called very loud for the warder, to give him his perriwig, which he took off, and put on a night-cap of Scotch plaid, and then pulled off his coat and waistcoat and lay down; but being told he was on the wrong side, vaulted round, and immediately gave the sign by tossing up his arm, as if he were giving the signal for battle. He received three blows, but the first certainly took away all sensation. He was not a quarter of an hour on the scaffold; Lord Kilmarnock above half a one. Balmerino certainly died with the intrepidity of a hero, but with the insensibility of one too.1 As he walked from his prison to execution, seeing every window and top of house filled with spectators, he cried out, "Look, look, how they are all piled up like rotten oranges!"

My Lady Townshend, who fell in love with Lord Kilmarnock at his trial, will go nowhere to dinner, for fear of meeting with a rebel-pie; she says, everybody is so bloodyminded, that they eat rebels! The Prince of Wales, whose intercession saved Lord Cromartie, says he did it in return for old Sir William Gordon, Lady Cromartie's father, coming down out of his death-bed to vote against my father in the Chippenham election. If his Royal Highness had not countenanced inveteracy like that of Sir Gordon, he would have no occasion to exert his gratitude now in favour of rebels. His brother has plucked a very useful feather out of the cap of the ministry, by forbidding any application for posts in the army to be made to any body but himself: a resolution, I dare say, he will keep as strictly and minutely as he does the discipline and dress of the army. Adieu !

P. S. I have just received yours of Aug. 9th. You had not then heard of the second great battle of Placentia, which has already occasioned new instructions, or in effect, a recall being sent after Lord Sandwich.

"He once more turned to his friends and took his last farewell, and looking on the crowd, said, 'Perhaps some may think my behaviour too bold; but remember, Sir,' said he to a gentleman who stood near him, that I now declare it is the effect of confidence in God, and a good conscience, and I should dissemble if I should show any signs of fear.'" Ford.-E.

2 See vol. i. p. 131.

1

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Windsor, Sept. 15, 1746.

You have sent me Marquis Rinuncini with as much secrecy as if you had sent me a present. I was here; there came an exceedingly fair written and civil letter from you, dated last May: I comprehended by the formality of it, that it was written for the person who brought it, not for the person it was sent to. I have been to town on purpose to wait on him, and though you know he was not of my set, yet being of Florence, and recommended by you, and recollecting how you used to cuddle over a bit of politics with the old Marquis, I set myself to be wondrous civil to Marquis Folco; pray, faites valoir ma politesse ! You have no occasion to let people know exactly the situation of my villa; but talk of my standing in campagna, and coming directly in sedia di posta, to far mio dovere al Signor Marchesino. I stayed literally an entire week with him, carried him to see palaces and Richmond gardens and park, and Chenevix's shop, and talked a great deal to him alle conversazioni. It is a wretched time for him; there is not a soul in town; no plays; and Ranelagh shut up. You may say I should have stayed longer with him, but I was obliged to return for fear of losing my vintage. I shall be in London again in a fortnight, and then I shall do more mille gentilezze. Seriously, I was glad to see him-after I had got over being sorry to see him, (for with all the goodness of one's Soquxkin soqubut, as the Japanese call the heart, you must own it is a little troublesome to be showing the tombs,) I asked him a thousand questions, rubbed up my old tarnished Italian, and inquired about fifty people that I had entirely forgot till his arrival. He told me some passages,

Marquis Rinuncini, the elder, had been envoy in England, and prime minister to John Gaston, the last Great Duke.

2 Gray, in a letter to Wharton of the 11th, says, "Mr. Walpole has taken a house in Windsor, and I see him usually once a week. He is at present gone to town, to perform the disagreeable task of presenting and introducing about a young Florentine, the Marquis Rinuncini, who comes recommended to him."~~ Works, vol. iii. p. 9.—E.

1

that I don't forgive you for not mentioning; your Cicisbeatura, Sir, with the Antinora; and Manelli's marriage and jealousy who consoles my illustrious mistress ?3 Rinuncini has announced the future arrival of the Abbate Niccolini, the elder Pandolfini, and the younger Panciatici; these two last, you know, were friends of mine; I shall be extremely glad to see them.

Your two last were of Aug. 23rd and 30th. In the latter you talk of the execution of the rebel Lords, but don't tell me whether you received my long history of their trials. Your Florentines guessed very rightly about my Lady O.'s reasons for not returning amongst you: she has picked up a Mr. Shirley, no great genius-but with all her affectation of parts, you know she never was delicate about the capacity of her lovers. This swain has so little pretensions to any kind of genius, that two years ago being to act in the Duke of Bedford's company,5 he kept back the play three weeks, because he could not get his part by heart, though it consisted but of seventeen lines and a half. With him she has retired to a villa near Newpark, and lets her house in town.

Your last letter only mentions the progress of the King of Sardinia towards Genoa; but there is an account actually arrived of his being master of it. It is very big news, and I hope will make us look a little haughty again: we are giving ourselves airs, and sending a secret expedition against France: we don't indeed own that it is in favour of the Chevalier William Courtenay, who, you know, claims the crown of France, and whom King William threatened them to proclaim, when they proclaimed the Pretender; but I believe the Protestant Highlanders in the south of France are ready to

1 Sister of Madame Grifoni.

2

6

Signor Ottavio Manelli had been cicisbeo of Madame Grifoni. 3 Madame Grifoni.

Sewallis Shirley, uncle of Earl Ferrers. (He married Lady Orford, after her first husband's death.-D.)

5 The Duke of Bedford and his friends acted several plays at Woburn. Sir William Courtenay, said to be the right heir of Louis le Gros. There is a notion that at the coronation of a new King of France, the Courtenays assert their pretensions, and that the King of France says to them, Apres Nous, Vous." [See Gibbon's beautiful account of this family, in a digression to his History of the Decline and Fall, vol. xi.]

join him the moment he lands. There is one Sir Watkyn Williams, a great Baron in Languedoc, and a Sir John Cotton, a Marquis of Dauphiné,1 who have engaged to raise a great number of men, on the first debarkation that we make.

I think it begins to be believed that the Pretender's son is got to France: pray, if he passes through Florence, make it as agreeable to him as you can, and introduce him to all my acquaintance. I don't indeed know him myself, but he is a particular friend of my cousin Sir John Philipps, and of my sister-in-law Lady O. who will both take it extremely kindly -besides, do, for your own sake; you may make your peace with her this way; and if ever Lord Bath comes into power, she will secure your remaining at Florence. Adieu !

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Windsor, Oct. 2, 1746.

By your own loss you may measure my joy at the receipt of the dear Chutes.3 I strolled to town one day last week, and there I found them! Poor creatures! there they were! wondering at every thing they saw, but with the difference from Englishmen that go abroad, of keeping their amazement to themselves. They will tell you of wild dukes in the playhouse, of streets dirtier than forests, and of women more uncouth than the streets. I found them extremely surprised at not finding any ready-furnished palace built round two courts. I do all I can to reconcile their country to them; though seriously they have no affectation, and have nothing particular in them, but that they have nothing particular: a fault, which the climate and their neighbours will soon correct. You may imagine how we have talked you over, and how I have inquired after the state of your Wetbrownpaperhood.

Two Jacobite Knights of Wales and Cambridgeshire.

2 Sir J. Philipps, of Picton Castle in Pembrokeshire; a noted Jacobite. He was first cousin of Catherine Shorter, first wife of Sir Robert Walpole.

3 John Chute and Francis Whitehed had been several years in Italy, chiefly at Florence.

you,

Mr. Chute adores you: do you know, that as well as I love I never found all those charms in you that he does! I own this to you out of pure honesty, that you may love him as much as he deserves. I don't know how he will succeed here, but to me he has more wit than any body I know: he is altered, and I think, broken: Whitehed is grown leaner considerably, and is a very pretty gentleman.1 He did not reply to me, as the Turcotti did bonnement to you, when you told her she was a little thinner: do you remember how she puffed and chuckled, and said, “And indeed I think you are too." Mr. Whitehed was not so sensible of the blessing of decrease, as to conclude that it would be acceptable news even to shadows: he thinks me plumped out. I would fain have enticed them down hither, and promised we would live just as if we were at the King's Arms in via di Santo Spirito :3 but they were obliged to go chez eux, not pour se décrasser, but pour se I shall introduce them a tutte le mie conoscenze, and shall try to make questo paese as agreeable to them as possible ; except in one point, for I have sworn never to tell Mr. Chute a word of news, for then he will be writing it to you, and I shall have nothing to say. This is a lucky resolution for you, my dear child, for between two friends one generally hears nothing; the one concludes that the other has told all.

crasser.

I have had two or three letters from you since I wrote. The young Pretender is generally believed to have got off the 16th of last month: if he were not, with the zeal of the Chutes, I believe they would go to Scotland to hunt him, and would be impatient to send a limb to Cardinal Acquaviva and Monsignor Piccolomini. I quite gain a winter with them, having had no expectation of them till spring. Adieu!

1 Gray, in a letter to Mr. Chute, written at this time, thus describes Mr. Whithead: "He is a fine young personage in a coat all over spangles, just come over from the tour in Europe to take possession, and be married. I desire my hearty congratulations to him, and say I wish him more spangles, and more estates, and more wives." Works, vol. iii. p. 20.-E. 2 A fine singer.

Mr. Mann hired a large palace of the Mannetti family at Florence in via di Santo Spirito: foreign ministers in Italy affix large shields with the arms of their sovereign over their door.