Chapter 367

Arlington Street, Dec. 14, 1769. (page 562)

I cannot be silent, when I feel for you. I doubt not but the loss of Mrs. Trevor is very sensible to you, and I am heartily sorry for you. One cannot live any time, and not perceive the world slip away, as it were, from under one's feet: one's friends, one's connexions drop off, and indeed reconcile one to the same passage; but why repeat these things? I do not mean to write a fine consolation; all I intended was to tell you, that I cannot be indifferent to what concerns you.

I know as little how to amuse you: news there are none but politics, and politics there will be as long as we have a shilling left. They are no amusement to me, except in seeing two or three sets of people worry one another, for none of whom I care a straw.

Mr. Cumberland has produced a comedy called The Brothers. It acts well, but reads ill; though I can distinguish strokes of Mr. Bentley in it. Very few of the characters are marked, and the serious ones have little nature, and the comic ones are rather too much marked; however, the three middle acts diverted me very well.(1099)

I saw the Bishop of Durham(1100) at Carlton House, who told me he had given you a complete suit of armour. I hope you will have no occasion to lock yourself in it, though, between the fools and the knaves of the present time, I don't know but we may be reduced to defend our castles. If you retain any connexions with Northampton, I should be much obliged to you if you could procure from thence a print of an Alderman Backwell.(1101) It is valuable for nothing but its rarity, and it is not to be met with but there. I would give eight or ten shillings rather than not have it. When shall you look towards us?, how does your brother John? make my compliments to him. I need not say how much I am yours ever.

(1099) "The Brothers," Cumberland's first comedy, came out at Covent-Garden theatre on the 2d of December, and met with no inconsiderable success.-E.

(1100) The Hon. Dr. Richard Trevor, consecrated Bishop of St. David's in 1744, and translated to the see of Durham in 1762. He died in June 1771.-E.

(1101) Edward Backwell, alderman of London, of whom Granger gives the following character:--"He was a banker of great ability, industry, integrity, and very extensive credit. With such qualifications, he, in a trading nation, would, in the natural event of things, have made a fortune, except in such an age as that of charles the Second, when the laws were overborne by perfidy, violence, and rapacity; or in an age when bankers become gamesters, instead of merchant-adventurers; when they affect to live like princes, and are, with their miserable creditors, drawn into the prevailing vortex of luxury. Backwell carried on his business in the same shop which was afterwards occupied by Child. He, to avoid a prison, retired into Holland, where he died. His body was brought for sepulture to Tyringham church, near Newport Pagnel." Frequent mention of the Alderman is made by Pepys, in whose Diary is the following entry:--"April 12, 1669. This evening, coming home, we overtook Alderman Backwell's coach and his lady, and followed them to their house, and there made them the, first visit, where they received us with extraordinary civility, and owning the obligation But I do, contrary to my expectation, find her something a proud and vainglorious woman, in telling the number of her servants and family, and expenses;. He is also so, but he was ever of that strain. But here he showed me the model of his houses that he is going to build in Cornhill and Lombard-street; but he has purchased so much there that it looks like a little town, and must have cost him a great deal of money."-E.