TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.1

DEAR HARRY,

Strawberry Hill, November 8th, 1752.

AFTER divers mistakes and neglects of my own servants and Mr. Fox's, the Chinese pair have at last set sail for Parkplace: I don't call them boar and sow, because of their being fit for his altar: I believe, when you see them, you will think it is Zicchi Micchi himself, the Chinese god of good eating and drinking, and his wife. They were to have been with you last week, but the chairmen who were to drive them to the water side, got drunk, and said, that the creatures were so wild and unruly, that they ran away and would not be managed. Do but think of their running! It puts me in mind of Mrs. Nugent's talking of just jumping out of a coach! I might with as much propriety talk of having all my clothes let out. My coachman is vastly struck with the goodly paunch of the boar, and says, it would fetch three pounds in his country; but he does not consider, that he is a boar with the true brown edge, and has been fed with the old original wheatsheaf: I hope you will value him more highly: I dare say Mr. Cutler or Margas3 would at least ask twenty guineas for him, and swear that Mrs. Dunch gave thirty for the fellow.

As you must of course write me a letter of thanks for my brawn, I beg you will take that opportunity of telling me very particularly how my Lady Aylesbury does, and if she is quite recovered, as I much hope. How does my sweet little wife do? Are your dragons all finished? Have the Coopers seen Miss Blandy's ghost, or have they made Mr. Cranston poison a dozen or two more private gentlewomen? Do you plant without rain as I do, in order to have your trees die, that you may have the pleasure of planting them over again with rain? Have you any Mrs. Clive that pulls down barns that inter

1 Now first printed.

2 He means such as are painted on old china with the brown edge, and representations of wheatsheafs.-E.

Fashionable china-shops.-E.

Then living at Little Strawberry Hill.-E.

cept your prospect; or have you any Lord Radnor1 that plants trees to intercept his own prospect, that he may cut them down again to make an alteration? There! there are as many questions as if I were your schoolmaster or your godmother! Good night!

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

White's, December 3, 1752.

I SHALL be much obliged to you for the passion-flower, notwithstanding it comes out of a garden of Eden, from which Eve, my sister-in-law, long ago gathered passion-fruit. I thank you too for the offer of your Roman correspondences, but you know I have done with virtù, and deal only with the Goths and Vandals.

You ask a very improper person, why my Lord Harcourt2 resigned. My Lord Coventry says it is the present great arcanum of government, and you know I am quite out of the circle of secrets. The town says, that it was finding Stone is a Jacobite; and it says, too, that the Whigs are very uneasy. My Lord Egremont says the Whigs can't be in danger, for then my Lord Hartington would not be gone a hunting. Every body is as impatient as you can be, to know the real cause, but I don't find that either Lord or Bishop is disposed to let the world into the true secret. It is pretty certain that one Mr. Cresset has abused both of them without ceremony, and that the Solicitor-general told the Bishop in plain terms that my Lord Harcourt was a cipher, and was put in to be a cipher: an employment that, considering it is a sinecure, seems to hang unusually long upon their hands. They have so lately quarrelled with poor Lord Holderness for playing at blindman's-buff at Tunbridge, that it will be difficult to give

1 The last Lord Radnor of the family of Robarts, then living at Twickenham, very near Strawberry Hill.-E.

2 On the death of the Prince of Wales in 1751, his eldest son, Prince George, was committed to the care of the Earl of Harcourt as governor. 3 See post, p. 457.

him another place only because he is fit to play at blindman'sbuff; and yet it is much believed that he will be the governor, and your cousin his successor. I am as improper to tell you why the governor of Nova Scotia is to be at the head of the Independents. I have long thought him one of the greatest dependents, and I assure you I have seen nothing since his return, to make me change my opinion. He is too busy in the bedchamber to remember me.

Mr. Fox said nothing about your brother; if the offer was ill-designed from one quarter, I think you may make the refusal of it have its weight in another.

It would be odd to conclude a letter from White's without a bon-mot of George Selwyn's; he came in here t'other night, and saw James Jeffries playing at piquet with Sir Everard Falkener, "Oh!" says he, "now he is robbing the mail." Good night! when do you come back?

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill, Dec. 11, 1752. N. S.

I DON'T know whether I may not begin a new chapter of revolutions: if one may trust prognosticators, the foundations of a revolution in earnest are laying. However, as I am only a simple correspondent, and no almanack-maker, I shall be content with telling you facts, and not conjectures—at least, if I do tell you conjectures, they shall not be my own. Did not I give you a hint in the summer of some storms gathering in the tutorhood? They have broke out; indeed there wanted nothing to the explosion but the King's arrival, for the instant he came, it was pretty plain that he was prepared for the grievances he was to hear-not very impartially it seems, for he would not speak to Lord Harcourt. In about three days he did, and saw him afterwards alone in his closet. What the conversation was, I can't tell you: one should think not very explicit, for in a day or two afterwards it was thought proper to send the Archbishop and Chancellor to hear his lordship's complaints; but on receiving a message that they

would wait on him by the King's orders, he prevented the visit by going directly to the Chancellor; and on hearing their commission, Lord Harcourt, after very civil speeches of regard to their persons, said, he must desire to be excused, for what he had to say was of a nature that made it improper to be said to anybody but the King. You may easily imagine that this is interpreted to allude to a higher person than the mean people who have offended Lord Harcourt and the Bishop of Norwich. Great pains were taken to detach the former from the latter; "My dear Harcourt, we love you, we wish to make you easy; but the Bishop must go." I don't tell you these were the Duke of Newcastle's words; but if I did, would they be unlike him? Lord Harcourt fired, and replied with spirit, "What! do you think to do me a favour by offering me to stay? know, it is I that will not act with such fellows as Stone and Cresset, and Scott: if they are kept, I will quit; and if the Bishop is dismissed, I will quit too." After a few days, he had his audience and resigned. It is said, that he frequently repeated, "Stone is a Jacobite," and that the other person who made up the tête-à-tête cried "Pray, my lord! pray, my lord!"-and would not hear upon that subject. The next day the Archbishop went to the King, and begged to know whether the Bishop of Norwich might have leave to bring his own resignation, or whether his Majesty would receive it from him, the Archbishop. The latter was chosen, and the Bishop1 was refused an audience.

You will now naturally ask me what the quarrel was: and that is the most difficult point to tell you; for though the world expects to see some narrative, nothing has yet appeared, nor I believe will, though both sides have threatened. The Princess says, the Bishop taught the boys nothing; he says, he never was suffered to teach them any thing. The first occasion of uneasiness was the Bishop's finding the Prince

"The Bishop of Norwich, who was a prelate of profound learning, and conscientiously zealous for the mental improvement of his pupil, disgusted the young Prince by his dry and pedantic manners, and offended the Princess, his mother, by persevering in the discipline which he deemed necessary to remedy the gross neglect of her son's education." Coxe's Pelham, vol. ii. p. 236.-E.

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

See antè, p. 383.