for the cause: en attendant, he is strictly shut up in Newgate.1

By these anecdotes you will be able to judge a little of the news you mention in your last, of January 29th, and will perceive that our ministerial vacancies and successions are not likely to be determined soon. Niccolini's account of the aversion to Lord Sandwich is well grounded, though as to inflexible resentments, there cannot easily be any such thing, where parties and factions are so fluctuating as in this country. I was to have dined the other day at Madame de Mirepoix's with my Lord Bolinbroke, but he was ill. She said, she had repented asking me, as she did not know if I should like it. "Oh! Madam, I have gone through too many of those things, to make any objection to the only one that remains!"

I grieve much for the return of pains in your head and breast; I flattered myself that you had quite mastered them.

I have seen your Pelham and Milbank, not much, but I like the latter; I have some notion, from thinking that he resembles you in his manner. The other seems very goodhumoured, but he is nothing but complexion. Damer is returned; he looks ill; but I like him better than I used to do, for he commends you. My Lord Pomfret is made ranger of the parks, and by consequence my Lady is queen of the Duck Island. Our greatest miracle is Lady Mary Wortley's son, whose adventures have made so much noise: his parts

3

'Mr. Murray's health appearing to be in danger, the House, upon the report of his physician, offered to remove him from Newgate into the custody of the sergeant-at-arms: but he had the resolution to reject the offer, and to continue in Newgate till the end of the session; when he made a kind of triumphal procession to his own house, attended by the sheriffs of London, a large train of coaches, and the acclamations of the populace.-E.

Duck Island was a spot in St. James's Park, near the Bird-cage Walk; and was so called, because Charles the Second had established a decoy of ducks upon it. It was destroyed when the improvements and alterations took place in this park about the year 1770.-D.

3 Edward Wortley Montague, whose singular adventures and eccentricities are so well known. In 1747, he was chosen member for the county of Huntingdon; but in his senatorial capacity he did not distin

are not proportionate, but his expense is incredible. His father scarce allows him any thing: yet he plays, dresses, diamonds himself, even to distinct shoe-buckles for a frock, and has more snuff-boxes than would suffice a Chinese idol with an hundred noses. But the most curious part of his dress, which he has brought from Paris, is an iron wig; you literally would not know it from hair-I believe it is on this account that the Royal Society have just chosen him of their body. This may surprise you: what I am now going to tell you, will not, for you have long known her follies: the Duchess of Queensberry told Lady Di. Egerton,1 a pretty daughter of the Duchess of Bridgewater, that she was going to make a ball for her she did, but did not invite her: the girl was mortified, and Mr. Lyttelton, her father-in-law, sent the mad Grace a hint of it. She sent back this card: "The advertisement came to hand; it was very pretty and very ingenious; but every thing that is pretty and ingenious does not always succeed the Duchess of Q. piques herself on her house being unlike Socrates's; his was small and held all his friends; hers is large, but will not hold half of hers: postponed, but not forgot: unalterable." Adieu!

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, March 13, 1751.

You will be expecting the conclusion of Mr. Murray's history, but as he is too great a hero to submit, and not hero enough to terminate his prison in a more summary, or more English way, you must have patience, as we shall have, till the end of the session. His relations, who had leave to visit him, are excluded again: rougher methods with him are not the style of the age: in the mean time he is quite forgot.

guish himself. His expenses greatly exceeding his income, towards the end of this year he quitted the kingdom, and went to Paris. See antè, p. 207.-E.

'Daughter of Scroop, Duke of Bridgewater, by the Lady Rachel Russel, sister of the Duke of Bedford. Lady Diana Egerton was afterwards married to Lord Baltimore.

General Anstruther is now the object in fashion, or made so by a Sir Harry Erskine, a very fashionable figure in the world of politics, who has just come into Parliament, and has been laying a foundation for the next reign by attacking the Mutiny-bill, and occasionally General Anstruther, who treated him hardly ten years ago in Minorca. Anstruther has mutually persecuted and been persecuted by the Scotch ever since Porteous's affair, when, of all that nation, he alone voted for demolishing part of Edinburgh. This affair would be a trifle, if it had not opened the long-smothered rivalship between Fox and Pitt: for these ten days they have been civilly at war together; and Mr. Pelham is bruised between both. However, this impetuosity of Pitt has almost overset the total engrossment that the Duke of Newcastle had made of all power, and if they do not, as it is suspected, league with the Prince, you will not so soon hear of the fall of the Bedfords, as I had made you expect. With this quantity of factions and infinite quantity of speakers, we have had a most fatiguing session, and seldom rise before nine or ten at night.

There have been two events, not political, equal to any absurdities or follies of former years. My Lady Vane1 has literally published the memoirs of her own life, only suppressing part of her lovers, no part of the success of the others with her: a degree of profligacy not to be accounted for; she does not want money, none of her lovers will raise her credit; and the number, all she had to brag of, concealed! The other is a play that has been acted by people of some fashion at Drury Lane, hired on purpose. They really acted so well, that it is astonishing they should not have had sense enough not to act at all. You would know none of their names, should I tell you; but the chief were a family of Delavals, the eldest of which was married by one Foote, a player, to Lady Nassau

1 Anne, second daughter of Mr. Hawes, the wife of William, Lord Viscount Vane. The history of her intrigues, communicated by herself, had just been published in Smollett's Adventures of Peregrine Pickle. See vol. i. p. 200. Gray, in a letter to Walpole of the 3rd of March, writes, "Has that miracle of tenderness and sensibility (as she calls it), Lady Vane, given you any amusement? Peregrine, whom she uses as a vehicle, is very poor indeed, with a few exceptions."-E.

Poulett,1 who had kept the latter. The rage was so great to see this performance, that the House of Commons literally adjourned at three o'clock on purpose: the footman's gallery was strung with blue ribands. What a wise people! what an august Senate! yet my Lord Granville once told the Prince, I forget on occasion of what folly, "Sir, indeed your Royal Highness is in the wrong to act thus; the English are a grave nation."

The King has been much out of order, but he is quite well again, and they say, not above sixty-seven ! Adieu !

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, March 21, 1731.

WHAT, another letter, when I wrote to you but last week ! Yes-and with an event too big to be kept for a regular interval. You will imagine from the conclusion of my last letter that our King is dead-or, before you receive this, you will probably have heard by flying couriers that it is only our King that was to be. In short, the Prince died last night between nine and ten. If I don't tell you ample details, it is because you must content yourself with hearing nothing but what I know true. He had had a pleurisy, and was recovered. Last Tuesday was se'nnight he went to attend the King's passing some bills in the House of Lords; from thence to Carlton House, very hot, where he unrobed, put on a light unaired frock and waistcoat, went to Kew, walked in a bitter day, came home tired, and lay down for three hours, upon a couch in a very cold room at Carlton House, that opens into the garden. Lord Egmont told him how dangerous it was, but the Prince did not mind him. My father once said to this King, when he was ill and royally untractable, "Sir, do you know what your father died of? of thinking he could not die." In short, the Prince relapsed that night, has had three

Isabella, youngest daughter and co-heiress of Thomas Tufton, Earl of Thanet, and widow of Lord Nassau Poulett, youngest brother of the Duke of Bolton. She was mad.

physicians ever since, and has never been supposed out of danger till yesterday: a thrush had appeared, and for the two or three last evenings he had dangerous suppressions of breath. However, his family thought him so well yesterday, that there were cards in his outward room. Between nine and ten he was seized with a violent fit of coughing. Wilmot, and Hawkins the surgeon, were present: the former said, "Sir, have you brought up all the phlegm? I hope this will be over in a quarter of an hour, and that your Royal Highness will have a good night." Hawkins had occasion to go out of the room, and said, "Here is something I don't like." The cough continued; the Prince laid his hand upon his stomach, and said, "Je sens la mort." The page who held him up, felt him shiver, and cried out, "The Prince is going!" The Princess was at the feet of the bed; she catched up a candle and ran to him, but before she got to the head of the bed, he was dead.1

Lord North was immediately sent to the King, who was looking over a table, where Princess Emily, the Duchess of Dorset, and Duke of Grafton were playing. He was extremely surprised, and said, " Why, they told me he was better!" He bid Lord North tell the Princess, he would do everything she could desire; and has this morning sent her a very kind message in writing. He is extremely shocked -but no pity is too much for the Princess; she has eight children, and is seven months gone with another. She bears her affliction with great courage and sense. They asked her if the body was to be opened; she replied, what the King pleased.

This is all I know yet; you shall have fresh and fresh intelligence for reflections on minorities, Regencies, Jacobitism, Oppositions, factions, I need not help you to them.

Frederick, Prince of Wales, was a man in no way estimable, though his understanding and disposition were cried up by those who were in opposition to his father's government. Walpole says of him, "His best quality was generosity; his worst, insincerity and indifference to truth, which appeared so early, that Earl Stanhope wrote to Lord Sunderland from Hanover, He has his father's head, and his mother's heart.'" His death was undoubtedly a deliverance for those who, had he lived, would have become his subjects.-D.