TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Feb. 1, 1745.

I am glad my letters, obscure as they of course must be, give you any light into England; but don't mind them too much; they may be partial; must be imperfect: don't negotiate upon their authority, but have Capello's1 example before your eyes! How I laugh when I see him important, and see my Lady Pomfret's letters at the bottom of his instructions! how it would make a philosopher smile at the vanity of politics! How it diverts me, who can entertain myself at the expense of philosophy, politics, or any thing else! Mr. Conway says I laugh at all serious characters-so I do and at myself too, who am far from being of the number. Who would not laugh at a world, where so ridiculous a creature as the Duke of Newcastle can overturn ministries! Don't take me for a partizan of Lord Granville's because I despise his rivals; I am not for adopting his measures; they were wild and dangerous: in his single capacity, I think him a great genius;2 and without having recourse to the Countess's translatable periods, am pleased with his company. His frankness charms one when it is not necessary to depend upon it; and his contempt of fools is very flattering to any one who happens to know the present ministry. Their coalition goes on as one should expect; they have the name of having effected it; and the Opposition is no longer mentioned: yet there is not a half-witted prater in the House but can divide with every new minister on his side, except Lyttelton, whenever he pleases. They actually do every day bring in popular bills, and on the first tinkling of the brass, all the new bees swarm back to the Tory side of the House. The other day, on the Flanders army, Mr. Pitt came down to prevent this: he was very ill,

The Venetian Ambassador.

2 Swift, in speaking of Lord Granville, says, that "he carried away from college more Greek, Latin, and philosophy than properly became a person of his rank;" and Walpole, in his Memoires, describes him as Ian extensive scholar, master of all classic criticism, and of all modern politics."-E.

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but made a very strong and much admired speech for coalition, which for that day succeeded, and the army was voted with but one negative. But now the Emperor is dead, and every thing must wear a new face. If it produces a peace, Mr. Pelham is a fortunate man! He will do extremely well at the beginning of peace, like the man in Madame de la Fayette's Memoirs, "Qui exerçoit extrêmement bien sa charge, quand il n'avoit rien à faire." However, do you keep well with them, and be sure don't write me back any treason, in answer to all I write to you: you are to please them; I think of them as they are.

The new Elector3 seems to set out well for us, though there are accounts of his having taken the style of Archduke, as claiming the Austrian succession: if he has, it will be like the children's game of beat knaves out of doors, where you play the pack twenty times over; one gets pam, the other gets pam, but there is no conclusion of the game, till one side has never a card left.

After my ill success with the baronet, to whom I gave a letter for you, I shall always be very cautious how I recommend barbarians to your protection. I have this morning been solicited for some credentials for a Mr. Oxenden.5 I could not help laughing: he is son of Sir George, my Lady W.'s famous lover! Can he want recommendations to Florence? However, I must give him a letter; but beg you will not give yourself any particular trouble about him, for I do not know him enough to bow to. His person is good: that

"Mr. Pitt, who had been laid up with the gout, came down with the mien and apparatus of an invalid, on purpose to make a full declaration of his sentiments on our present circumstances. What he said was enforced with much grace both of action and elocution. He commended the ministry for pursuing moderate and healing measures, and such as tended to set the King at the head of all his people." See Mr. P. Yorke's MS. Parliamentary Journal.—E.

2 Charles VII. Elector of Bavaria.

3 Maximilian Joseph. He died in 1777.-E.

Sir William Maynard. [He married the daughter of Sir Cecil Bisshopp, and died in 1772.]

Afterwards Sir Henry Oxenden, the sixth baronet of the family, and eldest son of Sir George Oxenden, for many years a lord of the treasury during the reign of George the Second. He died in 1803.-E.

and his name, I suppose, will bespeak my lady's attentions, and save you the fatigue of doing him many honours.

Thank Mr. Chute for his letter; I will answer it very soon. I delight in the article of the Mantua Gazette. Adieu!

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Feb. 28, 1745.

You have heard from your brother the reason of my not having written to you so long. I have been out but twice since my father fell into this illness, which is now near a month; and all that time either continually in his room, or obliged to see multitudes of people; for it is most wonderful how every body of all kinds has affected to express their concern for him! He has been out of danger above this week; but I can't say he mended at all perceptibly, till these last three days. His spirits are amazing, and his constitution more; for Dr. Hulse said honestly from the first, that if he recovered, it would be from his own strength, not from their art. After the four or five first days, in which they gave him the bark, they resigned him to the struggles of his own good temperament and it has surmounted! surmounted an explosion and discharge of thirty-two pieces of stone, a constant and vast effusion of blood for five days, a fever of three weeks, a perpetual flux of water, and sixty-nine years, already (one should think) worn down with his vast fatigues! How much more he will ever recover, one scarce dare hope about: for us, he is greatly recovered; for himself

March 4th.

I had written thus far last week, without being able to find a moment to finish. In the midst of all my attendance on my lord and receiving visits, I am forced to go out and thank those that have come and sent; for his recovery is now at such a pause, that I fear it is in vain to expect much farther amendment. How dismal a prospect for him, with the possession of the greatest understanding in the world, not the least impaired, to lie without any use of it! for to keep him

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from pains and restlessness, he takes so much opiate, that he is scarce awake four hours of the four-and-twenty; but I will say no more on this.

Our coalition goes on thrivingly; but at the expense of the old Court, who are all discontented, and are likely soon to show their resentment. The brothers have seen the best days of their ministry. The Hanover troops dismissed to please the Opposition, and taken again with their consent, under the cloak of an additional subsidy to the Queen of Hungary, who is to pay them. This has set the patriots in so villainous a light, that they will be ill able to support a minister who has thrown such an odium on the Whigs, after they had so stoutly supported that measure last year, and which, after all the clamour, is now universally adopted, as you see. If my Lord Granville had any resentment, as he seems to have nothing but thirst, sure there is no vengeance he might not take! So far from contracting any prudence from his fall, he laughs it off every night over two or three bottles. The countess is with child. I believe she and the countessmother have got it; for there is nothing ridiculous which they have not done and said about it. There was a private masquerade lately at the Venetian ambassadress's for the Prince of Wales, who named the company, and expressly excepted my Lady Lincoln and others of the Pelham faction. My Lady Granville came late, dressed like Imoinda, and handsomer than one of the houris: the Prince asked her why she would not dance? "Indeed, Sir, I was afraid I could not have come at all, for I had a fainting fit after dinner." The other night my Lady Townshend made a great ball on her son's coming of age: I went for a little while, little thinking of dancing. I asked my Lord Granville, why my lady did not dance? "Oh, Lord! I wish you would ask her; she will with you." I was caught, and did walk down one country dance with her; but the prudent Signora-madre would not let her expose the young Carteret any farther.

You say, you expect much information about Belleisle, but there has not (in the style of the newspapers) the least particular transpired. He was at first kept magnificently close

at Windsor; but the expense proving above one hundred pounds per day, they have taken his parole, and sent him to Nottingham, à la Tallarde. Pray, is De Sede with you still? his brother has been taken too by the Austrians.

My Lord Coke is going to be married to a Miss Shawe,1 of forty thousand pounds. Lord Hartington is contracted to Lady Charlotte Boyle, the heiress of Burlington, and sister of the unhappy Lady Euston; but she is not yet old enough. Earl Stanhope, too, has at last lifted up his eyes from Euclid, and directed them to matrimony. He has chosen the eldest sister of your acquaintance Lord Haddington.

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I revive about you and Tuscany. I will tell you what is thought to have reprieved you: it is much suspected that the King of Spain is dead. I hope those superstitious people will pinch the Queen, as they do witches, to make her loosen the charm that has kept the Prince of Asturias from having children. At least this must turn out better than the death of the Emperor has.

The Duke, you hear, is named generalissimo, with Count Koningseg, Lord Dunmore, and Ligonier' under him. Poor boy! he is most Brunswickly happy with his drums and trumpets. Do but think that this sugar-plum was to tempt him to swallow that bolus the Princess of Denmark!

What

This marriage did not take place. Lord Coke afterwards married Lady Mary Campbell; and Miss Shawe, William, fifth Lord Byron, the immediate predecessor of the great poet.—E.

2 In 1755 he succeeded his father as fourth Duke of Devonshire. He died at Spa, in 1764; having filled, at different times, the offices of lord lieutenant of Ireland, first lord of the treasury, and lord chamberlain of the household. His marriage with Lady Charlotte Boyle took place in March 1748.-E.

3 Philip, second Earl Stanhope. See antè, p. 259. He married, in July following, Lady Grizel Hamilton, daughter of Charles, Lord Binning.-E.

The imbecile and insane Philip V. He did not die till 1746. The Prince of Asturias was Ferdinand VI, who succeeded him, and died childless in 1759.-D.

Of Cumberland. He never married.-D.

John Murray, second Earl of Dunmore: colonel of the third regiment of Scotch foot guards. He died in 1752.-E.

7 Sir John Ligonier, a general of merit. He was created Lord Ligonier in Ireland, in 1757, an English peer by the same title in 1763, and Earl Ligonier in 1766. He died at the great age of ninety-one, in 1770.-D.

The Princess was deformed and ugly. "Having in vain remon