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who undoubtedly did not foresee the melancholy event of their sport.

I shall not be able till next letter to tell you about Riccardi's gems: Lord Duncannon has been in the country; but he and Lord Carlisle are to come to me next Sunday, and determine.

Mr. Chute gave you some account of the Independents:1 the committee have made a foolish affair of it, and cannot furnish a report. Had it extended to three years ago, Lord Sandwich and Grenville of the admiralty would have made an admirable figure as dictators of some of the most Jacobite healths that ever were invented. Lord Doneraile, who is made comptroller to the Prince, went to the committee, (whither all members have a right to go, though not to vote, as it is select, not secret,) and plagued Lyttelton to death, with pressing him to inquire into the healths of the year '43. The ministry are now trembling at home, with fear of losing the Scotch bills for humbling the Highland chiefs: they have whittled them down almost to nothing, in complaisance to the Duke of Argyll: and at last he deserts them. Abroad they are in panics for Holland, where the French have at once besieged two towns, that must fall into their hands, though we have plumed ourselves so much on the Duke's being at the head of a hundred and fifteen thousand men.

There has been an excellent civil war in the house of Finch: our friend, Lady Charlotte, presented a daughter

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1 An innkeeper in Piccadilly, who had been beaten by them, gave information against them for treasonable practices, and a committee of the House of Commons, headed by Sir W. Yonge and Lord Coke, was appointed to inquire into the matter. [The informant's name was Williams, keeper of the White Horse in Piccadilly. Being observed, at the anniversary dinner of the independent electors of Westminster, to make memorandums with a pencil, he was severely cuffed, and kicked out of the company. The alleged treasonable practices consisted in certain offensive toasts. On the King's health being drunk, every man held a glass of water in his left hand, and waved a glass of wine over it with the right.]

2 George Grenville, afterwards prime minister.-D.

3 Lady Charlotte Fermor, second daughter of Thomas, Earl of Pomfret, and second wife of William Finch, vice-chamberlain to the King; formerly ambassador in Holland, and brother of Daniel, Earl of Winchilsea.

affectation, buffoonery, or timidity: his behaviour was natural and intrepid. He professed himself a Jansenist; made no speech, but sat down a little while in a chair on the scaffold, and talked to the people round him. He said, "He was glad to suffer for his country, dulce est pro patriâ mori; that he did not know how, but he had always loved it, nescio quâ natale solum, &c.; that he had never swerved from his principles; that this was the character of his family, who had been gentlemen for five hundred years." He lay down quietly, gave the sign soon, and was dispatched at a blow. I believe it will strike some terror into the Highlands, when they hear there is any power great enough to bring so potent a tyrant to the block. A scaffold fell down, and killed several persons; one, a man that had rid post from Salisbury the day before to see the ceremony; and a woman was taken up Idead with a live child in her arms. The body is sent into Scotland: the day was cold, and before it set out, the coachman drove the hearse about the court, before my Lord Traquair's dungeon, which could be no agreeable sight: it might to Lord Cromartie, who is above the chair. Mr. Chute was at the execution with the Italians, who were more entertained than shocked: Panciatici told me, "It was a triste spectacle, mais qu'il ne laissoit d'être beau." Niccolini has treasured it up among his insights into the English constitution. We have some chance of a Peer's trial that has nothing to do with the rebellion. A servant of a college has been killed at Oxford, and a verdict of wilful murder by persons unknown, brought in by the coroner's inquest. These persons unknown are supposed to be Lord Abergavenny,3 Lord Charles Scot, and two more, who had played tricks with the poor fellow that night, while he was drunk, and the next morning he was found with his skull fractured, at the foot of the first Lord's staircase. One pities the poor boys,

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It was countermanded, and buried in the Tower.

2 Lord Cromartie had been pardoned.-D.

3 George Neville, fifteenth Lord and first Earl of Abergavenny.

Died 1785.-D.

Lord Charles Scott, second son of Francis, Duke of Buccleugh. He died at Oxford during the year 1747.—D,

who undoubtedly did not foresee the melancholy event of their sport.

I shall not be able till next letter to tell you about Riccardi's gems: Lord Duncannon has been in the country; but he and Lord Carlisle are to come to me next Sunday, and determine.

Mr. Chute gave you some account of the Independents:1 the committee have made a foolish affair of it, and cannot furnish a report. Had it extended to three years ago, Lord Sandwich and Grenville of the admiralty would have made an admirable figure as dictators of some of the most Jacobite healths that ever were invented. Lord Doneraile, who is made comptroller to the Prince, went to the committee, (whither all members have a right to go, though not to vote, as it is select, not secret,) and plagued Lyttelton to death, with pressing him to inquire into the healths of the year '43. The ministry are now trembling at home, with fear of losing the Scotch bills for humbling the Highland chiefs: they have whittled them down almost to nothing, in complaisance to the Duke of Argyll: and at last he deserts them. Abroad they are in panics for Holland, where the French have at once besieged two towns, that must fall into their hands, though we have plumed ourselves so much on the Duke's being at the head of a hundred and fifteen thousand men.

There has been an excellent civil war in the house of Finch: our friend, Lady Charlotte, presented a daughter

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1 An innkeeper in Piccadilly, who had been beaten by them, gave information against them for treasonable practices, and a committee of the House of Commons, headed by Sir W. Yonge and Lord Coke, was appointed to inquire into the matter. [The informant's name was Williams, keeper of the White Horse in Piccadilly. Being observed, at the anniversary dinner of the independent electors of Westminster, to make memorandums with a pencil, he was severely cuffed, and kicked out of the company. The alleged treasonable practices consisted in certain offensive toasts. On the King's health being drunk, every man held a glass of water in his left hand, and waved a glass of wine over it with the right.]

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George Grenville, afterwards prime minister.-D.

3 Lady Charlotte Fermor, second daughter of Thomas, Earl of Pomfret, and second wife of William Finch, vice-chamberlain to the King; formerly ambassador in Holland, and brother of Daniel, Earl of Winchilsea.

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of John Finch, (him who was stabbed by Sally Salisbury,1) his offspring by Mrs. Younger, whom he since married. The King, Prince, and Princess received her: her aunt, Lady Bel, forbad Lady Charlotte to present her to Princess Emily, whither, however, she carried her in defiance. Lady Bel called it publishing a bastard at court, and would not present her think on the poor girl! Lady Charlotte, with spirit, presented her herself. Mr. W. Finch stepped up to his other sister, the Marchioness of Rockingham, and whispered her with his composed civility, that he knew it was a plot of her and Lady Bel to make Lady Charlotte miscarry. The sable dame (who, it was said, is the blackest of the family, because she swept the chimney) replied, "This is not a place to be indecent, and therefore I shall only tell you that you are a rascal and a villain, and that if ever you dare to put your head into my house, I will kick you down stairs myself." Politesse Anglaise! Lord Winchilsea (who, with his brother Edward, is embroiled with both sides) came in, and informed everybody of any circumstances that tended to make both parties in the wrong. I am impatient to hear how this operates between my Lady Pomfret and her friend, Lady Bel. Don't you remember how the Countess used to lug a halflength picture of the latter behind her post-chaise all over Italy, and have a new frame made for it in every town where she stopped? and have you forgot their correspondence, that poor Lady Charlotte was daily and hourly employed to transcribe into a great book, with the proper names in red ink? I have but just room to tell you that the King is perfectly well, and that the Pretender's son was sent from Spain as soon as he arrived there. Thank you for the news of Mr. Townshend. Adieu!

1 Sally Salisbury, alias Pridden, a woman of the town, stabbed the Hon. John Finch in a bagnio, in the neighbourhood of Covent-garden; but he did not die of the wound.-D.

2 Elizabeth Younger. Her daughter, by the Hon. John Finch, married John Mason, Esq. of Greenwich.-D.

3 Lady Isabella Finch, lady of the bedchamber to the Princesses Emily and Caroline.

Lady Mary Finch, fifth daughter of Daniel, sixth Earl of Winchilsea; married in 1716 to the Hon. Thomas Wentworth, afterwards created Marquis of Rockingham.-D.

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

DEAR HARRY,

Arlington Street, April 16, 1747.

We are all skyrockets and bonfires to-night for your last year's victory; but if you have a mind to perpetuate yourselves in the calendar, you must take care to refresh your conquests. I was yesterday out of town, and the very signs as I passed through the villages made me make very quaint reflections on the mortality of fame and popularity. I observed how the Duke's head had succeeded almost universally to Admiral Vernon's, as his had left but few traces of the Duke of Ormond's. I pondered these things in my heart, and said unto myself, Surely all glory is but as a sign!

You have heard that old Lovat's tragedy is over: it has been succeeded by a little farce, containing the humours of the Duke of Newcastle and his man Stone. The first event was a squabble between his grace and the Sheriff about holding up the head on the scaffold a custom that has been disused, and which the Sheriff would not comply with, as he received no order in writing. Since that, the Duke has burst ten yards of breeches strings about the body, which was to be sent into Scotland; but it seems it is customary for vast numbers to rise to attend the most trivial burial. The Duke, who is always at least as much frightened at doing right as at doing wrong, was three days before he got courage enough to order the burying in the Tower. I must tell you an excessive good story of George Selwyn: Some women were scolding him for going to see the execution, and asked him, how he could be such a barbarian to see the head cut off? “ Nay,” says he, "if that was such a crime, I am sure I have made amends, for I went to see it sewed on again." When he was at the undertaker's, as soon as they had stitched him together, and were going to put the body into the coffin, George, in my Lord Chancellor's voice, said "My Lord Lovat, your lord

The battle of Culloden.

2 Alluding to a trick of the Duke of Newcastle's.

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