of Wales reading the Revolutions of England, written by Père d'Orléans to vindicate James II. and approved by that Prince. Stone at first peremptorily denied having seen that book these thirty years, and offered to rest his whole justification upon the truth or falsehood of this story. However, it is now confessed that the Prince was reading that book, but it is qualified with Prince Edward's borrowing it of Lady Augusta. Scott, the under preceptor, put in by Lord Bolingbroke, and of no very orthodox odour, was another complaint. Cresset, the link of the connection, has dealt in no very civil epithets, for besides calling Lord Harcourt a groom, he qualified the Bishop with bastard and atheist,1 particularly to one of the Princess's chaplains, who, begging to be excused from hearing such language against a prelate of the church, and not prevailing, has drawn up a narrative, sent it to the Bishop, and offered to swear to it. For Lord Harcourt, besides being treated with considerable contempt by the Princess, he is not uninformed of the light in which he was intended to stand, by an amazing piece of imprudence of the last, but not the most inconsiderable performer in this drama, the Solicitor-general, Murray-pray, what part has his brother, Lord Dunbar, acted in the late squabbles in the Pretender's family? Murray, early in the quarrel, went officiously to the Bishop, and told him Mr. Stone ought to have more consideration in the family: the Bishop was surprised, and got rid of the topic as well as he could. The visit and opinion were repeated: the Bishop said, he believed Mr. Stone had all the regard shown to him that was due; that Lord Harcourt, who was the chief person, was generally present. Murray interrupted him, "Pho! Lord Harcourt ! he is a cipher, and must be a cipher, and was put in to be a cipher." Do you think after this declaration, that the employment will be very agreeable? Every body but Lord Harcourt understood it before; but at least the cipherism was not notified in form. Lord Lincoln, the intimate friend of that lord, was so friendly as to turn his back upon him as 1 See antè, p. 383. he came out of the closet-and yet Lord Harcourt and the Bishop have not at all lessened their characters by any part of their behaviour in this transaction. What will astonish you, is the universal aversion that has broke out against Stone and what heightens the disgusts, is, the intention there has been of making Dr. Johnson, the new Bishop of Gloucester, preceptor. He was Master of Westminster School, of Stone's and Murray's year, and is certainly of their principles-to be sure, that is, Whig-but the Whigs don't seem to think so. As yet no successors are named; the Duke of Leeds, Lord Cardigan, Lord Waldegrave, Lord Hertford, Lord Bathurst, and Lord Ashburnham are talked of for governor. The two first are said to have refused; the third dreads it; the next I hope will not have it; the Princess is inclined to the fifth, and the last I believe eagerly wishes for it. Within this day or two another is named, which leads me to tell you another interlude in our politics. This is poor Lord Holderness-to make room in the secretary's office for Lord Halifax. Holderness has been in disgrace from the first minute of the King's return: besides not being spoken to, he is made to wait at the closet-door with the bag in his hand, while the Duke of Newcastle is within; though the constant etiquette has been for both secretaries of state to go in together, or to go in immediately, if one came after the other. I knew of this disgrace; but not being quite so able a politician as Lord Lincoln, at least having an inclination to great men in misfortune, I went the other morning to visit the afflicted. I found him alone: he said, "You are very good to visit anybody in my situation." This lamentable tone had like to have made me laugh; however, I kept my countenance, and asked what he meant? he said, “Have not you heard how the world abuses me only for playing at blindman's-buff in a private room at Tunbridge?" Oh! this was too much! I laughed out. I do assure you, this account of his misfortunes was not given particularly to me: nay, to Thomas Osborne, fourth Duke of Leeds. He died in 1789.-D. 2 John, second Earl of Ashburnham. He died at a great age, April 8th, 1812.-D. some he goes so far as to say, "Let them go to the office, and look over my letters and see if I am behindhand!" To be sure, when he has done his book, it is very hard he may not play !—My dear Sir, I don't know what apologies a Père d'Orléans must make for our present history! it is too ridiculous! The preceptor is as much in suspense as the governor. The Whigs clamour so much against Johnson, that they are regarded, at least for a time. Keene,1 Bishop of Chester, and brot her of your brother minister, has been talked of. He is a man that will not prejudice his fortune by any illplaced scruples. My father gave him a living of seven hundred pounds a year to marry one of his natural daughters; he took the living; and my father dying soon after, he dispensed with himself from taking the wife, but was so generous as to give her very near one year's income of the living. He then was the Duke of Newcastle's tool at Cambridge, which university he has half turned Jacobite, by cramming down new ordinances to carry measures of that Duke; and being rewarded with the bishoprick, he was at dinner at the Bishop of Lincoln's when he received the nomination. He immediately rose from the table, took his host into another room, and begged he would propose him to a certain great fortune, to whom he had never spoke, but for whom he now thought himself a proper match. Don't you think he would make a very proper preceptor? Among other candidates, they talk of Dr. Hales," the old philosopher, a poor good primi 1 Dr. Edmund Keene, Bishop of Chester, was, for some reason which is not known, the constant subject of Gray's witty and splenetic effusions. One of the chief amusements discovered by the poet, pour passer le tems in a post-chaise, was making extempore epigrams upon the Bishop, and then laughing at them immoderately. The following, which is the commencement of one of them, may serve as a specimen : "Here lies Edmund Keene, the Bishop of Chester, 2 In the May of this year, Dr. Keene married the only daughter of Lancelot Andrews, Esq. of Edmonton, formerly an eminent linendraper in Cheapside, a lady of considerable fortune.-E. Dr. Stephen Hales, author of " Vegetable Statics," and "Vegetable Essays." This eminent natural philosopher and vegetable physiologist tive creature, whom I call the Santon Barsisa; do you remember the hermit in the Persian tales, who after living in the odour of sanctity for above ninety years, was tempted to be naught with the King's daughter, who had been sent to his cell for a cure? Santon Hales but two years ago accepted the post of clerk of the closet to the Princess, after literally leading the life of a studious anchorite till past seventy. If he does accept the preceptorship, I don't doubt but by the time the present clamours are appeased, the wick of his old life will be snuffed out, and they will put Johnson in his socket. Good night! I shall carry this letter to town to-morrow, and perhaps keep it back a few days, till I am able to send you this history complete. Arlington Street, Dec. 17th. Well! at last we shall have a governor: after meeting with divers refusals, they have forced Lord Waldegrave1 to take it; and he kisses hands to-morrow. He has all the time declared that nothing but the King's earnest desire should make him accept it and so they made the King earnestly desire it! Dr. Thomas, the Bishop of Peterborough, I believe, is to be the tutor-I know nothing of him: he had lain by for many years, after having read prayers to the present King when he lived at Leicester House, which his Majesty remembered, and two years ago popped him into a bishoprick. There is an odd sort of manifesto arrived from Prussia, which does not make us in better humour at St. James's. It stops the payment of the interest on the Silesian loan, till was offered a canonry of Windsor, but contented himself with the living of Teddington, which he held with that of Farringdon. He died in 1761, at the age of eighty-four.-E. 1 Walpole, in his Memoires, gives the following account of Lord Waldegrave's appointment: "The Earl accepted it at the earnest request of the King, and after repeated assurances of the submission and tractability of Stone. The Earl was averse to it. He was a man of pleasure, understood the court, was firm in the King's favour, easy in his circumstances, and at once undesirous of rising, and afraid to fall. He said to a friend, If I dared, I would make this excuse to the King-Sir, I am too young to govern, and too old to be governed' but he was forced to submit. A man of stricter honour and of more reasonable sense could not have been selected for the employment." Vol. i. p. 255.-E. satisfaction is made for some Prussian captures during the war. The omnipotence of the present ministry does not reach to Berlin! Adieu! All the world are gone to their several Christmas's, as I should do, if I could have got my workmen out of Strawberry Hill; but they don't work at all by the scale of my impatience. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Arlington Street, Feb. 14, 1753. I HAVE been going to write to you every post for these three weeks, and could not bring myself to begin a letter with, "I have nothing to tell you." But it grows past a joke; we will not drop our correspondence because there is no war, no politics, no parties, no madness, and no scandal. In the memory of England there never was so inanimate an age: it is more fashionable to go to church than to either House of Parliament. Even the æra of the Gunnings is over: both sisters have lain in, and have scarce made one paragraph in the newspapers, though their names were grown so renowned, that in Ireland the beggarwomen bless "the luck of the Gunnings attend you!" you with, You will scarce guess how I employ my time; chiefly at present in the guardianship of embryos and cockleshells. Sir Hans Sloane is dead, and has made me one of the trustees to his museum, which is to be offered for twenty thousand pounds to the King, the Parliament, the Royal Academies of Petersburgh, Berlin, Paris, and Madrid. He valued it 1 Ames, in a letter written on the 22nd of March to Mr. T. Martin, says, 'I cannot forbear to give you some relation of Sir Hans Sloane's curiosities. The Parliament has been pleased to accept them on the condition of Sir Hans's codicil; that is, that they should be kept together in one place in or near London, and should be exhibited freely for a public use. The King, or they, by the will, were to have the first offer. The 19th instant being appointed for a committee of the whole House, after several speeches, the Speaker himself moved the whole House into a general regard to have them joined with the King's and Cotton Libraries, together with those of one Major Edwards, who had left seven thousand pounds to build a library, besides his own books; and to purchase the Harleian manuscripts, build a house for |