TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 12, 1749.

I HAVE your two letters to answer of August 15th and 26th, and, as far as I see before me, have a great deal of paper, which I don't know how to fill. The town is notoriously empty; at Kensington they have scarce company enough to pay for lighting the candles. The Duke has been for a week with the Duke of Bedford at Woburn: Princess Emily remains, saying civil things; for example, the second time she saw Madame de Mirepoix, she cried out, “Ah! Madame, vous n'avez pas tant de rouge aujourd'hui: la première fois que vous êtes venue ici, vous aviez une quantité horrible." This the Mirepoix herself repeated to me; you may imagine her astonishment,-I mean, as far as your duty will give you leave. I like her extremely; she has a great deal of quiet sense. They try much to be English, and whip into frocks without measure, and fancy they are doing the fashion. Then she has heard so much of that villainous custom of giving money to the servants of other people, that there is no convincing her that women of fashion never give; she distributes with both hands. The Chevalier Lorenzi has dined with me here: I gave him venison, and, as he was determined to like it, he protested it was "as good as beef." You will be delighted with what happened to him: he was impatient to make his brother's compliments to Mr. Chute, and hearing somebody at Kensington call Mr. Schutz, he easily mistook the sound, and went up to him, and asked him if he had not been at Florence! Schutz with the utmost Hanoverian gravity replied, "Oui, oui, j'ai été à Florence, oui, oui-mais où est-il, ce Florence?"

The Richcourts1 are arrived, and have brought with them a strapping lad of your Count; sure, is it the boy that my Lady O. used to bring up by hand? he is pretty picking for The woman is handsome, but clumsy to a degree,

her now.

'Count Richcourt, brother of the minister at Florence, and envoy from the Emperor: his wife was a l'iedmontese.

and as much too masculine as her lover Rice is too little so. Sir Charles Williams too is arrived, and tells me how much he has heard in your praise in Germany. Villettes is here, but I have had no dealings with him. I think I talk nothing but foreign ministers to-day, as if I were just landed from the Diet of Ratisbon. But I shall have done on this chapter, and I think on all others, for you say such extravagant things of my letters, which are nothing but gossiping gazettes, that I cannot bear it. Then you have undone yourself with me, for you compare them to Madame Sevigné's; absolute treason! Do you know, there is scarce a book in the world I love so much as her letters?

How infinitely humane you are about Gibberne! Shall I amuse you with the truth of that history, which I have discovered? The poor silly woman, his mother, has pressed his coming for a very private reason only to make him one of the most considerable men in this country!—and by what wonderful means do you think this mighty business is to be effected? only by the beauties of his person! As I remember, he was as little like an Adonis as could be: you must keep this inviolably; but depend upon the truth of it — I mean, that his mother really has this idea. She showed his picture to why, to the Duchess of Cleveland, to the Duchess of Portsmouth, to Madame Pompadour; in short, to one of them, I don't know which, I only know it was not to my Lady Suffolk, the King's former mistress. "Mon Dieu! Madame, est-il frai que fotre fils est si sholi que ce bortrait? il faut que je le garte; je feux apsolument l'afoir." The woman protested nothing ever was so handsome as her lad, and that the nasty picture did not do him half justice. In short, she flatters herself that the Countess1 will do him whole justice: I don't think it impossible but, out of charity, she may make him groom of the chambers. I don't know, indeed, how the article of beauty may answer; but if you should lose your Gibberne, it is good to have a friend at court. Lord Granby is going to be married to the eldest of the

1 Lady Yarmouth.

Lady Seymours; she has above a hundred and thirty thousand pounds. The Duke of Rutland will take none of it, but gives at present six thousand a-year.

That I may keep my promise to myself of having nothing to tell you, I shall bid you good night; but I really do know no more. Don't whisper my anecdote even to Gibberne, if he is not yet set out; nor to the Barrets. I wish you a merry, merry baths of Pisa, as the link-boys say at Vauxhall. Adieu !

TO JOHN CHUTE, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 22, 1749.

MY DEAR SIR,

I EXPECT Sir Charles Williams to scold me excessively. He wrote me a letter, in which he desired that I would send you word by last night's post, that he expected to meet you here by Michaelmas, according to your promise. I was unfortunately at London; the letter was directed hither from Lord Ilchester's, where he is; and so I did not receive it till this morning. I hope, however, this will be time enough to put you in mind of your appointment; but while I am so much afraid of Sir Charles's anger, I seem to forget the pleasure I shall have in seeing you myself; I hope you know that but he is still more pressing, as he will stay so little time in England. Adieu !

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 28, 1749.

I AM much obliged to you, dear Sir, and agree with your opinion about the painting of Prince Edward, that it cannot be original and authentic, and consequently not worth copying. Lord Cholmondeley is, indeed, an original; but who are the wise people that build for him? Sir Philip Harvey seems to be the only person likely to be benefited by this new extravagance. I have just seen a collection of tombs like

those you describe-the house of Russel robed in alabaster and painted. There are seven monuments in all; one is immense, in marble, cherubim'd and seraphim'd, crusted with bas-reliefs and titles, for the first Duke of Bedford and his Duchess.1 All these are in a chapel of the church at Cheneys, the seat of the first Earls. There are but piteous fragments of the house remaining, now a farm, built round three sides of a court. It is dropping down, in several places without a roof, but in half the windows are beautiful arms in painted glass. As these are so totally neglected, I propose making a push, and begging them of the Duke of Bedford. They would be magnificent for Strawberry-castle. Did I tell you that I have found a text in Deuteronomy to authorize my future battlements? "When thou buildest a new house, then shalt thou make a battlement for thy roof, that thou bring not blood upon thy house, if any man fall from thence."

I saw Cheneys at a visit I have been making to Harry Conway at Latimers. This house, which they have hired, is large, and bad, and old, but of a bad age; finely situated on a hill in a beech wood, with a river at the bottom, and a range of hills and woods on the opposite side belonging to the Duke of Bedford. They are fond of it; the view is melancholy. In the church at Cheneys Mr. Conway put on an old helmet we found there: you cannot imagine how it suited him, how antique and handsome he looked; you would have taken him for Rinaldo. Now I have dipped you so deep in heraldry and genealogies, I shall beg you to step into the church of Stoke; I know it is not asking you to do a disagreeable thing to call there; I want an account of the tomb of the first Earl of Huntingdon, an ancestor of mine, who lies there. I asked Gray, but he could tell me little about it. You know how out of humour Gray has been about our diverting ourselves with pedigrees, which is at least as wise as making a serious point of haranguing against the study. I believe neither Mr. Chute nor I ever contracted a moment's

VOL. II.

1 Anne, daughter of Robert Carr, Earl of Somerset.

X

vanity from any of our discoveries, or ever preferred them to any thing but brag and whist. Well, Gray has set himself to compute, and has found out that there must go a million of ancestors in twenty generations to everybody's composition.

I dig and plant till it is dark; all my works are revived and proceeding. When will you come and assist? You know I have an absolute promise, and shall now every day expect you. My compliments to your sisters.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill, October 27, 1749.

You never was more conveniently in fault in your life: I have been going to make you excuses these ten days for not writing; and while I was inventing them, your humble letter of Oct. 10th arrives. I am so glad to find it is you that are to blame, not I. Well, well, I am all good-nature, I forgive you; I can overlook such little negligences.

Mr. Chute is indefatigable in your service, but Anstis1 has been very troublesome; he makes as many difficulties in signing a certificate about folks that are dead as if they were claiming an estate. I am sorry you are so pressed, for poor Mr. Chute is taken off from this pursuit: he was fetched from hence this day se'nnight to his infernal brother's, where a Mrs. Mildmay, whom you must have heard him mention, is dead suddenly: this may turn out a very great misfortune to our friend.

Your friend, Mr. Doddington, has not quite stuck to the letter of the declaration he sent you: he is first minister at Carlton-house, and is to lead the Opposition; but the misfortune is, nobody will be led by him. That whole court is in disorder by this event: everybody else laughs.

I am glad the Barrets please you, and that I have pleased Count Lorenzi. I must tell you a speech of the Chevalier,

1 Garter King at Arms. (It was to him Lord Chesterfield said, "You foolish man, you do not know your own foolish business.”—D.)