Chapter XXXI: Part 31

Our part of the war in Germany seems at an end: Prince Ferdinand is retiring, and has all the advantage of that part of great generalship, a retreat. From America we expect the greatest things; our force there by land and sea is vast. I hope we shall not be to buy England back by restoring the North Indies! I will gladly give them all the hundred thousand acres that may fall to my share on the Olio for my twenty acres here. Truly I don't like having them endangered for the limits of Virginia!

I wait impatiently for your last orders for the watch; if the worst comes to the worst, I can convey it to you by some French officer.

The weather is sultry; this country never looked prettier. I hope our enemies will not have the heart to spoil it! It would be much disappointment to me, who am going to make great additions to my castle; a gallery, a round tower, and a cabinet, that is to have all the air of a Catholic chapel--bar consecration. Adieu! I will tell you more soon, or I hope no more.

(1041) "Every body," says Gray, in a letter to Dr. Wharton, of the 21st, "continues as quiet about the invasion as if a Frenchman, as soon as he set his foot on our coast, would die, like a toad in Ireland. Yet the King's tents and equipage are ordered to be ready at an hour's warning." Works, vol. iii. p. 218.-E.

498 Letter 323 To Sir David Dalrymple.(1042) Strawberry Hill, July 11, 1759.

You will repent, Sir, I fear, having drawn such a correspondent upon yourself. An author flattered and encouraged is not easily shaken- off again; but if the interests of my book did not engage me to trouble you, while you are so good as to write me the most entertaining letters in the world, it is very natural for me to lay snares to inveigle more of them. However, Sir, excuse me this once, and I will be more modest for the future in trespassing on your kindness. Yet, before I break out on my new wants, it will be but decent, Sir, to answer some particulars of your letter.

I have lately read Mr. Goodall,S(1043) book. There is certainly ingenuity in parts 'of his defence: but I believe one seldom thinks a defence ingenious without meaning that it is unsatisfactory. His work left me fully convinced of what he endeavoured to disprove; and showed me, that the piece you mention is not the only one that he has written against moderation.

I have lately got Lord Cromerty's Vindication of the legitimacy of King Robert,(1044) and his Synopsis Apocalyptica, and thank you much, Sir, for the notice of any of his pieces. But if you expect that his works should lessen my esteem for the writers of Scotland, you Will please to recollect, that the letter which paints Lord Cromerty's pieces in so ridiculous a light, is more than a counterbalance in favour of the writers of your country: and of all men living, Sir, you are the last who will destroy my partiality for Scotland.

There is another point, Sir, on which, with all your address, you will persuade me as little. Can I think that we want writers of history while Mr. Hume and Mr. Robertson are living? It is a truth, and not a compliment, that I never heard objections made to Mr. Hume's History without endeavouring to convince the persons who found fault wit@ it, of its great merit and beauty; and for what I saw of Mr. -Robertson's work, it is one of the purest styles, and of the greatest impartiality, that I ever read. It is impossible for me to recommend a subject to him: because I cannot judge of what materials he can obtain. His present performance will undoubtedly make him so well known and esteemed, that he will have credit to obtain many new lights for a future history; but surely those relating to his own country will always lie most open to him. This is much my way of thinking with regard to myself. Though the Life of Christina is a pleasing and a most uncommon subject, yet, totally unacquainted as I am with Sweden and its language, how could I flatter myself with saying any thing new of her? And when original letters and authentic papers shall hereafter appear, may not they contradict half one should relate on the authority of what is already published? for though memoirs written nearest to the time are likely to be the truest, those published nearest to it are generally the falsest.

But, indeed, Sir, I am now making you only civil excuses; the real one is, I have no kind of intention of continuing to write. I could not expect to succeed again with so much luck,--indeed, I think it so,--as I have done; it Would mortify me more now, after a little success, to be despised, than it would have done before; and if I could please as much as I should wish to do, I think one should dread being a voluminous author. My own idleness, too, bids me desist. If I continued, I should certainly take more pains than I did in my Catalogue; the trouble would not only be more than I care to encounter, but would probably destroy what I believe the only merit of my last work, the ease. If I could incite you to tread in steps which I perceive you don't condemn, and for which it is evident you are so well qualified, from your knowledge, the grace, facility, and humour of your expression and manner, I shall have done a real service, where I expected at best to amuse.

(1042) Now first collected.

(1043) Walter Goodall, librarian of the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh. He was warmly devoted to Mary Queen of Scots, and in 1754, published an Examination of the letters said to be written by Mary to the Earl of Bothwell, in which he endeavoured to prove them to be forgeries.-E.

(1044) Robert, the third King of Scotland, from the imputation of bastardy.-E.

499 Letter 324 To George Montagu, Esq. Strawberry Hill, July 19, 1759.

Well, I begin to expect you; you must not forget the first of August. If we do but look as well as we do at present, you will own Strawberry is still in its bloom. With English verdure, we have had an Italian summer, and

Whatever sweets Sabaean springs disclose, Our Indian jasmin, and the Persian rose.

I am forced to talk of Strawberry, lest I should weary you with what every body wearies me, the French and the militia. They, I mean the latter only, not the former, passed just by us yesterday, and though it was my own clan, I had not the curiosity to go and see them. The crowds in Hyde Park, when the King reviewed them, were unimaginable. My Lord Orford, their colonel, I hear, looked gloriously martial and genteel, and I believe it;(1045) his person and air have a noble wildness in them; the regiments, too, are very becoming, scarlet faced with black, buff waistcoats, and gold buttons. How knights of shires, who have never shot any thing but woodcocks, like this warfare, I don't know; but the towns through which they pass adore them; every where they are treated and regaled. The Prince of Wales followed them to Kingston, and gave fifty guineas among the private men.

I expect some anecdotes from you of the coronation at Oxford; I hear my Lord Westmoreland's own retinue was all be-James'd with true-blue ribands; and that because Sir William Calvert, who was a fellow of a college, and happened to be Lord Mayor, attended the Duke of Newcastle at his inthronization, they dragged down the present Lord Mayor to Oxford, who is only a dry-salter.

I have your Butler's posthumous works.(1046) The poetry is most uncouth and incorrect, but with infinite wit; especially one thing on plagiaries is equal to any thirty in Hudibras. Have you read my Lord Clarendon's? I am enchanted with it; 'tis very incorrect, but I think more entertaining than his History. It makes me quite out of humour with other memoirs. Adieu!

(1045) Mr. Pitt, in a letter of this day, to Lady Hester, says, "Nothing could make a better appearance than the two Norfolk battalions. Lord Orford, with the port of Mars himself, and really the genteelest figure under arms I ever saw, was the theme of every tongue." Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 4.-E.

(1046) "The Genuine Remains, in prose and verse, of Samuel Butler; with notes by R. Thyer." A very pleasant review of this work, by Oliver Goldsmith, will be found in the fourth volume of Mr. Murray's enlarged edition of his Miscellaneous Works.-E.

500 Letter 325 To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, July 26, 1759.

I am dying in a hot street, with my eyes full of dust, and my table full of letters to be answered--yet I must write you a line. I am sorry your first of Augustness is disordered; I'll tell you why. I go to Ragley on the twelfth. There is to be a great party at loo for the Duchess of Grafton, and thence they adjourn to the Warwick races. I have been engaged so long to this, that I cannot put it off; besides, I am under appointments at George Selwyn's, etc. afterwards. If you cannot come before all this to let me have enough of your company, I should wish you to postpone it to the first of September, when I shall be at leisure for ten or twelve days, and could go with you from Strawberry to the Vine; but I could like to know certainly, for as I never make any of my visits while Strawberry is in bloom, I am a little crowded with them at the end of the season.

I came this morning in all this torrent of heat from Lord Waldegrave's at Navestock. It is a dull place, though it does not want prospect backwards. The garden is small, consisting of two French all`ees of old limes, that are comfortable, two groves that are not so, and a green canal; there is besides a paddock. The house was built by his father, and ill finished, but an air seigneurial in the furniture; French glasses in quantities, handsome commodes, tables, screens, etc. goodish pictures in rich frames, and a deal of noblesse `a la St. Germain--James the Second, Charles the Second, the Duke of Berwick, her Grace of Buckingham, the Queen Dowager in the dress she visited Madame Maintenon, her daughter the Princess Louisa, a Lady Gerard that died at Joppa, returning from a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and above all La Goqfrey, and not at all ugly, Though she does not show her thighs. All this is leavened with the late King, the present King, and Queen Caroline. I shall take care to sprinkle a little unholy water from our well.

I am very sorry you have been so ill; take care of yourself. there are wicked sore-throats in vogue; poor Lady Essex and Mrs. Charles Yorke died of them in an instant.

Do let me have a line, and do fix a day; for instead of keeping me at home one by fixing it, you will keep me there five or six days by not fixing it. Adieu!

501 letter 326 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, August 1, 1759.

I have received your two letters about the watch, the first came with surprising celerity. I wish, when the watch is finished, I may be able to convey it to you with equal expedition.

Nothing is talked of here, as you may imagine, but the invasion--yet I don't grow more credulous. Their ridiculous lists of fifty thousand men don't contribute to frighten me-- nay, though they specify the numbers of apothecaries and chaplains that are to attend. Fifty thousand men cannot easily steal a march over the sea. Sir Edward Hawke will take care of them till winter, and by that time we shall have a great force at land. The very militia is considerable: the spirit, or at least the fashion of it, catches every day. We are growing such ancient Britons, that I don't know whether I must not mount some popguns upon the battlements of my castle, lest I should not be thought hero enough in these West-Saxon times. Lord Pulteney has done handsomely, and what is more surprising, so has his father. The former has offered to raise a regiment, and to be only lieutenant-colonel, provided the command is given to a Colonel Crawford, an old soldier, long postponed-- Lord Bath is at the expense, which will be five thousand pounds. All the country squires are in regimentals --a pedestal is making for little Lord Mountford, that he may be placed at the head of the Cambridgeshire militia. In short, we have two sorts of armies, and I hope neither will be necessary--what the consequences of this militia may be hereafter, I don't know. Indifferent I think it cannot be. A great force upon an old plan, exploded since modern improvements, must make some confusion. If they do not become ridiculous, which the real officers are disposed to make them, the crown or the disaffected will draw considerable consequences, I think, from an establishment popular by being constitutional, and of great weight from the property it will contain.

If the French pursue their vivacity in Germany, they will send us more defenders; our eight thousand men there seem of very little use. Both sides seem in all parts weary of the war; at least are grown so cautious, that a battle will be as great a curiosity in a campaign as in the midst of peace. For the Russians, they quite make one smile; they hover every summer over the north of Germany, get cut to pieces by September, disappear, have a general disgraced, and in winter out comes a memorial of the Czarina's steadiness to her engagements, and of the mighty things she will do in spring. The Swedes follow them like Sancho Panza, and are rejoiced at not being bound by the laws of chivalry to be thrashed too.

We have an evil that threatens us more nearly than the French. The heat of the weather has produced a contagious sore-throat in London. Mr. Yorke, the solicitor-general, has lost his wife, his daughter, and a servant. The young Lady Essex(1047) died of it in two days. Two servants are dead in Newcastle-house, and the Duke has left it; any body else would be pitied, but his terrors are sure of being a joke.(1048) My niece, Lady Waldegrave, has done her part for repairing this calamity, and is breeding.

Your Lord Northampton has not acted a much more gallant part by his new mistress than by his fair one at Florence. When it was all agreed, he refused to marry unless she had eighteen thousand pounds. Eight were wanting. It looked as if he was more attached to his old flame than to his new one; but her uncle, Norborne Berkeley,(1049) has nobly made up the deficiency.

I told Mr. Fox of the wine that is coming, and he told me what I had totally forgot, that he has left off Florence, and chooses to have no more. He will take this parcel, but you need not trouble yourself again. Adieu! my dear Sir, don't let Marshal Botta terrify you: when the French dare not stir out of any port they have, it will be extraordinary if they venture to come into the heart of us.

(1047) Frances, eldest daughter of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams. See ant`e, p. 216, letter 108.-E.

(1048) "I have heard the Duke of Newcastle is much broke ever since his sister Castlecorner died; not that he cared for her, or saw her above once a year: but she was the last of the brood that was left; and he now goes regularly to church, which he never did before." Gray, Works, vol. iii. p. 218.-E.

(1049) Brother of the Duchess of Beaufort, mother of Lady Anne Somerset, whom Lord Northampton did marry. (Norborne Berkeley afterwards established his claim to the ancient barony of Botetourt.-D.)

502 Letter 327 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Aug. 8, 1759.

If any body admires expedition, they should address themselves to you and me, who order watches, negotiate about them by couriers, and have them finished, with as little trouble as if we had nothing to do, but, like the men of business in the Arabian tales, rub a dark lantern, a genie appears, one bespeaks a bauble worth two or three Indies, and finds it upon one's table the next morning at breakfast. The watch was actually finished, and delivered to your brother yesterday. I trust to our good luck for finding quick conveyance. I did send to the White@horse cellar here in Piccadilly, whence all the stage-coaches set out, but there was never a genie booted and spurred, and going to Florence on a sunbeam. If you are not charmed with the watch, never deal with us devils any more. If any thing a quarter so pretty was found in Herculaneum, One should admire Roman enamellers more than their Scipios and Caesars. The device of the second seal I stole; it is old, but uncommon; a Cupid standing on two joined hands over the sea; si la foy manque, l'amour perira--I hope for the honour of the device. it will arrive before half the honeymoon is over!--But, alack! I forget the material point; Mr. Deard, who has forty times more virtue than if he had been taken from the plough to be colonel of the militia, instead of one hundred and sixteen pounds to which I pinned him down, to avoid guineas, will positively take but one hundred and ten pounds. I did all I could to corrupt him with six more, but he is immaculate--and when our posterity is abominably bad, as all posterity always is till it grows one's ancestors, I hope Mr. Deard's integrity will be quoted to them as an instance of the virtues that adorned the simple and barbarous age of George the Second. Oh! I can tell you the age of George the Second is likely to be celebrated for more primitivity than the disinterestedness of Mr. Deard-here is such a victory come over that--it can't get over. Mr. Yorke has sent word that a Captain Ligonier is coming from Prince Ferdinand to tell us that his Serene Highness has beaten Monsieur Contades to such a degree, that every house in London is illuminated, every street has two bonfires, every bonfire has two hundred squibs, and the poor charming moon yonder, that never looked so well in her life, is not at all minded, but seems only staring out of a garret window at the frantic doings all over the town.(1050) We don't know a single particular, but we conclude that Prince Ferdinand received all his directions from my Lord Granby, who is the mob's hero. We are a little afraid, if we could fear any thing to-night, that the defeat of the Russians by General Weidel was a mistake for this victory of Prince Ferdinand. Pray Heaven! neither of these glories be turned sour, by staying so long at sea! You said in your last, what slaughter must be committed by the end of August! Alas! my dear Sir, so there is by the beginning of it; and we, wretched creatures, are forced to be glad of it, because the greatest part falls on our enemies.

Fifteen hundred men have stolen from Dunkirk, and are said to be sailed northward--some think, to Embden--too poor a pittance surely where they thought themselves so superior, unless they meaned to hinder our receiving our own troops from thence--as paltry, too, if this is their invasion--but if to Scotland, not quite a joke. However, Prince Ferdinand seems to have found employment for the rest of their troops, and Monsieur de Botta will not talk to you in so high a style.

D'Aubreu, the pert Spanish minister, said the other day at court to poor Alt, the Hessian, "Monsieur, je vous f`elicite; Munster est pris." Mr. Pitt, who overheard this cruel apostrophe, called out, "Et moi, Monsieur Alt, Je vous f`elicite; les Russes sont battus."

I am here in town almost every day; Mrs. Leneve, who has long lived with my father, and with me, is at the point of death; she is seventy-three, and has passed twenty-four of them in continual ill health; so I can but wish her released. Her long friendship with our family makes this attention a duty; otherwise I should certainly not be in town this most gorgeous of all summers! I should like to know in how many letters this wonderful summer has been talked of.

It is above two years, I think, since you sent home any of my letters--will you by any convenient opportunity?

Adieu! There is great impatience, as you may believe, to learn the welfare of our young lords and heroes--there are the Duke of Richmond, Lord Granby, Lord George Sackville, Lord Downe, Fitzroy, General Waldegrave, and others of rank.

(1050) "I have the joy to tell you," writes Mr. Pitt, on the 6th, to Lady Hester, "that our happy victory ne fait que croitre et embellir: by letters come this day, the hereditary Prince, with his troops, had passed the Weser, and attacked, with part of them, a body of six thousand French, defeated it, took many prisoners, some trophies and cannon: M. de Contades's baggage, coaches, mules, letters, and correspondences have fallen into our hands. Words in letters say, 'qu'on se lasse de prendre des prisoniers.'" Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 8.-E.

504 Letter 328 To George Montagu, Esq. Strawberry Hill, Aug. 9, 1759.

Unless your Colonel Johnson is a man of no note, he is well. for we have not lost one officer of any note--now will you conclude that we are beaten, and will be crying and roaring all night for Hanover. Lord! where do you live? If you had any ears, as I have none left with the noise, you would have heard the racket that was made from morning till night yesterday on the news of the victory(1051) gained by Prince Ferdinand over the French. He has not left so many alive as there are at any periwig-maker's in London. This is all we know, the particulars are to come at their leisure, and with all the gravity due to their importance. If the King's heart were not entirely English, I believe he would be complimented with the title of Germanicus from the name of the country where this great event happened; for we don't at all know the precise spot, nor has the battle yet been christened--all that is certain is, that the poor Duke(1052) is neither father nor godfather.

I was sent for to town yesterday, as Mrs. Leneve was at the point of death: but she has had a surprising change, and may linger on still. I found the town distracted, and at night it was beautiful beyond description. As the weather was so hot, every window was open, and all the rails illuminated; every street had one or two bonfires, the moon was in all its glory, the very middle of the streets crowded with officers and people of fashion talking of the news. Every squib in town got drunk, and rioted about the streets till morning. Two of our regiments are said to have suffered much, of which Napier's most. Adieu! If you should be over-English with this, there is a party of one thousand five hundred men stolen out of Dunkirk, that some weeks hence may bring you to your senses again, provided they are properly planted and watered in Scotland.

(1051) At the battle of Minden.

(1052) Duke of Cumberland.

505 Letter 329 To The Earl Of Strafford. Strawberry Hill, Thursday, 3 o'clock, August 9, 1759.

My dear lord, Lord Granby has entirely defeated the French!--The foreign gazettes, I suppose, will give this victory to Prince Ferdinand: but the mob of London, whom I have this minute left, and who must know best, assure me that it is all their own Marquis's doing. Mr. Yorke(1053) was the first to send this news, "to be laid with himself and all humility at his Majesty's feet",(1054) about eleven o'clock yesterday morning. At five this morning came Captain Ligonier, who was despatched in such a hurry that he had not time to pack up any particulars in his portmanteau: those we are expecting with our own army, who we conclude are now at Paris, and will be tomorrow night at Amiens. All we know is, that not one Englishman is killed, nor one Frenchman left alive. If you should chance to meet a bloody wagon-load of heads, you will be sure that it is the part of the spoils that came to Downe's share, and going to be hung up in the great hall at Cowick.(1055)

We have a vast deal of other good news; but as not one word of it is true, I thought you would be content with this victory. His Majesty is in high spirits, and is to make -,a triumphal entry into Hanover on Tuesday fortnight. I envy you the illuminations and rejoicings that will be made at Worksop on this occasion.

Four days ago we had a great victory over the Russians; but in the hurry of this triumph it has somehow or other been mislaid, and nobody can tell where to find it:--however, it is not given over for lost.

Adieu, my dear lord! As I have been so circumstantial in the account of this battle, I will not tire you with any thing else. My compliments to the lady of the menagerie. I see your new offices rise(1056) every day in a very respectable manner.

(1053) Afterwards Lord Dover,, then Minister at the Hague.

(1054) The words of his despatch.

(1055) Lord Downe's seat in Yorkshire.

(1056) At Lord Strafford's house at Twickenham.

506 Letter 330 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(1057) Arlington Street, Aug. 14, 1759.

I am here in the most unpleasant way in the world, attending poor Mrs. Leneve's deathbed, a spectator of all the horrors of tedious suffering and clear sense, and with no one soul to speak to-but I will not tire you with a description of what has quite worn me out.

Probably by this time you have seen the Duke of Richmond or Fitzroy--but lest you should not, I will tell you all I can learn, and a wonderful history it is. Admiral Byng was not more unpopular than Lord George Sackville. I should scruple repeating his story, if Betty(1058) and the waiters at Arthur's did not talk of it publicly, and thrust Prince Ferdinand's orders into one's hand.

You have heard, I suppose, of the violent animosities that have reigned for the whole campaign between him and Lord Granby--in which some other warm persons have been very warm too. In the heat of the battle, the Prince, finding thirty-six squadrons of French coming down upon our army, sent Ligonier to order our thirty-two squadrons, under Lord George to advance. During that transaction, the French appeared to waver; and Prince Ferdinand, willing, as it is supposed, to give the honour to the British horse of terminating the day, sent Fitzroy to bid Lord George bring up only the British cavalry. Ligonier had but just delivered his message, when Fitzroy came with his.- -Lord George said, "This can't be so--would he have me break the line? here is some mistake." Fitzroy replied, he had not argued upon the orders, but those were the orders. "Well!" said Lord George, "but I want a guide." Fitzroy said, he would be his guide. Lord George, "Where is the Prince?" Fitzroy, "I left him at the head of the left wing, I don't know where he is now." Lord George said he would go seek him, and have this explained. Smith then asked Fitzroy, to repeat the orders to him; which being done, Smith went and whispered Lord George, who says he then bid Smith carry up the cavalry: Smith is come, and says he is ready to answer any body any question. Lord George says, Prince Ferdinand's behaviour to him has been most infamous, has asked leave to resign his command, and to come over, which is granted., Prince Ferdinand's behaviour is summed up in the enclosed extraordinary paper; which you will doubt as I did, but which is certainly genuine. I doubted, because, in the military, I thought direct disobedience of orders was punished with an immediate -arrest, and because the last paragraph seemed to me very foolish. The going Out Of the way to compliment Lord Granby with what he would have done, seems to take off a little from the compliments paid to those that have done something; but, in short, Prince Ferdinand or Lord George, one of them, is most outrageously in the wrong, and the latter has much the least chance of being thought in the right.

The particulars I tell you, I collect from the most accurate, authorities.--I make no comments on Lord George, it would look like a little dirty court to you; and the best compliment I can make you, is to think, as I do, that you will be the last man to enjoy this revenge.

You will be sorry for poor M'Kinsey and Lady Betty, who have lost their only child at Turin. Adieu!

(1057) Now first printed.

(1058) A celebrated fruit-shop in St. James's Street.

(1059) Mr. Pitt in a letter of the 15th to Lord Bute, says, "The king has given leave to Lord George Sackville to return to England; his lordship having in a letter to Lord Holderness, requested to be recalled from his command. This mode of returning, your lordship will perceive, is a very considerable softening of his misfortune. The current in all parts bears hard upon him. As I have already, so I shall continue to give him, as a most unhappy man, all the offices of humanity which our first, sacred duty, the public good, will allow." Chatham Correspondence, vol. i. p. 417.-E.

507 Letter 331 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, August 29, 1759.

Truly I don't know whether one is to be rejoicing or lamenting! Every good heart is a bonfire for Prince Ferdinand's success, and a funeral pile for the King of Prussia's defeat.(1060) Mr. Yorke, who every week," "lays himself most humbly at the King's feet" with some false piece of news, has almost ruined us in illuminations for defeated victories--we were singing Te Deums for the King of Prussia, when he was actually reduced to be King of Custrin, for he has not only lost his neighbour's capital, but his own too. Mr. Bentley has long said, that we should see him at Somerset House next winter; and really I begin to be afraid that he will not live to write the history of the war himself-I shall be content, if he is forced to do it even by subscription. Oh, that Daun! how he sits silent on his drum, and shoves the King a little and a little farther out of the world! The most provoking part of all is, (for I am mighty soon comforted when a hero tumbles from the top of Fame's steeple and breaks his neck,) that that tawdry toad, Bruhl(1061) Will make a triumphant entry into the ruins of Dresden, and rebuild all his palaces with what little money remains in the country!

The mob, to comfort themselves under these mishaps, and for the disappointment of a complete victory, that might have been more compleater, are new grinding their teeth and nails, to tear Lord George(1062) to pieces the instant he lands. If he finds more powerful friends than poor Admiral Byng, assure yourself he has ten thousand times the number of personal enemies; I was going to say real, but Mr. Byng's were real enough, with no reason to be personal. I don't talk of the event itself', for I suppose all Europe knows just as much as we know here. I suspend my opinion till Lord George speaks himself--but I pity his father, who has been so unhappy in his sons, who loved this so much, and who had such fair prospects for him. Lord George's fall is prodigious; nobody stood higher, nobody has more ambition or more sense.

You, I suppose, are taking leave of your new King of Spain,(1064)--what a bloody war is saved by this death, by its happening in the midst of one that cannot be more bloody! I detest a correspondence now; it lives like a vampire upon dead bodies! Adieu! I have nothing to write about.

P. S. I forgot to ask you if you are not shocked with Bellisle's letter to Contades? The French ought to behave with more spirit than they do, before they give out such sanguinary orders--@,iii(I if they did, I should think they would not give such orders. And did not YOU laugh at the enormous folly of Bellisle's conclusion? It is so foolish, that I think he might fairly disavow it. It puts me in mind of a ridiculous passage in Racine's Bajazet, ----"et s'il faut que je meure, Mourons, moi, cher Osmin, comme un Visir; et toi Comme le favori d'un homme tel que moi."

(1060) Prince Ferdinand's victory was the celebrated battle of Minden, won from the French on the 1st of August; the King of Prussia's defeat was that of Kunersdorf, lost to the Russians on the 12th of August.-D.

(1061) Count Bruhl, favourite and prime minister of Augustus the Third, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony.

(1063) Lord George Sackville, disgraced at the battle of Minden.

(1064) Charles the Third, King of Naples, who had just become King of Spain, by the death of his elder brother.-D.

508 Letter 332 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Sept. 13, 1759.

With your unathletic constitution I think you will have a greater weight of glory to represent than you can bear. You will be as `epuis`e as Princess Craon with all the triumphs over Niagara, Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and such a parcel of long names. You will ruin yourself in French horns, to exceed those of Marshal Botta, who has certainly found a pleasant way of announcing victories. Besides, all the West Indies, which we have taken by a panic, there is Admiral Boscawen has demolished the Toulon squadron, and has made you Viceroy of the Mediterranean. I really believe the French will Come hither now, for they can be safe nowhere else. If the King of Prussia should be totally undone in Germany, we can afford to give him an appanage, as a younger son of England, of some hundred thousand miles on the Ohio. Sure universal monarchy was never so put to shame as that of France! What a figure do they make! they seem to have no ministers, no generals, no soldiers! If any thing could be more ridiculous than their behaviour in the field, it would be in the cabinet! Their invasion appears not to have been designed against us, but against their own people, who, they fear, will mutiny, and to quiet whom they disperse expresses, with accounts of the progress of their arms in England. They actually have established posts to whom the people are directed to send their letters for their friends in England. If, therefore, you hear that the French have established themselves at Exeter or Norwich, don't be alarmed, nor undeceive the poor women who are writing to their husbands for English baubles.

We have lost another Princess, Lady Elizabeth.(1065) She died of an inflammation in her bowels in two days. Her figure was so very unfortunate, that it would have been difficult for her to be happy, but her parts and application -were extraordinary. I saw her act in "Cato" at eight years old, (when she could not stand alone, but was forced to lean against the side-scene,) better than any of her brothers and sisters. She had been so unhealthy, that at that age she had not been taught to read, but had learned the part of Lucia by hearing the others study their parts. She went to her father and mother, and begged she might act. They put her off as gently as they could--she desired leave to repeat her part, and when she did, it was with so much sense, that there was no denying her.

I receive yours of August 25. To all your alarms for the King of Prussia I subscribe. With little Brandenburgh he could not exhaust all the forces of Bohemia, Hungary, Austria, Muscovy, Siberia, Tartary, Sweden, etc. etc. etc.--but not to politicize too much, I believe the world will come to be fought for somewhere between the North of Germany and the back of Canada, between Count Daun and Sir William Johnson.(1066)

You guessed right about the King of Spain; he is dead, and the Queen Dowager may once more have an opportunity of embroiling the little of Europe that remains unembroiled.

Thank you, my dear Sir, for the Herculaneum and Caserta that you are sending me. I wish the watch may arrive safe, to show you that I am not insensible to all your attentions for me, but endeavour, at a great distance, to imitate you in the execution of commissions.

I would keep this letter back for a post, that I might have but one trouble of sending you Quebec too; but when one has taken so many places, it is not worth while to wait for one more.

Lord George Sackville, the hero of all conversation, if one can be so for not being a hero, is arrived. He immediately applied for a court-martial, but was told it was impossible now, as the officers necessary are in Germany. This was in writing from Lord Holderness--but Lord Ligonier in words was more squab--"If he wanted a court-martial, he might go seek it in Germany." All that could be taken from him is his regiment, above two thousand pounds a-year: commander in Germany at ten pounds a-day, between three and four thousand pounds: lieutenant-general of the ordnance, one thousand five hundred pounds: a fort, three hundred pounds. He remains with a patent place in Ireland, of one thousand two hundred pounds, and about two thousand pounds a-year of his own and wife's. With his parts and ambition, it cannot end here; he calls himself ruined, but when the Parliament meets, he will probably attempt some sort of revenge.

They attribute, I don't know with what grounds, a sensible kind of plan to the French; that De la Clue was to have pushed for Ireland, Thurot for Scotland, and the Brest fleet for England-- but before they lay such great plans, they should take care of proper persons to execute them.

I cannot help shifting at the great objects of our letters. We never converse on a less topic than a kingdom. We are a kind of citizens of the world, and battles and revolutions are the common incidents of our neighbourhood. But that is and must be the case of distant correspondences: Kings and Empresses that we never saw are the only persons we can be acquainted with in common. We can have no more familiarity than the Daily Advertiser would have if it wrote to the Florentine Gazette. Adieu! My compliments to any monarch that lives within five hundred miles of you.

(1065) Second daughter of Frederick Prince of Wales.

(1066) The American general.

510 Letter 333 To The Earl Of Strafford. Arlington Street, Sept. 13, 1759.

My dear lord, You are very good to say you would accept of my letters, though I should have no particular news to tell you; but at present it would be treating heroes and conquerors with great superciliousness, if I made use of your indulgence and said nothing of them. We have taken more places and ships in a week than would have set up such pedant nations as Greece and Rome to all futurity. If we did but call Sir William Johnson "Gulielmus Johnsonus Niagaricus," and Amherst "Galfridus Amhersta Ticonderogicus," we should be quoted a thousand years hence as the patterns of valour, virtue, and disinterestedness; for posterity always ascribes all manner of modesty and self-denial to those that take the most pains to perpetuate their own glory. Then Admiral Boscawen has, in a very Roman style, made free with the coast of Portugal, and used it to make a bonfire of the French fleet. When Mr. Pitt was told of this infraction of a neutral territory, he replied, "It is very true, but they are burned." In short, we want but a little more insolence and a worse cause to make us a very classic nation.

My Lady Townshend, who has not learning enough to copy a Spartan mother, has lost her youngest son.(1067) I saw her this morning --her affectation is on t'other side she affects grief--but not so much for the son she has lost, as for t'other that she may lose.

Lord George is come, has asked for a court-martial, was put off; and is turned out of every thing. Waldegrave has his regiment, for what he did; and Lord Granby the ordnance--for what he would have done.

Lord Northampton is to be married(1068) to-night in full Comptonhood. I am indeed happy that Mr. Campbell(1069) is a general; but how will his father like being the dowager-general Campbell?

You are very kind, my lord (but that is not new,) in interesting Yourself about Strawberry Hill. I have just finished a Holbein-chamber, that I flatter myself you will not dislike; and I have begun to build a new printing-house, that the old one may make room for the gallery and round tower. This noble summer is not yet over us--it seems to have cut a colt's week-. I never write without talking of it, and should be glad to know in how many letters this summer has been mentioned.

I have lately been at Wilton, and was astonished at the heaps of rubbish. The house is grand, and the place glorious; but I should shovel three parts of the marbles and pictures into the river. Adieu, my lord and lady!

(1067) The Hon. Roger Townshend, third son of Viscount Townshend, killed at Ticonderoga on the 25th of July.-E.

(1068) To Lady Anne Somerset.

(1069) Afterwards Duke of Argyle.

511 Letter 334 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(1070) Arlington Street, Sept. 13, 1759.

I intended to send you the brief chronicle of Lord George Sackville but your brother says he has writ to you this morning. If you want to know minute particulars, which neither he nor I should care to detail in a letter, I will tell you them if you will call for a minute at Strawberry on Sunday or Monday, as you go to your camp. I ask this boldly, though I have not been with you; but it was impossible; George Montagu and his brother returned to Strawberry with me from the Vine, and I am expecting Mr. Churchill and Lady Mary, who sent me word they would come to me as soon as I came back, and I think you will find them with me.

Lady Mary Coke is stripping off all the plumes that she has been wearing for Niagara, etc., and is composing herself into religious melancholy against to-morrow night, when she goes to Princess Elizabeth's burial. I passed this whole morning most deliciously at my Lady Townshend's. Poor Roger, for whom she is not concerned, has given her a hint that her hero George may be mortal too; she scarce spoke, unless to improve on some bitter thing that Charles said, who was admirable. He made me all the speeches that Mr. Pitt will certainly make next winter, in every one of which Charles says, and I believe, he will talk of this great campaign, "memorable to all posterity with all its imperfections-a campaign which, though obstructed, cramped, maimed--but I will say no more."

The campaign in Ireland, I hear, will be very warm; the Primate is again to be the object; Ponsonby, commander against him. Lord George's situation will not help the Primate's. Adieu!

(1070) Now first printed.

512 Letter 335 To George Montagu, Esq. Strawberry Hill, Saturday, October 11, 1759.

I don't desire any such conviction of your being ill as seeing you nor can you wonder that I wish to persuade myself that what I should be very sorry for, never happens. Poor Fred. Montagu's gout seems more serious: I am concerned that he has so much of a judge in him already.

You are very good in thinking of me about the sofas; but you know the Holbein chamber is complete, and old matters arc not flung away upon you yourself Had not you rather have your sofa than Lord Northampton's running footman? Two hundred years hence one might be amused with reading of so fantastic a dress, but they are horrid in one's own time. Mr. Bentley and I go to-morrow to Chaffont for two or three days. Mr. Chute is at the Vine already, but, I believe, will be in town this week.

I don't know whether it proceeds from the menaced invasion or the last comet, but we are all dying of heat. Every body has put out their fires, and, if it lasts, I suppose will next week make summer clothes. The mornings are too hot for walking: last night I heard of strawberries. I impute it to the hot weather that my head has been turned enough to contend with the bards of the newspapers. You have seen the French epigram on Madame Pompadour, and fifty vile translations of it. Here IS Mine--

O yes! here are flat-bottom boats to be sold, And soldiers to let-rather hungry than bold: Here are ministers richly deserving to swing, And commanders whose recompense should be a string. O France! still your fate you may lay at Pitt's door; You were saved by a Maid, and undone by a * * *

People again believe the invasion; and I don't wonder, considering how great a militia we have, with such a boy as you mention. I own, before I begin to be afraid, I have a little curiosity to see the militia tried. I think one shall at least laugh before one cries. Adieu! what time have you fixed for looking southwards?

P. S. Your pictures you may have when you please; I think you had better stay and take them with you, than risk the rubbing them by the wagon. Mr. M`untz has not been lately in town-- that is, Hannah has drawn no bill on him lately--so he knows nothing of your snuff-box. This it is to trust to my vivacity, when it is past Its bloom. Lord! I am a mere antiquarian, a mere painstaking mortal. Mr. Bentley says, that if all antiquarians were like me, there would be no such thing as an antiquarian, for I set down every thing, SO circumstantially that I leave them nothing to find out.

513 Letter 336 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(1071) Strawberry Hill, October 14th, 1759.

If Strawberry Hill was not so barren of events as Chatham, I would have writ to you again; nay, if it did not produce the very same events. Your own Light Horse are here, and commit the only vivacities of the place--two or three of them are in the cage every day for some mischief or other. Indeed, they seem to have been taken from school too soon, and, as Rigby said of some others of these new troops, the moment their exercise is over, they all go a bird's-nesting. If the French load their flat-bottom boats with rods instead of muskets, I fear all our young heroes will run away. The invasion seems again come into fashion: I wish it would come, that one might hear no more of it--nay, I wish it for two or three reasons. If they don't come, we shall still be fatigued with the militia, who will never go to plough again till they see an enemy: if there is a peace before the militia runs away, one shall be robbed every day by a constitutional force. I want the French too, to have come, that you may be released; but that will not be soon enough for me, who am going to Park-place. I came from Chaffont to-day, and I cannot let the winter appear without making my Lady Ailesbury a visit. Hitherto my impediments may have looked like excuses, though they were nothing less. Lady Lyttelton goes on Wednesday: I propose to follow her on Monday; but I won't announce myself, that I may not be disappointed, and be a little more welcome by the surprise; though I should be very ungrateful, if I affected to think that I wanted that.

I cannot say I have read the second letter on Lord George: but I have done what will satisfy the booksellers more; I have bought nine or ten pamphlets: my library shall be au fait about him, but I have an aversion to paper wars, and I must be a little more interested than I am about him, before I can attend to them: my head is to be filled with more sacred trash.

The Speaker was here t'other day, and told me of the intimacy between his son and you and the militia. He says the lawyers are examining whether Lord George can be tried or not. I am sorry Lord Stormont is marriediski;(1072) he will pass his life under the north pole, and whip over to Scotland by way of Greenland without coming to London.

I dined t'other day at Sion with the Holdernesses; Lady Mary Coke was there, and in this great dearth of candidates she permits Haslang to die for her. They were talking in the bow-window, when a sudden alarm being given that dinner was on the table, he expressed great joy and appetite. You can't imagine how she was offended. Adieu!

(1071) Now first printed.

(1072) Lord Stormont had recently married Henrietta Frederica, daughter of count Bunau, of Saxony.-E.

514 Letter 337 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Oct. 16, 1759.

I love to prepare your countenance for every event that may happen, for an ambassador, who is nothing but an actor, should be that greatest of actors, a philosopher; and with the leave of wise men (that is, hypocrites), philosophy I hold to be little more than presence of mind now undoubtedly preparation is a prodigious help to presence of mind. In short, you must not be surprised that we have failed at Quebec, as we certainly shall. You may say, if you please, in the style of modern politics that your court never supposed it could be taken; the attempt was only made to draw off the Russians from the King of Prussia, and leave him at liberty to attack Daun. Two days ago came letters from Wolfe, despairing, as much as heroes can despair The town is well victualled, Amherst is not arrived, and fifteen thousand men encamped defend it. We have lost many men by the enemy, and some by our friends-that is, we now call our nine thousand only seven thousand. How this little army will get away from a much larger, and in this season in that country, I don't guess--yes, I do.

You may be making up a little philosophy too against the invasion, which is again come into fashion, and with a few trifling incidents in its favour, such as our fleet dispersed and driven from their coasts by a great storm. Before that, they were actually embarking, but with so ill a grace that an entire regiment mutinied, and they say is broke. We now expect them in Ireland, unless this dispersion of our fleet tempts them hither. If they do not come in a day or two, I shall give them over.

You will see in our gazettes that we make a great figure in the East Indies. In short, Mr. Pitt and this little island appear of some consequence even in the map of the world. He is a new sort of Fabius,

----Qui verbis restituit rem.

Have you yet received the -watch? I see your poor Neapolitan Prince(1073) is at last set aside--I should honour Dr. Serrao's integrity, if I did not think it was more humane to subscribe to the poor boy's folly, than hazard his being poisoned by making it doubtful.

My charming niece is breeding--you see I did not make my lord Waldegrave an useless present. Adieu! my dear Sir.

(1073) The King's second son, Don Philip, set aside for being in a state of incurable idiotcy.-E.

514 Letter 338 To The Hon. H. S. Conway. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 18, 1759.