Chapter VII: Part 7

Now I shall divert your private grief by talking to you of what is called the public. The King and Princess are grown as fond as it they had never been of different parties, or rather as people who always had been of different. She discountenances all opposition, and he all ambition. Prince George, who, with his two eldest brothers, is to be lodged at St. James's, is speedily to be created Prince of Wales. Ayscough, his tutor, is to be removed, with her entire inclination as well as with every body's approbation. They talk of a Regency to be established (in case of a minority) by authority of Parliament, even this session, with the Princess at the head of it. She and Dr. lee, the only one she consults of the late cabal, very sensibly burned the late Prince's papers the moment he was dead. lord Egmont, by seven o'clock the next morning, summoned (not very decently) the faction to his house: all was whisper! at least he hinted something of taking the Princess and her children under their protection, and something of the necessity of harmony. No answer was made to the former proposal. Somebody said, it was very likely indeed they should agree now, when the Prince could never bring it about: and so every body went away to take care of himself. The imposthumation is supposed to have proceeded, not from his fall last year, but from a blow with a tennis-ball some years ago. The grief for the dead brother is affectedly great; the aversion to the living one as affectedly displayed. They cried about an elegy,(232) and added, "Oh, that it were but his brother!" On 'Change they said, "Oh, that it were but the butcher!(233)"

The Houses sit, but no business will be done till after the holidays. AnStruther's affair will go on, but not with MUCH spirit. One wants to see faces about again! Dick lyttelton, one of the patriot officers, had collected depositions on oath against the Duke for his behaviour in Scotland, but I suppose he will now throw his papers into Ham/let's grave?

Prince George, who has a most amiable countenance, behaved excessively well on his father's death. When they told him of it, he turned pale, and laid his hand on his breast. Ayscough said, "I am afraid, Sir, you are not well!"-he replied, "I feel something here, just as I did when I saw the two workmen fall from the scaffold at Kew." Prince Edward is a very plain boy, with strange loose eyes, but was much the favourite. He is a sayer of things! Two men were heard lamenting the death in Leicester-fields: one said, "He has left a great many small children!"-"Ay," replied the other, "and what is worse, they belong to our parish!" But the most extraordinary reflections on his death were set forth in a sermon at Mayfair chapel. "He had no great parts, (pray mind, this was the parson said so, not I,) but he had great virtues; indeed, they degenerated into vices - he was very generous, but I hear his generosity has ruined a great many people: and then his condescension was such, that he kept very bad company."

Adieu! my dear child; I have tried, you see, to blend so much public history with our private griefs, as may help to interrupt your too great attention to the calamities in the former part of my letter. You will, with the properest good-nature in the world, break the news to the poor girl, whom I pity, though I never saw. Miss Nicholl is, I am told, extremely to be pitied too; but so is every body that knew Whithed! Bear it yourself as well as you can!

(230) Francis Thistlethwaite, who took the name of Whithed for his uncle's estate and, as heir to him, recovered Mr. Norton's estate, which he had left to the Parliament for the use of the poor, etc,; but the will was set aside for insanity. [See ant`e.)

(231) Vide Gray's Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College.

(232) Walpole, in his Memoires, vol. i. p. 504, says, "The following which is the elegy alluded to, was probably the effusion of some Jacobite royalist. That faction could not, forgive the Duke of Cumberland his excesses or successes in Scotland; and not content with branding the parliamentary government of the country as usurpation, indulged in frequent unfailing and scurrilous personalities on every branch of the reigning family.

"Here lies Fred, Who was alive and is dead: Had it been his father, I had much rather: Had it been his brother, Still better than another; Had it been his sister, No one would have missed her; Had it been the whole generation, Still better for the nation; But since 'tis only Fred, Who was alive and is dead- There is no more to be said."-E.

(233) The Duke of Cumberland, by his friends styled the Hero of culloden, by his opponents nicknamed Billy the Butcher.-E.

99 Letter 39 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, April 22, 1751.

I could not help, my dear child, being struck with the conclusion of your letter of the 2d of this month, which I have just received; it mentions the gracious assurances you had received from the dead Prince--indeed, I hope you will not want them. The person(234) who conveyed them was so ridiculous as to tell your brother that himself was the most disappointed of all men, he and the Prince having settled his first ministry in such a manner that nothing could have defeated the plan.(235) An admirable scheme for power in England, founded only on two persons! Some people say he was to be a duke and secretary of state. I would have him drawn like Edward V. with the coronet hanging over his head. You will be entertained with a story of Bootle: his washerwoman came to a friend of hers in great perplexity, and said, "I don't know what to do, pray advise me; my master is gone the circuit, and left me particular orders to send him an express if the King died: but here's the Prince, dead and he said nothing about him." You would easily believe this story, if you knew what a mere law-pedant it is!

The Lord(236) you hint at, certainly did not write the Queries, nor ever any thing so well: he is one of the few discarded; for almost all have offered their services, and been accepted. The King asked the Princess if she had a mind for a master of the horse; that it must be a nobleman, and that he had objections to a particular One, Lord Middlesex. I believe she had no objection to his objections, and desired none. Bloodworth is at the head of her stables; of her ministry, Dr. Lee; all knees bow to him. The Duke of Newcastle is so charmed with him, and so sorry he never knew him before, and can't live without him! He is a grave, worthy man; as a civilian, not much versed in the world of this end of the town, but much a gentleman. He made me a visit the other day on my brother's death, and talked much of the great and good part the King had taken, (who by the way, has been taught by the Princess to talk as much of him,) and that the Prince's servants could no longer oppose, if they meant to be consistent. I told this to Mr. Chute, who replied instantly, , "Pho! he meant to be subsistent." You will not be surprised, though you will be charmed, with a new instance of our friend's disinterested generosity: so far from resenting Whithed's neglect of him, he and your brother, on finding the brute-brothers making difficulties about the child's fortune, have taken upon them to act as trustees for her, and to stand all risks. Did not Mr. Whithed know that Mr. Chute would act just so?

Prince George is created Prince of Wales, and his household is settle(]. Lord Harcourt is his governor, in the room of Lord North, to whom there was no objection but his having a glimpse of parts more than the new one, who is a creature of the Pelhams, and very fit to cipher where Stone is to figure. This latter is sub-governor, with the Bishop of Norwich,(237) preceptor; and Scott sub-preceptor. The Bishop is a sensible, good-humoured gentleman, and believed to be a natural son of the old Archbishop of York.(238) Lord Waldegrave, long a personal favourite of the King, who has now got a little interest at his own court, is warden of the stannaries, in the room of Tom Pitt; old Selwyn, treasurer; Lord Sussex,(239) Lord Downe,(240) and Lord Robert Bertle,(241) lords of the bedchamber; Peachy, a young Schutz, and Digby, grooms: but those of the House of Commons have not kissed hands yet, a difficulty being started, whether, as they are now nominated by the King, it will not vacate their Seats.(242) Potter has resigned as secretary to the Princess, and is succeeded by one Cressett, his predecessor, her chief favourite, and allied to the house of Hanover by a Duchess of Zell,(243) who was of a French family-not of that of Bourbon. I was going on to talk to you of the Regency; but as that measure is not complete, I shall not send away my letter till the end of next week.

My private satisfaction in my nephew of Orford is very great indeed; he has an equal temper of reason and goodness that is most engaging. His mother professes to like him as much as every body else does, but is so much a woman that she will not hurt him at all the less. So far from contributing to retrieve his affairs, she talks to him of nothing but mob stories of his grandfather's having laid up--the Lord knows where!--three hundred thousand pounds for him; and of carrying him with her to Italy, that he may converse with sensible people! In looking over her husband's papers, among many of her intercepted billets-doux, I was much entertained with one, which was curious for the whole orthography, and signed Stitara: if Mr. Shirley was to answer it in the same romantic tone, I am persuaded he would subscribe himself the dying Hornadatus. The other learned Italian Countess(244) is disposing of her fourth daughter, the fair Lady Juliana, to Penn, the wealthy sovereign of Pennsylvania;(245) but the nuptials are adjourned till he recovers of a wound in his thigh, which he got by his pistol going off as he was overturned in his post-chaise. Lady Caroline Fox has a legacy of five- thousand pounds from Lord Shelburne,(246) a distant relation, who never saw her but once, and that three weeks before his death. Two years ago Mr. Fox got the ten thousand pound prize.

May 1, 1751.

I find I must send away my letter this week, and reserve the history of the Regency for another post. The bill was to have been brought into the House of lords to-day, but Sherlock, the Bishop of London, has raised difficulties against the limitation of the future Regent's authority, which he asserts to be repugnant to the spirit of our Constitution. Lord Talbot had already determined to oppose it; and the Pitts and Lyttelton's, who are grown very mutinous on the Newcastle's not choosing Pitt for his colleague, have talked loudly against it without doors. The preparatory steps to this great event I will tell you. The old Monarch grandchildizes exceedingly: the Princess, who is certainly a wise woman, and who, in a course of very difficult situations, has never made an enemy nor had a detractor, has got great sway there. The Pelhams, taking advantage of this new partiality, of the universal dread of the Duke, and of the necessity of his being administrator of Hanover, prevailed to have the Princess Regent, but with a council of nine of the chief great officers, to be continued in their posts till the majority, which is fixed for eighteen; nothing to be transacted without the assent of the greater number; and the Parliament that shall find itself existing at the King's death to subsist till the minority ceases: such restrictions must be almost as unwelcome to the Princess as the whole regulation is to the Duke. Judge of his resentment: he does not conceal it. The divisions in the ministry are neither closed nor come to a decision. Lord Holderness arrived yesterday, exceedingly mortified at not finding himself immediate secretary of state, for which purpose he was sent for; but Lord Halifax would not submit to have this cipher preferred to him. An expedient was proposed of flinging the American province into the Board of Trade, but somehow or other, that has miscarried, and all is at a stand. It is known that Lord Granville is designed for president-and for what more don't you think?-he has the inclination of the King--would they be able again to persuade people to resign unless he is removed?-and will not all those who did resign with that intention endeavour to expiate that insult?

Amid all this new clash of politics Murray has had an opportunity for one or two days of making himself talked of. A month ago his brother(247) obtained leave, on pretence of his health, to remove him into the custody of the sergeant-at-arms; but he refused to go thither, and abused his brother for meanness in making such submissive application. On this his confinement was straitened. Last week, my worthy cousin, Sir John Philips, moved the King's Bench for a rule to bring him thither, in order to his having his habeas corpus. He was produced there the next day; 'but the three Judges, onhearing he was committed by the House of Commons, acknowledged the authority, and remanded him back. There was a disposition to commit Sir John, but we have liked to be-pleased with this acknowledgment of our majesty.

Stitara(248) has declared to her son that she is marrying Shirley, but ties him up strictly. I am ready to begin again with a panegyric of My nephew, but I will rather answer a melancholy letter I have Just received from you. His affairs are putting into the best situation we can, and we are agitating a vast match for him, which, if it can be brought to bear, will even save your brother, whose great tenderness to mine has left him exposed to greater risks than any of the creditors. For myself, I think I shall escape tolerably, as my demands are from my father, whose debts are likely to be satisfied. My uncle Horace is indefatigable in adjusting all this confusion. Do but figure him at seventy-four, looking, not merely well for his age, but plump, ruddy, and without a wrinkle or complaint; doing every body's business, full of politics as ever, from morning till night, and then roaming the town to conclude with a party at whist! I have no apprehensions for your demands on Doddington; but your brother, who sees him, will be best able to satisfy you on that head.

Madame de Mirepoix's brother-in-law was not Duke, but Chevalier de Boufflers. Here is my uncle come to drop me a bit of marriage-settlements on his road to his rubbers, so I must finish--you will not be sorry; at least I have given you some light to live upon. Adieu!

(234) George Bubb Dodington.

(235) The following is Dodington's own account of this plan:- -"March 21. When this unfortunate event happened, I had set on foot a project for a union between the independent Whigs and Tories, by a writing, renouncing all tincture of Jacobitism, and affirming short constitutional Revolution principles. These parties, so united, were to lay this paper, containing these principles, before the Prince, offering to appear as his party now, and upon those principles to undertake the administration when he was King, in the subordination and rank among themselves that he should please to appoint. Father of mercy! thy hand that wounds alone can save!" Diary, P. 88.-E.

(236) Lord Middlesex.

(237) Thomas Hayter, Bishop of Norwich.

(238) Dr. Lancelot Blackburne. (See vol. i. The Quarterly Reviewer of Walpole's Memoires, alluding to a similar statement made in that work says,--"As to the accusations of bastardy and profligacy brought against the Bishop and Archbishop, they were, probably, either the creatures of Walpole's own anxiety to draw striking characters, or the echoes of some of those slanderous murmurs which always accompany persons who rise from inferior stations to eminence. He tells us without any hesitation, that Bishop Hayter was a natural son of archbishop Blackburne's. Now we have before us extracts from the registers of the parish of Chagford, in Devonshire, which prove that the Bishop Thomas Hayter was 'the son of George Hayter, rector of this parish, and of Grace his wife,' and that Thomas was one of a family of not fewer, we believe, than ten children Vol. xxvii. p. 186.-E.)

(239) George Augustus Yelverton, second Earl of Sussex, died 1758.-D.

(240) Henry Pleydell Dawnay, third Viscount Downe in Ireland. He distinguished himself greatly in the command of a regiment at the battle of Minden; and died Dec. 9th, 1760, of the wounds he had received at the battle of Campen, Oct. 16th of that year.-D.

(241) The third son of Robert, first Duke of Ancaster and Kesteven. He died in 1782.-D.

(242) "May 3.-Sense of the House taken, if the young Prince of Wales's new servants should be reelected: it was agreed not. The act was read; but those who seemed to favour a re-election forgot to call for the warrants that appointed them servants to the Prince: by whom are they signed? if by the King, the case would not have admitted a word of dispute." Dodington, p. 104.-E.

(243) Mademoiselle d'Olbreuse. It is this m`esalliance which prevents our Royal Family from being what is called chapitrate in Germany. Mademoiselle d'Olbreuse was the mother of George the First's unhappy wife.-D.

(244) Lady Pomfret.

(245) See ant`e.-E.

(246) Henry Petty, Earl of Shelburne in Ireland, the last of the male descendants of Sir William Petty. Upon his death his titles extinguished; but his estates devolved on his nephew, the Lord John Fitz Maurice, in whose favour the title of Shelburne was revived.-D.

(247) Lord Elibank.

(248) Lady Orford. She did marry Mr. Shirley.

103 Letter 40 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, May 30, 1751.

In your last of May 14th, you seem uneasy at not having heard from me in two posts. I have writ you so exactly all the details that I know you would wish to hear, that I think my letters must have miscarried. I will mention all the dates of this year; Feb. 8th, March 14th and 21st, April 1st, and May 1st; tell me if you have received all these. I don't pretend to say any thing to alleviate your concern for the late misfortunes, but will only recommend to you to harden yourself against every accident, as I endeavour to do. The mortifications and disappointments I have experienced have taught me the philosophy that dwells not merely in speculation. I choose to think about the world, as I have always found, when I most wanted its comfort, it thought about me, that is, not at all. It is a disagreeable dream which must end for every body else as well as for oneself. Some try to supply the emptiness and vanity of present life by something still more empty, fame. I choose to comfort myself, by considering that even while I am lamenting any present uneasiness it is actually passing away. I cannot feel the comfort of folly, because I am not a fool, and I scarce know any other being that it is worth one's while to wish to be. All this looks as if it proceeded from a train of melancholy ideas--it does so: but misfortunes have that good in them that they teach one indifference.

if I Could be mortified anew, I should be with a new disappointment, The immense and uncommon friendship of Mr. Chute had found a method of saving both my family and yours. In short, in the height of his affliction for Whithed, whom he still laments immoderately, he undertook to get Miss Nicholl, the vast fortune, a fortune of above 150,000 pounds, whom Whithed was to have had, for Lord Orford. He actually persuaded her to run away from her guardians, who used her inhumanly, and are her next heirs. How clearly he is justified, you will see, when I tell you that the man, who has eleven hundred a-year for her maintenance, with which he stopped the demands Of his own creditors, instead of employing it for her maintenance and education, is since gone into the Fleet. After such fair success, Lord Orford has refused to marry her; why, nobody can guess. Thus had I placed him in a greater situation than even his grandfather hoped to bequeath to him, had retrieved all the oversights of my family, had saved Houghton and all our glory!-Now, all must go!-and what shocks me infinitely more, Mr. Chute, by excess of treachery, (a story too long for a letter,) is embroiled with his own brother the story, with many others, I believe I shall tell you in person; for I do not doubt but the disagreeable scenes which I have still to go through, will at last drive me to where I have long proposed to seek some peace. But enough of these melancholy ideas!

The Regency-bill has passed with more ease than could have been expected from so extraordinary a measure; and from the warmth with which it was taken up one day in the House of Commons. In the Lords there were but 12 to 106, and the former, the most inconsiderable men in that House. Lord Bath and Lord Grenville spoke vehemently for it: the former in as wild a speech, with much parts, as ever he made in his patriot days; and with as little modesty he lamented the scrambles that he had seen for power! In our House, Mr. Pelham had four signal mortifications: the Speaker, in a most pathetic and fine speech, Sir John Barnard, and Lord Cobham,(249) speaking against, and Mr. Fox, though voting for it, tearing it to pieces. Almost all the late Prince's people spoke or voted for it; most, pretending deference to the Princess, though her power is so much abridged by it. However, the consolation that resides in great majorities balanced the disagreeableness of particular oppositions. We sit, and shall sit, till towards the end of June, though with little business of importance. If there happens any ministerial struggle, which seems a little asleep at present, it will scarce happen till after the prorogation.

Adieu! my dear child; I have nothing else worth telling you at present--at least, the same things don't strike me that used to do; or what perhaps is more true, when things of consequence takes one up, one can't attend to mere trifling. When I say this, you will ask me, where is my philosophy! Even where the best is: I think as coolly as I can, I don't exaggerate what is disagreeable, and I endeavour to lessen it, by undervaluing what I am inclined to think would be a happier state.

(249) Richard Grenville, eldest son of Richard Grenville, of Wotton, Esq. and of Esther Temple, Countess Temple and Viscountess Cobham, in her own right. Lord Cobham became well known in the political world as Earl Temple; which title he succeeded to on the decease of his mother in 1752.-D.

105 Letter 41 To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, May 30, 1751.

Mrs. Boscawen says I ought to write to you. I don't think so. you desired I would, if I had any things new to tell you; I have not. Lady Caroline and Miss Ashe had quarrelled, about reputations before you went out of town. I suppose you would not give a straw to know all the circumstances of a Mr. Paul killing a Mr. Dalton, though the town, who talks of any thing, talks of nothing else. Mrs. French and her Jeffery are parted again. Lady Orford and Shirley married: they say she was much frightened; it could not be for fear of what other brides dread of happening, but for fear it should not happen.

My evening yesterday was employed, how wisely do You think? in trying to procure for the Duchess of Portland a scarlet spider from Admiral Boscawen. I had just seen her collection, which is indeed magnificent, chiefly composed of the spoils of her father's, and the Arundel collections. The gems of all sorts are glorious. I was diverted with two relics of St. Charles the Martyr; one, the pearl you see in his pictures, taken out of his ear after his foolish head was off; the other, the cup out of which he took his last sacrament. They should be given to that nursery of nonsense and bigotry, Oxford.

I condole with you on your journey, am glad Miss Montagu is in better health, and am yours sincerely.

105 Letter 42 To The Rev. Joseph Spence.(250) Arlington Street, June 3, 1751.

Dear sir, I have translated the lines, and send them to you; but the expressive conciseness and beauty of the original, and my disuse of turning 106 verses, made it so difficult, that I beg they may be of no other use than that of showing you how readily I complied with your request.

"Illam, quicquid agit, quoquo vestilia vertit, Componit furtim subsequiturque decor."

"If she but moves or looks, her step, her face, By stealth adopt unmeditated grace."

There are twenty little literal variations that may be made, and are of no consequence, as 'move' or 'look'; 'air' instead of 'step', and 'adopts' instead of 'adopt': I don't know even whether I would not read 'steal and adopt', instead of 'by stealth adopt'. But none of these changes will make the copy half so pretty as the original. But what signifies that? I am not obliged to be a poet because Tibullus was one; nor is it just now that I have discovered I am not. Adieu!

(250) Now first collated. See Singer's edition of Spence's Anecdotes, p. 349.-E.

106 Letter 43 To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, June 13, 1751.

You have told me that it is charity to write you news into Kent; but what if my news should shock you! Won't it rather be an act of cruelty to tell you, your relation, Sandwich,(251) is immediately to be removed; and that the Duke of Bedford and all the Gowers will resign to attend him? Not quite all the Gowers, for the Earl himself keeps the privy-seal and plays on at brag, with Lady Catherine Pelham, to the great satisfaction of the Staffordshire Jacobites, who desire, at least expect, no better diversion than a division in that house. Lord Trentham does resign. Lord Hartington is to be master of the horse, and called up to the House of Peers. Lord Granville is to be president; if he should resent any former resignations and insist on victims, will Lord Hartington assure the menaced that they shall not be sacrificed?

I hear your friend Lord North is wedded: somebody said it is very hot weather to marry so fat a bride; George Selwyn replied, "Oh! she was kept in ice for three days before."

The first volume of Spenser is published with prints, designed by Kent; but the most execrable performance you ever beheld. The graving not worse than the drawing; awkward knights, scrambling Unas, hills tumbling down themselves, no variety Of prospect and three or four perpetual spruce firs.

Our charming Mr. Bentley is doing Gray as much more honour as he deserves than Spencer. He is drawing vignettes for his Odes; what a valuable MS. I shall have! Warburton publishes his edition of Pope next week, with the famous piece of prose on Lord Hervey,(252) which he formerly suppressed at my uncle's desire; who had got an abbey from Cardinal Fleury for one Southcote, a friend of Pope's.(253) My Lord Hervey pretended not to thank him. I am told the edition has waited, because Warburton has cancelled above a hundred sheets (in which he had inserted notes) since the publication of the Canons of Criticism.(254) The new history of Christina is a most wretched piece of trumpery, stuffed with foolish letters and confutations of Mademoiselle de Montpensier and Madame de Motteville. Adieu! Yours ever.

(251) John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich.

(252) Entitled "A Letter to a Noble Lord, on occasion of some libels written and propagated at court, in the year 1732-3."-E.

(253) According to Spence, the application was made by Pope to Sir Robert Walpole; but Dr. Warton states, that, "in gratitude for the favour conferred on his friend, Pope presented to Horatio Walpole, afterwards Lord Walpole, a set of his works in quarto, richly bound; which are now in the library at Wollerton."-E.

(254) Edwards's "Canons of Criticism;" a series of notes on Warburton's edition of Shakspeare. Johnson thought well of it; but upon some one endeavouring to put the author upon a level with Warburton, "Nay," said the Doctor, "he has given him some smart hits, but the two men must not be named together: a fly, sir, may sting a stately horse, and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still."-E.

107 Letter 44 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, June 18, 1751.

I sent my letter as usual from the secretary's office, but of what secretary I don't know. Lord Sandwich last week received his dismission, on which the Duke of Bedford resigned the next day, and Lord Trentham with him, both breaking with old Gower, who is entirely in the hands of the Pelhams, and made to declare his quarrel with Lord Sandwich (who gave away his daughter to Colonel Waldegrave) the foundation 4 his detaching himself from the Bedfords. Your friend Lord Fane(255) comforts Lord Sandwich with an annuity of a thousand a-year-scarcely for his handsome behaviour to his sister! Lord Hartington is to be master of the horse, and Lord Albemarle groom of the stole; Lord Granville is actually lord president, and, by all outward and visible signs, something more-in short, if he don't overshoot himself, the Pelhams have; the King's favour to him is visible, and so much credited, that all the incense is offered to him. It is believed that Impresario Holderness will succeed the Bedford in the foreign seals, and Lord Halifax in those for the plantations. If the former does, you will have ample instructions to negotiate for singers and dancers! Here is an epigram made upon his directorship.

"That secrecy will now prevail In politics, is certain; Since Holderness, who gets the seals, Was bred behind the curtain."

The Admirals Rowley and Boscawen are brought into the admiralty under Lord Anson, who is advanced to the head of the board. Seamen are tractable fishes! especially it will be Boscawen's case, whose name in Cornish signifies obstinacy, and who brings along with him a good quantity of resentment to Anson. In short, the whole present system is equally formed for duration!

Since I began my letter, Lord Holderness has kissed hands for the seals. It is said that Lord Halifax is to be made easy, by the plantations being put under the Board of Trade. Lord Granville comes into power as boisterously as ever, and dashes at every thing. His lieutenants already beat up for volunteers; but he disclaims all connexions with Lord Bath, who, he says, forced him upon the famous ministry of twenty-four hours, and by which he says he paid all his debts to him. This will soon grow a turbulent scene-it 'Is not unpleasant to sit upon the beach and see it; but few people have the curiosity to step out to the sight. You, who knew England in other times, will find it difficult to conceive what an indifference reigns with regard to ministers and their squabbles. The two Miss Gunnings,(256) and a late extravagant dinner at White's, are twenty times more the subject of conversation than the two brothers and Lord Granville. These are two Irish girls, of no fortune, who are declared the handsomest women alive. I think their being two so handsome and both such perfect figures is their chief excellence, for singly I have seen much handsomer women than either; however, they can't walk in the park, or go to Vauxhall, but such mobs follow them that they are generally driven away. The dinner was a folly of seven young men, who bespoke it to the utmost extent of expense: one article was a tart made of duke cherries from a hothouse; and another, that they tasted but one glass out of each bottle of champagne. The bill of fare has got into print, and with good people has produced the apprehension of another earthquake. Your friend St. Leger, was at the head of these luxurious heroes--he is the hero of all fashion. I never saw more dashing vivacity and absurdity, with some flashes of parts. He had a cause the other day for duelling a sharper, and was going to swear: the judge said to him, "I see, Sir, you are very ready to take an oath." "Yes, my lord," replied St. Leger, "my father was a judge."

We have been overwhelmed with lamentable Cambridge and Oxford dirges on the Prince's death: there is but one tolerable copy; it is by a young Lord Stormont,(257) a nephew of Murray, who is much commended. You may imagine what incense is offered to Stone by the people of Christ Church: they have hooked in, too poor Lord Harcourt, and call him Harcourt the Wise! his wisdom has already disgusted the young Prince; "Sir, pray hold up your head. Sir, for Cod's sake, turn out your toes!" Such are Mentor's precepts!

I am glad you receive my letters; as I knew I had been punctual, it mortified me that you should think me remiss. Thank you for the transcript from Bubb de tribes!(258) I will keep your secret, though I am persuaded that a man who had composed such a funeral oration on his master and himself fully intended that its flowers should not bloom and wither in obscurity.

We have already begun to sell the pictures that had not found place at Houghton: the sale gives no great encouragement to proceed; (though I fear it must come to that!) the large pictures were thrown away: the whole length Vandykes went for a song! I am mortified now at having printed the catalogue. Gideon the Jew, and Blakiston(259) the independent grocer, have been the chief purchasers of the pictures sold already--there, if you love moralizing! Adieu! I have no more articles to-day for my literary gazette.

(255) Lord Sandwich married Dorothy, sister of Charles, Lord Viscount Fane.

(256) Afterwards Countess of Coventry, and Duchess of Hamilton and Argyll.-D.

(257) David Murray, seventh Viscount Stormont, ambassador at Vienna and Paris, and president of the council. He died in 1796.-D.

(258) A letter to Mr. Mann from Bubb Doddington on the Prince's death. It is dated June 4, and contains the following bombastic and absurd passage: which, however, proves how great were the expectations of Doddington, if the prince had lived to succeed his father: ,We have lost the delight and ornament of the age he lived in, the expectations of the public-in this light I have lost more than any subject in England, but this is light; public advantages confined to myself do not, ought not, to weigh with me. But we have lost the refuge of private distress, the balm of the afflicted heart, the shelter of the miserable against the fang of private calamity; the arts, the graces, the anguish, the misfortunes of society have lost their patron and their remedy. I have lost my protector, my companion, my friend that loved me, that condescended to bear, to communicate, and to share in all the pleasures and pains of the human heart, where the social affections and emotions of the mind only presided, without regard to the infinite disproportion of our rank and condition. This is a wound that cannot, ought not, to heal--if I pretended to fortitude here I should be infamous, a monster of ingratitude; and unworthy of all consolation, if I was not inconsolable.-D.

(259) Blakiston has been caught in smuggling, and pardoned by Sir Robert Walpole; but continuing the practice, and being again detected was fined five thousand pounds; on which he grew a violent party man, and a ringleader of the Westminster independent electors, and died an alderman of London.

109 Letter 45 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, July 16, 1751.

I shall do little more to-day than answer your last letter of the 2d of this month; there is no kind of news. My chief reason for writing to you is to notify a visit that you will have at Florence this summer from Mr. Conway, who is forced to go to his regiment at Minorca, but is determined to reckon Italy within his quarters. You know how, particularly he is my friend; I need not recommend him to you; but you will see something very different from the staring boys that come in flocks to you new, once a year, like woodcocks. Mr. Conway is deservedly reckoned one of the first and most rising young men in England. He has distinguished himself in the greatest style both in the army and in Parliament. This is for you. for the Florentine ladies, there is still the finest person and the handsomest face I ever saw--no, I cannot say that all this will be quite for them; he will not think any of them so handsome as my Lady Aylesbury.

It is impossible to answer you why my Lord Orford would not marry Miss Nicholl. I don't believe there was any particular reason or attachment any where else; but unfortunately for himself and for us, he is totally insensible to his situation, and talks of selling Houghton with a coolness that wants nothing but being intended for philosophy to be the greatest that ever was. Mind, it is a virtue that I envy more than I honour.

I am going into Warwickshire to Lord Hertford, and set out this evening, and have so many things to do that you must excuse me, for I neither know what I write, nor have time to write more. Adieu!

110 Letter 46 To George Montagu, Esq. Daventry, July 22, 1751.

You will wonder in what part of the county of Twicks lies this Daventry. It happens to be in Northamptonshire. My letter will scarce set out till I get to London, but I choose to give it its present date lest you should admire, that Mr. Usher of the exchequer, the lord treasurer of pen, ink, and paper, should write with such coarse materials. I am on my way from Ragley,(260) and if ever the waters subside and my ark rests upon dry land again, I think of stepping over to TOnghes: but your journey has filled my postchaise's head with such terrible ideas of your roads, that I think I shall let it have done raining for a month or six weeks, which it has not done for as much time past, before I begin to grease my wheels again, and lay in a provision of French books, and tea, and blunderbusses, for my journey.

Before I tell you a word of Ragley, you must hear how busy I have been upon Grammont. You know I have long had a purpose of a new edition, with notes, and cuts of the principal beauties and heroes, if I could meet with their portraits. I have made out all the people at all remarkable except my Lord Janet, whom I cannot divine unless he be Thanet. Well, but what will entertain you is, that I have discovered the philosophe Whitnell; and what do you think his real name was? Only 'Whetenhall! Pray do you call cousins?(261) Look in Collins's Baronets, and under the article Bedingfield you will find that he was an ingenious gentleman, and la blanche Whitnell, though one of the greatest beauties of the age, an excellent wife. I am persuaded the Bedingfields crowded in these characters to take off the ridicule in Grammont; they have succeeded to a miracle. Madame de Mirepoix told me t'other day, that she had known a daughter of the Countess de Grammont, an Abbess in Lorrain, who, to the ambassadress's great scandal, was ten times more vain of the blood of Hamilton than of an equal quantity of that of Grammont. She had told her much of her sister my Lady Stafford,(262) whom I remember to have seen when I was a child. She used to live at Twickenham when Lady Mary Wortley(263) and the Duke of Wharton lived there; she had more wit than both of them. What would I give to have had Strawberry Hill twenty years ago! I think any thing but twenty years. Lady Stafford used to say to her sister, "Well, child, I have come without my wit to-day;" that is, she had not taken her opium, which she was forced to do if she had any appointment, to be in particular spirits. This rage of Grammont carried me a little while ago to old Marlborough's,(264) at Wimbledon, where I had heard there was a picture of Lady Denham;(265) it is a charming one. The house you know stands in a hole, or, as the whimsical old lady said, seems to be making a courtesy. She had directed my Lord Pembroke not to make her go up any steps; "I wont go up steps;"--and so he dug a saucer to put it in, and levelled the first floor with the ground. There is a bust of Admiral Vernon, erected I suppose by Jack Spencer, with as many lies upon it as if it was a tombstone; and a very curious old picture up-stairs that I take to be Louis Sforza the Moor, with his nephew Galeazzo. There are other good pictures in the house, but perhaps you have seen them. As I have formerly seen Oxford and Blenheim, I did not stop till I came to Stratford-upon-Avon, the wretchedest old town I ever saw, which I intended for Shakspeare's sake, to find snug and pretty, and antique, not old. His tomb, and his wife's, and John Combes', are in an agreeable church, with several other monuments; as one of the Earl of Totness,(266) and another of Sir Edward Walker, the memoirs writer. There are quantities of Cloptons, too but the bountiful corporation have exceedingly bepainted Shakspeare and the principal personages.

I was much struck with Ragley; the situation is magnificent; the house far beyond any thing I have seen of that bad age: for it was begun, as I found by an old letter in the library from Lord Ranelagh to Earl Conway, in the year 1680. By the way, I have had, and am to have, the rummaging of three chests of pedigrees and letters to that secretary Conway, which I have interceded for and saved from the flames. The prospect is as fine as one destitute of a navigated river can be, ind hitherto totally unimproved; so is the house, which is but just covered in, after so many years. They have begun to inhabit the naked walls of the attic story; the great one is unfloored and unceited - the hall is magnificent, sixty by forty, and thirty-eight high. I am going to pump Mr. Bentley for designs. The other apartments are very lofty, and in quantity, though I had suspected that this leviathan hall must have devoured half the other chambers.

The Hertfords carried me to dine at Lord Archer's,(267) an odious place. On my return, I saw Warwick, a pretty old town, small, and thinly inhabited, in the form of a cross. The castle is enchanting; the view pleased me more than I can express; the river Avon tumbles down a cascade at the foot of it. It is well laid out by one Brown(268 who has set up on a few ideas of Kent and Mr. Southcote. One sees what the prevalence of taste does; little Brooke, who would have chuckled to have been born in an age of clipt hedges and cockle-shell avenues, has submitted to let his garden and park be natural. Where he has attempted Gothic in the castle, he has failed; and has indulged himself in a new apartment, that is paltry. The chapel is very pretty, and smugged up with tiny pews, that look like `etuis for the Earl and his diminutive Countess. I shall tell you nothing of the glorious chapel of the Beauchamps in St. Mary's church, for you know it is in Dugdale; nor how ill the fierce bears and ragged staves are succeeded by puppets and corals. As I came back another road, I saw Lord Pomfret's,(269) by Towcester, where there are a few good pictures, and many masked statues; there is an exceeding fine Cicero, which has no fault, but the head being modern. I saw a pretty lodge. just built by the Duke of Grafton, in Whittleberry-forest; the design is Kent's, but, as was his manner, too heavy. Iran through the gardens at Stowe, which I have seen before, and had only time to be charmed with the variety of scenes. I do like that Albano glut of buildings, let them be ever so much condemned.

(260) The seat of the Earl of Hertford in Warwickshire.

(261) A sister of Mr. Montagu's was married to Nathaniel Whetenhall, Esq.

(262) Claude Charlotte, Countess of Stafford, wife of Henry, Earl of Stafford, and daughter of Philibert, Count of Grammont, and Elizabeth Hamilton, his wife.

(263) Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

(264) Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough.

(265) Miss Brooke, one of the beauties of the court of Charles II., second wife of Sir John Denham the poet. This second marriage brought upon him so much disquiet, as for a time to disorder his understanding, and Butler lampooned him for his lunacy. In Grammont's Memoirs many circumstances are related, both of his marriage and his frenzy, very little favourable to his character.-E.

(266) George Carew, Earl of Totness, died without heirs male in 1629, leaving an only daughter, married to Sir Allen Apsley.-E.

(267) Umberslade, near Stratford-upon-Avon.

(268) Lancelot Brown, generally called "Capability Brown," from his frequent use of that word. He rose by his merit, from a low condition, to be head gardener at Stowe; and was afterwards appointed to the same situation at Hampton Court. Lord Chatham, who had a great regard for him, thus speaks of him, in a letter to Lady Stanhope:--"The chapter of my friend's dignity must not be omitted. He writes Lancelot Brown, Esquire, en titre d'affic: please to consider, he shares the private hours of Majesty, dines familiarly with his neighbour of Sion, and sits down to the tables of all the House of Lords, etc. To be serious, he is deserving of the regard shown to him; for I know him, upon very long acquaintance to be an honest man, and of sentiments much above his birth." see Chatham Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 430.-E.

(269) Easton Neston.

112 letter 47 To Sir Horace Mann. Mistley, Aug. 31, 1751.

I am going to answer two of your letters, without having the fear of Genoa(270) before my eyes. Your brother sent to me about this embassy the night before I came out of town, and I had not time nor opportunity to make any inquiry about it. Indeed, I am persuaded it is all a fable, some political nonsense of Richcourt. How should his brother know any thing of it? or, to speak plainly, what can we bring about by a sudden negotiation with the Genoese? Do but put these two things together, that we can do nothing, and the Richcourts can know nothing, and you will laugh at this pretended communication of a secret that relates to yourself' from one who is ignorant of what relates to you, and who would not tell you if he did know. I have had a note from your brother since I came hither, which confirms my opinion; and I find Mr. Chute is of the same. Be at peace, my dear child: I should not be so if I thought you in the least danger.

I imagined you would have seen Mr. Conway before this time; I have already told you how different you will find him from the raw animals that you generally see. As you talk of our Beauties, I shall tell you a new story of the Gunnings, who make more noise than any of their predecessors since the days of Helen, though neither of them, nor any thing about them, have yet been teterrima belli causa. They went the other day to see Hampton Court; as they were going Into the Beauty-room, another company arrived; the housekeeper said, "This way, ladies; here are the Beauties." The Gunnings flew into a passion, and asked her what she meant; that they came to see the palace, not to be showed as a sight themselves.

I am charmed with your behaviour to the Count on the affair of the Leghorn allegiance; I don't wonder he is willing to transport you to Genoa! Your priest's epigram is strong; I suppose he had a dispensation for making a false quantity in secunda.

Pray tell me if you know any thing of Lady Mary Wortley: we have an obscure history here of her being in durance in the Brescian, or the Bergamasco: that a young fellow whom she set out with keeping has taken it into his head to keep her close prisoner, not permitting her to write or receive any letters but what he sees: he seems determined, if her husband should die, not to lose her, as the Count lost my Lady Orford.(271)

Lord Rockingham told me himself of his Guercino, and seemed obliged for the trouble you had given yourself in executing the commission. I can tell you nothing farther of the pictures at Houghton; Lord Orford has been ill and given over, and is gone to Cheltenham.

The affair of Miss Nicholl is blown up by the treachery of my uncle Horace and some lawyers, that I had employed at his recommendation. I have been forced to write a narrative of the whole transaction, and was with difficulty kept from publishing it. You shall see it whenever I have an opportunity. Mr. Chute, who has been still worse used than I have been, is, however, in better spirits than he was, since he got rid of all this embroil. I have brought about a reconciliation with his brother, which makes me less regard the other disappointments. I must bid you good night, for I am at too great a distance to know any news, even if there were any in season. I shall be in town next week, and will not fail you in inquiries, though I am persuaded you will before that have found that all this Genoese mystery was without foundation. Adieu!

(270) Count Richcourt pretended that he had received intelligence from his brother, then minister in London, that Mr. Mann was to be sent on a secret commission to Genoa.

(271) Lord Wharncliffe, in his edition of Lady Mary's Works, vol. iii. p. 435, makes the following observation on this passage:--"Among Lady Mary's papers there is a long paper, written in Italian, not by herself, giving an account of her having been detained for some time against her will in a country-house belonging to an Italian Count, and inhabited by him and his mother. This paper seems to have been submitted to a lawyer for his opinion, or to be produced in a court of law. There is nothing else to be found in Lady Mary's papers referring in the least degree to this circumstance. It would appear, however, that some such forcible detention as is alluded to did take place, probably for some pecuniary or interested object; but, like many of Horace Walpole's stories, he took care not to let this lose any thing that might give it zest, and he therefore makes the person by whom Lady Mary was detained a young fellow whom she set out with keeping.' Now, at the time of this transaction, Lady Mary was sixty-one years old. The reader, therefore, may judge for himself, how far such an imputation upon her is likely to be founded in truth."-E.

114 Letter 48 To George Montagu, Esq. Arlington Street, Oct. 8, 1751.

So you have totally forgot that I sent you the pedigree of the Crouches, as long ago as the middle of last August, and that you promised to come to Strawberry Hill in October. I shall be there some time in next week, but as my motions neither depend on resolutions nor almanacs, let me know beforehand when you intend to make me a visit; for though keeping an appointment is not just the thing you ever do, I suppose you know you dislike being disappointed yourself, as much as if you were the most punctual person in the world to engagements.