five, sleep till six, drink cooling liquors till eight, go to the bridge till ten, sup till two, and so sleep till twelve again.

Lahore fessi venimus ad larem nostrum, Desideratoque acquiescimus lecto; Hoc est, quod unum est, pro laborious tantis. O quid solutis est beatius curis?

We shall never come home again; a universal war is just upon the point of breaking out; all outlets will be shut up. I shall be secure in my nothingness, while you, that will be so absurd as to exist, will envy me. You don't tell me what proficiency you make in the noble science of defence. Don't you start still at the sound of a gun? Have you learned to say ha! ha! and is your neck clothed with thunder? Are your whiskers of a tolerable length? And have you got drunk yet with brandy and gunpowders? Adieu, noble captain! T. GRAY.

(209) On the 24th March, 1740, the Spaniards hung out a white flag, and the place was surrendered by capitulation to Admiral Vernon.-E.

(210) The Duke of Cumberland had resolved to accompany Sir John Norris as a volunteer, and sailed with him from St. Helens on the 10th June; but on the 17th a gale arising drove them into Torbay, Where Sir John continued until the 29th, when he again put to sea; but the wind once more becoming contrary, and blowing very hard, he was constrained to return to Spithead, and on the following day his royal highness returned to London.-E.

161 Letter 26 To The Hon. H. S. Conway. Florence, September 25, 1740, N. S.

My dear Hal, I begin to answer your letter the moment I have read it, because you bid me; but I grow so unfit for a correspondence with any body in England, that I have almost left it off. 'Tis so long since I was there, and I am so utterly a stranger to every thing that passes there, that I must talk vastly in the dark to those I write: and having in a manner settled myself here, where there can be no news, I am void of all matter for filling up a letter. As, by the absence of the Great Duke, Florence is become in a manner a country town, YOU may imagine that we are not without dem`el`es; but for a country town I believe there never were a set of people so peaceable, and such strangers to scandal. 'Tis the family of love, where every body is paired, and go as constantly together as paroquets. Here nobody hangs or drowns themselves; they are not ready to cut one another's throats about elections or parties; don't think that wit consists in saying bold truths, or humour in getting drunk. But I shall give you no more of their characters, because I am so unfortunate as to think that their encomium consists in being the reverse of the English, who in general are either mad, or enough to make other people so. After telling you so fairly my sentiments, you may believe, my dear Harry, that I had rather see you here than in England. 'Tis an evil wish for you, who should not be lost in so obscure a place as this. I will not make you compliments, or else here is a charming opportunity for saying what I think of you. As I am convinced you love me, and as I am conscious you have One strong reason for it, I will own to you, that for my own peace you should wish me to remain here. I am so well within and without, that you would scarce know me: I am younger than ever, think of nothing but diverting myself, and live in a round of pleasures. We have operas, concerts, and balls, mornings and evenings. I dare not tell you all One's idleness: you would look so grave and senatorial at hearing that one rises at eleven in the morning, goes to the opera at nine at night, to supper at one, and to bed at three! But literally here the evenings and nights are so charming and so warm, one can't avoid 'em.

Did I tell you Lady Mary Wortley is here? She laughs at my Lady Walpole, scolds my Lady Pomfret, and is laughed at by the whole town. (211) Her dress, her avarice, and her impudence must amaze any one that never heard her name. She wears a foul mob, that does not cover her greasy black locks, that hang loose, never combed or curled; an old mazarine blue wrapper, that gapes open and discovers a canvass petticoat. Her face swelled violently on one side with the remains of a-, partly covered with a plaster, and partlv with white paint, which for cheapness she has bought so coarse, that you would not use it to wash a chimney.-In three words I will give you her picture (212) as we drew it in the Sortes Virgilianae- Insanam vatem aepicies.

I give you my honour, we did not choose it; but Mr. Gray, Mr. Cooke, (213) Sir Francis Dashwood, (214) and I, and several others, drew it fairly amongst a thousand for different people, most of which did not hit as you may imagine: those that did I will tell you.

For our most religious and gracious- -Dii, talem terris avertite pestem.

For one that would be our most religious and gracious. Purpureus veluti cum flos succisus aratro Languescit moriens, lassove papavera collo Demis`ere caput, pluvia cum fort`e gravantur.

For his son. Regis Romani: primus qui legibus urbem Fundabit, Curibus parvis et paupere terra, Missus in imperium magnum.

For Sir Robert. Res dura et regni novitas me talia cogunt Moliri, et late fines custode tueri.

I will show you the rest when I see you.

(211) In a letter from Florence, written by Lady Mary to Mr. Wortley, on the 11th of August, she says, "Lord and Lady Pomfret take pains to make the place agreeable to me, and I have been visited by the greatest part of the people of quality." See the edition of her works, edited by Lord Wharncliffe, vol. ii. p. 325.-E.

(212) The following favourable picture" of Lady Mary is by Spence, who met her at Rome, in the ensuing January:-" She is one of the most shining characters in the world, but shines like a comet; she is all irregularity, and always wandering; the most wise, most imprudent; loveliest, most disagreeable; best-natured, cruellest woman in the world; 'all things by turns, and nothing long.'"-E.

(213) George Cooke, Esq. afterwards member for Tregony, and chief prothonotary in the Court of Common Pleas. On Mr. Pitt's return to office in 1766 he was appointed joint paymaster-general, and died in 1768. See Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 338.-E.

(214) Sir Francis Dashwood, who, on the death of John Earl of Westmoreland, succeeded to the barony of Le Despencer, as being the only son of Mary, eldest sister of the said Earl, and which was confirmed to him 19th April'1763.-E.

163 Letter 27 To Sir Richard West, Esq. Florence, Oct. 2, 1740, N. S.

Dear West, T'other night as we (you know who we are) were walking on the charming bridge, just before going to a wedding assembly, we said, Lord, I wish, just as we are got into the room, they would call us out, and say, West is arrived! We would make him dress instantly, and carry him back to the entertainment. How he would stare and wonder at a thousand things, that no longer strike us as odd!" Would not you? One agreed that you should come directly by sea from Dover, and be set down at Leghorn, without setting foot in any other foreign town, and so land at Us, in all your first full amaze; for you are to know, that astonishment rubs off violently; we did not cry out Lord! half so much at Rome as at Calais, which to this hour I look upon as one of the most surprising cities in the universe. My dear child, what if you were to take this little sea-jaunt? One would recommend Sir John Norris's convoy to you, but one should be laughed at now for supposing that he is ever to sail beyond Torbay.(215) The Italians take Torbay for an English town in the hands of the Spaniards, after the fashion of Gibraltar, and imagine 'tis a wonderful strong place, by our fleet's having retired from before it so often, and so often returned. We went to this wedding that I told you of; 'twas a charming feast: a large palace finely illuminated; there were all the beauties, all the jewels, and all the sugarplums of Florence. Servants loaded with great chargers full of comfits heap the tables with them, the women fall on with both hands, and stuff their pockets and every creek and corner about them. You would be as much amazed at us as at any thing you saw: instead of being deep in the arts, and being in the Gallery every morning, as I thought of course to be sure I would be, we are in all the idleness and amusements of the town. For me, I am grown so lazy, and so tired-of seeing sights, that, though I have been at Florence six months, I have not seen Leghorn, Pisa, Lucca, or Pistoia; nay, not so much as one of the Great Duke's villas. I have contracted so great an aversion to postchaises, and have so absolutely lost all curiosity, that, except the towns in the straight road to Great Britain, I shall scarce see a jot more of a foreign land; and trust me, when I returt), I will not visit the Welsh mountains, like Mr. Williams. After Mount Cenis, the Boccheto, the Giogo, Radicofani, and the Appian Way, one has mighty little hunger after travelling. I shall be mighty apt to set up my staff at Hyde Park corner: the alehouseman there at Hercules's Pillars(216) was certainly returned from his travels into foreign parts.

Now I'll answer your questions.

I have made no discoveries in ancient or modern arts. Mr. Addison travelled through the poets, and not through Italy; for all his ideas are borrowed from the descriptions, and not from the reality. He saw places as they were, not as they are. I am very well acquainted with Dr. Cocchi; (217) he is a good sort of man, rather than a great man; he is a plain honest creature, with quiet knowledge, but I dare say all the English have told you, he has a very particular understanding: I really don't believe they meant to impose on you, for they thought so. As to Bondelmonti, he is much less; he is a low mimic; the brightest cast of his parts attains to the composition of a sonnet: he talks irreligion with- English boys, sentiment with my sister, (218) and bad French with any one that will hear him. I will transcribe you a little song that he made t'other day; 'tis pretty enough; Gray turned it into Latin, and I into English; you will honour him highly by putting it into French, and Asheton into Greek. Here 'tis. Spesso Amor sotto la forma D'amista ride, e s'asconde; Poi si mischia, e si confonde Con lo sdegno e col rancor.

In pietade ei si trasforma, Pas trastullo e par dispetto; ma nel suo diverso aspetto, Sempre egli `a l'istesso Amor.

Risit amicitiae interd`um velatus amictu, Et ben`e composit`a veste fefellit Amor: Mox irae assumpsit cultus faciemque minantem, Inque odium versus, versus et in lacrymas: Ludentem fuge, nec lacrymanti aut furenti; Idem est dissimili semper in ore Deus.

Love often in the comely mien Of friendship fancies to be seen; Soon again he shifts his dress, And wears disdain and rancour's face.

To gentle pity then he changes- Thro' wantonness, thro' piques he ranges;

But in whatever shape he moves, He's still himself, and still is Love.

See how we trifle! but one can't pass one's youth too amusingly for one must grow old, and that in England; two most serious circumstances, either of which makes people gray in the twinkling of a bedstaff; for know you there is not a country upon earth where there are so many old fools and so few young ones.

Now I proceed in my answers.

I made but small collections, and have only bought some bronzes and medals, a few busts, and two or three pictures: one of my busts is to be mentioned; 'tis the famous vespasian in touchstone, reckoned the best in Rome, except the Caracalia of the Farnese- I gave but twenty-two POUDds for it at Cardinal Ottoboni's sale. One of my medals is as great a curiosity; 'tis of Alexander Severus, with the amphitheatre in brass; this reverse is extant on medals of his, but mine is a medagliuncino, or small medallion, and The Only one with this reverse known in the world: 'twas found by a peasant while I was in Rome, and sold by him for sixpence to an antiquarian, to whom I paid for it seven guineas and a half: but to virtuosi 'tis worth any SUM.

As to Tartini's (219) musical compositions, ask Gray; I know but little in music.

But for the Academy, I am not of it, but frequently in company with it: 'tis all disjointed. Madame * * *, who, though a learned lady, has not lost her modesty and character, is extremely scandalized with the other two dames, especially Moll Worthless, who knows no bounds. She is at rivalry with Lady W. for a certain Mr. * * *, whom perhaps you knew at Oxford. If you did not, I'll tell you: he is a grave young man by temper, and a rich one by constitution; a shallow creature by nature, but a wit by the grace of our women here, whom he deals with as of old with the Oxford toasts. He fell into sentiments with my Lady W. and was happy to catch her at Platonic love; but as she seldom stops there, the poor man will be frightened out of his senses when she shall break the matter to him; for he never dreamt that her purposes were so naught. Lady Mary is so far gone, that to get him from the mouth of her antagonist she literally took him out to dance country dances last night at a formal ball, where there was no measure kept in laughing at her old, foul, tawdry, painted, plastered personage. She played at pharaoh two or three times at Princess Craon's, where she cheats horse and foot. She is really entertaining: I have been reading her works, which she lends out in manuscript, but they are too womanish: I like few of her performances. I forgot to tell you a good answer of Lady Pomfret to mr. W. *** who asked her if she did not approve Platonic love. "Lord, sir," says she, , "I am sure any one that knows me never heard that I had any love but one, and there sit two proofs of it," pointing to her two daughters.

So I have given you a sketch of our employments, and answered your questions, and will with pleasure as many more as you have about you. Adieu! Was ever such a lon@ letter? But 'tis nothing to what I shall have to say to you. I shaft scold you for never telling us any news, public or private, no deaths, riiarriages, or mishaps; no account of new books: Oh, you are abominable! I could find it in my heart to hate You if I did not love you so well; but we will quarrel now, that we may be the better friends when we meet: there is no danger of that, is there? Good night, whether friend or foe! I am most sincerely Yours.

(215) Though brave, skilful, and enterprising Sir John failed to acquire renown, in consequence of mere accidents. On the breaking out of the Spanish war, he was ordered to cruise in the Bay of Biscay; but, owing to tempestuous weather, was compelled to put into port for the winter. The following lines were addressed to him upon this occasion:

"Homeward, oh! bend thy course; the seas are rough; To the Land's End who sails has sailed enough." E.

(216) Walpole calls the Hercules' Pillars an alehouse. Whatever it might have been at the period he wrote, it is very certain that, after the peace of 1762, it was a respectable tavern, where the Marquis of Granby, and other persons of rank, particularly military men, had frequent dinner parties, which were then fashionable. It was also an inn of great repute among the west-country gentlemen, coming to London for a few weeks, who thought themselves fortunate if they could secure accommodations for their families at the Hercules' Pillars. The spot where it once stood, is now occupied by the noble mansion of the Duke of Wellington.-E.

(217) Dr. Antonio Cocchi, a learned physician, resident at Florence, who published a collection of Greek writers upon medicine. He figures conspicuously in Spence's Anecdotes.-E.

(218) Margaret Rolle, wife of Robert Walpole, eldest son of Sir Robert Walpole, created Lord Walpole during the lifetime of his father.

(219) Giuseppe Tartini of Padua, whom Viotti pronounced the last great improver of the practice of the violin. Several of Tartini's compositions are particularized in that amusing little volume, "The Violin and its Professors," by Mr. Dubourg, who has recorded in quaint verse the well-known story of the "Devil's Sonata," a piece of diablerie, the result of which is that to this day, Tartini's tale hath made all fiddlers say, A hard sonata is the devil to play!-E.

166 Letter 28 To Richard West, Esq. >From Florence, Nov. 1740.

Child, I am going to let you see your shocking proceedings with us. On my conscience, I believe 'tis three months since you wrote to either Gray or me. If you had been ill, Ashton would have said so; and if you had been dead the gazettes would have said it. If you had been angry,-but that's impossible; how can one quarrel with folks three thousand miles off? We are neither divines nor commentators, and consequently have not hated you on paper. 'Tis to show that my charity for you cannot be interrupted at this distance that I write to you, though I have nothing to say, for 'tis a bad time for small news; and when emperors and czarinas are dying all up and down Europe, one can't pretend to tell you of any thing that happens within our sphere. Not but that we have our accidents too. if you have had a great wind in England, we have had a great water at Florence. We have been trying to set out every day, and pop upon you (220) * * * * * It is fortunate that we stayed, for I don't know what had become of us! Yesterday, with violent rains, there came flouncing down from the mountains such a flood that it floated the whole city. The jewellers on the Old Bridge removed their commodities, -and in two hours after the bridge was cracked. The torrent broke down the quays and drowned several coach-horses, which are kept here in stables under ground. We were moated into our house all day, which is near the Arno, and had the miserable spectacles of the ruins that were washed along with the hurricane. There was a cart with two oxen not quite dead, and four men in it drowned: but what was ridiculous, there came tiding along a fat haycock, with a hen and her eggs, and a cat. The torrent is considerably abated; but we expect terrible news from the country, especially from Pisa, which stands so much lower, and nearer the sea. There is a stone here, which, when the water overflows, Pisa is entirely flooded. The water rose two ells yesterday above that stone. Judge!

For this last month we have passed our time but dully; all diversions silenced on the emperor's death, (221) and everybody out of town. I have seen nothing but cards and dull pairs of cicisbeos. I have literally seen so much love and pharaoh since being here, that I believe I shall never love either again SO long as I live. Then I am got in a horrid lazy way of a morning. I don't believe I should know seven o'clock in the morning again if I was to see it. But I am returning to England, and shall grow very solemn and wise! Are you wise'( Dear West, have pity on one who have done nothing of gravity for these two years, and do laugh sometimes. We do nothing else, and have contracted such formidable ideas of the good people of England that we are already nourishing great black eyebrows and great black beards, and teasing our countenances into wrinkles. Then for the common talk of the times, we are quite at a loss, and for the dress. You would oblige us exceedingly by forwarding to us the votes of the houses, the king's speech, and the magazines; or if you had any such thing as a little book called the Foreigner's Guide through the city of London and the liberties of Westminster; or a letter to a Freeholder; or the Political Companion: then 'twoulg be an infinite obligation if you would neatly band-box up a baby dressed after the newest Temple fashion now in use at both play-houses. Alack-a-day! We shall just arrive in the tempest of elections!

As our departure depends entirely upon the weather, we cannot tell you to a day when we shall say Dear West, how glad I am to see you! and all the many questions and answers that we shall give and take. Would the day were come! Do but figure to yourself the journey we are to pass through first! But you can't conceive Alps, Apennines, Italian inns, and postchaises. I tremble at the thoughts. They were just sufferable while new and unknown, and as we met them by the way in coming to Florence, Rome, and Naples; but they are passed, and the mountains remain! Well, write to one in the interim; direct to me addressed to Monsieur Selwyn, chez Monsieur.Ilexandre, Rue St. Apolline, a Paris. If Mr. Alexandre is not there, the street is, and I believe that will be sufficient. Adieu, my dear child! Yours ever.

(220) A line of the manuscript is here torn away.

(221) Charles the Sixth, Emperor of Germany, upon whose death, on the 9th of October, his eldest daughter, Maria-Theresa, in virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction, instantly succeeded to the whole Austrian inheritance.-E.

168 Letter 29 To The Rev. Joseph Spence. (222) Florence, Feb. 21, 1741, N. S.

Sir, Not having time last post, I begged Mr. Mann to thank you for the obliging paragraph for me in your letter to him. But as I desire a nearer correspondence with you than by third hands, I assure you in my own proper person that I shall have great pleasure, on our meeting in England, to renew an acquaintance that 'I began with so much pleasure in Italy. (223) I Will not reckon you among my modern friends, but in the first article of virtu: you have given me so many new lights into a science that but a warmth and freedom that will flow from my friendship, and which will not be contained within the circle of a severe awe. As I shall always be attentive to give you any satisfaction that lies in my power, I take the first opportunity of sending you two little poems, both by a hand that I know you esteem the most; if you have not seen them, you will thank me for lilies of Mr. Pope: if you have, why I did not know it.

I don't know whether Lord Lincoln has received any orders to return home: I had a letter from one of my brothers last post to tell me from Sir Robert that he would have me leave Italy as soon as possible, lest I should be shut up unawares by the arrival of the Spanish troops; and that I might pass some time in France if I had amind. I own I don't conceive how it is possible these troops should arrive without its being known some time before. And as to the Great Duke's dominions, one can always be out of them in ten hours or less. If Lord Lincoln has not received the same orders.. I shall believe what I now think, that I am wanted for some other reason. I beg my kind love to Lord Lincoln, and that Mr. Spence will believe me, his sincere humble servant HOR. WALPOLE.

(222) The well-known friend of Pope and author of the Polymetis, who was then travelling on the Continent with Henry, Earl of Lincoln, afterwards Duke of Newcastle. See ante p. 140, (Letter 14, and footnote 175).-E.

(223) This acquaintance proved of infinite service to Walpole, shortly after the date of this letter, when he was laid up with a quinsy at Reggio. Spence thus describes the circumstance: "About three or four in the morning I was surprised with a message, saying that Mr. Walpole was very much worse, and desired to see me; I went, and found him scarce able to speak. I soon learned from his servants that he had been all the while without a physician, and had doctored himself; so I immediately sent for the best aid the place would afford, and despatched a messenger to the minister at Florence, desiring him to send my friend Dr. Cocchi. In about twenty-four hours I had the satisfaction to find Mr. Walpole better: we left him in a fair way of recovery, and we hope to see him next week at Venice. I had obtained leave of Lord Lincoln to stay behind some days if he had been worse. You see what luck one has sometimes in going out of one's way. If Lord Lincoln had not wandered to Reggio, Mr. Walpole (who is one of the best-natured and most sensible young gentlemen England affords) would have, in all probability, fallen a sacrifice to his disorder."-E.

169 Letter 30 To The Hon. H. S. Conway. Florence, March 25th, 1741, N. S.

Dear Hal, You must judge by what you feel yourself of what I feel for Selwyn's recovery, with the addition of what I have suffered from post to post. But as I find the whole town have had the same sentiments about him, (though I am sure few so strong as myself,) I will not repeat what you have heard so much. I shall write to him to-night, though he knows without my telling him how very much I love him. To you, my dear Harry, I am infinitely obliged for the three successive letters you wrote me about him, which gave me double pleasure, as they showed your attention for me at a time that you know I must be so unhappy; and your friendship for him. Your account of Sir Robert's victory (224) was so extremely well told, that I made Gray translate it into French, and have showed it to all that could taste It, or were inquisitive on the occasion. I have received a print by this post that diverts me extremely; 'the Motion.' (225) Tell me, dear, now, who made the design, and who took the likenesses; they are admirable: the lines are as good as one sees on such occasions. I wrote last post to Sir Robert, to wish him joy; I hope he received my letter.

I was to have set out last Tuesday, but on Sunday came the news of the Queen of Hungary being brought to bed of a son; (226) on which occasion here will be great triumphs, operas and masquerades, which detain me for a short time.

I won't make you any excuse for sending you the follOWing lines; you have prejudice enough for me to read with patience any Of My idlenesses. (227)

My dear Harry, you enrage me with talking of another journey to Ireland; it will shock me if I don't find you at my return: pray take care and be in England.

I wait with some patience to see Dr. Middleton's Tully, as I read the greatest part of it in manuscript; though indeed 'tis rather a reason for my being impatient to read the rest. If Tully can receive any additional honour, Dr. Middleton is most capable of conferring it. (228)

I receivc with great pleasure any remembrances of my lord and your sisters; I long to see all of you. Patapan is so handsome that he has been named the silver fleece; and there is a new order of knighthood to be erected to his honour, in opposition to the golden. Precedents are searching, and plans drawing up for that purpose. I hear that the natives pretend to be companions, upon the authority of their dogskin waistcoats; but a council that has been held on purpose has declared their pretensions impertinent. Patapan has lately taken wife unto him, as ugly as he is genteel, but of a very great family, being the direct heiress of Canis Scaliger, Lord of Verona: which principality we design to seize `a la Prussienne; that is, as soon as ever we shall have persuaded the republic of Venice that we are the best friends they have in the world. Adieu, dear child! Yours ever.

P. S. I left my subscriptions for Middleton's Tully with Mr. Selwyn; I won't trouble him, but I wish you would take care and get the books, if Mr. S. has kept the list.

(224) On the event of Mr. Sandys' motion in the House of commons to remove Sir Robert Walpole from the King's presence and councils for ever. [The motion was negatived by 290 against 106: an unusual majority, which proceeded from the schism between the Tories and the Whigs, and the secession of Shippen and his friends. The same motion was made by Lord-Carteret in the House of Lords, and negatived by 108 against 59.-E.)

(225) The print alluded to exhibits an interesting view of Whitehall, the Treasury, and adjoining buildings, as they stood at the time. The Earl of Chesterfield, as postilion of a coach which is going full speed towards the Treasury, drives over all in his way. The Duke of Argyle is coachman, flourishing a sword instead of a whip; while Doddington is represented as a spaniel, sitting between his legs. Lord Carteret, perceiving the coach about to be overturned, is calling to the coachman,"Let me get out!" Lord Cobbam, as the footman, is holding fast on by the straps; while Lord Lyttleton is ambling by the side on a rosinante as thin as himself. Smallbrook, Bishop of Lichfield, is bowing obsequiously as they pass; while Sandys, letting fall the place-bill, exclaims, ,I thought what would come of putting him on the box." In the foreground is Pulteney, leading several figures by strings from their noses, and wheeling a barrow filled with the Craftsman's Letters, Champion, State of the Nation, and Common Sense, exclaiming, "Zounds, they are over!" This caricature, and another, entitled " The Political Libertines, or Motion upon Motion," had been provoked by one put forth by Sir Robert Walpole's opponents, entitled "The Grounds for the Motion;" and were followed up by another from the supporters of Sandys' motion, entitled "The Motive or Reason for his Triumph," which the caricaturist attributes entirely to bribery.-E.

(226) Afterwards Joseph the Second, emperor of Germany.-E.

(227) Here follows the Inscription for the neglected column in the place of St. Mark, at Florence, afterwards printed in the Fugitive Pieces.

(228) Dr. Middleton's "History of the Life of Cicero" was published in the early part of this year, by subscription, and dedicated to Pope's enemy, Lord Hervey. This laboured encomium on his lordship obtained for the doctor a niche in the Dunciad:-

Narcissus, praised with all a Parson's power, Look'd a white lily sunk beneath a shower."-E.

170 Letter 31 To Richard West, Esq. Reggio, May 1 1741, N. S.

Dear West, I have received the end of your first act, (229) and now will tell you sincerely what I think of it. If I was not so pleased with the beginning as I usually am with your compositions, believe me the part of Pausanias has charmed me. There is all imaginable art joined with all requisite simplicity: and a simplicity, I think, much preferable to that in the scenes of Cleodora and Argilius. Forgive me, if I say they do not talk laconic but low English in her, who is Persian too, there would admit more heroic. But for the whole part of Pausanias, 'tis great and well worried up, and the art that is seen seems to proceed from his head, not from the author's. As I am very desirous you should continue, so I own I wish you would improve or change the beginning: those who know you not so well as I do, would not wait with so much patience for the entrance of Pausanias. You see I am frank; and if I tell you I do not approve of the first part, you may believe me as sincere when I tell you I admire the latter extremely.

My letter has an odd date. You would not expect I should be writing in such a dirty place as Reggio: but the fair is charming; and here come all the nobility of Lombardy, and all the broken dialects of Genoa, Milan, Venice, Bologna, etc. You never heard such a ridiculous confusion of tongues. All the morning one goes to the fair undressed, as to the walks of Tunbridge: 'tis Just in that manner, with lotteries, raffles, etc. After dinner all the company return in their coaches, and make a kind of corso, with the ducal family, who go to shops, where you talk to 'em, from thence to the opera, in mask if you will, and afterwards to the ridotto. This five nights in the week, Fridays there are masquerades, and Tuesdays balls at the Rivalta, a villa of the Duke's. In short, one diverts oneself. I pass most part of the opera in the Duchess's box, who is extremely civil to me and extremely agreeable. A daughter of the Regent's, (230) that could please him, must be so. She is not young, though still handsome, but fat; but has given up her gallantries cheerfully, and in time, and lives easily with a dull husband, two dull sisters of his, and a dull court. These two princesses are wofully ugly, old maids and rich. They might have been married often; but the old Duke was whimsical and proud, and never would consent to any match for them, but left them much money, and pensions of three thousand pounds a year apiece. There was a design to have given the eldest to this King of Spain, and the Duke was to have had the Parmesan princess; so that now he would have had Parma and Placentia, Joined to Modena, Reggio, Mirandola, and Massa. But there being a Prince of Asturias, the old Duke Rinaldo broke off the match, and said his daughter's children should not be younger brothers: and so they mope old virgins.

I am goin@ from hence to Venice, in a fright lest there be a war with France, and then I must drag myself through Germany. We have had an imperfect account of a sea-fight in America . but we are so out of the way, that one can't be sure of it. Which way soever I return, I shall be soon in England, and there you 'will find me again.

As much as ever yours.

(229) of a tragedy called Pausanias, The first act, and probably all that was ever written by Mr. West. [In the preceding month West had forwarded to Gray the sketch of this tragedy, which he appears to have criticised with much freedom; but Mr. Mason did not find among Gray's papers either the sketch itself, or the free critique upon it.]

(230) Philip Duke of Orleans.

172 Letter 32 To Sir Horace Mann. (231) Calais, and Friday, and here I have been these two days, 1741.

Is the wind laid? Shall I Dever get aboard? I came here on Wednesday night, but found a tempest that has never ceased since. At Boulogne I left Lord Shrewsbury and his mother, and brothers and sisters, waiting too: Bulstrode (232) passes his winter at the court of Boulogne, and then is to travel with two young Shrewsburys. I was overtaken by Amorevoli and Monticelli, (233) who are here with me and the Viscontina, and Barberina, and Abbate Vanneschi (234)-what a coxcomb! I would have talked to him about the opera, but he preferred politics. I have wearied Amorevoli with questions about you. If he was not just come from you, and could talk to me about you, I should hate him; for, to flatter me, he told me that I talked Italian better than you. He did not know how little I think it a compliment to have any thing preferred to you-besides, you know the consistence of my Italian! They are all frightened out of their senses about going on the sea, and are not a little afraid of the English. They went on board the William and Mary yacht yesterday, which waits here for Lady Cardigan from Spa. The captain clapped the door, and swore in broad English that the Viscontina should not stir till she gave him a song, he did not care whether it was a catch or a moving ballad; but she would not submit. I wonder he did! When she came home and told me, I begged her not to judge of all the English from this specimen; but, by the way, she will find many sea-captains that grow on dry land.

Sittinburn, Sept. 13, O. S.

Saturday morning, or yesterday, we did set out, and after a good passage of four hours and a half, landed at Dover. I begin to count my comforts, for I find their contraries thicken on my apprehension. I have, at least, done for a while with postchaises. My trunks were a little opened at Calais, and they would have stopped my medals, but with much ado and much three louis's they let them pass. At Dover I found the benefit of the motions (235) having miscarried last year, for they respected Sir Robert's son even in the person of his trunks. I came over in a yacht with East India captains' widows, a Catholic girl, coming from a convent to be married, with an Irish priest to guard her, who says he studied medicines for two years, and after that he studied learning for two years more. I have not brought over a word of French or Italian for common use; I have so taken pains to avoid affectation in this point, that I have failed Only now and then in a chi`a l`a! to the servants, who I can scarce persuade myself yet are English. The COUntry-town (and you will believe me, who, you know, am not prejudiced) delights me; the populousness, the ease, the gaiety, and well-dressed every body amaze me. Canterbury, which on my setting out I thought deplorable, is a paradise, (236) to Modena, Reggio, Parma, etc. I had before discovered that there was nowhere but in England the distinction of middling people; I perceive now, that there is peculiar to us middling houses: how snug they are! I write to-night because I have time; to-morrow I get to London just as the post goes. Sir Robert is at Houghton. Good night till another post. You are quite well I trust, but tell me so always. My loves to the Chutes (237) and all the etc.'s.

Oh! a story of Mr. Pope and the prince:-"Mr. Pope, you don't love princes." "Sir, I beg your pardon." "Well, you don't love kings, then!""Sir, I own I love the lion best before his claws are grown." Was it possible to make a better answer to such simple questions? Adieu! my dearest child! Yours, ten thousand times over.

P. S. Patapan does not seem to regret his own country.

(231) This is the first of the series of letters addressed by Walpole to Sir Horace Man, British envoy at the court of Tuscany. The following prefatory note, entitled "Advertisement by the Author," explains the views which led Walpole to preserve them for publication:-

"The following Collection of Letters, written very carelessly by a young man, had been preserved by the person to whom they were addressed. The author, some years after the date of the first, borrowed them, on account of some anecdotes interspersed. On the perusal, among many trifling relations and stories, which were only of consequence or amusing to the two persons concerned in the correspondence, he found some facts, characters, and news, which, though below the dignity of history, might prove entertaining to many other people: and knoing how much pleasure, not only himself, but many other persons have found in a series of private and familiar letters, he thought it worth his while to preserve these, as they contain something of the customs, fashions, politics, diversions, and private history of several years; which, if worthy of any existence, can be properly transmitted to posterity only in this manner.

"The reader will find a few pieces of intelligence which did not prove true; but which are retained here as the author heard and related them, lest correction should spoil the simple air of the narrative.* When the letters were written, they were never intended for public inspection; and now they are far from being thought correct, or more authentic than the general turn of epistolary correspondence admits. The author would sooner have burnt them than have taken the trouble to correct such errant trifles, which are here presented to the reader, with scarce any variation or omissions, but what private friendships and private history, or the great haste with which the letters were written, made indispensably necessary, as will plainly appear, not only by the unavoidable chasms, where the originals were worn out or torn away, but by many idle relations and injudicious remarks and prejudices of a young man; for which @the only excuse the author can pretend to make, is, that as some future reader may possibly be as young as he was when he first wrote, he hopes they may be amused with what graver people (if into such hands they should fall) will very justly despise. Who ever has patience to peruse the series, will find, perhaps, that as the author grew older, some of his faults became less striking." * They are marked in the notes.

(232) Tutor to the young Earl of Shrewsbury. [.Charles Talbot, fifteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, born December 1719. He married, in 1753, Elizabeth, daughter of the Hon. John Dormer, afterwards Lord Dormer, and died in 1787, without issue.]

(233) Italian singers. [Angelo Maria Monticelli, a celebrated singer of the same class as Veluti, was born at Milan in 1715, and first attained the celebrity which he enjoyed by singing with Mingotti at the Royal Opera at Naples in 1746. After visiting most of the cities of the Continent, he was induced by the favour with which he was received at Dresden to make that city his residence, until his death in 1764. Is the name of Amorevoli, borne by one of the first singers of that day, an assumed one, or an instance of name fatality? Certain it is,that Amorevole is a technical term in music somewhat analogous in its signification with Amabile and Amoroso.]

(234) An Italian abb`e, who directed and wrote the operas under the protection of Lord Middlesex.

(235) The motion in both houses of Parliament, 1740, for removing Sir Robert Walpole from the King's councils. [See ante, p. 169 (Letter 30).)

(236) ("On! On! through meadows, managed like a garden, A paradise of hops and high production; For, after years of travel by a bard in Countries of greater heat, but lesser suction, A green field is a sight which makes him pardon The absence of that more sublime construction, Which mixes up vines, olives, precipices, Glaciers, volcanos, oranges, and ices."-Byron, 1823.)

(237) John Chute and Francis Whithed, Esqrs. two great friendls of Mr. W.'s, whom he had left at Florence, where he had been himself thirteen months, in the house of Mr. Mann, his relation and particular friend.

174 Letter 33 To Sir Horace Mann. [The beginning of this letter is lost.)

****I had written and sealed my letter, but have since received another from you, dated Sept. 24. I read Sir Robert your account of Corsica; he seems to like hearing any account sent this way-indeed, they seem to have more superficial relations in general than I could have believed! You will oblige me, too, with any farther account of Bianca Colonna: (238) it is romantic, her history!

I am infinitely obliged to Mr. Chute for his kindness to me, and still more for his friendship to you. You cannot think how happy I am to hear that you are to keep him longer. You do not mention his having received my letter from Paris: I directed it to him, recommended to you. I would not have him think me capable of neglecting to answer his letter, which obliged me so much. I will deliver Amorevoli his letter the first time I see him.

Lord Islay (239) dined here; I mentioned Stosch's (240) Maltese cats. Lord Islay begged I would write to Florence to have the largest male and female that can be got. If you will speak to Stosch, you will oblige me: they may come by sea. You cannot imagine my amazement at your not being invited to Riccardi's ball; do tell me, when you know, what can be the meaning of it; it could not be inadvertence-nay, that were as bad! Adieu my dear child, once more!

(238A kind friend of Joan of Are, who headed the Corsican rebels against the Genoese.

(239) Archibald Campbell, Earl of Islay, and, on his brother's death in 1743, Duke of Argyle.

(240) Baron Stosch, a Prussian virtuoso, and spy for the court of England on the Pretender. He had been driven from Rome, though it was suspected that he was a spy on both sides: he was a man of a most infamous character in every respect. according to the Biographic Universelle, the Baron "ne put s'acquitter de fonctions aussi d`elicates sans se voir expos`e `a des naines violentes, qui le forc`erent `a se retirer `a Florence;" where he died in 1757. He was one of the most skilful and industrious antiquaries of his time. A catalogue of his gems was drawn up by Winkelmann.]

175 Letter 34 To The Hon. H. S. Conway. London, 1741.

My Dearest Harry, Before I thank you for myself, I must thank you for that excessive good nature you showed in writing to poor Gray. I am less impatient to see you, as I find you are not the least altered, but have the same tender friendly temper you always had. I wanted much to see if you were still the same-but you are.

Don't think of coming before your brother, he is too good to be left for any one living: besides, if it is possible, I will see you in the country. Don't reproach me, and think nothing could draw me into the country: impatience to see a few friends has drawn me out of Italy; and Italy, Harry, is pleasanter than London. As I do not love living en famille so much as you (but then indeed my family is not like yours), I am hurried about getting myself a house; for I have so long lived single, that I do not much take to being confined with my own family.

You won't find me much altered, I believe; at least, outwardly. 'I am not grown a bit shorter, or a bit fatter, but am just the same long lean creature as usual. Then I talk no French., but to my footman; nor Italian, but to myself. What inward alterations may have happened to me, you will discover best; for you know 'tis said, one never knows that one's self. I will answer, that that part of it that belongs to you, has not suffered the least change-I took care of that. For virt`u, I have a little to entertain you: it is my sole pleasure.-I am neither young enough nor old enough to be in love.

My dear Harry, will you take care and make my compliments to that charming Lady Conway, (241) who I hear is so charming, and to Miss Jenny [Conway], who I know is so? As for Miss Anne, (242) and her love as far as it is decent: tell her, decency is out of the question between us, that I love her without any restriction. I settled it yesterday with Miss Conway, that you three are brothers and sister to me, and that if you had been so, I could not love you better. I have so many cousins, and uncles and aunts, and bloods that grow in Norfolk, that if I had portioned out my affections to them, as they say I should, what a modicum would have fallen to each!-So, to avoid fractions, I love my family in you three, their representatives. (243)

Adieu, my dear Harry! Direct to me at Downing Street. Good-bye! Yours ever.

(241) Isabella Fitzroy, daughter of Charles Duke of Grafton. She had been married in May, to(Walpole's maternal cousin), Francis Seymour Conway, afterwards Earl of Hertford.(

242) Miss Anne conway, youngest sister of Henry Seymour Conway.

(243) They were first cousins by the mother's side; Francis first Lord conway having married Charlotte, eldest daughter of John Shorter of Bybrook in Kent, sister to Catherine Shorter Lady Walpole.

176 Letter 35 To Sir Horace Mann. Downing Street, Oct. 8, 1741, O. S.

I have been very near sealing this letter with black wax; Sir Robert came from Richmond on Sunday night extremely ill, and on Monday was in great danger. It was an ague and looseness; but they have stopped the latter, and converted the other into a fever, which they are curing with the bark. He came out of his chamber to-day for the first time, and is quite out of danger. One of the newspapers says, Sir R. W. is so bad that there are no Hopes of him.

The Pomfrets (244) are arrived; I went this morning to visit my lord, but did not find him. Lady Sophia is ill, and my earl (245) still at Paris, not coming. There is no news, nor a soul in town. One talks of nothing but distempers, like Sir Robert's. My Lady Townsende (246) was reckoning up the other day the several things that have cured them; such a doctor so many, such a medicine, so many; but of all, the greatest number have found relief from the sudden deaths of their husbands.

The opera begins the day after the King's birthday: the singers are not permitted to sing till on the stage, so no one has heard them, nor have I seen Amorovoli to give him the letter. The opera is to be on the French system of dancers, scenes, and dresses. The directors have already laid out great sums. They talk of a mob to silence the operas, as they did the French players; but it will be more difficult, for here half the young noblemen in town are engaged, and they will not be so easily persuaded to humour the taste of the mobility: in short, they have already retained several eminent lawyers from the Bear Garden (247) to plead their defence. I have had a long visit this morning from Don Benjamin: (248) he is one of the best kind of agreeable men I ever saw-quite fat and easy, with universal knowledge: he is in the greatest esteem at my court.

I am going to trouble you with some commissions. Miss Rich, (249) who is the finest singer except your sister (250) in the world, has begged me to get her some music, particularly "the office of the Virgin of the Seven Sorrows," by Pergolesi, (251) the "Serva Padrona, il Pastor se torna Aprile," and "Symplicetta Pastorella." If you can send these easily, you will much oblige me. Do, too, let me know by your brother, what you have already laid out for me, that I may pay him. I was mentioning to Sir Robert some pictures in italy, which I wished him to buy; two particularly, if they can be got, would make him delight in you beyond measure. They are, a Madonna, and Child, by Dominichino, (252) in the palace Zambeccari, at Boloana, or Caliambec, (253) as they call it; Mr. Chute knows the picture. The other is by Corregio, in a convent at Parma, and reckoned the second best of that hand in the world. There are the Madonna and Child, St. Catherine, St. Matthew, and other figures: it is a most known picture, and has been engraved by Augustin Caracei. If you can employ any body privately to inquire about these pictures, be so good as to let me know; Sir R. would not scruple almost any price, for he has of neither hand: the convent is poor: the Zambeccari collection is to be sold, though, when I inquired after this picture, they would not set a price.

Lord Euston is to be married to Lady Dorothy Boyle (254) tomorrow, after so many delays. I have received your long letter, and Mr. Chute's too, which I will answer next post. I wish I had the least politics to tell you; but all is silent. The opposition sav not a syllable, because they don't know what the Court will think of public 'affairs; and they will not take their part till they are sure of contradicting. The Court will not be very ready to declare themselves, as their present situation is every way disagreeable. All they say, is to throw the blame entirely on the obstinacy of the Austrian Court, who -,vould never stir or soften for themselves, while they thought any one obliged to defend them. All I know of news is, that Poland is leaning towards the acquisition side, like her neighbours, and proposes to get a lock of the Golden Fleece too. Is this any part of Gregory's (255) negotiation? I delight in his Scapatta--"Scappata, no; egli solamente ha preso la posta." My service to Seriston; he is charming.

How excessively obliging to go to Madame Grifoni's (256) festino! but believe me, I shall be angry, if for my sake, you do things that are out of your character: don't you know that I am infinitely fonder of that than of her?

I read your story of the Sposa Panciatici at table, to the great entertainment of the company, and Prince Craon's epitaph, which Lord Cholmley (257) says he has heard before, and does not think it is the prince's own; no more do I, it is too good; but make my compliments of thanks to him; he shall have his buckles the first opportunity I find of sending them. Say a thousand things for me to dear Mr. Chute, till I can say them next post for myself: till then, adieu. Yours ever.

(244) Thomas Earl of Pomfret, and Henrietta Louisa, his consort, and his two eldest daughters, Sophia and Charlotte, had been in Italy at the same time with Mr. Walpole. The Earl had been master of the horse to Queen Caroline, and the countess lady of the bedchamber.

(245) Henry Earl of Lincoln was at that time in love with Lady Sophia Fermor.

(246) Ethelreda Harrison, wife of Charles Lord Viscount Townsend, but parted from him.

(247) Boxers.

(248) Sir Benjamin Keene, ambassador at Madrid.

(249) Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Sir Robert Rich, since married to Sir George Lyttelton. [Eldest son of sir Thomas Lyttelton of hagley; in 1744 appointed one of the lords of the treasury, and in 1755, chancellor of the exchequer. In 1757,when he retired from public life, he was raised to the peerage, by the title of Lord Lyttelton. He died in 1773. His prose works were printed collectively in 1774; and his poems have given him a place among the British poets.]

(250) Mary, daughter of R. Mann, Esq. since married to Mr. Foote.

(251) Better known to all lovers of the works of this great composer as his " Stabat mater."-E.

(252) It will be seen by Walpole's letter to Mr. Chute, of the 20th August 1743, now first published, that he eventually succeeded in purchasing this picture.-E.

(253) A corrupted pronunciation of the Bolognese.

(254) This unfortunate marriage is alluded to several times in the course of the subsequent letters. George Earl of Euston was the eldest son of Charles the second Duke of Grafton. He married, in 1741, Lady Dorothy Boyle, eldest daughter and co-heir of Richard, third and last heir of B(irlington. She died in 1742, from the effects, as it is supposed, of his brutal treatment of her. The details of his cruelty towards her are almost too revolting to be believed. In Sir Charles Hanbury Williams's poems are some pretty lines on her death, beginning, "Behold one moment Dorothea's fate."-D.

(255) Gregorio ALdollo, an Asiatic, from being a prisoner at Leghorn, raised himself to be employed to the Great Duke by the King of Poland.

(256) Elisabetta Capponi, wife of signor Grifoni, a great beauty.

(257) George third Earl of Cholmondeley, had married Mary Walpole, only legitimate daughter of Sir Robert Walpole-D.

178 Letter 36 To Sir Horace Mann. London, Oct. 13, 1741. [The greatest part of this letter is wanting.]

**** The Town will come to town, and then one shall know something. Sir Robert is quite recovered.

Lady Pomfret I saw last night: Lady Sophia has been ill with a cold; her head is to be dressed French, and her body English, for which I am sorry; her figure is so fine in a robe: she is full as sorry as I am. Their trunks are not arrived yet, so they have not made their appearance. My lady told me a little out of humour that Uguecioni wrote her word, that you said her things could not be sent away yet: I understood from you, that very wisely, you would have nothing to do about them, so made no answer.

The parliament meets the fifteenth of November. **** Amorevoli has been with me two hours this evening; he is in panics about the first night, which is the next after the birthday.

I have taken a master, not to forget my Italian-don't it look like returning to Florence'!-some time or other. Good night. Yours ever and ever, my dear child.

178 Letter 37 To Sir Horace Mann. London, Oct. 19, 1741, O. S. [Great part wanting.]

I write to you up to the head and ears in dirt, straw, and unpacking. I have been opening all my cases from the Custom-house the whole morning; and-are not you glad?-every individual safe and undamaged. I am fitting up an apartment in Downing Street ***(258) was called in the morning, and was asleep as soon as his head touched the pillow, for I have frequently known him snore ere they had drawn his curtains, now never sleeps above an hour without waking; and he, who at dinner always forgot he was minister, and was more gay and thoughtless than all his company, now sits without speaking, and with his eyes fixed for an hour together. Judge if this is the Sir Robert you knew.

The politics of the age are entirely suspended; nothing is mentioned; but this bottling them up, will make them fly out with the greater violence the moment the parliament meets; till *** a word to you about this affair.

I am sorry to hear the Venetian journey of the Suares family; it does not look as if the Teresina was to marry PandOlfini; do you know, I have set my heart upon that match.

You are very good to the Pucci, to give her that advice, though I don't suppose she will follow it. The Bolognese scheme *** In return for Amorevoli's letter, he has given me two. I fancy it will be troublesome to you; so put his wife into some other method of correspondence with him.

Do you love puns? A pretty man of the age came into the playhouse the other night, booted and spurred: says he, "I am come to see Orpheus"-"And Euridice- You rid I see," replied another gentleman.

(258) The omissions in these letters marked with stars occur in the original MS.-D.

179 Letter 38 To Sir Horace Mann. London, Oct. 22, 1741, O. S.

Your brother has been with me this morning, and we have talked over your whole affair. He thinks it will be impossible to find any servant of the capacities you require, that will live with you under twenty, if not thirty pounds a-year, especially as he is not to have your clothes: then the expense of the journey to Florence, and of back again, in case you should not like him, will be considerable. He is for your taking one from Leghorn; but I, who know a little more of Leghorn than he does, should be apprehensive of any person from thence being in the interest of Goldsworthy, (259) or too attached to the merchants: in short, I mean, he would be liable to prove a spy upon you. We have agreed that I shall endeavour to find out a proper man, if such a one will go to you for twenty pounds a-year, and then you shall ficar from me. I am very sensible that Palombo (260) is not fit for you, and shall be extremely diligent in equipping you with such a one as you want. You know how much I want to be of service to you even in trifles. I have been much diverted privately, for it is a secret that not a hundred persons know yet, and is not to be spoken of. Do but think on a duel between Winnington (261) and Augustus Townshend; (262) the latter a pert boy, captain of an Indiaman; the former declared cicisbeo to my Lady Townshend. The quarrel was something that Augustus had said of them; for since she was parted from her husband, she has broke with all his family. Winnington challenged; they walked into Hyde Park last Sunday morning, scratched one another's fingers, tumbled into two ditches-that is Augustus did,-kissed, and walked home together. The other night at Mrs. Boothby's-

Well, I did believe I should never find time to write to you again; I was interrupted in my letter last post, and could not finish it; to-day I came home from the King's levee, where I Kissed his hand, without going to the drawing-room, on purpose to finish my letter, and the moment I sat down they let somebody in. That somebody is gone, and I go on-At Mrs. Boothby's Lady Townshend was coquetting with Lord Baltimore: (263) he told her, if she meant any thing with him he was not for her purpose; if only to make any one jealous, he would throw away an hour with her with all his heart.

The whole town is to be to-morrow night at Sir Thomas Robinson's (264) ball, which he gives to a little girl of the Duke of Richmond's. There are already two hundred invited, from miss in bib and apron, to my lord chancellor (265) in bib and mace. You shall hear about it next post.

I wrote you word that Lord Euston is married: in a week more I believe that I shall write you word that he is divorced. He is brutal enough; and has forbid Lady Burlington (266) his house, and that in very ungentle terms. The whole family is in confusion: the Duke of Grafton half dead. and Lord Burlington half mad. The latter has challenged Lord Euston, who accepted the challenge, but they were prevented. There are different stories: some say that the duel would have been no breach of consanguinity; others, that there's a contract of marriage come out in another place, which has had more consanguinity than ceremony in it: in short, one cannot go into a room but you hear something of it. Do you not pity the poor girl? of the softest temper, vast beauty, birth, and fortune, to be so sacrificed!

The letters from the West Indies are not the most agreeable. You have heard of the fine river and little town which Vernon took, and named, the former dugusta, the latter Cumberland. Since that, they have found out that it is impracticable to take St. Jago by sea - on which Admiral Vernon and Ogle insisted that Wentworth, with the land forces, should march to it by land, which he, by advice of all the land-officers, has refused; for their march would have been of eighty miles, through a mountainous, unknown country, full of defiles, where not two men could march abreast; and they have but four thousand five hundred men, and twenty-four horses. Quires of paper from both sides are come over to the council, who are to determine from hence what is to be done. They have taken a Spanish man-of-war and a register ship, going to Spain, immensely valuable.

The parliament does not meet till the first of December, which relieves me into a little happiness, and gives me a little time to settle myself. I have unpacked all my things, and have not had the least thing suffer. I am now only in a fright about my birthday clothes, which I bespoke at Paris: Friday is the day, and this is Monday, without any news of them!

I have been two or three times at the play, very unwillingly; for nothing was ever so bad as the actors, except the company. There is much in vogue a Mrs. Woffington, (267) a bad actress; but she has life.

Lord Hartington (268) dines here: it is said (and from his father's partiality to another person's father, I don't think it impossible) that he is to marry a certain miss:(269) Lord Fitzwilliam is supposed another candidate.

Here is a new thing which has been much about town, and liked; your brother Gale (270) gave me the copy of it:

"Les cours de l'Europe

L'Allemagne craint tout; L'Autriche risque tout; La Bavi`ere esp`ere touut; La Prusse entreprend tout; La Mayence vend tout; Le Portugal regarde tout; L'Angleterre veut faire tout; L'Espagne embrouille tout; La Savoye se d`efie de tout; Le Mercure se m`ele de tout; La France sch`ete tout; Les Jesuites se trouvent par tout; Rome b`enit tout' Si dieu ne pourvoye `a tout, Le diable emportera tout."

Good night, my dear child: you never say a word of your own health; are not you quite recovered? a thousand services to Mr. Chute and Mr. Whithed, and to all my friends: do they begin to forget me? I don't them. Yours, ever.

(259) Consul at Leghorn, who was endeavouring to supplant Mr. Mann.

(260)An Italian, secretary to Mr. Mann.

(261"Winnington," says Walpole, (Memoirs, i. P. 151), "had been bred a Tory, but had left them in the height of Sir Robert Walpole's power -. when that minister sunk. he had injudiciously, and, to please my Lady Townshend, who had then the greatest influence over him, declined visiting him, in a manner to offend the steady old Whigs; and his jolly way of laughing.at his own want of principles had revolted all the graver sort, who thought deficiency of honesty too sacred and profitable a commodity to be profaned and turned into ridicule. He had infinitely more wit than any man I ever knew, and it was as ready and quick as it was constant and Unmeditated. His style was a little brutal, his courage not at all so; his good-humour inexhaustible; it was impossible to hate or to trust him." Winnington was first Ynade lord of the admiralty, then of the treasury, then cofferer, and lastly paymaster of the forces: to which office, on his death in 1746, Mr. Pitt succeeded.-E.

(262) The Hon. Augustus Townshend was second son of the minister, Lord Townshend, by his second wife, the sister of Sir Robert Walpole. He was consequently half-brother to Charles, the third viscount, husband to Ethelreda, Lady Townshend.-D.

(263) Charles Calvert, sixth Lord Baltimore in Ireland. He was at this time member of parliament for the borough of St. Germains, and a lord of the admiralty.-D.

(264) Sir Thomas Robinson, of Rokeby Park, in Yorkshire, commonly called "Long Sir Thomas," on account of his stature, and in order to distinguish him from the diplomatist, Sir Thomas Robinson, afterwards created Lord Grantham. [He has elsewhere been styled the new Robinson Crusoe by Walpole, who says, when speaking of him, " He was a tall, uncouth man; and his stature was often rendered still more remarkable by his hunting-dress, a postilion's cap, a tight green jacket, and buckskin breeches. He was liable to sudden whims, and once set off on a sudden in his hunting suit to visit his sister, who was married and settled at Paris. He arrived while there was a large company at dinner. The servant announced M. Robinson, and he came in to the great amazement of the hosts. Among others, -a French abb`e thrice lifted his fork to his mouth and thrice laid it down, with an eager stare of surprise. Unable to restrain his curiosity any longer, he burst out with I Excuse me, sir, are you the famous Robinson Crusoe so remarkable in history?'"]

(265) Philip Yorke, Lord Hardwicke.-D.

(266) Lady Dorothy Savile, eldest daughter and co-heiress of William second Marquis of Halifax, the mother of the unhappy Lady Euston.-D.

(267) Margaret Woffington, the celebrated beauty.-D.

(268) William, Marquis of Hartington, afterwards fourth Duke of Devonshire. He married Lady Charlotte Boyle, second daughter of Richard, third Earl of Burlington.-D.

(269) Miss Mary Walpole, daughter of Sir Robert Walpole by his second wife, Maria Skerrett, but born before their marriage. When her father was made an earl, she had the rank of an earl's daughter given to her.-D.

(270) Galfridus Mann.

182 Letter 39 To Sir Horace Mann. London, Nov. 2, 1741.

You shall not hear a word but of balls and public places: this one week has seen Sir T. Robinson's ball, my lord mayor's, the birthday, and the opera. There were an hundred and ninety-seven persons at Sir Thomas's, and yet was it so well conducted that nobody felt a crowd. He had taken off all his doors, and so separated the old and the young, that neither were inconvenienced with the other. The ball began at eight; each man danced one minuet with his partner, and then began country dances. There were four-and-twenty couple, divided into twelve a@d twelve: each set danced two dances, and then retired into another room, while the other set took their two; and so alternately. Except Lady Ancram, (271) no married woman danced; so you see, in England, we do not foot it till five-and-fifty. The beauties were the Duke of Richmond's two daughters (272) and their mother, still handsomer than they: the duke (273) sat by his wife all night, kissing her hand: how this must sound in the ears of Florentine cicisbeos, cock or hen! Then there was Lady Euston, Lady Caroline Fitzroy, (274) Lady Lucy Manners, (275) Lady Camilla Bennett, (276) and Lady Sophia, (277) handsomer than all, but a little out of humour at the scarcity of minuets; however, as usual, she danced more than any body, and, as usual too, took out what men she liked or thought the best dancers. Lord Holderness (278) is a little what Lord Lincoln (279) will be to-morrow; for he is expected. There was Churchill's daughter (280) who is prettyish, and dances well; and the Parsons (281) family from Paris, who are admired too; but indeed it is `a force des muscles. Two other pretty women were Mrs. Colebroke (did you know the he-Colebroke in Italy?) and a Lady Schaub, a foreigner, who, as Sir Luke says, would have him. Sir R. was afraid of the heat, and did not go. The supper was served at twelve; a large table of hot for the lady-dancers; their partners and other tables stood round. We danced (for I country-danced) till four, then had tea and coffee, and came home.-Finis Balli.

* * Friday was the birthday; it was vastly full, the ball immoderately so, for there came all the second edition of my lord mayor's, but not much finery: Lord Fitzwilliam (282) and myself were far the most superb. I did not get mine till nine that morning.

The opera will not tell as well as the other two shows, for they were obliged to omit the part of Amorevoli, who has a fever. The audience was excessive, without the least disturbance, and almost as little applause; I cannot conceive why, for Monticelli ***** be able to sing to-morrow.

At court I met the Shadwells; (283) Mademoiselle Misse Molli, etc. I love them, for they asked vastly after you, and kindly. Do you know, I have had a mind to visit Pucci, the Florentine minister, but he is so black, and looks so like a murderer in a play, that I have never brought it about yet? I know none of the foreign ministers, but Ossorio, (284) a little; he is still vastly in fashion, though extremely altered. Scandal, who, I believe, is not mistaken, lays a Miss Macartney to his charge; she is a companion to the Duchess of Richmond, as Madame Goldsworthy was; but Ossorio will rather be Wachtendonck (285) than Goldsworthy: what a lamentable story is that of the hundred sequins per month! I have mentioned Mr. Jackson, as you desired, to Sir R., who says, he has a very good opinion of him. In case of any change at Leghorn, you will let me know. He will not lose his patron, Lord Hervey, (286) so soon as I imagined; he begins to recover.

I believe the Euston embroil is adjusted; I was with Lady Caroline Fitzroy on Friday evening; there were her brother and the bride, and quite bridal together, quite honeymoonish.

I forgot to tell you that the prince was not at the opera; I believe it has been settled that he should go thither on Tuesdays, and Majesty on Saturdays, that they may not meet. The Neutrality (287) begins to break out, and threatens to be an excise or convention. The newspapers are full of it, and the press teems. It has already produced three pieces: "The Groans of Germany," which I will send you by the first opportunity: "Bedlam, a poem on His Maj'esty's happy escape from his German dominions, and all the wisdom of his conduct there." The title of this is all that is remarkable in it. The third piece is a ballad, which, not for the goodness, but for the excessive abuse of it, I shall transcribe:

THE LATE GALLANT EXPLOITS OF A FAMOUS BALANCING CAPTAIN. A NEW SONG. TO THE TUNE OF THE KING AND THE MILLER.

Mene tekel. The handwriting on the wall.

1. I'll tell you a story as strange as 'tis new, Which all, who're concerned, will allow to be true, Of a Balancing Captain, well-known herabouts, Returned home, God save him as a mere King of Clouts.

2. This Captain he takes, in a gold-ballast'd ship, Each summer to Terra damnosa a trip, For which he begs, borrows, scrapes all he can get, And runs his poor Owners most vilely in debt.

3. The last time he set out for this blessed place, He met them, and told them a most piteous case, Of a Sister of his, who, though bred up at court, Was ready to perish for want of support.

4. This Hungry Sister, he then did pretend, Would be to his Owners a notable friend, If they would at that critical junction supply her- They did-but alas! all the fat's in the fire!

5. This our Captain no sooner had finger'd the cole, But he hies him abroad with his good Madam Vole- Where, like a true tinker, he managed this metal, And while he stopp'd one hole, made ten in the kettle.

6. His Sister, whom he to his Owners had,,;worn, To see duly settled before his return, He gulls with bad messages sent to and fro, Whilst he underhand claps up a peace with her foe.

7. on He then turns this Sister adrift, and declares Her most mortal foes were her Father's right heirs- "G-d z-ds!" cries the world, "such a step was ne'er taken!" "O, ho!" says Nol Bluff, "I have saved my own bacon."

8. Let France damn the Germans, and undam the Dutch, And Spain on Old England pish ever so much, Let Russia bang Sweden, or Sweden bang that, I care not, by Robert! one kick of my hat.

9. So I by myself can noun substantive stand, Impose on my Owners, and save my own land; You call me masculine, feminine, neuter, or block, Be what will the gender, sirs, hic, haec, or hoc.

10. Or should my choused Owners begin to look sour, I'll trust to Mate Bob to exert his old power, Regit animos dictis, or nummis, with ease, So, spite of your growling, I'll act as I please."

11. Yet worse in this treacherous contract, 'tis said, Such terms are agreed to, such promises made, That his Owners must soon feeble beggars become- "Hold!" cries the crown office, "'twere scandal-so, mum!"

12. This secret, however, must out on the day When he meets his poor Owners to ask for more pay; And I fear when they come to adjust the account, zero for balance will prove their amount.

One or two of the stanzas are tolerable; some, especially the ninth, most nonsensically bad. However, this is a specimen of what we shall have amply commented upon in parliament.

I have already found out a person, who, I believe, will please you, in Palombo's place: I am to see your brother about it to-morrow, and next post you shall hear more particularly. I am quite in concern for the poor prinCess,(289) and her conjugal and amorous distresses: I really pity them; were they in England, we should have all the old prudes dealing out judgments on her, and mumbling toothless ditties to the tune of Pride will have a fall. I am bringing some fans and trifles for her, si mignons! Good night. Yours ever.

(271) Lady Caroline D'Arcy, daughter of Robert third Earl of Holdernesse, and wife of William Henry fourth Marquis of Lothian, at this time, during his father's lifetime, called Earl of Ancram.-D

(272) Lady Caroline and Lady Emily Lenox. [The former was married, in 1744, to Henry Fox, the first Lord Holland; the latter in 1746-7, to James, twentieth Earl of Kildare, in 1766 created Duke of Leinster.]

(273) Charles, second Duke of Richmond, and Lady Sarah Cadogan, his duchess, eldest daughter of William Earl Cadogan.-D.

(274) Eldest daughter of Charles Duke of Grafton.-[In 1746 married to Lord Petersham, afterwards Earl of Harrington.]

(275) Sister to John Duke of'Rutland; married in 1742, to the Duke of Montrose.

(276) Only daughter of Charles second Earl of Tankerville. She married, first, Gilbert Fane Fleming, Esq. and secondly, Mr. Wake, of Bath.-D.

(277) Lady Sophia Fermor.-D.

(278) Robert D'Arcy, fourth and last Earl of Holdernesse.-E.

(279) Lord Lincoln was at this time an admirer of Lady Sophia Fermor,-D.

(280) Harriet, natural daughter of General Churchill; afterwards married to Sir Everard Fawkener.

(281) The son and daughters of Alderman Parsons, a Jacobite brewer, who lived much in France, and had, somehow or other, been taken notice of by the king.

(282) William third Earl Fitzwilliam, in Ireland; created an English peer in 1742; and in 1746 an English earl.-D.

(283) Sir John Shadwell, a physician, his wife and daughters, the youngest of whom was pretty, and by the foreigners generally called Mademoiselle Misse Molli, had been in Italy, when Mr. W. was there.

(284) The Chevalier Ossorio, minister from the King of Sardinia.

(285) General Wachtendonck, commander of the great dukes troops at Leghorn, was cicisbeo to the conslil's wife there.

(286) John Lord Hervey, lord privy seal, and eldest son of John first Earl Of Bristol. He was a man of considerable celebrity in his day; but is now principally known from his unfortunate rivalry with Pope, for the good graces of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. He died August 5, 1743, at the age of forty-seven.-D.

(287) The Neutrality for the electorate of Hanover.(

(288) This song is a satire upon George II., ,the balancing Captain," and upon that in his vacillating and doubtful conduct, which his fears for the electorate of Hanover made him pursue, whenever Germany was the seat of war. His Sister, whom he is accused of deserting, was Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary.-E.

(289) The Prince de Craon, and the princess his wife, who had been favourite mistress to Leopold, the last Duke of Lorrain, resided at this time at Florence, where the prince was head of the council of regency; but they were extremely ill-treited and mortified by the Count de Richcourt, a low Lorrainer, who, being a creature of the great duke's favourite minister, had the chief ascendant and power there.

186 Letter 40 To Sir Horace Mann. Downing Street, Nov. 5, 1741, O. S.

I just mentioned to you in my letter on Monday, that I had found such a person as you wanted; I have since seen your brother, who is so satisfied with him, that he was for sending him directly away to you, without staying six weeks for an answer from you, but I chose to have your consent. He is the son of a tradesman in this city, so not yet a fine gentleman. He is between fifteen and sixteen, but very tall of his age: he was disappointed in not going to a merchant at Genoa, as was intended; but was so far provided for it as to have learned Italian three months: he speaks French very well, writes a good hand, and casts accounts; so, you see there will not be much trouble in forming him to your purpose. He will go to you for twenty pounds a-year and his lodging. If you like this, Nvrite me word by the first post, and he shall set out directly.

We hear to-day that the Toulon squadron is airived at Barcelona; I don't like it of' all things, for it has a look towards Tuscany. If it is suffered to go thither quietly, it will be no small addition to the present discontents.

Here is another letter, which I am entreated to send you, from poor Amorevoli; he has a continued fever, though not a high one. Yesterday, Monticelli was taken ill, so there will be no opera on Saturday; nor was on Tuesday. MOnticelli is infinitely admired; next to Farinelli. The Viscontina is admired more than liked. The music displeases every body, and the dances. I am quite uneasy about the opera, for Mr. Conway is one of' the directors, and I fear they will lose considerably, which he cannot afford. There are eight; Lord Middlesex, (290) Lord Holderness, Mr. Frederick, (291) Lord Conway, (292) Mr. Conway, (293) Mr. Damer, (294) Lord Brook, (295) and Mr. Brand. (296) The five last are directed by the three first; they by the first, and he by the Abb`e Vanneschi, (297) who will make a pretty sum. I Will give YOU Some instances; not to mention the improbability of eight young thoughtless men of fashion understanding economy -. it is usual to give the poet fifty guineas for composing the books-Vanneschi and Rolli are allowed three hundred. Three hundred more VannesChi had for his journey to Italy to pick up dancers and performers, which was always as well transacted by bankers there. Be has additionally brought over an Italian tailor-because there are none here! They have already given this Taylorini four hundred pounds, and he has already taken a house of thirty pounds a-year. Monticelli and the Visconti are to have a thousand guineas apiece; Amorevoli eight hundred and fifty: this at the rate of the great singers, is not so extravagant; but to the Muscovita (though the second woman never had above four hundred,) they give six; that is for secret services. (298) By this you may judge of their frugality! I am quite uneasy for poor Harry, who will thus be to pay for Lord Middlesex's pleasures! Good night; I have not time now to write more. Yours, ever.

(290) Charles Sackville, Earl of Middlesex, and subsequently second Duke of Dorset, eldest son of Lionel, first Duke of Dorset. He was made a lord of the treasury in 1743, and master of the horse to Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1747-D.

(291) John Frederick, Esq. afterwards Sir John Frederick, Bart. by the death of his cousin, Sir Thomas. He was a commissioner of customs, and member of parliament for West Looe.-D.

(292) Francis Seymour Conway, first Earl and Marquis of Hertford, ambassador at Paris, lord chamberlain of the household, etc.-D.

(293) Henry Seymour Conway, afterwards secretary of state, and a field marshal in the army.-D.

(294) Joseph Damer, Esq. created in 1753 Baron Milton, in Ireland, and by George III. an English peer, by the same title, and eventually Earl of Dorchester.-D.

(295) Francis Greville, eighth Lord Brooke; created in 1746 Earl Brooke, and in 1759 Earl of Warwick.-D.

(296) Mr. Brand of the Hoo, in Hertfordshire, one of the original members of the society of Dilettanti.--D.

(297) If this anticipation of Walpole's was ever realized, "the pretty sum" was eventually lost on the spot where it had been gained. Vanneschi, having in 1753 undertaken the management of the opera-house on his own account, continued it until 1756, when his differences with Mingotti, which excited almost as much of the public attention as the rivalries of Handel and Bononcini or of Faustina and Cuzzoni, completely prejudiced the public against him, and eventually ended in making him a bankrupt, a prisoner in the Fleet, and at last a fugitive.-E.

(298) She was kept by Lord Middlesex.

187 Letter 41 To Sir Horace Mann. Downing Street, Nov. 12, 1741.

Nothing is equal to my uneasiness about you. I hear or think of nothing but Spanish embarkations for Tuscany: before you receive this, perhaps, they will be at Leghorn. Then, your brother tells me you have received none of my letters. He knows I have never failed writing once a week, if not twice. We have had no letters from You this post. I shall not have the least respite from anxiety, till I hear about you, and what you design to do. it is immpossible but the great duke must lose Tuscany; and I suppose it is as certain, (I speak on probabilities, for, upon honour, I know nothing of the matter,) that as soon as there is a peace, we shall acknowledge Don Philip, and then you may return to Florence again. In the mean while I will ask Sir R. if it is possible to get your appointments continued, while you stay in readiness at Bologna, Rome, Lucca, or where you choose. I talk at random; but as I think so much of you, I am trying to find out something that may be of service to you. I write in infinite hurry, and am called away, so scarce know what I say. Lord Conway and his family are this instant come to town, and have sent for me.

It is Admiral Vernon's birthday, (299) and the city-shops are full of favours, the streets of marrowbones and cleavers, and the night will be full of mobbing, bonfires, and lights.

The opera does not succeed; Amorevoli has not sung yet; here is a letter to his wife; mind, while he is ill, he sends to the Chiaretta! The dances are infamous and ordinary. Lord Chesterfield was told that the Viscontina said she was but four-and-twenty: he answered, "I suppose she means four-and-twenty stone!"

There is a mad parson goes about; he called to a sentinel the other day in the Park; "Did you ever see the Leviathan?" "No." "Well, he is as like Sir. R. W. as ever two devils were like one another."

Never was such unwholesome weather! I have a great cold, and have not been well this fortnight: even immortal majesty has had a looseness.

The Duke of Ancaster (300) and Lord James Cavendish (301) are dead.

This is all the news I know: I would I had time to write more; but I know you will excuse me now. If I wrote more, it would be still about the Italian expedition, I am so disturbed about it. Yours, ever.

(299) Admiral Vernon was now in the height of his popularity, in consequence of his successful attack upon Porto-Bello, in November, 1739, and the great gallantry he had shown upon that occasion. His determined and violen't opposition, as a member of parliament, to the measures of the government, assisted in rendering him the idol of the mob, which he continued for many years.-D. [The admiral was actually elected for Rochester, Ipswich, and Penryn: he'was also set up for the City of London, where he was beaten by two thousand votes; and in Westminster, where he was beaten by four hundred. After the affair of Porto-Bello, he took Chagre, and continued in the service till 1748; when several matters which had passed between him and the lords of the admiralty being laid before the king, be was struck off the list of flag officers. He died in 1757. A handsome monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.]

(300) Peregrine Bertie, second Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven, great chamberlain of England, and chief justice in Eyre, north of Trent. The report of his death was premature. His grace survived till the 1st of January.-E.

(301) The second son of William, second Duke of Devonshire. He was colonel of a regiment of foot-guards, and member for Malton.-E.

189 Letter 42 To Sir Horace Mann. Downing Street, Nov. 23, 1741.

Your letter has comforted me much, if it can be called comfort to have one's uncertainty fluctuate to the better side. You make me hope that the Spaniards design on Lombardy ; my passion for Tuscany, and anxiety for you, make me eager to believe it; but alas! while I am in the belief of this, they may be in the act of conquest in Florence, and poor you retiring politically! How delightful is Mr. Chute for cleaving unto you like Ruth! "Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge!" As to the merchants of Leghorn and their concerns, Sir R. thinks you are mistaken, and that if the Spaniards come thither, they will by no means be safe. I own I write to you under a great dilemma; I flatter myself, all is well with you; but if not, how disagreeable to have one's letters fall into strange hands. I write, however.

A brother Of Mine, (302) Edward by name, has lately had a call to matrimony: the virgins name was Howe. (303) He had agreed to take her with no fortune, she him with his four children. The father of him, to get rid of his importunities, at last acquiesced. The very moment he had obtained this consent, he repented; and, instead of flying on the wings of love to notify it, he went to his fair One, owned his father had mollified, but hoped she would be so good as to excuse him. You cannot imagine what an entertaining fourth act of the opera we had the other night. Lord Vane, (304) in the middle of the pit, making love to my lady. The Duke of Newcastle (305) has lately given him three-score thousand pounds, to consent to cut off the entail of the Newcastle estate. The fool immediately wrote to his wife, to beg she would return to him from Lord Berkeley; that he had got so much money, and now they might live comfortably: but she will not live comfortably: she is at Lord Berkeley's house, whither go divers after her. Lady Townshend told me an admirable history; it is of our friend Lady Pomfret. Somebody that belonged to the Prince of Wales said, they were going to Court; it was objected that they ought to say, going to Carlton House; that the only Court is where the king resides. Lady P. with her paltry air of significant learning and absurdity, said, "Oh Lord! is there no Court in England, but the king's? sure, there are many more! There is the Court of Chancery, the Court of Exchequer, the Court of King's Bench, etc." Don't you love her? Lord Lincoln does her dauhter: he is come over, and met her the other night: he turned pale, spoke to her several times in the evening, but not long, and sighed to me at going away. He came over all alive; and not only his uncle-duke, but even majesty is fallen in love with him. He talked to the king at his levee, without being spoken to. That was always thought high treason; but I don't know how the gruff gentleman liked it; and then he had been told that Lord Lincoln designed to have made the campaicn, if we had gone to war; in short, he says, Lord Lincoln (306) is the handsomest man in England

I believe I told you that Vernon's birthday passed quietly, but it was not designed to be pacific; for at twelve at night, eight gentlemen, dressed like sailors, and masked, went round Covent Garden with a drum, beating up for a volunteer mob, but it did not take; and they retired to a great supper that was prepared for them at the Bedford Head, and ordered by Whitehead (307) the author of Manners. It has been written into the country that Sir R. has had two fits of an apoplexy, and cannot live till Christmas; but I think he is recovered to be as well as ever. To-morrow se'nnight is the Day! (308) It is critical. You shall hear faithfully.

The opera takes: Monticelli (309) pleases almost equal to Farinelli: Amorevoli is much liked; but the poor, fine Viscontina scarce at all. (310)I carry the two former to-night to my Lady Townshend's.

Lord Coventry (311) has had his son thrown out by the party: he went to Carlton House; the prince asked him about the election. "Sir," said he, "the Tories have betrayed me, as they will you, the first time you have occasion for them." The merchants have petitioned the King for more guardships. My lord president, (312) referred them to the Admiralty; but they bluntly refused to go, and said they would have redress from the King himself.

I am called down to dinner, and cannot write more now. I will thank dear Mr. Chute and the Grifona next post. I hope she and you liked your things. Good night, my dearest child! Your brother and I sit upon your affairs every morning. Yours ever.

(302) Second son of Sir Robert Walpole. He was clerk of the pells, and afterwards knight of the Bath. [Sir Edward died unmarried, in 1784, leaving three natural daughters; Laura, married to the Hon. and Rev. Frederick Keppel, afterwards Bishop of Exeter; maria, married, first to the Earl of Waldegrave, and, secondly to the Duke of Gloucester; and Charlotte, married to the Earl of Dysart.]

(303) Eldest sister of the Lord Viscount Howe. She was soon after this married to a relation of her own name. [John Howe, Esq. of Hanslop, Bucks.]

(304) William, second Viscount Vane, in Ireland. His "lady" was the too-celebrated Lady Vane, first married to Lord William Hamilton, and secondly to Lord Vane; who has given her own extraordinary and disreputable adventures to the world, in Smollett's novel of "Peregrine Pickle," under the title of "Memoirs of a Lady of Quality." She is also immortalized in different ways, by Johnson, in his ,Vanity of Human Wishes," and by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, in one of his Odes.-D. [She was the daughter of Mr. Hawes, a South Sea director, and died in 1788. Lord Vane died in 1789. Boswell distinctly states, that the lady mnentioned in Johnson's couplet "was not the celebrated Lady Vane, whose Memoirs were given to the public by Dr. Smollett, but Ann Vane, who was mistress to Frederick Prince of Wales, and died in 1736, not long before Johnson settled in London." See Boswell's Johnson, vol. i. p. 226, ed. 1835.]

(305) Uncle of Lord Vane, whose father, Lord Barnard, had married Elizabeth, eldest daughter of Gilbert Holles, Earl of Clare, and sister and coheir of John Duke of Newcastle.

(306) Henry Clinton, ninth Earl of Lincoln, succeeded as Duke of Newcastle in 1768, on the death of his uncle, the minister.

(307) Paul Whitehead, a satirical poet of bad character, was the son of a tailor, who lived in Castle-yard, Holborn. He wrote several abusive poems, now forgotten, entitled "The State Dances," "Manners," "The Gymnasiad," etc. In "Manners," having attacked some members of the House of Lords, that assembly summoned Dodsley, the publisher, before them, (Whitehead having absconded,) and subsequently imprisoned him. In politics, Whitehead was a follower of Bubb Dodington; in private life be was the friend and companion of the profligate Sir Francis Dashwood, Wilkes, Churchill, etc. and, like them, was a member of the Hell-fire Club, which held its orgies at Mednam Abbey, in Bucks. The estimation in which he was held even by his friends may be judged of by the lines in which Churchill has damned him to everlasting fame:

"May I (can worse disgrace on mankind fall?) Be born a Whitehead and baptized a Paul."

Paul Whitehead died in 1774.-D. [The proceedings in the House of Lords against the author of "Manners" which took place in February, 1739, was, in the opinion of Dr. Johnson, "intended rather to intimidate Pope, than to punish Whitehead."]

(308) The day the parliament was to meet.

(309) His voice was clear, sweet, and free from defects of every kind. He was a chaste performer, and never hazarded any difficulty which he was not certain of executing with the utmost precision. He was, moreover, an excellent actor, so that nothing but the recent remembrance of the gigantic talents of Farinelli, and the grand and majestic style of Senesino, could have lefl an English audience any thing to wish.-E.

(310) Amorevoli was an admirable tenor. "I have heard," says Dr. Burney, "better voices of his pitch, but never, on the stage, more taste and expression. The Visconti had a shrill flexible voice, and pleased more in rapid songs than those that required high colouring and pathos."-E.

(311) William, fifth Earl of Coventry. He died in 1751.-D.

(312) Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, a man of moderate abilities, but who had filled many great offices. He died in 1743, when his titles extinguished.-D.

191 Letter 43 To Sir Horace Mann. Nov. 26, 1741.

I don't write you a very long letter, because you will see the inclosed to Mr. Chute. I forgot to thank you last post for the songs, and your design on the Maltese cats.

It is terrible to be in this uncertainty about you! We have not the least news about the Spaniards, more than what you told us, of a few vessels being seen off Leghorn. I send about the post, and ask Sir R. a thousand times a-day.

I beg to know if you have never heard any thing from Parker about my statue: (313) it was to have been finished last june. What is the meaning he does not mention it? If it is done, I beg it may not stir from Rome till there is no more danger of Spaniards.

If you get out of your hurry, I will trouble you with a new commission: I find I cannot live without Stosch's (314) intaglio of the Gladiator, with the vase, upon a granite. You know I offered him fifty pounds: I think, rather than not have it, I would give a hundred. What will he do if the Spaniards should come to Florence? Should he be driven to straits, perhaps he would part with his Meleager too. You see I am as eager about baubles as if I were going to Louis at the Palazzo Vecchio! You can't think what a closet I have fitted up; such a mixture of French gaiety and Roman virtu! you would be in love with it: I have not rested till it was finished: I long to have you see it. Now I am angry that I did not buy the Hermaphrodite; the man would have sold it for twenty-five sequins: do buy it for me; it was a friend of Bianchi. Can you forgive me'! I write all this upon the hope and presumption that the Spaniards go to Lombardy. Good night. Yours, ever.

(313) A copy of the Livia Mattei, which Mr. W. designed for a tomb of his mother: it was erected in Henry VII.'s Chapel, in Westminster Abbey, in 1754.

(314) He gave it afterwards to Lord Duncannon, for procuring him the arrears of his pension.

192 Letter 44 To Sir Horace Mann. Downing Street, Dec. 3, 1741, O. S.

Here I have two letters from you to answer. You cannot conceive my joy on the prospect of the Spaniards going to Lombardy: all advices seem to confirm it. There is no telling you what I have felt, and shall feel, till I am certain you are secure. You ask me about Admiral Haddock; you must not wonder that I have told you nothing of him: they know nothing of him here. He had discretionary powers to act as he should judge proper from his notices. He has been keeping in the Spanish fleet at Cales. (315) Sir R. says, if he had let that go out, to prevent the embarkation, the Tories would have complained, and said he had favoured the Spanish trade, under pre tence of hindering an expedition which was never designed. It was strongly reported last week that Haddock had shot himself; a satire on his having been neutral, as they call it. The parliament met the day before yesterday, and there were four hundred and eighty-seven members present. They did no business, only proceeded to choose a speaker, which was, unanimously, Mr. Onslow, moved for by Mr. Pelham, (316) and seconded by Mr. Clutterbuck. But the Opposition, to flatter his pretence to popularity and impartiality, call him their own speaker. They intend to oppose Mr. Earle's being chairman of the committee, and to set up a Dr. Lee, a civilian. To- morrow the King makes his speech. Well, I won't keep you any longer in suspense. The Court will have a majority of forty-a vast number for the outset: a good majority, like a good sum of money, soon makes itself bigger. The first great point will be the Westminster election; another, Mr. Pultney's (317) election at Heydon; Mr. Chute's brother is one of the petitioners. It will be an ugly affair for the Court, for Pultney has asked votes of the courtiers, and said Sir R. was indifferent about it; but he is warmer than I almost ever saw him, and declared to Churchill, (318) of whom Pultney claims a promise, that he must take Walpole or Pultney. The Sackville finally were engaged too, by means of George Berkeley, brother to Lady Betty Germain, (319) whose influence with the Dorset I suppose you know; but the King was so hot with his grace about his sons, that I believe they will not venture to follow their inclinations **** to vote (320) for Pultney, though he has expressed great concern about it to Sir R.

So much for politics! for I suppose you know that Prague is taken by storm, in a night's time. I forgot to tell you that Commodore Lestock, with twelve ships, has been waiting for a wind this fortnight, to join Haddock. (321)

I write to you in defiance of a violent headache, which I got last night at another of Sir T. Robinson's balls. There were six hundred invited, and I believe above two hundred there. Lord Lincoln, out of prudence, danced with Lady Caroline Fitzroy, and Mr. Conway, with Lady Sophia; the two couple were just mismatched, as every body soon perceived, by the attentions of each man to the woman he did not dance with, and the emulation of either lady: it was an admirable scene. The ball broke up at three; but Lincoln, Lord Holderness, Lord Robert Sutton, (322) Young Churchill (323) and a dozen more grew 'oily,' stayed till seven in the morning, and drank thirty-two bottles.

I will take great care to send the knee-buckles and pocket-book; I have got them, and Madame Pucci's silks, and only wait to hear that Tuscany is quiet, and then I will convey them by the first ship. I would write to them to-night, but have not time now; old Cibber, (324) plays to-night, and all the world will be there.

Here is another letter from Amorevoli, who is out of his wits at not hearing from his wife. Adieu! my dearest child. How happy shall I be when I know you are in peace; Yours, ever.

(315) Cadiz.

(316) The Right Hon. Henry Pelham, so long in conjunction with his brother, the Duke of Newcastle, one of the principal rulers of this country. He was a man of some ability, and a tolerable speaker. The vacillations, the absurdity, the foolish jealousy of the duke, greatly injured the stability and respectability of Mr. Pelham's administration. Mr. Pelham was born in 1696, and died in 1754.-D.

(317) William Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath, whose character and history are too well known to require to be here enlarged upon.-D.

(318) General Charles Churchill, groom of the bedchamber to the King.

(319) Lady Betty Berkeley, married to the notorious adventurer and gambler, Sir John Germain, who had previously married the divorced Duchess of Norfolk, (Lady Mary Mordaunt,) by whose bequest he became possessed of the estate of Drayton, in Northamptonshire, which he left on his own death to Lady Betty, his second @wife. Lady Betty left it to Lord George Sackville, third son of Lionel first Duke of Dorset. Sir John Germain was so ignorant, that he is said to have left a legacy to Fair Matthew Decker, as the author of St. Matthew's Gospel.-D.

(320) sic, in the manuscript.-D.

(321) But for this circumstance, and the junction of the French squadron, Haddock would certainly have destroyed the Spanish fleet, and thereby escaped the imputation which was circulated with much industry, that his hands had been tied up by a neutrality entered into for Hanover; than which nothing could be more false. These reports, though ostensibly directed against Haddock, were, in reality, aimed at Sir Robert Walpole, a general election being at hand, and his opponents wishing to render him as unpopular with the people as possible.-E.

(322) Second son of John, third Duke of Rutland. He took the name of Sutton, on inheriting the estate of his maternal grandfather, Robert Sutton, Lord Lexington.-D.

(323) Natural son of General Charles Churchill, afterwards married to Mary, daughter of Sir Robert Walpole.-D.

(324) Colley Cibber, the celebrated dramatic author and actor. He had left the stage in 1731; but still occasionally acted, in spite of his age, for he was now seventy.-D. [For those occasional performances he is said to have had fifty guineas per night. So late as 1745, he appeared in the character of Pandulph, the pope's legate, in his own tragedy, called "Papal Tyranny." He died in 1757.]

194 letter 45 To Sir Horace Mann. Somerset House, (for I write to you wherever I find myself,) Dec. 10, 1741.

I have got no letter from you yet, the post should have brought it yesterday. The Gazette says, that the cardinal (325) has declared that they will suffer no expedition against Tuscany. I wish he had told me so! if they preserve this guarantee, personally, I can forgive their breaking the rest. But I long for your letter; every letter now from each of us is material. You will be almost as impatient to hear of the parliament, as I of Florence. The lords on Friday went upon the King's speech; Lord Chesterfield made a very fine speech against the address, all levelled at the House of Hanover. Lord Cholmley, they say, answered him well. Lord Halifax (326) spoke Very ill, and was answered by little Lord Raymond, (327) who always will answer him. Your friend Lord Sandwich (328) affronted his grace of Grafton, (329) extremely, who was ill, and sat out of his place, by calling him to order; it was indecent in such a boy to a man of his age and rank: the blood of Fitzroy will not easily pardon it. The court had a majority of forty-one, with some converts.

On Tuesday we had the Speech; there were great differences among the party; the Jacobites, with Shippen (330) and Lord Noel Somerset at their head, were for a division, Pultney and the Patriots against one; (332) the ill success in the House of lords had frightened them; we had no division, but a very warm battle between Sir. R. and Poltney. The latter made a fine speech, very personal, on the state of affairs. Sir R. with as much health, as much spirits, as much force and command as ever, answered him for an hour; said, He hadbeen taxed with all our misfortunes; but did he raise the war in Germany? or advise the war with Spain? did he kill the late Emperor or King of Prussia?' did he counsel this King? or was he first minister to the King of Poland? did he kindle the war betwixt Muscovy and Sweden?" For our troubles at home, he said, "all the grievances of this nation were owing to the Patriots." They laughed much at this; but does he want proofs of it? he said, They talked much of an equilibrium in this parliament, (333) and of what they designed against him; if it was so, the sooner he knew it the better; and there-fore if any man would move for a day to examine the state of the nation, he would second it." Mr. Pultney did move for it; Sir R. did second it, and it is fixed for the twenty-first of January. Sir R. repeated some words of Lord Chesterfield's in the House of Lords, that this was a time for truth, for plain truth for English truth, and hinted at the reception (334) his lordship had met in France. After these speeches of such consequence, and from such men, Mr. Lyttelton (335) got up to justify, or rather to flatter Lord Chesterfield, though every body then had forgot that he had been mentioned. Danvers (336) who is a rough, rude beast, but now and then mouths out some humour, said, "that Mr. P. and Sir R. were like two old bawds, debauching young members."

That day was a day of triumph, but yesterday (Wednesday) the streamers of victory did not fly so gallantly. It was the day of receiving petitions; Mr. Pultney presented an immense piece of parchment, which he said he could but just lift; it was the Westminster petition, and is to be heard next Tuesday, when we shall all have our brains knocked out by the mob; so if you don't hear from me next post, you will conclude my head was a little out of order. After this we went upon a cornish petition, presented by Sir William Yonge, (337) which drew on a debate and a division, when lo! we were but 222 to 215-how do you like a majority of seven? The Opposition triumphs highly, and with reason; one or two such victories, as Pyrrhus, the member for Macedon, said, will be the ruin of us. I look upon it now, that the question is, Downing Street or the Tower; will you come and see a body, if one should happen to lodge at the latter? There are a thousand pretty things to amuse you; the lions, the Armoury, the crown, and the axe that beheaded Anna Bullon. I design to make interest for the room where the two princes were smothered; in long winter evenings, when one wants company, (for I don't suppose that many people will frequent me then,) one may sit and scribble verses against Crouch-back'd Richard, and dirges on the sweet babes. If I die there, and have my body thrown into a wood, I am too old to be buried by robin redbreasts, am not I?

Bootle, (338) the prince's chancellor, made a most long and stupid speech; afterwards, Sir R. called to him, "Brother Bootle, take care you don't get my old name." "What's that?" "Blunderer."

You can't conceive how I was pleased with the vast and deserved applause that Mr. Chute's (339) brother, the lawyer, got: I never heard a clearer or a finer speech. When I went home, "Dear Sir," said I to Sir R. "I hope Mr. Chute will carry his election for Heydon; he would be a great loss to you." He replied. "We will not lose him." I, who meddle with nothing, especially elections, and go to no committees, interest myself extremely for Mr. Chute.

Old Marlborough (340) is dying-but who can tell! last year she had lain a great while ill, without speaking; her physicians said, "She must be blistered, or she will die." She called out, "I won't be blistered, and I won't die." If she takes the same resolution now, I don't believe she will. (341)

Adieu! my dear child: I have but room to say, yours, ever.

(325) Cardinal Fleury, first minister of France.

(326) George Montague Dunk, second Earl of Halifax, of the last creation. Under the reign of George III., he became secretary of state, and was so unfortunate in that capacity as to be the opponent of Wilkes, on the subject of General Warrants, by which he is now principally remembered.-D.

(327) Robert, second Lord Raymond, only son of the chief justice of that name and title.-D.

(328) John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich, passed through a long life of office, and left behind him n indifferent character, both in public and private He was, however, a man of some ability.-D.

(329) Charles Fitzroy, second Duke of Grafton, and grandson of Charles II., was a person of considerable weight and influence at the court of George II., where he long held the post of chamberlain of the household.

(330) "Honest Will Shippen," as he was called, or ,Downright Shippen," as Pope terms him, was a zealous Jacobite member of parliament, possessed of considerable talents, and a vehement opposer of Sir Robert Walpole's government. He, however, did justice to that able minister, for he was accustomed to say, "Robin and I are honest men; but as for those fellows in long perriwigs" (meaning the Tories of the day,) " they only want to get into office themselves." He was the author of a satirical poem, entitled, "Faction Displayed," which possesses considerable merit.-D. [Shippen was born in 1672, and died in 1743. Sir Robert Walpole repeatedly declared, that he would not say who was corrupted, but he would say who was not corruptible-that man was Shippen. His speeches generally contained some pointed period, which he uttered with great animation. He usually spoke in a low tone of voice, with too great rapidity, and held his glove before his mouth.]

(331) Lord Charles Noel Somerset, second son of Henry, second Duke of Beaufort. He succeeded to the family honours in 1746, when his elder brother, Henry, the third duke, died without children.-D. [After the death of Sir William Wyndham, which happened in 1740, Lord Noel Somerset was considered as the rising head of the Tory interest. "He was," says Tindal, "a man of sense, spirit, and activity, unblameable in his morals, but questionable in his political capacity." He died in 1756.)

(332) Mr. Pulteney declared against dividing; observing, with a witticism, that "dividing was not the way to multiply."

(333) In speaking of the balance of power, Mr. Pulteney had said, ,He did not know how it was abroad, not being in secrets, but congratulated the House, that he had not, for these many years, known it so near an equilibrium as it now was there."-E.

(334) Lord Chesterfield had been sent by the party, in the preceding September, to France, to request the Duke of Ormond (at Avignon,) to obtain the Pretender's order to the Jacobites, to vote against Sir R. W. upon any question whatever; many of them having either voted for him, or retired, on the famous motion the last year for removing him from the, King's councils. [Lord Chesterfield's biographer, Dr. Maty states that the object of his lordship's visit to France was the restoration of his health, which required the assistance of a warmer climate. The reception he met with during his short stay at Paris, is thus noticed in a letter from Mr. Pitt, of the 10th of September:-" I hope you liked the court of France as well as it liked you. The uncommon distinctions I hear the Cardinal (Fleury) showed you, are the best proof that, old as he is, his judgment is as good as ever. As this great minister has taken so much of his idea, of the men in power here, from the person of a great negotiator who has left the stage, (Lord Waldegrave,) I am very glad he has, had an opportunity, once before he dies, of forming an idea of those out of power from my Lord Chesterfield." See Chatham Correspondence, vol. i. p. 3.]

(335) George Lyttelton, afterwards created Lord lyttelton.-D.

(336) Joseph Danvers, Esq. of Swithland, in the county of Leicester, at this time member for Totness. In 1746 he was created a baronet. He married Frances, the daughter of thomas babington, Esq. of Rothley Temple, Leicestershire.-E.

(337) the Right Hon. Sir William Yonge, Bart., secretary at war, to which office he had succeeded in May, 1735. Walpole, who tells us (Memoires, i. p. 20,) that " he was vain, extravagant, and trifling; simple out of the House, and too ready at assertions in it," adds, "that his vivacity and parts, whatever the cause was, made him shine, and he was always content with the lustre that accompanied fame, without thinking of what was reflected from rewarded fame-a convenient ambition to ministers, who had few such disinterested combatants. Sir Robert Walpole always said of him 'that nothing but Yonge's character could keep down his parts, and nothing but his parts support his character.'" That these parts were very great is shown by the fact, that Sir Robert Walpole often, when he did not care to enter early into the debate himself, gave Yonge his notes, as the latter came late into the House, from which be could speak admirably and fluently, though he had missed the preceding discussion. Sir William, who had a proneness to poetry, wrote the epilogue to Johnson's tragedy of "Irene." 'When I published the plan for my Dictionary," says the Doctor, "Lord'Chesterfield told me that the word great should be pronounced so as to rhyme to state; and Sir William Yonge sent me word, that it should be pronounced so as to rhyme to seat, and that none but an Irishman would pronounce it great. Now, here were two men of the highest rank, the one the best speaker in the House of Lords, the other the best speaker in the House of Commons, differing entirely." See Boswell's Johnson,vol.iii.p.191.

(338) Sir Thomas Bootle, chancellor to the Prince of Wales; a dull, heavy man, and who is, therefore, ironically called, by Sir C. H. Williams, "Bright Bootle,"-D.

(339) Francis Chute, an eminent lawyer, second brother of Anthony Chute, of the Vine, in Hampshire, had, in concert with Luke Robinson, another lawyer, disputed Mr. Pultney's borough of Heydon with him at the general elections and been returned but on a petition, and the removal of Sir R. W. they were voted out of their seats, and Mr. Chute died soon after.-E.

(340) Sarah, Dowager Duchess of Marlborough.

(341) Nor did she, Her grace survived the date of this letter nearly three years. She died on the 18th of October 1744, being then eighty-four years of age.-E.

197 Letter 46 To Sir Horace Mann. Wednesday night, eleven o'clock, Dec. 16, 1741.

Remember this day.

Nous voil`a de la Minorit`e! entens-tu cela! h`e! My dear child, since you will have these ugly words explained, they just mean that we ar-- metamorphosed into the minority. This was the night of choosing a chairman of the committee of elections. Gyles Earle, (342) (as in the two last parliaments) was named by the Court; Dr. Lee, (343) a civilian, by the Opposition, a man of a fair character. (344) Earle was formerly a dependent on the Duke of Argyle,(345) is of remarkable covetousness and wit, which he has dealt out largely against the Scotch and the Patriots. It was a day of much expectation, and both sides had raked together all probabilities: I except near twenty who are in town, but stay to vote on a second question, when the majority may be decided to either party. have you not read of such in story? Men, who would not care to find themselves on the weaker side, contrary to their intent. In short, the determined sick were dragged out of their beds; zeal came in a great coat. There were two vast dinners at two taverns, for either-party; at six we met in the House. Sir William Yonge, seconded by my uncle Horace, (346) moved for Mr. Earle: Sir Paul Methuen (347) and Sir Watkyn Williams (348) proposed Dr. Lee-and carried him, by a majority of four: 242 against 238-the greatest number, I believe, that ever lost a question. You have no idea of their huzza! unless you can conceive how people must triumph after defeats of twenty years together. We had one vote shut out, by coming a moment too late; one that quitted us, for having been ill used by the Duke of Newcastle but yesterday-for which in all probability, he will use him well to-morrow-I mean, for quitting us. Sir Thomas Lowther,(349) Lord Hartington's (350) uncle, was fetched down by him and voted against us. Young Ross,(351) son to a commissioner of the customs, and saved from the dishonour of not liking to go to the West Indies when it was his turn, by Sir R.s giving him a lieutenancy, voted against us; and Tom Hervey,(352) who is always with us, but is quite mad; and being asked why he left us, replied, "Jesus knows my thoughts; one day I blaspheme, and pray the next." so, you see what accidents were against us, or we had carried our point. They cry, Sir R. miscalculated: how should he calculate, when there are men like Ross, and fifty others he could name! It was not very pleasant to be stared in the face to see how one bore it-you can guess at my bearing it, who interest myself so little about any thing. I have had a taste of what I am to meet from all sorts of people. The moment we had lost the question, I went from the heat of the house into the Speaker's chamber, and there were some fifteen others of us-an under door-keeper thought a question was new put, when it was not, and, withou@ giving us notice, clapped the door to. I asked him how he dared lock us out without calling us: he replied insolently, "It was his duty, and he would do it again:" one of the party went to him, commended him, and told him he should be punished if he acted otherwise. Sir R. is in great spirits, and still sanguine. I have so little experience, that I shall not be amazed at whatever scenes follow. My dear child, we have triumphed twenty years; is it strange that fortune should at last forsake us; or ought we not always to expect it, especially in this kingdom? They talk loudly of the year forty-one, and promise themselves all the confusions that began a hundred years ago from the same date. I hope they prognosticate wrong; but should it be so, I can be happy in other places. One reflection I shall have, very sweet, though very melancholy; that if our family is to be the sacrifice that shall first pamper discord, at least the one,' the part of it that interested all my concerns, and must have suffered from our ruin, is safe, secure, and above the rage of confusion: nothing in this world can touch her peace now!

To-morrow and Friday we go upon the Westminster election-you will not wonder, shall you, if you hear the next post that we have lost that too? Good night. Yours, ever.

(342) Giles Earle, Esq. one of the lords of the treasury and who had been chairman of the committees of the House of Commons from 1727 to the date of this letter. He had been successively groom of the bedchamber to the Prince of Wales in 1718, clerk comptroller of the King"s household in 1720, commissioner of the Irish revenue in 1728, and a lord of the treasury in 1738. Mr. Earle was a man of broad coarse wit, and a lively image of his style and sentiments has been preserved by Sir C. H. Williams, in his "Dialogue between Giles Earle and Bubb Dodington."-E.

(343) George Lee, brother to the lord-chief justice; he was appointed one of the lords of the admiralty on the following change, which post he resigned on the disgrace of his patron, Lord Granville. He was designed by the Prince of Wales for his first minister, and, immediately on the prince's death, was appointed treasurer to the princess dowager, and soon after made dean of the arches, a knight, and privy counsellor. He died in 1758.

(344) In a letter to Dodington, written from Spa, on the 8th of September, Lord Chesterfield says:-"I am for acting at the very beginning of the session. The court generally proposes some servile and shameless tool of theirs to be chairman of the committee of privileges. Why should not we, therefore, pick up some Whig of a fair character, and with personal connexions, to set up in opposition? I think we should be pretty strong upon this point."-E.

(345) John, the great Duke of Argyle and Greenwich.-D.

(346) Horace Walpole, younger brother of Sir Robert, created. in his old age, Lord Walpole of Wolterton. He was commonly called "Old Horace," to distinguish him from his nephew, the writer of these letters.-D.

(347) The son of John Methuen, Esq. the diplomatist, and author of the celebrated Methuen treaty with Portugal. Sir Paul was a knight of the Bath, and died in 1757.-D.

(348) Sir Watkyn Williams Wynn, Bart. the third baronet of the family, was long one of the leaders in the House of Commons.-D. (349) Sir Thomas Lowther, Bart. of Holker, in Lancashire. He had married Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the second Duke of Devonshire.-D.

(350) Afterwards the fourth Duke of Devonshire.

(351) Charles Ross, killed in flannders, at the battle of Fontenoy, 1745.

(352) Thomas Hervey, second son of John, first Earl of Bristol, 'and Surveyor of the royal gardens. He was at this time writing his famous letter to Sir Thomas Hanmer. [With whose wife he had eloped. In the letter alluded to, he expresses his conviction that his conduct was natural and delicate, and that, finally, in heaven, Lady Hanmer, in the distribution of wives, would be considered to be his. Dr. Johnson (to whom he had left a legacy of fifty pounds, but -,afterwards gave it him in his life-time) characterises him as "very vicious." " Alas!" observes Mr. Croker, "it is but too probable that he was disordered in mind, and that what was called vice was. in truth, disease, and required a madhouse rather than a prison." He died in 1775. See Boswell's Johnson, Vol. iii. P. 18, ed. 1835.)

(353) His mother, Catherine Lady Walpole, who died August 20, 1737.

199 Letter 47 To Sir Horace Mann. Thursday, six o'clock. [Dec. 17, 1741.

You will hardly divine where I am writing to you-in the Speaker's chamber. The House is examining witnesses on the Westminster election, which will not be determined to-day; I am not in haste it should, for I believe we shall lose it. A great fat fellow, a constable, on their side, has just deposed, that Lord Sundon,(355) and the high constable, took him by the collar at the election, and threw him down stairs. Do you know the figure of Lord Sundon? If you do, only think of that little old creature throwing any man down stairs!

As I was coming down this morning, your brother brought me a long letter from you, in answer to mine of the 12th of November. You try to make me mistrust the designs of Spain against Tuscany, but I will hope yet: hopes are all I have for any thing I know!

As to the young man, I will see his mother the first moment I can; and by next post, hope to give you a definite answer, whether he will submit to be a servant or not; in every other respect, I am sure he will please you.

Your friend, Mr. Fane,(356) would not come for us last night, nor will vote till after the Westminster election: be is brought into parliament by the Duke of Bedford,(357) and is unwilling to disoblige him in this. We flattered ourselves with better success; for last Friday, after sitting till two in the morning we carried a Cornish election in four divisions-the first by a majority of six, then of twelve, then of fourteen, and lastly by thirty-six. You can't imagine the zeal of the young men on both sides: Lord Fitzwilliam, Lord Hartington, and my friend Coke (358) on ours, are warm as possible; Lord Quarendon (359) and Sir Francis Dashwood (360) are as violent on theirs: the former speaks often and well. But I am talking to you of nothing but parliament; why, really, all one's ideas are stuffed with it, and you yourself will not dislike to hear things so material. The Opposition who invent every method of killing Sir R., intend to make us sit on Saturdays; but how mean and dirty is it, how scandalous! when they can't ruin him by the least plausible means, to murder him by denying him air and exercise.(361) There was a strange affair happened on Saturday; it was strange, yet very English. One Nourse, an old gamester, said, in the coffee-house, that Mr. Shuttleworth, a member, only pretended to be ill. This was told to Lord Windsor,(362) his friend, who quarrelled with Nourse, and the latter challenged him. My lord replied, he would not fight him, he was too old. The other replied, he was not too old to fight with pistols. Lord Windsor still refused: Nourse, in a rage, went home and cut his own throat. This was one of the odd ways in which men are made.

I have scarce seen Lady Pomfret lately, but I am sure Lord Lincoln is not going to marry her daughter. I am not surprised at her sister being shy of receiving civilities from you-that was English too!

Say a great deal for me to the Chutes. How I envy your snug suppers! I never have such suppers! Trust me, if we fall, all the grandeur, all the envied grandeur of our house, will not cost me a sigh: it has given me no pleasure while we have it, and will give me no pain when I part with it. My liberty, my ease, and choice of my own friends and company, will sufficiently counterbalance the crowds of Downing-street. I am so sick of it all, that if we are victorious or not, I propose leaving England in the spring,. Adieu! Yours, ever and ever.

(355) William clayton, Lord Sundon, in Ireland, so created in 1735. His wife was a favourite of Queen Caroline, to whom she was mistress of the robes.

(356) Charles Fane, Only son of Lord Viscount Fane, whom he succeeded, had been minister at Florence.

(357) John Russell, fourth Duke of Bedford.-D.

(358) Edward, Lord Viscount Coke, only son of the Earl of Leicester. He died in 1753.

(359) George Henry Lee, Lord Viscount Quarendon, eldest son of the Earl of Lichfield, whom he succeeded in that title.

(360) Sir Francis Dashwood, Bart., afterwards Lord Le Despencer. Under the administration of Lord Bute he was, for a short time, chancellor of the exchequer.-D.

(361) Sir Robert always went every Saturday to Newpark, Richmond, to hunt. (From his early youth, Sir Robert was fond of the diversions of the field. He was accustomed to hunt in Richmond Park with a pack of beagles. On receiving a packet of letters, he usually opened that from his gamekeeper first.] (362) Herbert Windsor Hickman, second Viscount Windsor in Ireland, and Baron Montjoy of the Isle of Wight. [His lordship died in 1758, when all his honours, in default of male issue, became extinct.]

201 Letter 48 To Sir Horace Mann. Christmas eve, 1741.

My dearest child, if I had not heard regularly from you, what a shock it would have given me! The other night at the opera, Mr. Worseley, with his peevish face, half smiling through ill-nature, told me (only mind!) by way of news, "that he heard Mr. Mann was dead at Florence!"' How kind! To entertain one with the chitchat of the town, a man comes and tells one that one's dearest friend is dead! I am sure he would have lost his speech if he had had any thing pleasurable to tell. If ever there is a metempsychosis, his soul will pass into a vulture and prey upon carcases after a battle, and then go and bode at the windows of their relations. But I will say no more of him; I will punish him sufficiently, if sufficiently there be, by telling him you are perfectly well: you are, are you not? Send me certificate signed by Dr. Cocchi,(363) and I will choke him with it: another's health must be venomous to him.

Sir Francis Dashwood too,-as you know all ill-natured people hear all ill news,-told me he heard you was ill: I vowed you was grown as strong as the Farnese Hercules. Then he desires you will send him four of the Volterra urns, of the chimney-piece size; send them with any of my things; do, or he will think I neglected it because he is our enemy; and I would not be peevish, not to be like them. He is one of the most inveterate; they list under Sandys,(364) a parcel of them with no more brains than their general; but being malicious they pass for ingenious, as in these countries fogs are reckoned warm weather. Did you ever hear what Earle said of Sandys? "that he never laughed but once, and that was when his best friend broke his thigh."

Last Thursday I wrote you word of our losing the chairman of the committee. This winter is to be all ups and downs. The next day (Friday) we had a most complete victory. Mr. Pultney moved for all papers and letters, etc. between the King and the Queen of Hungary and their ministers. Sir R. agreed to give them all the papers relative to those transactions, only desiring to except the letters written by the two sovereigns themselves. They divided, and we carried it, 237 against 227. They moved to have those relations to France, Prussia, and Holland. Sir R. begged they would defer asking for those of Prussia till the end of January, at which time a negotiation would be at an end with that King, which now he might break off, if he knew it was to be made public. Mr. Pultney persisted; but his obstinacy, which might be so prejudicial to the public, revolted even his own partisans, and seven of them spoke against him. We carried that question by twenty-four; and another by twenty-one, against sitting on the next day (Saturday). Monday and Tuesday we went on the Westminster election. Murray (365) spoke divinely; he Was their counsel. Lloyd (366) answered him extremely well: but on summing up the evidence on both sides, and in his reply, Murray was in short, beyond what was ever heard at the bar.That day (Tuesday) we went on the merits of the cause, and at ten at night divided, and lost it. They had 220, we 216; so that the election was declared void. You see four is a fortunate number to them. We had forty-one more members in town, who would not, or could not come down. The time. is a touchstone for wavering consciences. All the arts, money, promises, threats,, all the arts of the. former year 41, are applied; and self-interest, in the shape of Scotch members-nay, and of English ones, operates to the aid of their party, and to the defeat of ours. Lord Doneraile,(367) a young Irishman, brought in by the court, was petitioned against, though his competitor had but one vote. This young man spoke as well as ever any one spoke in his own defence insisted on the petition being heard, and concluded with declaring, that, "his cause was his Defence, and Impartiality must be his support." Do you know that, after this, he went and engaged if they would withdraw the petition, to vote with them in the Westminster affair! His friends reproached him so strongly with his meanness, that he was shocked, and went to Mr. Pultney to get off; Mr. P. told him he had given him his honour, and he would not release him, though Lord Doneraile declared it was against his conscience: but he voted with them, and lost us the next question which they put (for censuring the High Bailiff) by his single vote; for in that the numbers were 217 against 215: the alteration of his vote would have made it even; and then the Speaker, I suppose, would have chosen the merciful side, and decided for us. After this, Mr. Pultney, with an affected humanity, agreed to commit the High Bailiff only to the serjeant-at-arms. Then, by a majority of six, they voted that the soldiers, who had been sent for after the poll was closed, to save Lord Sundon's (368) life, had come in a military and illegal manner, and influenced the election. In short, they determined, as Mr. Murray had dictated to them, that no civil magistrate, on any pretence whatsoever, though he may not be able to suppress even a riot by the assistance of the militia and constables, may call in the aid of the army. Is not this doing the work of the Jacobites? have they any other view than to render the riot act useless? and then they may rise for the Pretender whenever they please. Then they moved to punish Justice Blackerby for calling in the soldiers; and when it was desired that he might be heard in his own defence, they said he had already confessed his crime. Do but think on it! without being accused, without knowing, or being told it was a crime, a man gives evidence in another cause, not his own, and then they call it his-own accusation of himself, and would condemn him for it. You see what justice we may expect if they actually get the majority. But this was too strong a pill for one of their own leaders to swallow: Sir John Barnard(369 did propose and persuade them to give him a day to be heard. In short we sat till half an hour after four in the morning; the longest day that ever was known. I say nothing of myself, for I could but just speak when I came away; but Sir Robert was as well as ever, and spoke with as much spirit as ever, at four o'clock. This way they will not kill him; I Will not answer for any other. As he came out, Whitehead,(370) the author of Manners, and agent with one Carey, a surgeon, for the Opposition, said "D-n him, how well he looks!" Immediately after their success, Lord Gage (371) went forth, and begged there might be no mobbing; but last night we had bonfires all over the town, and I suppose shall have notable mobbing at the new election; though I do not believe there will be any opposition to their Mr. Edwin and Lord Perceval.(372) Thank God! we are now adjourned for three weeks. I shall go to Swallowfield (373) for a few days: so for one week you will miss hearing from me. We have escaped the Prince'S (374) affair hitherto, but we shall have it after the holidays. All depends upon the practices of both sides in securing or getting new votes during the recess. Sir Robert is very sanguine: I hope, for his sake and for his honour, and for the nation's peace, that he will get the better: but the moment he has the majority secure, I shall be very earnest with him to resign. He has a constitution to last some years, and enjoy some repose; and for my own part (and both my brothers agree with me in it), we wish most heartily to see an end of his ministry. If I can judge of them by myself, those who want to be in our situation, do not wish to see it brought about more than we do. It is fatiguing to bear so much envy and ill-will undeservedly.-Otium Divos rogo; but adieu, politics, for three weeks!

The Duchess of Buckingham, (375) who is more mad with pride than any merchant's wife in Bedlam, came the other night to the opera en princesse, literally in robes, red velvet and ermine. I must tell you a story of her: last week she sent for Cori,(376) to pay him for her opera-ticket; he was not at home, but went in an hour afterwards. She said, "Did he treat her like a tradeswoman? She would teach him to respect women of her birth; said he was in league with Mr. Sheffield (377) to abuse her, and bade him come the next morning at nine." He came, and she made him wait till eight at night, only sending him an omlet and a bottle of wine, "as it was Friday, and he a Catholic, she supposed he did not eat meat." At last she received him in all the form of a princess giving audience to an ambassador. "Now," she said, "she had punished him."

In this age we have some who pretend to impartiality: you will scarce guess how Lord Brook (378) shows his: he gives one vote on one side, one on the other, and the third time does not vote at all, and so on, regularly.

My sister is ,up to the elbows in joy and flowers that she has received from you this morning and begs I will thank you for her.

You know, or have heard of, Mrs. Nugent, Newsham's mother; she went the other morning to Lord Chesterfield to beg "he would encourage Mr. Nugent (379) to speak in the house; for that really he was so bashful, she was afraid his abilities would be lost on the world." I don't know who has encouraged him; but so it is, that this modest Irish converted Catholic does talk a prodigious deal of nonsense in behalf of English liberty.

Lord Gage (380) is another; no man would trust him in a wager, unless he stakes, and yet he is trusted by a whole borough with their privileges and liberties! He told Mr. Winnington the other day, that he would bring his son into parliament, that he would not influence him, but leave him entirely to himself. "D-n it," said Winnington, "so you have all his lifetime."

Your brother says you accuse him of not writing to you, and that his reasons are, he has not time, and next, that I tell you all that can be said. So I do, I think: tell me when I begin to tire you, or if I am too circumstantial; but I don't believe you will think so, for I remember how we used to want such a correspondent when I was with you.

I have spoke about the young man who is well content to live with you as a servant out of livery. I am to settle the affair finally with his father on Monday, and then he shall set out as soon as possible. I will send the things for Prince Craon etc. by him. I will write to Madame Grifoni the moment I hear she is returned from the country.

The Princess Hesse (381) is brought to bed of a son. We are going into mourning for the Queen of Sweden;(382) she had always been apprehensive of the small-pox, which has been very fatal in her family.

You have heard, I suppose, of the new revolution (383) in Muscovy. The letters from Holland to-day say, that they have put to death the young Czar and his mother, and his father too: which, if true,(384) is going very far, for he was of a sovereign house in another country, no subject of Russia, and after the death of his wife and son, could have no pretence or interest to raise more commotions there.

We have got a new opera, not so good as the former; and we have got the famous Bettina to dance, but she is a most indifferent performer. The house is excessively full every Saturday, never on Tuesday: here, you know, we make every thing a fashion.

I am happy that my fears for Tuscany vanish every letter. There! there is a letter of twelve sides! I am forced to page it, it is SO long, and I have not time to read it over and look for the mistakes. Yours, ever.

(363) Antonio Cocchi, a learned physician and author, at Florence; a particular friend of Mr. Mann. [The following favourable character of Dr. Cocchi is contained in a letter from the Earl of Cork to Mr. Duncombe, dated Florence, November 29, 1754. "Mr Mann's fortunate in the friendship, skill, and care of his physician, Dr. Cocchi. He is a man of most extensive learning; understands, reads, and speaks all the European languages; studious, polite, modest, humane, and instructive. He is always to be admired and beloved by all who know him. Could I live with these two gentlemen only, and converse with few or none others, I should scarce desire to return to England for many years."]

(364) Samuel Sandys, a republican, raised on the fall of Sir R.'W. to be chancellor of the exchequer, then degraded to a peer and cofferer, and soon afterwards laid aside. [In 1743, he was raised to the peerage by the title of Lord Sandys, Baron of Omberley in the county of Worcester, and died in 1770. Dr. Nash, in his history of that county, states him to have been "a very useful, diligent senator-a warm, steady friend-a good neighbor, and a most hospitable country gentleman and provincial magistrate."]

(365) William Murray, brother of Lord- Stormont, and of Lord Dunbar, the Pretender's first minister. He is known by his eloquence and the friendship of Mr. Pope. He was soon afterwards promoted to be solicitor-general. (Afterwards the celebrated chief-justice of the King's Bench, and Earl of Man's'field.-D.)

(366) Sir Richard Lloyd, advanced in 1754 to be solicitor-general, in the room of Mr. Murray, appointed attorney-general. [And in 1759, appointed one of the Barons of the exchequer.]

(367) Arthur St. Leger, Lord Doneraile, died in 1750, being lord of the bedchamber to the Prince of Wales.

(368) Lord Sundon and Sir Charles Wager had been the Court candidates for Westminster at the late election against Admiral Vernon and Charles Edwin, Esq.-D.

(369) A great London merchant, and one of the members for the City. His reputation for integrity and ability gave him much weight in the House of Commons.-D. (Lord Chatham, when mr. Pitt, frequently calls him the Great Commoner. In 1749, he became father of the City; when, much against his will, the merchants erected a statue of him in the Royal Exchange. He died in 1764.]

(370) Paul Whitehead, an infamous but not despicable poet. [See ante, p. 190, Letter 42.]

(371) Thomas Lord Viscount Gage had been a Roman Catholic, and was master of the household to the Prince. [Lord Gage, in 1721, was elected for the borough of Tewksbury; which he represented till within a few months of his death, in 1754. He was a zealous politician, and distinguished himself, in 1732, by detecting the fraudulent sale of the Derwentwater estates.]

(372) John Perceval, second Earl of Egmont, in Ireland, created, in 176@, Lord Lovel and Rolland in the peerage of Great Britain. He became, in 1747, a lord of the bedchamber to Frederick Prince of Wales, and in the early part of the reign of George III. held successively the offices of postmaster-general and first lord of the admiralty. He was a man of some ability and a frequent and fluent speaker, and was the author of a celebrated party pamphlet of' the day, entitled "Faction Detected." His excessive love of ancestry led him, in Conjunction with his father, and assisted by Anderson, the genealogist, to print two thick octavo volumes respecting his family, entitled "History of the House of Ivery;" a most remarkable monument of human vanity.-D. [Boswell was not of this opinion. "Some have affected to laugh," he says, "at the History of the House of Ivery: it would be well if many others would transmit their pedigrees to posterity, with the same accuracy and generous zeal with which the noble lord who compiled that work has honoured and perpetuated his ancestry. Family histories, like the imagines majorum of the ancients, excite to virtue." See "Life of Johnson," vol viii. p. 188.]

(373) Swallowfield, in Berkshire, the seat of John Dodd, Esq.

(374) A scheme for obtaining a larger allowance for the Prince of Wales.

(375) Catherine, Duchess Dowager of Buckingham, natural daughter of King James II. (Supposed to be really the daughter of Colonel Graham, a man of Gallantry of the time, and a lover of her mother, Lady Dorchester.-D.) [This remarkable woman was extravagantly proud of her descent from James the Second, and affected to be the head of the Jacobite party in England. She maintained a kind of royal state, and affected great devotion to the memory of her father and grandfather. On the death of her son, the second Duke of Buckingham of the Sheffield family (whose funeral was celebrated in a most extraordinary manner), she applied to the old Duchess of Marlborough, who was as high spirited as herself, for the loan of the richly-ornamented hearse which had conveyed the great duke to his grave. "Tell her," said Sarah, "it carried the Duke of Marlborough, and shall never carry any one else." "My upholsterer," rejoined Catherine of Buckingham in a fury, "tells me I can have a finer for twenty pounds."-" This last stroke," says the editor of the Suffolk Correspondence, " was aimed at the parsimony of their Graces of Marlborough, which was supposed to have been visible even in the funeral; but the sarcasm was as unjust as the original request of borrowing the hearse was mean and unfeeling."-E.]

(376) Angelo Maria Cori, prompter to the Opera.

(377) Mr. Sheffield, natural son of the late Duke of Buckingham, with whom she was at law.

(378) Francis, Baron, and afterwards created Earl Brooke.

(379) Robert Nugent, a poet, a patriot, an author, a lord of the treasury, (and finally an Irish peer by the titles of Lord Clare and Earl Nugent. He seems to have passed his long life in seeking lucrative places and courting rich widows, in both of which pursuits be was eminently successful.-D.) [He married the sister and heiress of Secretary Craggs, and his only daughter married the first Marquis of Buckingham. A volume of his ,Odes and Epistles" were published anonymously in 1733. He died in 1788.)

(380) Lord Gage was one of those persons to whom the privileges of parliament were of extreme consequence, as their own liberties were inseparable from them.

(381) Mary, fourth daughter of King George II.

(382) Ulrica, Queen of Sweden, sister of Charles XII.

(383) This relates to the revolution by which the young Czar John was deposed, and the Princess Elizabeth raised to the throne.

(384) This was not true. The Princess Anne of Mecklenburgh died in prison at Riga, a few years afterwards. Her son, the young Czar, and her husband, Prince Antony of Brunswick Wolfenbuttle, were confined for many years.

206 Letter 49 To Sir Horace Mann. London, Dec. 29, 1741.

I write to YOU two days before the post goes out, because to-morrow I am to go out of town; but I would answer your letter by way of Holland, to tell you how much you have obliged both Sir Robert and me about the Dominichini;(385) and to beg you to thank Mr. Chute and Mr. Whithed-but I cannot leave it to you.

"My dear Mr. Chute, was ever any thing so kind! I crossed the Giogo (386) with Mr. Coke,(387) but it was in August, and I thought it then the greatest compliment that ever was paid to mortal; and I went with him too! but you to go only for a picture, and in the month of December: What can I say to you? You do more to oblige your friend, than I can find terms to thank you for. If I was to tell-it here, it would be believed as little as the rape of poor Tory (388) by a wolf. I can only say that I know the Giogo, its snows and its inns, and consequently know the extent of the obligation that I have to you and Mr. Whithed."

Now I return to you, my dear child: I am really so much obliged to you and to them, that I know not what to say. I read Pennee's letter to Sir. R., who was much pleased with his discretion; he will be quite a favourite of mine. And now we are longing for the picture; you know, of old, my impatience.

Your young secretary-servant is looking out for a ship, and will set out in the first that goes: I envy him.

The Court has been trying but can get nobody to stand for Westminster. You know Mr. Doddington has lost himself extremely by his new turn, after so often changing sides: he is grown very fat and lethargic; my brother Ned says, "he is grown of less consequence, but more weight."(389)

One hears of nothing but follies said by the Opposition, who grow mad on having the least prospect. Lady Carteret,(390) who, you know, did not want any new fuel to her absurdity, says, "they talk every day of making her lord first minister, but he is not so easily persuaded as they think for." Good night. Yours, ever.

(385) A celebrated picture of a Madonna and Child by Dominichino, in the palace Zembeccari, at Bologna, now in the collection of the Earl of Orford, at Houghton, in Norfolk. (Since sent to Russia with the rest of the collection.-D.)

(386) The Giogo is the highest part of the Apennine between Florence and Bologna.

(387) Son of Lord Lovel, since Earl of Leicester. [In 1744, Lord Lovel was created Viscount Coke of Holkham and Earl of Leicester. His only son Edward died before him, in 1753, without issue; having married Lady Mary, one of the co-heirs of John Duke of Argyle and Greenwich.]

(388) A black spaniel of Mr. Walpole's was seized by a wolf on the Alps, as it was running at the head of the chaise-horses, at noonday. [See ante, p. 139 letter 14.]

(389) George Bubb Dodington had lately resigned his post of one of the lords of the treasury, and gone again into opposition. [In Walpole's copy of the celebrated Diary of this versatile politician, he had written a "Brief account of George Bubb Doddington, Lord Melcombe," which the noble editor of the "Memoires" has inserted. It describes him, "as his Diary shows, vain, fickle, ambitious, and corrupt,' and very lethargic; but gives him credit for great wit and readiness." Cumberland, in his Memoirs, thus paints him:-"Dodington, lolling in his chair, in perfect apathy and self-command, dozing, and even snoring, at intervals, in his lethargic way, broke out every now and then into gleams and flashes of wit and humour." In 1761, he was created Lord Melcombe, and died in the following year.]

(390) Frances, daughter of Sir Robert Worseley, and first wife of John Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl of Granville.

207 Letter 50 To Sir Horace Mann. London, Jan. 7, 1741-2, O. S.

I must answer for your brother a paragraph that he showed me in one of your letters: "Mr. W.'s letters are full of wit; don't they adore him in England?" Not at all-and I don't wonder at them: for if I have any wit in my letters, which I do not at all take for granted, it is ten to one that I have none out of my letters. A thousand people can write, that cannot talk; and besides, you know, (or I conclude so, from the little one hears stirring,) that numbers of the English have wit, who don't care to produce it. Then, as to adoring; YOU now See Only my letters, and you may be sure I take care not to write you word of any of my bad qualities, which other people must see in the gross; and that may be a great hindrance to their adoration. Oh! there are a thousand other reasons I could give you, why I am not the least in fashion. I came over in an ill season: it is a million to one that nobody thinks a declining old minister's son has wit. At any time, men in opposition have always most; but now, it would be absurd for a courtier to have even common sense. There is not a Mr. Stuart, or a Mr. Stewart, whose names begin but with the first letters of Stanhope,(391) that has not a better chance than I, for being liked. I can assure you, even those of the same party would be fools, not to pretend to think me one. Sir Robert has showed no partiality for me;(392) and do you think they would commend where he does not? even supposing they had no envy, which by the way, I am far from saying they have not. Then. my dear child, I am the coolest man of my party, and if I am ever warm, it is by contagion; and where violence passes for parts, what will indifference be called? But how could you think of such a question '! I don't want money, consequently Do old women pay me for my wit; I have a very flimsy constitution, consequently the young women won't taste my wit, and it is a long while before wit makes its own way in the world; especially, as I never prove it, by assuring people that I have it by me. Indeed, if I were disposed to brag, I could quote two or three half-pay officers, and an old aunt or two, who laugh prodigiously at every thing I say; but till they are allowed judges, I will not brag of such authorities.

If you have a mind to know who is adored and has wit, there is old Churchill has as much God-d-n-ye wit as ever-except that he has lost two teeth. There are half a dozen Scotchmen who vote against the Court, and are cried up by the Opposition for wit, to keep them steady. They are forced to cry up their parts, for it would be too barefaced to commend their honesty. Then Mr. Nugent has had a great deal of wit till within this week; but he is so busy and so witty, that even his own party grow tired of him. His plump wife, who talks of nothing else, says he entertained her all the way on the road with repeating his speeches.

I did not go into the country, last week, as I intended, the weather was so bad; but I shall go on Sunday for three or four days, and perhaps shall not be able to write to you that week. You are in an agitation, I suppose, about politics: both sides are trafficking deeply for votes during the holidays. It is allowed, I think, that we shall have a majority of twenty-six: Sir R. says more; but now, upon a pinch, he brags like any bridegroom.

The Westminster election passed without any disturbance, in favour of Lord Perceive-all (394) and Mr. Perceive-nothing, as my uncle calls them. Lord Chesterfield was vaunting to Lord Lovel, that they should have carried it, if they had set up two broomsticks. "So I see," replied Lovel. But it seems we have not done with it yet: if we get the majority, this will be declared a void election too, for my Lord Chancellor (395) has found out, that the person who made the return, had no right to make it: it was the High Bailiff's clerk, the High Bailiff himself being in custody of the sergeant-at-arms. it makes a great noise, and they talk of making subscriptions for a Petition.

Lord Stafford (396) is come over. He told me some good stories of the Primate.(397)

Last night I had a good deal of company to hear Monticelli and Amorevoli, particularly the three beauty-Fitzroys, Lady Euston, Lady Conway, and Lady Caroline.(398) Sir R. liked the singers extremely: he had not heard them before, I forgot to tell you all our beauties there was Miss Hervey,(399) my lord's daughter, a fine, black girl, but as masculine as her father should be;(400) and jenny Conway, handsomer Still,(401) though changed with illness, than even the Fitzroys. I made the music for my Lord Hervey, who is too ill to go to operas: yet, with a coffin-face, is as full of his little dirty politics as ever. He will not be well enough to go to the House till the majority is certain somewhere, but lives shut up with my Lord Chesterfield and Mr. Pultney-a triumvirate, who hate one another more than any body they could proscribe, had they the power. I dropped in at my Lord Hervey's, the other night, knowing my lady had company: it was soon after our defeats. My lord, who has always professed particularly to me, turned his back on me, and retired for an hour into a whisper with young Hammond,(402) at the end of the room. Not being at all amazed at one whose heart I knew so well, I stayed on, to see more of this behaviour; indeed, to rise myself to it. At last he came up to me, and begged this music. which I gave him, and would often again, to see how many times I shall be ill and well with him within this month. Yesterday came news that his brother, Captain William Hervey, has taken a Caracca ship, worth full two hundred thousand pounds. He was afterwards separated from it by a storm, for two or three days, and was afraid of losing it, having but five-and-twenty men to thirty-six Spaniards; but he has brought it home safe. I forgot to tell you, that upon losing the first question, Lord Hervey kept away for a week; on our carrying the next great one, he wrote to Sir Robert, how much he desired to see him, "not upon any business, but Lord Hervey longs to see Sir Robert Walpole."

Lady Sundon(402) is dead, and Lady M- disappointed: she, who is full as politic as my Lord Hervey, had made herself an absolute servant to Lady Sundon, but I don't hear that she has left her even her old clothes. Lord Sundon is in great grief: I am surprised, for she has had fits of madness ever since her ambition met such a check by the death of the Queen.(404) She had great power with her, though the Queen pretended to despise her; but had unluckily told her, or fallen into her power by some secret.(405) I was saying to Lady Pomfret, to be sure she is dead very rich!" She replied, with some warmth, She never took money." When I came home, I mentioned this to Sir R. "No," said he, "but she took jewels; Lord Pomfret's place of master of the horse to the Queen was bought of her for a pair of diamond earrings, of fourteen hundred pounds value." One day that she wore them at a visit at old Marlboro's, as soon as she was gone, the Duchess said to Lady Mary Wortley,(406) "How can that woman have the impudence to go about in that bribe?"-,, Madam," said Lady Mary, "how would you have people know where wine is to be sold, unless there is a sign hung out!" Sir R. told me, that in the enthusiasm of her vanity, Lady Sundon had proposed to him to unite with her, and govern the kingdom together: he bowed, begged her patronage, but said he thought nobody fit to govern the kingdom, but the King and Queen.-Another day.

Friday morning. I was forced to leave off last night, as I found it would be impossible to send away this letter finished in any time. It will be enormously long, but I have prepared you for it. When I consider the beginning of my letter, it looks as if I were entirely of your opinion about the agreeableness of them. I believe you will never commend them again, when you see how they increase upon your hands. I have seen letters of two or three sheets, written from merchants at Bengal and Canton to their wives: but then they contain the history of a twelvemonth: I grow voluminous from week to week. I can plead in excuse nothing but the true reason; you desired it; and I remember how I used to wish for such letters, when I was in Italy. My Lady Pomfret carries this humanity still farther, and because people were civil to her in Italy, she makes it a rule to visit all strangers in general. She has been to visit a Spanish Count (407) and his wife, though she cannot open her lips in their language. They fled from Spain, he and his brother having offended the Queen, (408) by their attachments to the Prince of Asturias; his brother ventured back to bring off this woman, who was engaged to him. Lord Harrington (409) has procured them a pension of six hundred a-year. They live chiefly with Lord Carteret and his daughter,(410) who speak Spanish. But to proceed from where I left off last night, like the Princess Dinarzade in the Arabian Nights, for you will want to know what happened one day. Sir Robert was at dinner with Lady Sundon, who hated the Bishop of London, as much as she loved the Church. "Well," said she to Sir R., "how does your pope do!"-"Madam," replied he, "he is my pope, and shall be my Pope; every body has some pope or other; don't you know that you are one! They call you Pope Joan." She flew into a passion, and desired he would not fix any names on her; that they were not so easily got rid of.

We had a little ball the other night at Mrs. Boothby's, and by dancing, did not perceive an earthquake, which frightened all the undancing part of the town.

We had a civility from his Royal Highness,(411) who sent for Monticelli the night he was engaged here, but, on hearing it, said he would send for him some other night. If I did not live so near St. James's, I would find out some politics in this-should not one?

Sir William Stanhope (412) has had a hint from the same Highness, that his company is not quite agreeable: whenever he met any body at Carlton House whom he did not know, he said, "Your humble servant, Mr. or Mrs. Hamilton."

I have this morning sent aboard the St. Quintin a box for you, with your secretary-not in it.

Old Weston of Exeter is dead. Dr. Clarke, the Dean, Dr. Willes, the decipherer, and Dr. Gilbert of Llandaff, are candidates to succeed him.(413) Sir R. is for Willes, who, he says, knows so many secrets, that he might insist upon being archbishop.

My dear Mr. Chute! how concerned I am that he took all that trouble to no purpose. I will not write to him this post, for as you show him my letters, this here will sufficiently employ any one's patience-but I have done. I long to hear that the Dominichini is safe. Good night. Yours, ever.

(391) The name of Lord Chesterfield.

(392) On the subject of Sir Robert's alleged want of partiality for his son, the following passage occurs in the anecdotes prefixed to Lord Wharncliffe's edition of the works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu:-"Those ironical lines, where Pope says that Sir Robert Had never made a friend in private life, And was, besides, a tyrant to his wife,' are well understood, as conveying a sly allusion to his good-humoured unconcern about some things which more strait-laced husbands do not take so coolly. In a word, Horace Walpole was generally supposed to be the son of Carr Lord Hervey, and Sir Robert not to be ignorant of it. One striking circumstance was visible to the naked eye; no beings in human shape could resemble each other less than the two passing for father and son; and while their reverse of personal likeness provoked a malicious whisper, Sir Robert's marked neglect of Horace in his infancy tended to confirm it. Sir Robert took scarcely any notice of him till his proficiency in Eton school, when a lad of some standing, drew his attention, and proved that, whether he had or had not a right to the name he went by, he was likely to do it Honour." Vol. i. 1). 33.-E.

(393) General Charles Churchill. (Whose character has been so inimitably sketched, at about the same period when this letter was written, by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, in his poem of', Isabella, or the Morning:"-

"The General, one of those brave old commanders, Who served through all our glorious wars in Flanders. Frank and good-natur'd, of an honest heart, Loving to act the steady friendly part; None led through youth a gayer life than he, Cheerful in converse, smart in repartee; But with old age, its Vices Come along, And in narration he's extremely long; Exact in circumstance, and nice in dates, He each minute particular relates. If you name one of marlbro's ten campaigns, He gives you its whole history for your pains, And Blenheim's field becomes by his reciting, As long in telling as it was in fighting. His old desire to please is still express'd, His hat's well cock'd, his periwig's well dress'd. He rolls his stockings still, white gloves he wears, And in the boxes with the beaux appears. His eyes through wrinkled corners cast their rays, Still he looks cheerful, still soft things he says, And still remembering that he once was young, He strains his crippled knees, and struts along."-D.)

(394) Vide an account of the erection of Lord Perceval and one Edwin, in that Lord's History of the House of Ivery.

(395) Philip Yorke, Lord, and afterwards Earl of Hardwicke, for twenty years Lord Chancellor of England.-D.

(396) William mathias Howard, Earl of Stafford.

(397) The Primate of Lorrain, eldest son of Prince Craon, was famous for his wit and vices of all kinds.

(398) Lady Dorothy Boyle, eldest daughter of Lord Burlington; Isabella, wife of Francis Lord Conway, and Caroline, afterwards married to Lord Petersham, were the daughter-in-law and daughters of Charles Fitzroy, Duke of grafton, lord chamberlain.

(399) Lepel, eldest daughter of John Lord Hervey, afterwards married to Mr. Phipps. (Constantine Phipps, in 1767 created Lord Mulgrave.]

(400) The effeminacy of Lord Hervey formed a continual subject for the satire of his opponents. Pope's bitter lines on him- are well remembered. The old Duchess of Marlborough, too, in her "Opinions," describes him as having "certainly parts and wit; but he is the most wretched profligate man that ever was born, besides ridiculous; a painted face, and not a tooth in his head." on which the editor of that curious little book, Lord Hailes, remarks, "Lord Hervey, having felt some attacks of the epilepsy, entered upon and persisted in a very strict regimen, and thus stopped the progress and prevented the effects of that dreadful disease. His daily food was a small quantity of asses' milk and a flour biscuit. Once a week he indulged himself with eating an apple; he used emetics daily. Mr. Pope and he were once friends; but they quarrelled, and persecuted each other with virulent satire. Pope, knowing the abstemious regimen which Lord Hervey observed, was so ungenerous as to call him "mere cheese-curd of asses' milk!" Lord Hervey used paint to soften his ghastly appearance. Mr. Pope must have known this also; and therefore it was unpardonable in him to introduce it into his "celebrated portrait." It ought to be remembered, that Lord Hervey is very differently described by Dr. Middleton; who, in his dedication to him of "The History of the Life of Tully," praises him for his strong good sense, patriotism, temperance, and information.-E.

(401) Jane, only daughter of Francis, the first Lord Conway, by his second wife, Mrs. Bodens. (She died unmarried, May 5, 1749.-D.)

(402) Author of some Love Elegies, and a favourite of Lord Chesterfield. He died this year. [Hammond was equerry to the Prince of Wales, and member for Truro. He died in June, 1742, at Stowe, the seat of Lord Cobham, in his thirty.second year. Miss Dashwood long survived him, and died unmarried in 1779. " The character," says Johnson, "which her lover gave her was, indeed, not likely to attract courtship."]

(402) Wife of William Clayton, Lord Sundon, woman of the bedchamber and mistress of the robes to Queen Caroline. [She had been the friend and correspondent of Sarah Duchess of' Marlborough; who, on the accession of George I , through Baron Bothmar's influence, procured for her friend the place of lady of the bedchamber to the Princess with whom she grew as great a favourite as her colleague, Mrs. Howard, with the Prince; and eventually, on the Princess becoming Queen, exercised an influence over her, of which even sir Robert Walpole was jealous.]

(404) Queen Caroline, died November 1737.-D.

(405) This is now known to have been a rupture, with which the Queen was afflicted, and which she had the weakness to wish, and the courage to be able, to conceal.-E.

(406) The celebrated Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, oldest daughter of Evelyn, first Duke of Kingston, and wife of Wortley Montagu, Esq.-D.

(407) Marquis de Sabernego: he returned to Spain after the death of Philip V.

(408) The Princess of Parma, second wife of Philip V. King of Spain, and consequently stepmother to the Prince of Asturias, son of that King, by his first wife, a princess of Savoy.-D.

(409) William Stanhope, created Lord Harrington in 1729, and Earl of the same in 1741. He held various high offices, and was, at the time this was written, secretary of state.-D.

(410) Frances, youngest daughter of Lord Carteret, afterwards married to the Marquis of Tweedale. (in 1748. The marquis was an extraordinary lord of session, and the last person who held a similar appointment.]

(411) Frederick Prince of Wales.-D.

(412) Brother to Lord Chesterfield. This bon mot was occasioned by the numbers of Hamiltons which Lady Archibald Hamilton, the Prince's mistress, had placed at that court.

(413) Nicholas Clagget, Bishop of St. David's, succeeded, on Weston's death, to the see of Exeter.-Dr. Clagget was, however, succeeded in the see of St. David's by Dr. Edward Willes, Dean of Lincoln and decipherer to the King; and, in the following year, translated to the bishopric of Bath and Wells. The art of deciphering, for which Dr. Willes was so celebrated, has been the subject of many learned and curious works by Trithemius, Baptista Porta, the Duke Augustus of Brunswick, and other more recent writers. The Gentleman's Magazine for 1742, contains a very ingenious system of deciphering: but the old modes of secret writing having been, for the most part, superseded by the modern system of cryptography, in which, according to a simple rule which may be communicated verbally, and easily retained in the memory, the signs for the letters can be changed continually; it is the chiffre quarr`e or chiffre ind`echiffrable, used, if not universally, yet by most courts. None of the old systems of deciphering are any longer available.]

212 Letter 51 To Sir Horace Mann. Friday, Jan. 22, 1742.

Don't wonder that I missed writing to you yesterday, my constant day: you will pity me when you hear that I was shut up in the House of Commons till one in the morning. I came away more dead than alive, and was forced to leave Sir R. at supper with my brothers: he was all alive and in spirits.(414) He says he is younger than me, and indeed I think so, in spite of his forty years more. My head aches to-night, but we rose early; and if I don't write to-night when shall I find a moment to spare? Now you want to know what we did last night; stay, I will tell you presently in its place: it was well, and of infinite consequence-so far I tell you now. Our recess finished last Monday, and never at school did I enjoy holidays so much-but, les voil`a finis jusqu'au printefps! Tuesday (for you see I write you an absolute journal) we sat on a Scotch election, a double return; their man was Hume Campbell,(415) Lord Marchmont's brother, lately made solicitor to the Prince, for being as troublesome, as violent, and almost as able as his brother. They made a great point of it, and gained so many of our votes, that at ten at night we were forced to give it up without dividing. Sandys, who loves persecution, even unto the death, moved to punish the sheriff; and as we dared not divide, they ordered him into custody, where by this time, I suppose, Sandys has eaten him.

On Wednesday, Sir Robert Godschall, the Lord Mayor, presented the Merchant's petition, signed by three hundred of them, and drawn up by Leonidas Glover.(416) This is to be heard next Wednesday. This gold-chain came into parliament, cried up for his parts, but proves so dull, one would think he chewed opium. Earle says, "I have heard an oyster speak as well twenty times."

Well, now I come to yesterday: we met, not expecting much business. Five of our members were gone to the York election, and the three Lord Beauclercs (417) to their mother's funeral at Windsor; for that old beauty St. Albans (418) is dead at last. On this they depended for getting the majority, and towards three o'clock, when we thought of breaking up, poured in their most violent questions: one was a motion for leave to bring in the Place Bill to limit the number of placemen in the House. This was not opposed, because, out of decency, it is generally suffered to pass the Commons, and is thrown out by the Lords; only Colonel Cholmondeley (419) desired to know if they designed to limit the number of those that have promises of places, as well as of those that have places now. I must tell you that we are a very conclave; they buy votes with reversions of places on the change of the ministry. Lord Gage was giving an account in Tom's coffeehouse of the intended alterations: that Mr. Pultney is to be chancellor of the exchequer, and Chesterfield and Carteret secretaries of state. Somebody asked who was to be paymaster? Numps Edwin,(420) who stood by, replied, "We have not thought so low as that yet." Lord Gage harangues every day at Tom's, and has read there a very false account of the King'S message to the Prince.(421) The Court, to show their contempt of Gage, have given their copy to be read by Swinny.(422) This is the authentic copy, which they have made the bishop write from the message which he carried, and as he and Lord Cholmondeley agree it was given.

On this Thursday, of which I was telling you, at three o'clock, Mr. Pultney rose up, and moved for a secret committee of twenty-one. This inquisition, this council of ten, was to sit and examine whatever persons and papers they should please, and to meet when and where they pleased. He protested much on its not being intended against any person, but merely to give the King advice, and on this foot they fought it till ten at night, when Lord Perceval blundered out what they had been cloaking with so @much art, and declared that he should vote for it as a committee of accusation. Sir Robert immediately rose, and protested that he should not have spoken, but for what he had heard last; but that now, he must take it to himself. He portrayed the malice of the Opposition, who, for twenty years, had not been able to touch him, and were now reduced to this infamous shift. He defied them to accuse him, and only desired that if they should, might be in an open and fair manner: desired no favour, but to be acquainted with his accusation. He spoke of Mr. Doddington, who had called his administration infamous, as of a person of great self-mortification, who, for sixteen years, had condescended to bear part of the odium. For Mr. Pultney, who had just spoken a second time, Sir R. said, he had begun the debate with great calmness, but give him his due, he had made amends for it in the end. In short, never was innocence so triumphant.

There were several glorious speeches on both sides: Mr. Pultney's two, W. Pitt's (423) and George Grenville's,(424) Sir Robert's, Sir W. Yonge's, Harry Fox's, (425) Mr. Chute's, and the Attorney-General's.(426) My friend Coke, for the first time, spoke vastly well, and mentioned how great Sir Robert's character is abroad. ' Sir Francis Dashwood replied, that he had found quite the reverse from Mr. Coke, and that foreigners always spoke with contempt of the Chevalier de Walpole. That was going too far, and he was called to order, but got off well enough, by saying, that he knew it was contrary to rule to name any member, but that he only mentioned it as spoken by an impertinent Frenchman.

But of all speeches, none ever was so full of wit as Mr. Pultney's last. He said, "I have heard this committee represented as a most dreadful spectre; it has been likened to all terrible things; it has been likened to the King; to the inquisition; it will be a committee of safety; it is a committee of danger; I don't know what it is to be! One gentleman, I think, called it a cloud! (this was the Attorney) a cloud! I remember Hamlet takes Lord Polonius by the hand and shows him a cloud, and then asks him if he does not think it is like a whale." Well, in short, at eleven at night we divided, and threw out this famous committee by 253 to 250, the greatest number that ever was in the house, and the greatest number that ever lost a question.

It was a most shocking sight to see the sick and dead brought in on both sides! Men on crutches, and Sir William Gordon (427) from his bed, with a blister on his head, and flannel hanging out from under his wig. I could scarce pity him for his ingratitude. The day before the Westminster petition, Sir Charles Wager (428) gave his son a ship, and the next day the father came down and voted against him. The son has since been east away; but they concealed it from the father, that he might not absent himself. However, as we have our good-natured men too on our side, one of his own countrymen went and told him of it in the House. The old man, who looked like Lazarus at his resuscitation, bore it with great resolution, and said, he knew why he was told of it, but when he thought his country in danger, he would not go away. As he is so near death, that it is indifferent to him whether he died two thousand years ago or to-morrow, it is unlucky for him not to have lived when such insensibility would have been a Roman virtue. (429)

There are no arts, no menaces, which the Opposition do not practise. They have threatened one gentleman to have a reversion cut off from his son, unless he will vote with them. To Totness there came a letter to the mayor from the Prince, and signed by two of his lords, to recommend a candidate in opposition to the solicitor-general. The mayor sent the letter to Sir Robert. They have turned the Scotch to the best account. There is a young Oswald (430) who had engaged to Sir R. but has voted against us. Sir R. sent a friend to reproach him: the moment the gentleman who had engaged for him came into the room, Oswald said, "You had liked to have led me into a fine error! did you not tell me that Sir R. would have the majority?"

When the debate was over, Mr. Pultney owned that he had never heard so fine a debate on our side; and said to Sir Robert, "Well, nobody can do what you can!" "Yes," replied Sir R., "Yonge did better." Mr. P. answered, "It was fine, but not of that weight with what you said." They all allow it- and now their plan is to persuade Sir Robert to retire with honour. All that evening there was a report about the town, that he and my uncle were to be sent to the Tower, and people hired windows in the city to see them pass by-but for this time I believe we shall not exhibit so historical a parade.

The night of the committee, my brother Walpole (431) had got two or three invalids at his house, designing to carry them into the House by his door, as they were too ill to go round by Westminster hall: the patriots, who have rather more contrivances than their predecessors of Grecian and Roman memory, had taken the precaution of stopping the keyhole with sand. How Livy's eloquence would have been hampered, if there had been back-doors and keyholes to the Temple of Concord!

A few days ago there were lists of the officers at Port Mahon laid before the House of Lords -. unfortunately, it appeared that two-thirds of the regiment had been absent. The Duke of Argyll said, "Such a list was a libel on the government;" and of all men, the Duke of Newcastle was the man who rose up and agreed with him: remember what I have told you once before of his union with Carteret. We have carried the York election by a majority of 956.

The other night the Bishop of Canterbury(432) was with Sir 'Robert, and on going away, said, "Sir, I have been lately reading Thaunus; he mentions a minister, who having long been persecuted by his enemies, at length vanquished them: the reason he gives, quia se non deseruit."

Sir Thomas Robinson is at last named to the government of Barbadoes; he has long prevented its being asked for, by declaring that he had the promise of it. Luckily for him, Lord Lincoln liked his house, and procured him this government on condition of hiring it.

I have mentioned Lord Perceval's speeches; he has a set who have a rostrum at his house, and harangue there. A gentleman who came thither one evening was refused, but insisting that he was engaged to come, "Oh, Sir," said the porter, "what, are you one of those who play at members of Parliament?"

I must tell you something, though Mr. Chute will see my letter. Sir Robert brought home yesterday to dinner, a fat comely gentleman, who came up to me, and said he believed I knew his brother abroad. I asked his name; he replied, He is with Mr. Whithed." I thought he said, It is Whithed." After I had talked to him of Mr. Whithed, I said, There is a very sensible man with Mr. Whithed, one Mr. Chute." "Sir," said he, "my name is Chute." "My dear Mr. Chute, now I know both your brothers. You will forgive my mistake."

With what little conscience I begin a third sheet! but it shall be but half a one. I have received your vast packet of music by the messenger, for which I thank you a thousand times; and the political sonnet, which is far from bad. Who translated it? I like the translation.

I am obliged to you about the gladiator, etc.: the temptation of having them at all is great, but too enormous. If I could have the gladiator for about an hundred pounds, I would give it.

I enclose one of the bills of lading of the things that I sent you by your secretary: he sets out tomorrow. By Oswald's (433) folly, to whom I entrusted the putting them on board, they are consigned to Goldsworthy, (434) but pray take care that he does not open them. The captain mortifies me by proposing to stay three weeks at Genoa. I have sent away to-night a small additional box of steel wares, which I received but to-day from Woodstock. As they are better than the first, you will choose out some of them for Prince Craon, and give away the rest as you please.

We have a new opera by Pescetti, but a very bad one; however, all the town runs after it, for it ends with a charming dance.(435) They have flung open the stage to a great length, and made a perfect view of Venice, with the Rialto, and numbers of gondolas that row about full of masks, who land and dance. You would like it.

Well, I have done. Excuse me if I don't take the trouble to read it all over again, for it is immense, as you will find. Good night!

(414) Sir Robert Wilmot also, in a letter to the Duke of Devonshire, written on the 12th, Sir Robert was today observed to be more naturally gay and full of spirits than he has been for some time past."-E.

(415) HUme Campbell was twin brother of Hugh, third Earl of Marchmont. They were sons of Alexander, the second earl, who had quarrelled with Sir Robert Walpole at the time of the excise scheme in 1733. Sir Robert, in consequence, prevented him from being reelected one of the sixteen representative Scotch peers in 1734; in requital for which, the old earl's two sons became the bitterest opponents of the Minister. They were both men of considerable talents; extremely similar in their characters and dispositions, and so much so in their outward appearance that it was very difficult to know them apart.-D. The estimation in which Lord Marchmont was held by his contemporaries, maybe judged of by the fact, that Lord Cobham gave his bust a place in the Temple of Worthies, at Stowe, and the mention of him in Pope's inscription in his grotto at Twickenham;-

"Where British siglis from dying Wyndham stole, And the bright flame was shot through Marchmont's soul."

We are told by Coxe, that Sir Robert Walpole "used frequently to rally his sons, who were praising the speeches of Pultney, Pitt, Lyttelton, and others, by saying, "You may cry up their speeches if you please, but when I have answered Sir John Barnard and Lord Polwarth, I think I have concluded the debate."]

(416) Glover, a merchant, author of "Leonidas," a poem, "Boadicea," a tragedy, etc. [Glover's talent for public speaking, and information concerning trade and Commerce, naturally pointed him out to the merchants of London to conduct their application to parliament on the neglect of their trade.]

(417) Lord Vere, Lord Henry, and Lord Sidney Beauclerc, sons of the Duchess Dowager of St. Albans, who is painted among the beauties at Hampton Court.

(418) Lady Diana Vere, daughter, and at length sole heir, of Aubrey de Vere, twentieth and last Earl of Oxford. She married, in 1694, Charles, first Duke of St. Albans, natural son of Charles II. by Nell Gwin. She died Jan. 15, 1742.

(419) Colonel James Cholmondeley, only brother of the Earl. Afterwards distinguished himself at the battles of Fontenoy and Falkirk, and died in 1775.-E.

(420) Charles Edwin, Admiral Vernon's unsuccessful colleague at Westminster.-E.

(421) During the holidays, Sir R. W. had prevailed on the King to send to the Prince of Wales, to offer to pay his debts and double his allowance. This negotiation was intrusted to Lord Cholmondeley on the King's, and to Secker, Bishop of Oxford, on the Prince's side, but came to nothing, [The Prince, in his answer, stated, that "he could not come to court while Sir Robert Walpole presided in His Majesty's councils; that he looked on him as the sole author of our grievances at home, and of our ill success in the West Indies; and that the disadvantageous figure we at present made in all the courts of Europe was to be attributed alone to him."]

(422) Owen MacSwinny, a buffoon; formerly director of the playhouse. [He had been a manager of Drury Lane Theatre, and was the author of several dramatic pieces. He resided in Italy for several years, and, on his return, was appointed keeper of the King's Mews. He died in 1754, leaving his fortune to the celebrated Mrs. Woffington.](

423) Afterwards the great Lord Chatham.-D.

(424) First minister in the early part of the reign of George III.-D.

(425) Afterwards the first Lord Holland.-D.

(426) Sir Dudley Ryder.-D.

(427) Sir Robert Wilmot, in a letter to the Duke of Devonshire, says:-,,Sir William Gordon was brought in like a corpse. Some thought it had been an old woman in disguise, having a white cloth round his head: others,, who found him out, expected him to expire every moment. Other incurables were introduced on their side. Mr. Hopton, for Hereford, w, is carried in with crutches. Sir Robert Walpole exceeded himself; Mr. Pelham, with the greatest decency, cut Pultney into a thousand pieces. Sir Robert actually dissected him, and laid his heart open to the view of the House."-E.

(428) Admiral Sir Charles Wager. He had been knighted by Queen Anne, for his Gallantry in taking and destroying some rich Spanish galleons. He was at this time first lord of the Admiralty. He died in 1743.-D.

(429) Sir William died in the May following.

(430) James Oswald, afterwards one of the commissioners of trade and plantations.

(431) Robert, Lord Walpole, afterwards Earl of Orford. He was auditor of the Exchequer, and his house joined to the House of commons, to which he had a door: but it was soon afterwards locked up, by an order of the House.

(432) John Potter, Archbishop of Canterbury, translated, in 1737, from the see of Oxford. He died in 1747.-D.

)433) George Oswald, steward to Sir R. W.

(434) Mr. Goldsworthy, consul at Leghorn, had married Sir Charles Wager's niece, and was endeavouring to supplant Mr. Mann at Florence.

(435) Vestris, the celebrated dancer, would have been delighted with it; for it is related of him, that when Gluck had finished his noble opera, "Iphigenia," Vestris was sadly disappointed on finding that it did not end with a "chaconne," and worried the composer to induce him to introduce one. At length Gluck, losing all patience, exclaimed, "Chaconne! chaconne! Had, then, the Greeks, whose manners we are to represent, chaconnes?" "Certainly not," replied Vestris, "certainly not; but so much the worse for the Greeks."-D.

218 Letter 52 To Sir Horace Mann. London, Feb. 1741-2.

I am miserable that I have not more time to write to you, especially as you will want to know so much of what I have to tell you; but for a week or fortnight I shall be so hurried, that I shall scarce know what I say. I sit here writing to you, and receiving all the town, who flock to this house; Sir Robert has already had three levees this morning, and the rooms still overflowing-they overflow up to me. You will think this the prelude to some victory! On the contrary, when you receive this, there will be no longer a Sir Robert Walpole: you must know him for the future by the title of Earl of Orford. That other envied name expires next week with his ministry! Preparatory to this change. I should tell you, that last week we heard in the House of Commons the Chippenham election, when Jack Frederick and his brother-in-law, Mr. Hume, on our side, petitioned against Sir Edmund Thomas and Mr. Baynton Holt. Both sides made it the decisive question-but our people were not all equally true: and upon the previous question we had but 235 against 236, so lost it by one. From that time my brothers, my uncle, I, and some of his particular friends, persuaded Sir R. to resign. He was undetermined till Sunday night. Tuesday we were to finish the election, when we lost it by 16; upon which Sir Robert declared to some particular persons in the House his resolution to retire,(436) and had that morning sent the Prince of Wales notice of' it. It is understood from the heads of the party, that nothing more is to be pursued against him. Yesterday (Wednesday) the King adjourned both Houses for a fortnight, for time to settle things. Next week Sir Robert resigns and goes into the House of Lords. The only change yet fixed, is, that Lord Wilmington (437) is to be at the head of the Treasury-but numberless other alterations and confusions must follow. The Prince will be reconciled, and the Whig-patriots will come in. There were a few bonfires last night, but they are very unfashionable, for never was fallen minister so followed. When he kissed the King's hand to take his first leave, the King fell on his neck, wept and kissed him, and begged to see him frequently. He will continue in town, and assist the ministry in the Lords. Mr. Pelham has declared that he will accept nothing, that was Sir Robert's; and this moment the Duke of Richmond has been here from court to tell Sir R. that he had resigned the mastership of the horse, having received it from him, unasked, and that he would not keep it beyond his ministry. This is the greater honour, as it was so unexpected, and as he had no personal friendship with the duke.

For myself, I am quite happy to be free from all the fatigue, envy, and uncertainty of our late situation. I go every where; indeed, to have the stare over, and to use myself to neglect, but I meet nothing but civilities. Here have been Lord Hartington, Coke, and poor Fitzwilliam,(438) and others crying: here has been Lord Deskford (439) and numbers to wish me joy; in short, it is a most extraordinary and various scene.(440)

There are three people whom I pity much; the King, Lord Wilmington, and my own sister; the first, for the affront, to be forced to part with his minister, and to be forced to forgive his son; the second, as he is too old, and (even when he was young,) unfit for the burthen: and the poor girl,(441) who must be created an earl's daughter, as her birth would deprive her of the rank. She must kiss hands, and bear the flirts of impertinent real quality

I am invited to dinner to-day by Lord Strafford (442) Argyll's son-in-law. You see we shall grow the fashion.

My dear child, these are the most material points: I am sensible how much you must want particulars; but you must be sensible, too, that just yet, I have not time.

Don't be uneasy; your brother Ned has been here to wish me joy: your brother Gal. has been here and cried; your tender nature will at first make you like the latter; but afterwards you will rejoice with the elder and me. Adieu! Yours, ever, and the same.

(436) "Sir Robert," says Coxe, "seemed to have anticipated this event, and met it with his usual fortitude and cheerfulness. While the tellers were performing their office, he beckoned Sir Edward Baynton, the member whose return was supported by the Opposition, to sit near him., spoke to him with great complacency, animadverted on the ingratitude of several individuals who were voting against him, on whom he had conferred great favour, and declared he would never again sit in that House."-E.

(437) Sir Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, knight of the garter, and at this time lord president of the council.

(438) william, Baron, and afterwards Earl Fitzwilliam; a young lord, much attached to Sir R. W.

(439) James Ogilvy, Lord Deskford succeeded his father, in 1764, as sixth Earl of Findlater, and third Earl of Seafield. He held some inconsiderable offices in Scotland, and died in 1770.-D.

(440) the peculiar antipathy to Lord Hardwicke manifested by Horace Walpole on all occasions is founded, no doubt, upon the opinion which he had taken up, that the resignation of Sir Robert Walpole at this moment had been rendered necessary by the treachery and intrigues of that nobleman and the Duke of Newcastle. In his "Memoires" he repeatedly charges him with such treachery; and the Edinburgh reviewer of that work (xxxvi. 1). 29) favours this view, observing, "It appears that, unless there was a secret understanding of Newcastle and Hardwicke with Pulteney and Carteret, before Sir Robert's determination to resign, the coalition was effected between the 31st of January and 2d of February; for on the 2d of February it was already settled that Lord Wilmington should be at the head of the Treasury in the new administration. So speedy an adjustment of a point of such consequence looks somewhat like previous concert." However much appearances might favour this opinion, another writer has shown most satisfactorily that no such previous concert existed. The reviewer of the "Memoires" in the Quarterly Review (xxvii. p. 191) proves, in the first place, that it was Sir Robert himself who determined the course of events, and, as he emphatically said, turned the key of the closet on Mr. Pulteney; so that, if he was betrayed, it must have been by himself; and secondly, that we have the evidence of his family and friends, that he was lost by his own inactivity and timidity; in other words, the great minister was worn out with age and business." And these views are confirmed by extracts from the "Walpoliana," written, be it remembered, by Philip, second Earl -of Hardwicke, son of the chancellor, from the information of the Walpole family, and even of Sir Robert himself; who, after his retirement, admitted his young friend into his conversation and confidence-a fact totally inconsistent with a belief in his father's treachery;-by Sir Robert's own authority, who, in a private and confidential letter to the Duke of Devonshire, dated 2d of February, 1742, giving an account of his resignation, and the efforts of his triumphant antagonists to form a new ministry, distinctly states "that he himself prevented the Duke of Newcastle's dismissal;" and lastly, by Horace Walpole's own pamphlet, "A Detection of a late Forgery," etc., in which he speaks of "the breach between the King and the Prince, as open, the known, avowed cause of the resignation, and which Sir Robert never disguised;"-and again, among the errors of the writer he notices, Sir Robert Walpole is made to complain of being abandoned by his friends. This is for once an undeserved satire on mankind: no fallen minister ever experienced such attachment from his friends as he did."-E.

(441) Maria, natural daughter of Sir R. W. by Maria Skerret, his mistress, whom he afterwards married. She had a patent to take place as an earl's daughter.

(442) William Wentworth, second Earl of Strafford, of the second creation. He married Anne Campbell, second daughter of John, Duke of Argyle.-D.

220 Letter 53 To Sir Horace Mann. Feb. 9, 1741-2.

You will have had my letter that told you of the great change. The scene is not quite so pleasant as it was, nor the tranquility arrived that we expected. All is in confusion; no overtures from the Prince, who, it must seem, proposes to be King. His party have persuaded him not to make up, but on much greater conditions than he first demanded: in short, notwithstanding his professions to the Bishop,(443)-he is to insist on the impeachment of Sir R., saying now, that his terms not being accepted at first, he is not bound to stick to them. He is pushed on to this violence by Argyll, Chesterfield, Cobham,(444) Sir John Hind Cotton,(445) and Lord Marchmont. The first says, "What impudence it is in Sir R. to be driving about the streets!" and all cry out, that he is still minister behind the curtain. They will none of them come into the ministry, till several are displaced but have summoned a great meeting of the faction for Friday, at the Fountain Tavern, to consult measures against Sir R., and to-morrow the Common Council meet, to draw up instructions for their members. They have sent into Scotland and into the counties for the same purpose. Carteret ind Pulteney@ pretend to be against this violence, but own that if their party insist upon it, they cannot desert them. The cry against Sir R. has been greater this week than ever; first, against a grant of four thousand pounds a-year, which the King gave him on his resignation, but which, to quiet them, he has given Up.(446) Then, upon making his daughter a lady; their wives and daughters declare against giving her place. He and she both kissed hands yesterday, and on Friday go to Richmond for a week. He seems quite secure in his innocence-but what protection is that, against the power and malice of' party! Indeed, his friends seem as firm is ever, and frequent him as much; but they are not now the strongest. As to an impeachment, I think they will not be so mad as to proceed to it: it is too solemn and too public to be attempted, without proof of crimes, of which he certainly is not guilty. For a bill of' pains and penalties, they may, if they will, I believe, pass it through the Commons, but will scarce get the assent of the King and Lords. In a week more I shall be able to write with less uncertainty.

I hate sending you false news, as that was, of the Duke of Richmond's resignation. It arose from his being two hours below with Sir R., and from some very warm discourse of his in the House of Lords, against the present violences; but went no further. Zeal magnified this, as she came up stairs to me, and I wrote to you before I had seen Sir Robert.

At a time when we ought to be most united, we are in the greatest confusion; such is the virtue of the patriots, though they have obtained what they professed alone to seek. They will not stir one step in foreign affairs, though Sir R. has offered to unite with them, with all his friends, for the common cause. It will now be seen whether he or they are most patriot. You see I call him Sir Robert still! after one has known him by that name for these threescore years, it is difficult to accustom one's mouth to another title.

In the midst of all this, we are diverting ourselves as cordially as if Righteousness and Peace had just been kissing one another. Balls, operas, and masquerades! The Duchess of Norfolk (447) makes a grand masquing next week; and to-morrow there is one at the Opera-house.

Here is a Saxe-Gothic prince, brother to her Royal Highness:(448) he sent her word from Dover that he was driven in there, in his way to Italy. The man of the inn, Whom he consulted about lodgings in town, recommended him to one of very ill-fame in Suffolk-street. He has got a neutrality for himself, and goes to both courts.

Churchill (449) asked Pultney the other day, "Well, Mr. Pultney, will you break me too?"-"No, Charles," replied he, "you break fast enough of yourself!" Don't you think it hurt him more than the other breaking would? Good night! Yours, ever.

Thursday, Feb. 11, 1741-2.

P. S. I had finished my letter, and unwillingly resolved to send you all that bad news, rather than leave you ignorant of our doings; but I have the pleasure of mending your prospect a little. Yesterday the Common Council met, and resolved upon instructions to their members, which, except one not very descriptive paragraph, contains nothing personal -,against our new earl; and ends with resolutions "to stand by our present constitution." Mind what followed! One of them proposed to insert "the King and Royal Family" before the words, "our present constitution;" but, on a division, it was rejected by three to one.

But to-day, for good news! Sir Robert has resigned; Lord Wilmington is first lord of the treasury, and Sandys has accepted the seals as chancellor of the exchequer, with Gibbon (450) and Sir John Rushout,(451) joined to him as other lords of the treasury. Waller was to have been the other, but has formally refused. So, Lord Sundon, Earle, Treby,(452) and Clutterbuck (453) are the first discarded, unless the latter saves himself by Waller's refusal. Lord Harrington, who is created an earl, is made president of the council, and Lord Carteret has consented to be secretary of state in his room-but mind; not one of them has promised to be against the prosecution of Sir Robert, though I don't believe now that it will go on. You see Pultney is not come in, except in his friend Sir John Rushout, but is to hold the balance between liberty and prerogative; at least, in this, he acts with honour. They say Sir John Hind Cotton and the Jacobites will be left out,,unless they bring in Dr. Lee and Sir John Barnard to the admiralty, as they propose; for I do not think it is decided what are their principles. Sir Charles Wager has resigned this morning:(454) he says, "We shall not die, but be all changed!" though he says, a parson lately reading this text in an old Bible, where the c was rubbed out, read it, not die, but be all hanged!

To-morrow our earl goes to Richmond Park, en retir`e; comes on Thursday to take his seat in the Lords, and returns thither again. Sandys is very angry at his taking the title of Orford, which belonged to his wife's (455) great uncle. You know a step of that nature cost the great Lord Strafford (456) his head, at the prosecution of a less bloody-minded man than Sandys.

I remain in town, and have not taken at all to withdrawing, which I hear has given offence,(457) as well as my gay face in public; but as I had so little joy in the grandeur, I am determined to take as little part in the disgrace. I am looking about for a new house.

I have received two vast packets from you to-day, I believe from the bottom of the sea, for they have been so washed that I could scarce read them. I could read the terrible history of the earthquakes at Leghorn: how infinitely good you was to poor Mrs. Goldsworthy! How could you think I should not approve such vast humanity? but you are all humanity and forgiveness. I am only concerned that they will be present when you receive all these disagreeable accounts of your friends. Their support" is removed as well as yours. I only fear the interest of the Richmonds (458) with the Duke of Newcastle; but I will try to put you well with Lord Lincoln. We must write circumspectly, for our letters now are no longer safe.

I shall see Amorevoli to-night to give him the letter. Ah! Monticelli and the Visconti are to sing to-night at a great assembly at Lady Conway's. I have not time to write more: so, good night, my dearest child! be in good spirits. Yours, most faithfully.

P. S. We have at last got Cr`ebillon's "Sofa:" Lord Chesterfield received three hundred, and gave them to be sold at White's. It is admirable! except the beginning of the first volume, and the last story, it is equal to any thing he has written. How he has painted the most refined nature in Mazulhim! the most retired nature in Mocles! the man of fashion, that sets himself above natural sensations, and the man of sense and devotion, that would skirmish himself from their influence, are equally justly reduced to the standard of their own weakness.(459)

(443) Secker, Bishop of Oxford.

(444) Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham, so created in 1717, with remainder to the issue male of his sister, Hester Grenville. He had served in Flanders under the Duke of Marlborough, and was upon the overthrow of Sir Robert Walpole's administration promoted to the military rank of field marshal. He is now best remembered as the friend of pope and the creator of the gardens at Stowe.-D.

(445) Sir John Hinde Cotton, Bart. of Landwade, in Cambridgeshire; long a member of parliament, and one of the leaders of the Jacobite party. He died in 1752, and Horace Walpole, in his Memoires, in noticing this event, says, "Died Sir John Cotton, the last Jacobite of any sensible activity."-D.

Lord Carteret and Mr. Pulteney had really betrayed their party, and so injudiciously, that they lost their old friends and gained no new ones.

(446) Sir Robert, at the persuasion of his brother, Mr. Selwyn, and others, desisted from this grant. Three years afterwards, when the clamour was at an end, and his affairs extremely involved, he sued for it; which Mr. Pelham, his friend and `el`eve, was brought with the worst grace in the world to ask, and his old obliged master the King prevailed upon, with as ill grace, to grant. ["February 6. Sir R. Walpole was presented at Court as Earl of Orford. He was persuaded to refuse a grant of four thousand pounds a-year during the King's life and his own, but could not be dissuaded from accepting a letter of honour from the King, to grant his natural daughter Maria, precedence as an earl's daughter; who was also presented this day. The same thing had been done for Scrope, Earl of Sunderland, who left no lawful issue, and from one of whom Lord Howe is descended."-Secker MS.]

(447) Mary, daughter of Edward Blount, Esq. and wife of Edward, ninth Duke of Norfolk.-D.

(448) The Princess of Wales.-D.

(449)General Charles Churchill.-D.

(450) Philip Gibbons, Esq.-D.

(451) Sir John Rushout, the fourth baronet of the family, had particularly distinguished himself as an opponent of Sir R. Walpole's excise scheme. He was made treasurer of the navy in 1743, and died in 1775, at the advanced age of ninety-one. His son was created Lord Northwick, in 1797.-D.

(452) George Treby, Esq.-D.

(453) Thomas Clutterbuck, Esq. He left the Treasury in February 1742, and was made treasurer of the navy.-D.

(454) "February II. Lord Orford and Sir Charles Wager resigned. Mr. Sandys kissed hands as chancellor of the exchequer: Lord Wilmington declared first commissioner of the Treasury: offers made to the Duke of Argyle, but refused: none to Lord Chesterfield."-Secker MS.-E.

(455) Lady Sandys was daughter of Lady Tipping, niece of Russel, Earl of Orford.

(456) Sir Thomas Wentworth, the great Earl of Strafford, took the title of Raby from a castle of that name, which belonged to Sir Henry Vane, who, from that time, became his mortal foe.

(457) Sir Charles Wager. [In the following December Sir Charles was appointed treasurer of the navy, which office he held till his death, in May 1743.)

(458) Mrs. Goldsworthy had been a companion of the Duchess of Richmond.

(459) Posterity has not confirmed the eulogium here given to the indecent trash of the younger Cr`ebillon: but in the age of George II. coarseness passed for humour, and obscenity was wit."-D

224 Letter 54 To Sir Horace Mann. Feb. 18, 1741-2.

I write to you more tired, and with more headache, than any one but you could conceive! I came home at five this morning from the Duchess of Norfolk's masquerade, and was forced to rise before eleven, for my father, who came from Richmond to take his seat in the Lords, for the Houses met to-day. He is gone back to his retirement. Things wear a better aspect: at the great meeting (460) on Friday, at the Fountain, Lord Carteret and Lord Winchilsea (461) refused to go, only saying, that they never dined at a tavern. Pultney and the new chancellor of the exchequer went, and were abused by his Grace of Argyll. The former said he was content with what was already done, and would not be active in any further proceedings, though he would not desert the party. Sandys said the King had done him the honour to offer him that place; why should he not accept it? if he had not, another would: if nobody would, the King would be obliged to employ his old minister again, which he imagined the gentlemen present would not wish to see; and protested against screening, with the same conclusion as Pultney. The Duke of Bedford was very warm against Sir William Yonge; Lord Talbot (462) was so in general.(463)

During the recess, they have employed Fazakerley to draw up four impeachments; against Sir Robert, my uncle, Mr. Keene, and Colonel Bladen, who was only commissioner for the tariff at Antwerp. One of the articles against Sir R. is, his having at this conjuncture trusted Lord Waldegrave as ambassador, who is so near a relation (464) of the Pretender-. but these impeachments are likely to grow obsolete manuscripts. The minds of the people grow more candid: at first, they made one of the actors at Drury Lane repeat some applicable lines at the end of Harry the Fourth; but last Monday, when his Royal Highness-, had purposely bespoken "The Unhappy Favourite" (465) for Mrs. Porter's benefit, they never once applied the most glaring passages; as where they read the indictment against Robert Earl of Essex, etc. The Tories declare against further prosecution-if Tories there are, for now one hears of nothing but the Broad Bottom: it is the reigning cant word, and means, the taking all parties and people, indifferently into the ministry. The Whigs are the dupes of this; And those in the Opposition affirm that Tories no longer exist. Notwithstanding this, they will not come into the new ministry, unless what were always reckoned Tories are admitted. The Treasury has gone a-begging: I mean one of the lordships, which is at last filled up with Major Compton, a relation of Lord Wilmington; but now we shall see a new scene. On Tuesday night Mr. Pultney went to the Prince, and, without the knowledge of Argyll, etc., prevailed on him to write to the King: he was so long determining, that it was eleven at night before the King received his letter. Yesterday morning the prince, attended by two of his lords, two grooms of the Bedchamber, and Lord Scarborough,(466) his treasurer went to the King's levee.(467) The King said, "How does the Princess do? I hope she is well." The Prince kissed his hand, and this was all! The Prince returned to Carlton House, whither crowds went to him. He spoke to the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pelham; but would not to the three dukes, Richmond, Grafton, and Marlborough.(468) At night the Royal Family were all at the Duchess of Norfolk'@' and the streets were illuminated and bonfired. To-day, the Duke of Bedford, Lord Halifax, and some others, were at St. James's: the King spoke to all the Lords. In a day or two, I shall go with my uncle and brothers to the Prince's levee.

Yesterday there was a meeting of all the Scotch of our side, who, to a man, determined to defend Sir Robert

Lyttelton (469) is going to marry Miss Fortescue, Lord Clinton's sister.

When our earl went to the House of lords to-day, he apprehended some incivilities from his Grace of Argyll, but he was not there. Bedford, Halifax, Berkshire,(470) and some more, were close by him, but would not bow to him. Lord Chesterfield wished him joy. This is all I know for certain; for I will not send you the thousand lies of every new day.

I must tell you how fine the masquerade of last night was. There were five hundred persons, in the greatest variety of handsome and rich dresses I ever saw, and all the jewels of London-and London has some! There were dozens of ugly Queens of Scots, of which I will only name to you the eldest Miss Shadwell! The Princess of Wales was one, covered with diamonds, but did not take off her mask: none of the Royalties did, but every body else. Lady Conway (471) was a charming Mary Stuart: Lord and Lady Euston, man and woman huzzars. But the two finest and most charming masks were their Graces of Richmond,(472) like Harry the Eighth and Jane Seymour: excessively rich, and both so handsome @ Here is a nephew of the King of Denmark, who was in armour, and his governor, a most admirable Quixote. there were quantities of Vandykes, and all kinds of old pictures walked out of the frames. It was an assemblage of all ages and nations, and would look like the day of judgment, if tradition did not persuade us that we are all to meet naked, and if something else did not tell us that we shall not meet with quite so much indifference, nor thinking quite so much of the becoming. My dress was an Aurungzebe: but of all extravagant figures commend me to our friend the Countess!(473) She and my lord trudged in like pilgrims with vast staffs in their hands; and she was so heated, that you would have thought her pilgrimage had been, like Pantagruel's voyage, to the Oracle of the Bottle! Lady Sophia was in a Spanish dress-so was Lord Lincoln; not, to be sure, by design, but so it happened. When the King came in, the Faussans (474) were there, and danced an entr`ee. At the masquerade the King sat by Mrs. Selwyn, and with tears told her, that "the Whigs should find he loved them, as he had the poor man that was gone!" He had sworn that he would not speak to the Prince at their meeting, but was prevailed on.

I received your letter by Holland, and the paper about the Spaniards. By this time you will conceive that I can speak of nothing to any purpose, for Sir R. does not meddle in the least with business.

As to the Sibyl, I have not mentioned it to him; I still am for the other. Except that, he will not care, I believe, to buy more pictures, having now so many more than he has room for at Houghton; and he will have but a small house in town when we leave this. But you must thank the dear Chutes for their new offers; the obligations are too great, but I am most sensible to their goodness, and, were I not so excessively tired now, would write to them. I cannot add a word more, but to think of the Princess:(475) "Comment! vous avez donc des enfans!" You see how nature sometimes breaks out in spite of religion and prudery, grandeur and pride, delicacy and `epuisements! Good night! Yours ever.

(460) See an account of this meeting in Lord Egmonfs "Faction Detected." [To this meeting at the Fountain tavern Sir Charles Hanbury Williams alludes in his Ode against the Earl of Bath, called the Statesman-

"Then enlarge on his cunning and wit: Say, how he harangued at the Fountain; Say, how the old patriots were bit, And a mouse was produced by a mountain."]

(461) Daniel Finch, seventh Earl of Winchilsea and third Earl of Nottingham. He was made first lord of the admiralty upon the breaking up of Sir R. Walpole's government.-D.

(462) William, second Lord Talbot, eldest son of the lord chancellor of that name and title.-D.

(463) The following is from the Secker MS.-"Feb. 12. Meeting at the Fountain tavern of above two hundred commoners and thirty-five Lords. Duke of Argyle spoke warmly for prosecuting Lord Orford, with hints of reflection on those who had accepted. Mr. Pulteney replied warmly. Lord Talbot drank to cleansing the Augean stable of the dung and grooms. Mr. Sandys and Mr. Gibbon there. Lord Carteret and Lord Winchilsea not. Lord Chancellor, in the evening, in private discourse to me, strong against taking in any Tories: owning no more than that some of them, perhaps, were not for the Pretender, or, at least, did not know they were for him; though, when I gave him the account first of my discourse with the Prince, he said, the main body of them were of the same principles with the Tories."-E.

(464) His mother was natural daughter of King James II. (James, first Earl Waldegrave, appointed ambassador to the court of France in 1730: died in 1741.-D.)

(465) banks's tragedy of "The Unhappy Favourite; or, the Earl of Essex," was first acted in 1682. The prologue and epilogue were written by Dryden. Speaking of this play, in the Tatler, Sir Richard Steele says, "there is in it not one good line, and yet it is a play which was never seen without drawing tears from some part of the audience; a remarkable instance, that the soul is not to be moved by words, but things; for the incidents in the drama are laid together so happily that the spectator makes the play for himself, by the force with which the circumstance has upon his imagination."-E.

(466) Thomas Lumley, third Earl of Scarborough.-D.

(467) "February 17. Prince of Wales went to St. James's. The agreement made at eleven the night before, and principally by Mr. Pultney; as Lord Wilmington told me. The King received him in the drawing-room: the Prince kissed his hand: he asked him how the Princess did: showed no other mark of regard. All the courtiers went the same day to Carlton House. The Bishop of Gloucester (Dr. Benson) and I went thither. The Prince and princess civil to us both." Secker MS.-E.

(468) Charles Spencer, second duke of Marlborough succeeded to that title on the death of his aunt Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough, in 1733.-D.

(469) Sir George Lyttelton, afterwards created Lord Lyttelton. Miss Fortescue was his first wife, and mother of Thomas, called the wicked Lord Lyttelton. She died in childbed and Lord Lyttelton honoured her Memory with the well-known Monody which was so unfeelingly parodied by Smollett.-D. [ Under the title of an "Ode on the Death of My Grandmother.")

(470 Henry Bowes Howard, fourth Earl of Berkshire. He succeeded, in 1745, as eleventh Earl of Suffolk, on the death, without issue, of henry, tenth earl. He died in 1757.-D.

(471) Lady Isabella Fitzroy, Youngest daughter of the Duke of grafton, and wife of Francis Seymour, Lord Conway of Hertford.

(472) Charles Lennox, master of the horse, and Sarah Cadogan, his duchess. He died in the year following.

(473) The Countess of Pomfret.

(474) Two celebrated comic dancers.

(475) Princess Craon, so often mentioned in these letters.-D.

227 Letter 55 To Sir Horace Mann. London, Feb. 25, 1742.

I am impatient to hear that you have received my first account of the change; as to be sure you are now for every post. This last week has not produced many new events. The Prince of Wales has got the measles,(476) so there has been but little incense offered up to him: his brother of Saxe-Gotha has got them too. When the Princess went to St. James's, she fell at the King's feet and struggled to kiss his hand, and burst into tears. At the Norfolk masquerade she was vastly bejewelled; Frankz had lent her forty thousand pounds worth, and refused to be paid for the hire, only desiring that she would tell whose they were. All this is nothing, but to introduce one of Madame de Pomfret's ingenuities, who. being dressed like a pilgrim, told the Princess, that she had taken her for the Lady of Loreto.

But you will wish for politics now, more than for histories of masquerades, though this last has taken up people's thoughts full as much. The House met last Thursday and voted the army without a division: Shippen (477 alone, unchanged, Opposed it. They have since been busied on elections, turning out our friends and voting in their own.. almost without opposition. The chief affair has been the Denbighshire election, on the petition of Sir Watkyn William . 'They have voted him into parliament and the high-sheriff into Newgate. Murray (478) was most eloquent: Lloyd,(479) the counsel on the other side, and no bad one, (for I go constantly, though I do not stay long, but "leave the dead to bury their dead," said that it was objected to the sheriff, that he was related to the sitting member; but, indeed, in that country (Wales) it would be difficult not to be related. Yesterday we had another hearing of the petition of the Merchants, when Sir Robert Godschall shone brighter than even his usual. There was a copy of a letter produced, the original having been lost: he asked whether the copy had been taken before the original was lost, or after!

Next week they commence their prosecutions, which they will introduce by voting a committee to inquire into all the offices: Sir William Yonge is to be added to the impeachments, but the chief whom they wish to punish is my uncle.(480) He is the more to be pitied, because nobody will pity him. They are not fond of a formal message which the States General have sent to Sir Robert, "to compliment him on his new honour, and to condole with him on being out of the ministry, which will be so detrimental to Europe!

The third augmentation in Holland is confirmed, and that the Prince of Hesse is chosen generallissimo, which makes it believed that his Grace of Argyll will not go over, but that we shall certainly have a war with France in the spring. Argyll has got the Ordnance restored to him, and they wanted to give him his regiment; to which Lord Hertford (481) was desired to resign it, with the offer of his old troop again. He said he had received the regiment from the King; if his Majesty pleased to take it back, he might, but he did not know why he should resign it. Since that, he wrote a letter to the King, and sent it by his son, Lord Beauchamp, resigning his regiment, his government, and his wife's pension, as lady of the bedchamber to the late Queen.

No more changes are made yet. They have offered the Admiralty to Sir Charles Wager again, but he refused it: he said, he heard that he was an old woman, and that he did not know what good old women could do any where.

A comet has appeared here for two nights, which, you know, is lucky enough at this time and a pretty ingredient for making prophecies.

These are all the news. I receive your letters regularly, and hope you receive mine so: I never miss one week. Adieu! my dearest child! I am perfectly well; tell me always that you are. Are the good Chutes still at Florence? My best love to them, and services to all.

Here are some new Lines much in vogue:(482)

1741.

Unhappy England, still in forty-one (483) By Scotland art thou doom'd to be undone! But Scotland now, to strike alone afraid, Calls in her worthy sister Cornwall's (484) aid; And these two common Strumpets, hand in hand, Walk forth, and preach up virtue through the land; Start at corruption, at a bribe turn pale, Shudder at pensions, and at placemen rail. Peace, peace! ye wretched hypocrites; or rather With Job, say to Corruption, " Thou'rt our Father."

But how will Walpole justify his fate? He trusted Islay (485) till it was too late. Where were those parts! where was that piercing mind! That judgment, and that knowledge of mankind! To trust a Traitor that he knew so well! (Strange truth! I)ctray'd, but not deceived, he fell!) He knew his heart was, like his aspect, vile; Knew him the tool, and Brother of Argyll! Yet to his hands his power and hopes gave up; And though he saw 'twas poison, drank the cup! Trusted to one he never could think true, And perish'd by a villain that he knew.

(476) "February 21. Prince taken ill of the measles. The King sent no message to him in his illnesses Secker MS.-E.

(477) William Shippen, a celebrated Jacobite. Sir R. Walpole said that he was the Only man whose price he did not know. [See ante, p. 194, Letter 45.]

(478) William Murray, Mr. Pope's friend, afterwards Solicitor, and then Attorney-general.

(479) Sir Richard Lloyd, who succeeded Mr. Murray, in 1754, as Solicitor-general.

(480) Horace Walpole, brother of Sir Robert.

(481) Algernon Seymour, Earl of Hertford, eldest son of Charles, called the proud Duke of Somerset, whom he succeeded in that Title, and was the last Duke of Somerset of that branch; his son, who is here mentioned, having died before him.-D.

(482) These Lines were written by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams. [And are published in the edition of his works, in three volumes, 12 no.1.

(483) Alluding to the Grand Rebellion against Charles the First.

(484) The Parliament which overthrew Sir R. W. was carried against him by his losing the majority of the Scotch and Cornish boroughs; the latter managed by Lord Falmouth and Thomas Pitt.

(485) Archibald Campbell, Earl of Islay, brother of John, Duke of Argyll, in conjunction with whom (though then openly at variance) he was supposed to have betrayed Sir R. W. and to have let the Opposition succeed in the Scotch elections, which were trusted to his management. It must be observed, that Sir R. W. would never allow that he believed himself betrayed by Lord Islay.

229 Letter 56 To Sir Horace Mann. London, March 3d, 1742.

I am Obliged to write to you to-day, for I am sure I shall not have a moment to-morrow; they are to make their motion for a secret committee to examine into the late administration. We are to oppose it strongly, but to no purpose; for since the change, they have beat us on no division under a majority of forty. This last week has produced no new novelties; his Royal Highness has been shut up with the measles, of which he was near dying, by eating China oranges.

We are to send sixteen thousand men into Flanders in the spring, under his Grace of Argyll; they talk of the Duke of Marlborough and Lord Albemarle to command under him. Lord Cadogan (486) is just dead, so there is another regiment vacant: they design Lord Delawar's for Westmoreland;(487) so now Sir Francis Dashwood (488) will grow as fond of the King again as he used to be-or as he has hated him since.

We have at last finished the Merchants' petition, under the conduct of the Lord Mayor and Mr. Leonidas;(489) the greatest coxcomb and the greatest oaf that ever met in blank verse or prose. I told you the former's question about the copy of a letter taken after the original was lost. They have got a new story of him; that hearing of a gentleman who had had the small-pox twice and died of it, he asked, if he died the first time or the second-if this is made for him, it is at least quite in his style. After summing up the evidence (in doing which, Mr. Glover literally drank several times to the Lord Mayor in a glass of water that stood by him,) Sir John Barnard moved to vote, that there had been great neglect in the protection of the trade, to the great advantage of' the enemy, and the dishonour of the nation. He said he did not mean to charge the Admiralty particularly, for then particular persons must have had particular days assigned to be heard in their own defence, which would take up too much time, as we are now going to make inquiries of a much higher nature. Mr. Pelham was for leaving out the last words. Mr. Doddington rose, and in a set speech declared that the motion was levelled at a particular person, who had so usurped all authority, that all inferior offices were obliged to submit to his will, and so either bend and bow, or be broken: but that he hoped the steps we were now going to take, would make the office of first minister so dangerous a post, that nobody would care to accept it for the future. Do but think of this fellow, who has so lost all character, and made himself so odious to both King, and Prince, by his alternate flatteries, changes, oppositions, and changes of flatteries and oppositions, that he can never expect what he has so much courted by all methods,-think of his talking of making it dangerous for any one else to accept the first ministership! Should such a period ever arrive, he would accept it with joy-the only chance he can ever have for it! But sure, never was impudence more put to shame! The whole debate turned upon him. Lord Doneraile (490) (who, by the way, has produced blossoms of Doddington like fruit, and consequently is the fitter scourge for him) stood up and said, he did not know what that gentleman meant; that he himself was as willing to bring all offenders to justice as any man; but that he did not intend to confine punishment to those who had been employed only at the end of the last ministry, but proposed to extend it to all who had been engaged in it, and wished that that gentleman would speak with more lenity of an administration, in which he himself had been concerned for so many years. Winnington said, he did not know what Mr. Doddington had meant, by either bending or being broken; that he knew some who had been broken, though they had bowed an bended. Waller defended Doddington, and said, if he was gilty, at least Mr. Winnington was so too; on which Fox rose up, and, laying his hand on his breast, said, he never wished to have such a friend, as could only excuse him by bringing in another for equal share of his guilt. Sir John Cotton replied; he did not wonder that Mr. Fox (who had spoken with great warmth) was angry at hearing his friend in place, compared to one out of place. Do but figure how Doddington must have looked and felt during such dialogues! In short, it ended in Mr. Pultney's rising, and saying, he could not be against the latter words, as he thought the former part of the motion had been proved . and wished both parties would join in carrying on the war vigorously, or in procuring a good peace, rather than in ripping open old sores, and continuing the heats and violences of parties. We came to no division-for we should have lost it by too many.

Thursday evening.

I had written all the former part of my letter, only reserving room to tell you, that they had carried the secret committee-but it is put off till next Tuesday. To-day we had nothing but the giving up the Heydon election, when Mr. Ppultney had an opportunity (as Mr. Chute and Mr. Robinson would not take the trouble to defend a cause which they could not carry) to declaim upon corruption: had it come to a trial, there were eighteen witnesses ready to swear positive bribery against Mr. Pultney. I would write to Mr. Chute, and thank him for his letter which you sent me, but I am so out of humour at his brother's losing his seat, that I cannot speak civilly even to him to-day.

It is said, that my Lord's Grace of Argyll has carried his great point of the Broad Bottom-as I suppose you will hear by rejoicings from Rome. The new Admiralty is named; at the head is to be Lord Winchilsea, with Lord Granard,(491) Mr. Cockburn, his Grace's friend, Dr. Lee, the chairman, Lord Vere Beauclerc;(492) one of the old set, by the interest of the Duke of Dorset, and the connexion of Lady Betty Germain, whose niece Lord Vere married; and two Tories, Sir John Hind Cotton and Will. Chetwynd,(493) an agent of Bolingbroke's-all this is not declared yet, but is believed.

This great Duke has named his four aid-de-camps-Lord Charles Hay; George Stanhope, brother of Earl Stanhope; Dick Lyttelton, who Was page; and a Campbell. Lord Cadogan is not dead, but has been given over.

We are rejoicing over the great success of the Queen of Hungary's arms, and the number of blows and thwarts which the French have received. It is a prosperous season for our new popular generals to grow glorious!

But, to have done with politics. Old Marlborough has at last published her Memoirs; they are digested by one Hooke, (494) who wrote a Roman history; but from her materials which are so womanish, that I am sure the man might sooner have made a gown and petticoat with them. There are some choice letters from Queen Anne, little inferior in the fulsome to those from King James to the Duke of Buckingham.

Lord Oxford's (495) famous sale begins next Monday, where there is as much rubbish of another kind as in her grace's history. Feather bonnets presented by the Americans to Queen Elizabeth; elks'-horns -cups; true copies converted into candle of original pictures that never existed; presents to himself from the Royal Society, etc. particularly forty volumes of prints of illustrious English personages; which collection is collected from frontispieces to godly books, bibles and head-pieces and tail-pieces to Waller's works; views of King Charles's sufferings; tops of ballads; particularly earthly crowns for heavenly ones, and streams of glory. There are few good pictures. for the miniatures are not to be sold, nor the manuscripts , the books not till next year. There are a few fine bronzes, and a very fine collection of English coins.

We have got another opera,(496) which is liked. There was to have been a vast elephant, but the just directors, designing to give the audience the full weight of one for their money, made it so heavy that at the prova it broke through the stage. It was to have carried twenty soldiers, with Monticelli on a throne in the middle. There is a new subscription begun for next year, thirty subscribers at two hundred pounds each. Would you believe that I am one? You need not believe it quite, for I am but half an one; Mr. Conway and I take a share between us. We keep Monticelli and Amorevoli, and to please Lord Middlesex, that odious Muscovita; but shall discard Mr. Vaneschi. We are to have the Barberina and the two Faussans; so, at least, the singers and dancers will be equal to any thing in Europe.

Our earl is still at Richmond: I have not been there yet; I shall go once or twice; for however little inclination I have to it, I would not be thought to grow cool just now. You know I am above such dirtiness, and you are sensible that my coolness is of much longer standing. Your sister is with mine at the Park; they came to town last Tuesday for the opera, and returned next day. After supper, I prevailed on your sister (497) to sing, and though I had heard her before, I thought I never heard any thing beyond it; there is a sweetness in her voice equal to Cuzzoni's, with a better manner. '

I was last week at the masquerade, dressed like an old woman, and passed for a good mask. I took the English liberty of teasing whomever I pleased, particularly old Churchill. I told him I was quite ashamed. of being there till I met him, but was quite comforted with finding one person in the room older than myself. The Duke,(498) who had been told who I was, came up and said, "Je connois cette poitrine." I took him for some Templar, and replied, "Vous! vous ne connoissez que des poitrines qui sont bien plus us`ees." It was unluckily pat. The next night, at the drawing-room, he asked me, very good-humouredly, if I knew who was the old woman that had teased every body at the masquerade. We were laughing so much at this, that the King crossed the room to Lady Hervey, who was with us, and said, "What are those boys laughing at set" She told him, and that I had said I was so awkward at undressing myself, that I had stood for an hour in my stays and under-petticoat before my footman. My thanks to Madame Grifoni. I cannot write more now, as I must not make my letter too big, when it appears at the secretary's office nouc. As to my sister, I am sure Sir Robert would never have accepted Prince Craon's offer, who now, I suppose, would not be eager to repeat it.

(486) Charles, Lord Cadogan, of Oakley, to which title he succeeded on the death of his elder brother, William, Earl Cadogan, who was one of the most distinguished "of Marlborough's captains." Charles, Lord Cadogan, did not die at the period when this letter was written. On the contrary, he lived, till the year 1776.-D.

(487) John, seventh Earl of Westmoreland. He built the Palladian Villa of Mereworth, in Kent, which is a nearly exact copy of the celebrated Villa Capra, near Vicenza. He died in 1762. Sir Francis Dashwood succeeded, on his decease, to the barony in fee of Le Despencer.-D.

(488) Sir Francis Dashwood, nephew to the Earl of Westmoreland, had gone violently into Opposition, on that lord's losing his regiment.

(489) Mr. Glover. (Walpole always depreciates Glover; but his conduct, upon the occasion referred to in the text, displayed considerable ability.-D.) [His speech upon this occasion was afterwards published in a pamphlet, entitled, ,A short Account of the late Application to Parliament, made by the Merchants of London, upon the Neglect of their Trade; with the Substance thereof, as summed up by Mr. Glover.,,]

(490) Arthur Mohun St. Leger, third Viscount Doneraile, in Ireland, of the first creation. He was at this time member for Winchilsea, was appointed a lord of the bedchamber to Frederick Prince of Wales in 1747, and died at Lisbon in 1749.-D.

(491) George Forbes, third Earl of Granard in Ireland; an admiral, and a member of the House of Commons.-D.

(492) Third son of the first Duke of St. Albans, created in 1750 Lord Vere of Hanworth in Middlesex. He was the direct ancestor of the present line of the St. Albans family. His wife was Mary, daughter and heiress of Thomas Chambers, Esq. of Hanworth, by Lady Mary Berkeley, the sister of lady Betty Germain.-D.

(493) William Richard Chetwynd 'second brother of the first viscount of that name; member of parliament successively for Stafford and Plymouth. He had been envoy at Genoa, and a lord of the Admiralty; and he finally succeeded his two elder brothers as third Viscount Chetwynd, in 1767.-D. [He was familiarly called "Black Will," and sometimes "Oroonoka Chetwynd," from his dark complexion. He died in 1770.]

(494) Nathaniel Hooke, a laborious compiler, but a very bad writer. It is said, that the Duchess of Marlborough gave him 5000 pounds for the services he rendered her, in the composition and publication of her apology. She, however, afterwards quarrelled with him, because she said he tried to convert her to Popery. Hooke was himself of that religion, and was also a Quietist, and an enthusiastic follower of Fenelon. It was Hooke who brought a Catholic priest to attend the deathbed of Pope; a proceeding which excited such bitter inclination in the infidel Bolingbroke. Hooke died July 19, 1763. [When Hooke asked Pope, "whether he should not send for a priest, the dying poet replied, "I do not suppose that is essential, but it will look right."-Spence, p. 322.)

(495) Edward second Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, only son of the minister, he was a great and liberal patron of literature and learned men, and completed the valuable collection of manuscripts commenced by his father, which is now in the British Museum. He married the great Cavendish heiress, Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles, daughter of Holles, Duke of Newcastle, and died June 16, 1741.-D.

(496) By Buranello, and called "Scipione in Cartagine."-E. (497) Mary Mann, afterwards married to Mr. Foote.

(498) Of Cumberland. [William Augustus, third son of George II.)

234 Letter 57 To Sir Horace Mann. March 10, 1742.

I will not work you up into a fright only to have the pleasure of putting you out of it, but will tell you at once that we have gained the greatest victory! I don't mean in the person of Admiral Vernon, nor of Admiral Haddock; no. nor in that of his Grace of Argyll. By we, I don't mean we; England, but we, literally we; not you and I, but we, the House of Orford. The certainty that the Opposition (or rather the Coalition, for that is the new name they have taken) had of carrying every point they wished, made them, in the pride of their hearts, declare that they would move for the Secret Committee yesterday (Tuesday), and next Friday would name the list, by which day they should have Mr. Sandys from his reelection. It was, however, expected to be put off, as Mr. Pultney could not attend the House, his only daughter was dying-they say she is dead.(499) But an affair of consequence to them, and indeed to the nation in general, roused all their rage, and drove them to determine on the last violences. I told you in my last, that the new Admiralty was named, with a mixture of Tories; that is, it was named by my Lord of Argyll; but the King flatly put his negative on Sir John Cotton. They said he was no Tory now, (and, in truth, he yesterday in the House professed himself a Whig,) and that there were no Tories left in the nation. The King replied, "that might be; but he was determined to stand by those who had set him and his family upon the throne." This refusal enraged them so much, that they declared they would force him, not only to turn out all the old ministry, but the new too, if he wished to save Sir R. and others of his friends; and that, as they supposed he designed to get the great bills passed, and then prorogue the Parliament, they were determined to keep back some of the chief bills, and sit all the summer, examining into the late administration. Accordingly, yesterday, in a most full house, Lord Limerick (500) (who, last year, seconded the famous motion )501)) moved for a committee to examine into the conduct of the last twenty years, and was seconded by Sir John St. Aubin.(502) In short, (for I have not time to tell you the debate at length,) we divided, between eight and nine, when there was not a man of our party that did not expect to lose it by at least fifteen or twenty, but, to our great amazement, and their as great confusion, we threw out the motion, by a majority of 244 against 242.(503) Was there ever a more surprising event! a disgraced minister, by his personal interest, to have a majority to defend him even from inquiry! What was ridiculous, the very man who seconded the motion happened to be shut out at the division; but there was one on our side shut out too.

I don't know what violent step they will take next; it must be by surprise, for when they could not carry this, it will be impossible for them to carry any thing more personal. We trust that the danger is now past, though they had a great meeting to-day at Doddington 'S,(504) and threaten still. He was to have made the motion, but was deterred by the treatment he met last week. Sir John Norris was not present; he has resigned all his employments, in a pique for not being named of the new Admiralty. His old Grace of Somerset (505) is reconciled to his son, Lord Hertford, on his late affair of having the regiment taken from him: he sent for him, and told him he had behaved like his son.

My dearest child, I have this moment received a most unexpected and most melancholy letter from you, with an account of your fever and new operation. I did not in the least dream of your having any more trouble from that disorder! are YOU never to be delivered from it? Your letter has shocked me extremely; and then I am terrified at the Spaniards passing so near Florence. If they should, as I fear they will, stay there, how inconvenient and terrible it would be for you, now you are ill! You tell me, and my good Mr. Chute tells me, that you are out of all danger, and much better; but to what can I trust, when you have these continual relapses? The vast time that passes between your writing and my receiving your letters, makes me flatter myself, that by now you are out of all pain: but I am miserable, with finding that you may be still subject to new torture! not all your courage, which is amazing can give me any about you. But how can you write to me? I will not suffer it-and now, good Mr. Chute will write for you. I am so angry at your writing immediately after that dreadful operation, though I see your goodness in it, that I will not say a word more to you. All the rest is to Mr. Chute.

What shall I say to you, my dearest Sir, for all your tenderness to poor Mr. Mann and me? as you have so much friendship for him, you may conceive how much I am obliged to you. How much do I regret not having had more opportunities of showing you my esteem and love, before this new attention, to Mr. Mann. You do flatter me, and tell me he is recovering--nay I trust you? and don't you say it, only to comfort me?-Say a great deal for me to Mr. Whithed; he is excessively good to me; I don't know how to thank him. I am happy that you are so well yourself, and so constant to your fasting. To reward your virtues, I will tell you the news I know; not much, but very extraordinary. What would be the most extraordinary event that you think could happen? Would not-next to his becoming a real patriot-the Duke of Argyll's resigning be the most unexpected? would any thing be more surprising than his immediately resigning power at having felt the want of them? Be that as it will, he literally, actually, resigned all his new commissions yesterday, because the King refused to employ the Tories.(506) What part he will act next is yet to come. Mrs. Boothby said, upon the occasion, "that in one month's time he had contrived to please the whole nation-the Tories, by going to court; the Whigs, by leaving it."

They talk much of impeaching my father, since they could not committee him; but as they could not, I think they will scarce be able to carry a more violent step. However, to show how little Tory resentments are feared, the King has named a new Admiralty; Lord Winchilsea, Admiral Cavendish, Mr. Cockburn, Dr. Lee, Lord Baltimore, young Trevor,(507) (which is much disliked, for he is of no consequence for estate, and less for parts, but is a relation of the Pelhams,) and Lord Archibald Hamilton,(508)-to please his Royal Highness. Some of his people (not the Lytteltons and Pitts) stayed away the other night upon the Secret Committee, and they think he will at last rather take his father's part, than Argyll's.

Poor Mr. PUltney has lost his girl: she was an only daughter, and sensible and handsome. He has only a son left, and, they say, is afflicted to the greatest degree.

I will say nothing about old Sarah's Memoirs; for, with some spirit they are nothing but remnants of old women's frippery. Good night! I recommend my poor Mr. Mann to you, and am yours, most faithfully.

P. S. My dearest child, how unhappy I shall be, till I hear you are quite recovered

(499) The young lady died on the preceding evening. She was in her fourteenth year.-E.

(500) William Hamilton, Lord Viscount Limerick. (According to the peerages, Lord Limerick's Christian name was James, and not William.-D.)

(501) For removing Sir Robert Walpole.

(502) Sir John St. Aubyn, of Clowance in Cornwall, third baronet of that family.-D. [He died in 1744.

(503) March 9. Motion in the House of Commons for a secret committee to inquire into our affairs for twenty or twenty-one years. The Speaker said Ayes had it: one that was for it divided the House. The Noes carried it by 244 against 242. Mr. Sandys at Worcester, Mr. Pulteny at home-his daughter dying. The Prince at New. Several of his servants, and several Scotch members, not at the House; nor Lord Winchelsea's brothers. Gibbon, Rushout, Barnard voted for the committee, but did not speak. It is said that the Prince had before this written to Lord Carteret, to desire that Lord Archibald Hamilton and Lord Baltimore might be lords of the Admiralty, and that this had been promised."-Secker, MS.-E.

(504) "Never was there," writes Mr. Orlebar to the Rev. Mr. Elough, "a greater disappointment. Those who proved the minority, were so sure of being the majority, that the great Mr. Dodington harangued in the lobby those who went out at the division to desire them not to go away, because there were several other motions to be made in consequence of that: and likewise to bespeak their attendance at the Fountain, in order to settle the committee. Upon which Sir George Oxenden, after they found it was lost, whispered -@t friend thus: I Suppose we were to desire Mr. D. to print the speeches he has just now made in the lobby."

(505) Charles, commonly called "the proud Duke of Somerset." An absurd, vain, pompous man, who appears to have been also most harsh and unfeeling to those who depended on him.-D.

(506) March 10. Duke of argyle resigned his places to the King. He gave for a reason, that a proposal had been made to him for going ambassador to Holland, which he understood to be sending him out of the way." Secker MS.-E.

(507) The Hun. John Trevor, second son of Thomas, first Lord Trevor. He succeeded his elder brother Thomas, as third Lord Trevor, in 1744.-D.

(508) Lord Archibald Hamilton was the seventh and youngest son of Anne, Duchess of Hamilton, in her own right, and of William, Earl of Selkirk, her husband, created by Charles II. Duke of Hamilton, for life b. Lord Archibald married Lady Jane Hamilton, daughter of James, Earl of Abercorn, and by her had three sons; of whom the youngest was Sir William Hamilton, so long the British envoy at the court of Naples.-D.

237 Letter 58 To Sir Horace Mann. Monday, March 22, 1742. [Great part of this letter is lost.]

*** I have at last received a letter from you in answer to the first I wrote you upon the change in the ministry. I hope you have received mine regularly since, that you may know all the consequent steps. I like the Pasquinades you sent me, and think the Emperor's(509) letter as mean as you do. I hope his state will grow more abject every day. It is amazing, the progress and success of the Queen of Hungary's arms! It is said to-day, that she has defeated a great body of the Prussians in Moravia. We are going to extend a helping hand to her at last. Lord Stair (510) has accepted what my Lord Argyll resigned, and sets out ambassador to Holland in two days; and afterwards will have the command of' the troops that are to be sent into Flanders. I am sorry I must send away this to-night, without being able to tell you the event of to-morrow; but I will let you know it on Thursday, if I write but two lines. You have no notion how I laughed at Mrs. Goldsworthy's "talking from hand to mouth."(511) How happy I am that you have Mr. Chute still with you; you would have been distracted else with that simple woman; for fools prey upon one when one has no companion to laugh Them off.

I shall say every thing that is proper for you to the earl, and shall take care about expressing you to him, as I know you have your gratitude far more at heart, than what I am thinking of for you, I mean your stay at Florence. I have spoken very warmly to Lord Lincoln about you, who, I am sure, will serve you to his power. Indeed, as all changes are at a stop, I am convinced there will be no thought of removing you. However, till I see the situation of next winter, I cannot be easy on your account.

I have made a few purchases at Lord Oxford's sale; a small Vandyke, in imitation of Teniers; an old picture of the Duchess of Suffolk, mother of Lady Jane Grey, and her young husband; a sweet bronze vase by Flamingo, and two or three other trifles. The things sold dear; the antiquities and pictures for about five thousand pounds, which yet, no doubt, cost him much more, for he gave the most extravagant prices. His coins and medals are now selling, and go still dearer. Good night! How I wish for every letter to hear how you mend!

(509) Charles VII. the Emperor of the Bavarian family.-D.

(510) John Dalrymple, second Earl of Stair, a man much distinguished both as a general and a diplomatist. [He served with credit at Dettingen; but, after that battle, resigned his military rank, indignant at the King's unjust partiality to the Hanoverians. However, on the rebellion of 1745, he was made commander-in-chief, and materially assisted the Duke of Cumberland in the campaign which ended at Culloden. He died in 1747.]

(511) An expression of Mr. Chute.

238 Letter 59 To sir Horace Mann. March 24, 1742.

I promised you in my last letter to send you the event of yesterday.(512) It was not such as you would wish, for on the division, at nine o'clock at night, we lost it by 242 against 245. We had three people shut out, so that a majority of three (513) is so small that it is scarce doubted, but that, on Friday, when we ballot for the twenty-one to form the committee, we shall carry a list composed of our people, so that then it will be better that we lost it yesterday, as they never can trouble my Lord Orford more, when the Secret Committee consists of his own friends. The motion was made and seconded by the same people as before: Mr. Pultney had been desired, but refused, yet spoke very warmly for it. He declared, "that if they found any proofs against the earl, he would not engage in the prosecution;" and especially protested against resumptions of grants to his family, of which. he said, "there had been much talk, but they were what he would never come into, as being very illegal and unjust." The motion was quite personal against lord Orford, singly and by name, for his last ten years-the former question had been for twenty years, but as the rules of Parliament do not allow of repeating any individual motion in the same session of its rejection, and as 'every' evasion is allowed in this country, half the term was voted by the same House of Commons that had refused an inquiry into the whole; a sort of proof that every omne majus does not continere in se minus-but Houses of Commons can find out evasions to logical axioms, as well as to their own orders. If they carry their list, my lord will be obliged to return from Houghton.

After the division. Mr. Pultney(514) moved for an address to the King; to declare their resolution of standing by him, especially in assisting the Queen of Hungary-but I believe, after the loss of the question, he will not be in very good humour with this address.

I am now going to tell you what you, will not have expected-that a particular friend of yours opposed the motion, and it was the first time he ever spoke. To keep you not in suspense, though you must have guessed, it was 220.(515) As the speech was very favourably heard, and has done him service, I prevailed with him to give me a copy-here it is:-

Mr. Speaker,(516)-I have always thought, Sir, that incapacity and inexperience must prejudice the cause they undertake to defend; and it has been diffidence of myself, not distrust of the cause, that has hitherto made me so silent upon a point on which I ought to have appeared so zealous.

"While the attempts for this inquiry were made in general terms, I should have thought it presumption in me to stand up and defend measures in which so many abler men have been engaged, and which, consequently, they could so much better support; but when the attack grows more personal, it grows my duty to oppose it more particularly, lest I be suspected of an ingratitude which my heart disdains. But I think, Sir, I cannot be suspected of that, unless my not having abilities to defend my father can be construed into a desire not to defend him.

"My experience, Sir, is very small; I have never been conversant in business and politics, and have sat a very short time in this house -with so slight a fund, I must much mistrust my power to serve him-especially as in the short time I have sat here, I have seen that not his own knowledge, innocence, and eloquence, have been able to protect him against a powerful and determined party. I have seen, since his retirement, that he has many great and noble friends, who have been able to protect him from farther violence. But, Sir, when no repulses can calm the clamour against him, no motives should sway his friends from openly undertaking his defence. When the King has conferred rewards on his services; when the Parliament has refused its assent to any inquiries of complaint against him; it is but maintaining the King's and our own honour, to reject this motion-for the repeating which, however, I cannot think the authors to blame, as I suppose now they have turned him out, they are willing to inquire whether they had any reason to do so.

"I shall say no more, Sir, but leave the material part of this defence to the impartiality, candour, and credit of men who are no ways dependent on him. He has already found that defence, Sir, and I hope he always will! It is to their authority I trust-and to me, it is the strongest proof of innocence, that for twenty years together, no crime could be solemnly alleged against him; and since his dismission, he has seen a majority rise up to defend his character in that very House of Commons in which a majority had overturned his power. As, therefore, Sir, I must think him innocent, I stand up to protect him from injustice-had he been accused, I should not have given the House this trouble: but I think, Sir, that the precedent of what was done upon this question a few days ago, is a sufficient reason, if I had no other, for me to give my negative now."

William Pitt, some time after, in the debate, said, how very commendable it was in him to have made the above speech, which must have made an impression upon the House; but if It was becoming in him to remember that he was the child of the accused, that the House ought to remember too that they are the children of their country. It was a great compliment from him, and very artful too.

I forgot to tell you in my last, that one of our men-of-war, commanded by Lord Bamffe,(518) a Scotchman, has taken another register ship, of immense value.

You will laugh at a comical thing that happened the other day to Lord Lincoln. He sent the Duke of Richmond word that he would dine with him in the country, and if he would give him leave, would bring lord Bury with him. It happens that Lord Bury is nothing less than the Duke of Richmond's nephew.(519) The Duke, very properly, sent him word back, that Lord Bury might bring him, if he pleased.

I have been plagued all this morning with that oaf of unlicked antiquity, Prideaux,(520) and his deaf boy. He talked through all Italy, and every thing in all Italy. Upon mentioning Stosch, I asked if he had seen his collection. He replied, very few of his things, for he did not like his company; that he never heard so much heathenish talk in his days. I inquired what it was, and found that Stosch had one day said before him, "that the soul was only a little glue." I laughed so much that he walked off; I suppose, thinking, that I believed so too. By the way, tell Stosch that a gold Alectus sold at Lord Oxford's sale for above threescore pounds. Good night, my dear child! I am just going to the ridotto; one hates those places, comes away out of humour, and yet one goes again! How are you! I long for your next letter to answer me.

(512) The debate in the House of Commons on Lord Limerick's motion for a Secret Committee to inquire into the conduct of the Earl of Orford during the last ten years of his administration.-E.

(513) The motion was carried by a majority of seven, the numbers being 252 against 245.-E.

(514) This was much mentioned in the pamphlets written against the war, which was said to have been determined "by a gentleman's fumbling in his pocket for a piece of paper at ten o'clock at night," and the House's agreeing to the motion without any consideration.

(515) The author of these letters.

(516) There is a fictitious speech printed for this in several Magazines of that time, but which does not contain one sentence of the true one.

(517) The following note of this debate is from the Bishop of Oxford's diary.-,, March 23. Motion by Lord Limerick, and seconded by Sir J. St. Aubin, on the 9th instant, for a Secret Committee of twenty-one, to examine into the Earl of Orford's conduct for the last ten years of his being chancellor of the exchequer and lord of the treasury. Mr. Pultney said, ministers should always remember the account they must make; that he was against rancour in the inquiry, desired not to be named for the committee, particularly because of a rash word he had used, that he would pursue Sir Robert Walpole to his destruction; that now the minister was destroyed, he had no ill-will to the man; that from his own knowledge and experience of many of the Tories, he believed them to be as sincerely for the King and this family as himself; that he was sensible of the disagreeable situation he was in, and would get out of it as soon as he could. Mr. Sandys spoke for the motion, and said, he desired his own conduct might always be strictly inquired into. Lord Orford's son, and Mr. Ellis spoke well against the motion. It was carried by 252 against 245. Three or four were shut out, who would have been against it. Mr. William -Finch against it. The Prince's servants for it. Then Mr. Pultney moved for an address of duty to the King &e. which he begged might pass without opposition; and accordingly it did so. But Mr. W. W. wynne and several others, went out of the House; which was by some understood to be disapprobation, by others accident or weariness," Secker MS.-E.

(518) alexander Ogilvy, sixth Lord Banff, commanded the Hastings man-of war in 1742 and 1743, and captured, during that time, a valuable outward-bound Spanish register-ship, a Spanish privateer of twenty guns, a French polacca with a rich cargo, and other vessels. He died at Lisbon in November 1746, at the early age of twenty-eight.-D.

(519) George Lord Bury, afterwards third Earl of Albemarle. His mother was Lady Anne Lennox, sister of the Duke of Richmond.-D. His lordship served as aide-de-camp) to the Duke of Cumberland at the battle of Fontenoy and at Culloden, and commanded in chief at the reduction of the Havannah. He died in 1772.)

(520 Grandson of Dean Prideaux; he was just returned out of Italy, with his son.

241 Letter 60 To Sir Horace Mann. Downing Street, April 1, 1742.

I received your letter of March 18th, and would be as particular in the other dates which you have sent me in the end of your letter, but our affairs having been in such confusion, I have removed all my papers In general from hence, and cannot now examine them. I have, I think, received all yours: but lately I received them two days at least after their arrival, and evidently opened; so we must be cautious now what we write. Remember this, for of your last the seal had been quite taken off and set on again.

Last Friday we balloted for the Secret Committee. Except the vacancies, there were but thirty-one members absent: five hundred and eighteen gave in lists. At six that evening they named a committee of which Lord Hartington was chairman, (as having moved for it,) to examine the lists. This lasted from that time, all that night, till four in the afternoon of the next day; twenty-two hours without remission. There were sixteen people, of which were Lord Hartington and Coke, who sat up the whole time, and one of theirs, Velters Cornwall,(521) fainted with the fatigue and heat, for people of all sorts were admitted into the room, to see the lists drawn; it was in the Speaker's chambers. On the conclusion, they found the majority was for a mixed list, but of which the Opposition had the greater number. Here are the two lists, which were given out by each side, but of which people altered several in their private lists.

THE COURT LIST.

William Bowles. *Lord Cornbury.(522) *William Finch.(523) Lord Fitzwilliam. Sir Charles Gilmour. *Charles Gore. H. Arthur Herbert.(524) Sir Henry Liddel.(525) John Plumptree (526) Sir John Ramsden. Strange, Solicitor-General. Cholmley Turnor. John Talbot.(527) General Wade.(528) James West.(529)

THE OPPOSITION LIST.

Sir John Barnard. Alexander Hume Campbell.(530) Sir John Cotton. George Bubb Doddington.(531) Nicholas Fazakerley. Henry Furnese. Earl of Granird. Mr. Hooper.(532) Lord Limerick.(533) George Lyttelton.(534) John Philips-(535) William Pitt.(536) Mr. Prouse. Edmund Waller.(537) Sir Watkyn Williams Wynn.

Besides the following six which were in both lists-

These Six, On casting up the numbers, had those marked against their names, and were consequently chosen. Those with this mark (*) were reckoned of the Opposition.

*George Compton 515 *William Noell 512 (538) *Lord Quarendon 512 (539) *Sir John Rushout 516 (540) *Samuel Sandys 516 (541) Sir John St. Aubin 518

On casting up the numbers, the lists proved thus:-

*Sir John Barnard 268 *Nicholas Fazakerley 262 (542) *Henry Furnese 282 *Earl of Granard 258 *Mr. Hooper 265 *William Pitt 259 *Mr. Prouse 259 *Edmund Waller 259 William Bowles 259 *Lord Cornbury 262 Solicitor-General 259 Cholmley Turnor 259

This made eighteen: Mr. Finch, Sir Harry Liddel, and Mr. Talbot, had 258 each, and Hume Campbell 257, besides one in which his name was mis-written, but allowed; out of these four, two were to be chosen: it was agreed that the Speaker was to choose them; he, with a resolution not supposed to be in him, as he has been the most notorious affecter of popularity, named Sir Harry Liddel and Mr. 'albot; so that, on the whole, we have just five that we can call our own.(543) These will not be sufficient to stop their proceedings, but by being privy, may stop any iniquitous proceedings. They have chosen Lord Limerick chairman. Lord Orford returns tomorrow from Houghton to Chelsea, from whence my uncle went in great fright to fetch him.

I was yesterday presented to the Prince and Princess; but had not the honour of a word from either: he did vouchsafe to talk to Lord Walpole the day before.

Yesterday the Lord Mayor brought in their favourite bill for repealing the Septennial Act, but we rejected it by 284 to 204.(544)

You shall have particular accounts of the Secret Committee and their proceedings: but It will be at least a month before they can make any progress. You did not say any thing about yourself in your last; never omit it, my dear child.

(521) Velters Cornwall, Esq., of Meccas Court, in Herefordshire, and member for that county.-D.

(522) Son of the Earl of Clarendon.

(523) Afterwards vice-chamberlain.

(524) Afterwards Earl of Powis.

(525) Afterwards Lord Ravensworth.

(526) He had a place in the Ordnance.

(527) Son of the late lord chancellor, and afterwards a judge.

(528) Afterwards field.marshal.

(529) Afterwards secretary of the treasury.

(530) Afterwards solicitor to the Prince.

(531) Had been a lord of the treasury.

(532) Had a place on a change of the ministry. (He was a Hampshire gentleman, and member for Christchurch.-D.)

(533) Afterwards King's remembrancer.

(534) Afterwards cofferer.

(535) Afterwards a lord of trade and baronet.

(536) Afterwards paymaster.

(537) Afterwards cofferer.

(538) Afterwards a judge.

(539) Afterwards Earl of Lichfield.

(540) Afterwards treasurer of the navy.

(541) Afterwards chancellor of the exchequer, then cofferer, and then a baron.

(542) Nicholas Fazakerley, Esq. Walpole calls him "a tiresome Jacobite lawyer." He, however, appears to have been a speaker of some weight in the House of Commons, and distinguished himself by his opposition to Lord Hardwicke's mischievous marriage bill in the year 1753.-D. (He died in 1767.)

(543) "March 26, 27. The House of commons balloted for their committee, being called over, and each opening his list at the table, and putting it into a vessel which stood there. This was ended by five. Then a committee began to examine the lists, and sat from that time till four the next afternoon: for, though two lists were given out, many delivered in consisted partly of one, and partly of the other; and many were put in different order. Sir Thomas Drury, a friend of Lord Orford's, put down four of the opposite side in his list. Lord Orford's friends hoped it would bring moderate persons over to them, if they put some on their list who were not partial to him."-" March 29. The decision between Sir H. Lyddel, Mr. J. Talbot. and Mr. W. Finch, was left to the Speaker, who chose the two former." Secker MS.-E.

(544) This is not correct. It appears, by the Journals, that the motion passed in the negative by 204 against 184. The debate is thus noticed by the Bishop of Oxford:-"March 31. Sir Robert Cotschall, Lord Mayor, moved for the repeal of the Septennial Bill. Mr. Pultney said, he thought annual parliaments would be best, but preferred septennial to triennial and voted against the motion. In all, 204 against it, and 184 for it." Secker MS.-E.

243 Letter 61 To Sir Horace Mann. London, April 8, 1742.

You have no notion how astonished I was, at reading your account of Sir Francis Dashwood!-that it should be possible for private and personal pique so to sour any man's temper and honour, and so utterly to change their principles! I own I am for your mentioning him in your next despatch: they may at least intercept his letters, and prevent his dirty intelligence. As to Lady Walpole,(545) her schemes are so wild and so ill-founded, that I don't think it worth while to take notice of them. I possibly may mention this new one of changing her name, to her husband, and of her coming-over design, but I am sure he will only laugh at it.

The ill-situation of the King, which you say is so much talked of at the Petraia,(546) Is not true; indeed he and the Prince are not at all more reconciled for being reconciled; but I think his resolution has borne him out. All the public questions are easily carried, even with the concurrence of the Tories. Mr. Pultney proposed to grant a large sum for assisting the Queen of Hungary, and got Sir John Barnard to move it. They have given the King five hundred thousand pounds for that purpose.(547) The land-tax of four shillings in the pound is continued. Lord Stair is gone to Holland, and orders are given to the regiments and guards to have their camp equipages ready. As to the Spanish war and Vernon, there is no more talk of them; one would think they had both been taken by a privateer.

We talk of adjourning, soon for a month or six weeks, to give the Secret Committee time to proceed, which yet they have not done. Their object is returned from Houghton in great health and greater spirits. They are extremely angry with him for laughing at their power. The concourse to him is as great as ever; so is the rage against him. All this week the mob has been carrying about his effigies in procession, and to the Tower. The chiefs of the Opposition have been so mean as to give these mobs money for bonfires, particularly the Earls of Lichfield, Westmoreland, Denbigh, (548) and Stanhope:(549) the servants of these last got one of these figures, chalked out a place for the heart and shot at it. You will laugh at me, who, the other day, meeting one of these mobs, drove up to it to see what was the matter: the first thing I beheld was a maulkin, in a chair, with three footmen, and a label on the breast, inscribed "Lady mary." (550)

The Speaker, who has been much abused for naming two of our friends to the Secret Committee, to show his disinterestedness, has resigned his place of treasurer of the navy. Mr. Clutterbuck,(551) one of the late treasury is to have it; so there seems a stop put to any new persons from the Opposition.

His Royal Highness is gone to Kew his drawing-rooms Will not be so crowded at his return, as he has disobliged so many considerable people, particularly the Dukes of Montagu (552) and Richmond, Lord Albemarle,(553) etc. The Richmond went twice, and yet was not spoken to; nor the others; nay, he has vented his princely resentment even upon the women, for to Lady Hervey, not a word.

This is all the news except that little Brook (554) is on the point of matrimony with Miss Hamilton, Lady Archibald's daughter. She is excessively pretty and sensible, but as diminutive as he.

I forgot to tell you that the Place Bill has met with the same fate from the Lords as the Pension Bill (555) and the Triennial Act; so that, after all their clamour and changing of measures, they have not been able to get one of their popular bills passed, though the newspapers, for these three months, have swarmed with instructions for these purposes, from the constituents of all parts of Great Britain to their representatives.

We go into mourning on Sunday for the old Empress Amelia.(556) Lord Chedworth, (557) one of three new Peers, is dead. We hear the King of Sardinia is at Piacenza, to open the campaign. I shall be in continual fears lest they disturb you at Florence. All love to the Chutes, and my compliments to all my old acquaintance. I don't think I have forgot one of Them. Pataman is entirely yours, and entirely handsome. Good night!

(545) Margaret Rolle, a great Devonshire heiress, the wife of Robert, Lord Walpole, afterwards second Earl of Orford, the eldest son of the minister. She was separated from her husband, and had quarrelled violently with his whole family. She resided principally at Florence, where she died in 1781; having married secondly, after the death of Lord Orford, the Hon. Sewallis Shirley. She was a woman of bad character, as well as Half mad: which last quality she to communicated to her unfortunate son George, third Earl of Orford. She succeeded, in her own right, to the baronies of Clinton and Say, upon the death, in 1751, of Hugh, Earl and Baron Clinton.-D. (This lady was married to Lord Walpole in 1724. In a letter to the Countess of mar, written in that year, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu says:- "I have so good an opinion of your taste, to believe harlequin in person will not make you laugh so much as the Earl of Stair's furious passion for Lady Walpole, aged fourteen and some months. Mrs. Murray undertook to bring the business to bear, and provided the opportunity, a great ingredient You'll Say but the young lady proved skittish. She did not only turn his heroic flame into present ridicule, but exposed all his generous sentiments, to divert her Husband and father-in-law." Works, vol. ii. p. 188.]

(546) A villa belonging to the Great Duke, where Prince Craon resided in summer.

(547) "April 2. In the Commons, 500,000 pounds voted for the Queen of Hungary; I believe nem. con. Sir John Barnard moved it; which, Mr. Sandys told me, was that day making himself the chancellor of the exchequer. He told me, also, the King was unwilling to grant the Prince 50,000 pounds a-year; and I am told from other hands, that he saith he never promised it. The Bishop of Sarum (Sherlock) says, Sir Robert Walpole told him, the King would give 30,000 pounds, but no more. Mr. Sandys appeared determined against admitting Tories, and said it was wonderful their union had held so long, and could not be expected to hold longer; that he could not imagine why every body spoke against Lord Carteret, but that he had better abilities than any body; that as soon as foreign affairs could be settled, they would endeavour to reduce the expenses of the crown and interest of the debts." Secker MS.

(548) William Fielding, fifth Earl of Denbigh, died 1755.-D.

(549) Philip, second Earl Stanhope, eldest son of the general and statesman, who founded this branch of the Stanhope family. Earl Philip was a man of retired habits, and much devoted to scientific pursuits. He died in 1786.-D.

(550) Lady Mary Walpole, daughter of Sir R. W.

(551) This Mr. Clutterbuck had been raised by Lord Carteret, when Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whom he betrayed to Sir R. Walpole; the latter employed him, but never would trust him. He then ingratiated himself with Mr. Pelham, under a pretence of candour and integrity, and was continually infusing scruples into him on political questions, to distress Sir R. On the latter's quitting the ministry, he appointed a board of treasury at his own house, in order to sign some grants; Mr. Clutterbuck made a pretence to slip away, and never returned. He was a friend, too, of the Speaker's: when Sir R. W. was told that Mr. Onslow had resigned his place, and that Mr. Clutterbuck was to succeed him, said, "I remember that the Duke of Roxburgh, who was a great pretender to conscience, persuaded the Duke of Montrose to resign the seals of' Secretary of state, on some scruple, and begged them himself the next day." Mr. Clutterbuck died very soon after this transaction. [Mr. Clutterbuck was appointed treasurer of the navy in May, and died in November following.]

(552) John, second and last Duke of Montagu, of the first creation. He was a man of Some talent, and great eccentricity. Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, his mother-in-law, Used to say of him, "My son-in-law Montagu is fifty, and he is still as mere a boy as if he was only fifteen.".-D. On his death, in 1749),the title became extinct.)

(553) William-Anne Keppel, second Earl of Albemarle. An amiable prodigal who filled various great offices, through the favour of Lady Yarmouth, who died insolvent.-D. [He married. in 1723, Lady Anne Lennox, daughter of Charles, first Duke of Richmond, and, whilst ambassador to the French court, died suddenly at Paris, in 1755.]

(554) Francis Greville, Lord Brooke, created an earl in 1746. [And, in 1759, raised to the dignity of Earl of Warwick. He died in 1773.]

(555) "March 26. The Pension Bill read a second time in the Lords. Duke of Devonshire said a few words against it. Lord Sandwich pleaded for it, that some persons now in the ministry had patronized it, and for their sakes it should be committed; Lord Romney, that some objections against it had been obviated by alterations. These three speeches lasted scarce half a quarter of an hour. The question being put for committing, not-content, 76; content, 46. I was one of five bishops for it; Lord Carteret and Lord Berkeley against it." Secker 318.-E.

(556) Widow of the Emperor Joseph. She was of the house of Wolfenbuttle.

(557) John Bowe, Esq. of Stowell, created a baron in May 1741.

246 Letter 62 To Sir Horace Mann. April 15, 1742.

The great pleasure I receive from your letters is a little abated by my continually finding that they have been opened. It is a mortification as it must restrain the freedom of our correspondence, and at a time when more than ever I must want to talk to you. Your brother showed me a letter, which I approve extremely, yet do not think this a proper time for it; for there IS not only no present prospect of any further alterations, but, if there were, none that will give that person any interest. He really has lost himself so much, that it will be long before he can recover credit enough to do any body any service. His childish and troublesome behaviour, particularly lately (,but I Will not mention instances, because I would not have it known whom I mean), has set him in the lowest light imaginable. I have desired your brother to keep your letter, and when we see a necessary or convenient opportunity, which I hope will not arrive, it shall be delivered. However, if you are still of that opinion, say so, and your brother shall carry it. At present, my dear child, I am much more at repose about you, as I trust no more will happen to endanger your situation. I shall not only give you the first notice, but employ all the means in my power to prevent your removal.

The Secret Committee, it seems, are almost aground, and, it is thought, will soon finish. They are now reduced, as I hear, to inquire into the last month, not having met with any foundation for proceeding in the rest of the time. However, they have this week given a strong instance of' their arbitrariness and private resentments. They sent for Paxton,(558) the solicitor of the treasury, and examined him about five hundred pounds which he had given seven years ago at Lord Limerick's election. The man, as it directly tended to accuse himself, refused to answer. They complained to the House, and after a long debate he was committed to the sergeant-at-arms -, and to-day, I hear, for still refusing, will be sent to Newgate.(559) We adjourn to-day for ten days, but the committee has leave to continue sitting. . But, my dear child, you may be quite at ease, for they themselves seem to despair of being able to effect any thing.

The Duke (560) is of age to-day, and I hear by the guns, is just gone with the King, to take his seat in the Lords.

I have this morning received the jar of cedrati safe, for which I give you a million of thanks. I am impatient to hear of the arrival of your secretary and the things at Florence; it is time for you to have received them.

Here! Amorevoli has sent me another letter. Would you believe that our wise directors for next year will not keep the Visconti, and have sent for the Fumagalli? She will not be heard to the first row of the pit.

I am growing miserable, for it is growing fine weather-that is, every body is going out of town. I have but just begun to like London, and to be settled in an agreeable set of' people, and now they are going to wander all over the kingdom. Because they have some chance of having a month of good weather they will bury themselves three more in bad.

The Duchess of Cleveland (561) died last night of what they call a miliary fever, which is much about: she had not been ill two days. So the poor creature, her duke, is again to be let; she paid dear for the hopes of being duchess dowager. Lady Catherine Pelham,(562) has miscarried of twins; but they are so miserable with the loss of their former two boys, that they seem glad now of not having any more to tremble for.

There is a man who has by degrees bred himself up to walk upon stilts so high, that he now stalks about and peeps into one pair of stairs windows. If this practice should spread, dining-rooms will be as innocent as chapels. Good night! I never forget my best loves to the Chutes.

P. S. I this moment hear that Edgecombe (563) and Lord Fitzwilliam are created English peers: I am sure the first is, and I believe the second.

(558) Commemorated in a line of Pope-"'Tis all a libel, Paxton, Sir, will say."-D.

(559) On a division of 180 against 128, Paxton was this day committed to Newgate where he remained till the end of the session, July 15. He died in April 1744.-E.

(560) The Duke of Cumberland, third Son of George the Second.-E.

(561) Lady Henrietta Finch, sister of the Earl of Winchilsea, wife of William, Duke of Cleveland. [On whose death, in 1774, the title became extinct.]

(562) Catherine, sister of John Manners, Duke of Rutland, and wife of Henry Pelham. They lost their two sons by an epidemic sore-throat, after which she would never go to Esher, or any house where she had seen them.

(563) Richard Edgecombe, a great friend of Sir R. Walpole, was Created a baron to prevent his being examined by the Secret Committee concerning the management of the Cornish boroughs. (He was created Lord Edgecumbe on the 20th of April, and in December appointed chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. He died in 1758.]

247 Letter 63 To Sir Horace Mann. London, April 22, 1742.

You perceive, by the size of my paper, how little I have to say. The whole town is out of town for Easter, and nothing left but dust, old women, and the Secret Committee. They go on warmly, and have turned their whole thoughts to the secret-service money, after which they are inquiring by all methods. Sir John Rawdon (564) (you remember that genius in Italy) voluntarily swore before them that, at the late election at Wallingforrd, he spent two thousand pounds, and that one Morley promised him fifteen hundred more, if he would lay it out. "Whence was Morley to have it?"-"I don't know; I believe from the first minister." This makes an evidence. It is thought that they will ask leave to examine members, which was the reason of Edgecumbe's going into the peerage, as they supposed he had been the principal agent for the Cornish boroughs. Sir John Cotton said, upon the occasion, "Between Newgate (565 and the House of Lords the committee will not get information."

The troops for Flanders go on board Saturday se'nnight, the first embarkation of five thousand men: the whole number is to be sixteen thousand. It is not yet known what success Earl Stair has had at the Hague. We are in great joy upon the news of the King of Prussia's running away from the Austrians: (566) though his cowardice is well established, it is yet believed that the flight in question was determined by his head, not his heart; in short, that it was treachery to his allies.

I forgot to tell you, that of the Secret Committee Sir John Rushout and Cholmley TurnOr never go to it, nor, which is more extraordinary, Sir John Barnard. He says he thought their views were more general, but finding them so particular against one man, he Will not engage with them.

I have been breakfasting this morning at Ranelagh-garden: (567) they have built an immense amphitheatre, with balconies full of little ale-houses; it is in rivalry to Vauxhall, and costs above twelve thousand pounds. The building is not finished, but, they get great sums by people going to see it and breakfasting in the house: there were yesterday no less than three hundred and eighty persons, at eighteen pence a-piece. You see how poor we are, when, with a tax of four shillings in the pound, we are laying out such sums for cakes and ale.

We have a new opera, with your favourite song, se cerca, se dice: (568) Monticelli sings it beyond what you can conceive. Your last was of April 8th. I like the medal of the Caesars and Nihils (569) extremely; but don't at all like the cracking of your house, (570) except that it drives away your Pettegola. (571) What I like much worse is your recovering your strength so slowly; but I trust to the warm weather.

Miss Granville, daughter of the late Lord Lansdown, (572) is named maid of honour, in the room of Miss Hamilton, who I told you is to be Lady Brook-they are both so small! what little eggs they will lay!

How does my Princess?(573) does not she deign to visit you too? Is Sade (574) there still? Is Madame Suares quite gone into devotion yet? Tell me any thing-I love any thing that you write to me. Good night!

(564) He was afterwards made an Irish lord. (Lord Rawdon in 1750, and Earl of Moira in 1761. His first two wives were the daughters of the Earl of Egmont and Viscount Hillsborough. His third wife, by whom he was the father of the late Lord Hastings, was the daughter, and eventually the heiress, of Theophilus, ninth Earl of Huntingdon.-D.)

(565) Alluding to Paxton, who was sent thither for refusing to give evidence.

(566) this must allude to the King of Prussia's abandonment of his design to penetrate through Austria to Vienna, which he gave of) in consequence of the lukewarmness of his Saxon and the absence of his French allies. It is curious now, when the mist of contemporary prejudices has passed away, to hear Frederick the Great accused of cowardice.-D.

(567) the once celebrated place of amusement was so called from its site being that of a villa of' Viscount Ranelagh, near Chelsea. The last entertainment given in it was the installation ball of the Knights of the Bath, in 1802. It has since been razed to the ground.-E.

(568) In the Olimpiade.

(569) A satirical medal: on one side was the head of Francis, Duke of Lorrain (afterwards emperor) with this motto, aut Caesar aut nihil: on the reverse, that of the Emperor Charles Vii. Elector of Bavaria, who had been driven out of his dominions, et Caesar et nihil.

(570) Sir H. Mann had mentioned, in one of his letters, the appearance of several cracks in the walls of his house at Florence. Mrs. Goldsworthy, the wife of the English consul, had taken refuge in it when driven from Leghorn by an earthquake.-D.

(571) Mrs. ('Goldsworthy.

(572) George Granville, Lord Lansdown, Pope's "Granville the polite," one of Queen Anne's twelve peers, and one of the minor poets of that time. He died in 1734, without male issue, and his honours extinguished.-D.

(573) Princess Craon.

(574) The Chevalier de Sade.

249 Letter 64 To Sir Horace Mann. London, April 29, 1742.

By yours of April 17, N. S. and some of your last letters, I find my Lady Walpole is more mad than ever-why, there never was so wild a scheme as this, of setting up an interest through Lord Chesterfield! one who has no power; and, if he had, would think of, or serve her, one of the last persons upon earth. What connexion has he with what interest could he have in obliging her? and, but from views, what has he ever done, or will he ever do? But is Richcourt (575) so shallow, and so ambitious, as to put any trust in there projects? My dear child, believe me, if I was to mention them here, they would sound so chimerical, so womanish, that I should be laughed at for repeating them. For yourself, be quite at rest, and laugh, as I do, at feeble, visionary malice, and assure yourself, whoever mentions such politics to you, that my Lady Walpole must have very frippery intelligence from hence, if she can raise no better views and on no better foundations. For the poem you mention, I never read it: upon inquiry, I find there was such a thing though now quite obsolete: undoubtedly not Pope's, and only proves what I said before, how low, how paltry, how uninformed her ladyship's correspondents must be.

We are now all military! all preparations for Flanders! no parties but reviews; no officers, but "hope" they are to go abroad-at least, it is the fashion to say so. I am studying lists of regiments and Dames of colonels-not that "I hope I am to go abroad," but to talk of those who do. Three thousand men embarked yesterday and the day before, and the thirteen thousand others sail as soon as the transports can return. Messieurs d'Allemagne (576) roll their red eyes, stroke up their great beards, and look fierce-you know one loves a review and a tattoo.

We had a debate yesterday in the House on a proposal for replacing four thousand men of some that are to be sent abroad, that, in short, we might have fifteen thousand men to guard the kingdom. This was strongly opposed by the Tories, but we carried it in the committee, 214 against 123, and to-day, in the House, 280 against 169. Sir John Barnard, Pultney, the new ministry, all the Prince's people, except the Cobham cousins,(577) the Lord Mayor, several of the Opposition, voted with us; so you must interpret Tories in the strongest sense of the word.

The Secret Committee has desired leave to-day to examine three members, Burrel, Bristow, and Hanbury Williams: (578) the two first are directors of the bank; and it is upon an agreement made with them, and at which Williams was present, about remitting some money to Jamaica, and in which they pretend Sir Robert made a bad bargain, to oblige them as members of Parliament. they all three stood up, and voluntarily offered to be examined; so no vote passed upon it.

These are all the political news: there is little of any other sort; so little gallantry is stirring, that I do not hear of so much as one maid of honour who has declared herself with child by any officer, to engage him not to go abroad. I told you once or twice that Miss Hamilton is going to be married to Lord Brook: somebody wished Lord Archibald joy. He replied, "Providence has been very good to my family."

We had a great scuffle the other night at the Opera, which interrupted it. Lord Lincoln was abused in the most shocking manner by a drunken officer, upon which he kicked him, and was drawing his sword, but was prevented. were they were put under arrest, and the next morning, the man begged his pardon before the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Albemarle, and other officers, in the most submissive terms. I saw the quarrel from the other side of the house, and rushing to get to Lord Lincoln, could not for the crowd. I climbed into the front boxes, and stepping over the shoulders of three ladies, before I knew where I was, found I had lighted in Lord Rockingham's (579) lap. It was ridiculous! Good night!

(575) Count Richcourt was a Lorrainer, and chief minister of Florence; there was a great connexion between him and Lady Walpole.

(576)The royal family.

(577) Pitts, Grenvilles, Lytteltons, all related by marriage, or female descent, to Lord Cobham.-D.

(578) Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, a devoted follower of Sir Robert Walpole. His various satirical poems against the enemies and successors of that minister are well known, and must ever be admired for their ease, their spirit, and the wit and humour of their sarcasm. It was said at the time that Sir Charles's poetry had done more in three months to lower and discredit those it was written against, than the Craftsman and other abusive papers had been able to effect against Sir Robert in a long series of years.-D.

(579) Lewis Watson, second Earl of Rockingham. He married Catharine, second daughter and coheir of George Sondes, Earl of Feversham, and died in 1745.-D.

251 Letter 65 To Richard West, Esq. London, May 4, 1742.

Dear West, Your letter made me quite melancholy, till I came to the postscript of fine weather. Your so suddenly finding the benefit of it makes me trust you will entirely recover your health and spirits with the warm season: nobody wishes it more than I: nobody has more reason, as few have known you so long. Don't be afraid of your letters being dull. I don't deserve to be called your friend, if I were impatient at hearing your complaints. I do not desire you to suppress them till the causes cease; nor should I expect you to write cheerfully while you are Ill. I never desire to write any man's life as a stoic, and consequently should not desire him to furnish me with opportunities of assuring posterity what pains he took not to show any pain.

If you did amuse yourself with writing any thing in poetry, you know how pleased I should be to see it; but for encouraging you to it, d'ye see, 'tis an age most unpoetical! 'Tis even a test of wit to dislike poetry; and though Pope has half a dozen old friends that he has preserved from the taste of last century, yet, I assure you, the generality of readers are more diverted with any paltry prose answer to old Marlborough's secret history of Queen Mary's robes. I do not think an author would be universally commended for any production in verse, unless it were an ode to the Secret Committee, with rhymes of liberty and property, nation and administration.

Wit itself is monopolized by politics; no laugh would be ridiculous if it were not on one side or t'other. Thus, Sandys thinks he has spoken an epigram, when he crincles up his nose and lays a smart accent on ways and means.

We may, indeed. hope a little better now to the declining arts. The reconciliation between the royalties is finished, and fifty thousand pounds a-year more added to the heir apparent's revenue. He will have money now to tune up Glover, and Thomson, and Dodsley again: Et spes et ratio studiorum in Caesare tantUM.

Asheton is much yours. He has preached twice at Somerset Chapel with the greatest applause. I do not mind his pleasing the generality, for you know they ran as much after Whitfield as they could after Tillotson; and I do not doubt but St. Jude converted as many Honourable women as St. Paul. But I am sure you would approve his compositions, and admire them still more when you heard him deliver them. He will write to you himself next post, but is not mad enough with his fame to write you a sermon. Adieu, dear child! Write me the progress of your recovery,(580) and believe it will give me a sincere pleasure; for I am, yours ever.

(580) Mr. West died in less than a month from the date of this letter, in the twenty-sixth year of his age. (see ant`e, p. 121,