"There is a great fire here in St. James's Street."-I rose, and indeed thought all St. James's Street was on fire, but it proved in Bury Street. However, you know I can't resist going to a fire; for it is certainly the only horrid sight that is fine. I slipped on my slippers, and an embroidered suit that hung on the chair, and ran to Bury Street, and stepped into a pipe that was broken up for water.--It would have made a picture--the horror of the flames, the snow, the day breaking with difficulty through so foul a night, and my figure, party per pale, mud and gold. It put me in mind of Lady Margaret Herbert's providence, who asked somebody for a pretty pattern for a nightcap. "Lord!" said they, "what signifies the pattern for a nightcap?"-"Oh! child," said she, "but you know, in case of fire." There were two houses burnt, and a poor maid; an officer jumped out of window, and is much hurt, and two young beauties were conveyed out the same way in their shifts. There have been two more great fires. Alderman Belchier's house at Epsom, that belonged to the Prince, is burnt, and Beckford's fine house in the country, with pictures and furniture to a great value. He says, "Oh! I have an odd fifty thousand pounds in a drawer: I will build it up again: it won't be above a thousand pounds apiece difference to my thirty children." Adieu!

MY DEAR SIR,

TO RICHARD BENTLEY, ESQ.

Arlington Street, March 6, 1755.

I HAVE to thank you for two letters and a picture. I hope my thanks will have a more prosperous journey than my own letters have had of late. You say you have received none since January 9th. I have written three since that. I take care, in conjunction with the times, to make them harmless enough for the post. Whatever secrets I may have (and you know I have no propensity to mystery) will keep very well till 1 have the happiness of seeing you, though that date should be farther off than I hope. As I mean my letters should relieve some of your anxious or dull minutes, I will tempt no postmasters or secretaries to retard them.

The state of affairs is much altered since my last epistle that persuaded you of the distance of a war. So haughty and so ravenous an answer came from France, that my Lord Hertford does not go. As a little islander, you may be very easy: Jersey is not prey for such fleets as are likely to encounter in the channel in April. You must tremble in your Bigendian capacity, if you mean to figure as a good citizen. I sympathize with you extremely in the interruption it will give to our correspondence. You, in an inactive little spot, cannot

* At Fonthill, in Wiltshire. The loss was computed at thirty thousand pounds.-E.

wish more impatiently for every post that has the probability of a letter, than I, in all the turbulence of London, do constantly, neverfailingly, for letters from you. Yet by my busy, hurried, amused, irregular way of life, you would not imagine that I had much time to care for my friends. You know how late I used to rise: it is worse and worse: I stay late at debates and committees; for, with all our tranquillity and my indifference, I think I am never out of the House of Commons: from thence, it is the fashion of the winter to go to vast assemblies, which are followed by vast suppers, and those by balls. Last week I was from two at noon till ten at night at the House: I came home, dined, new-dressed myself entirely, went to a ball at Lord Holderness's, and stayed till five in the morning. What an abominable young creature! But why may not I be so? Old Haslang dances at sixty-five; my Lady Rochford without stays, and her husband the new groom of the stole, dance. In short, when secretaries of state, cabinet councillors, foreign ministers, dance like the universal ballet in the Rehearsal, why should not I see them? In short, the true definition of me is, that I am a dancing senator-Not that I do dance, or do any thing by being a senator: but I go to balls, and to the House of Commons-to look on: and you will believe me when I tell you, that I really think the former the more serious occupation of the two; at least the performers are most in earnest. What men say to women, is at least as sincere as what they say to their country. If perjury can give the devil a right to the souls of men, he has titles by as many ways as my Lord Huntingdon is descended from Edward the Third.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, March 10, 1755.

HAVING already wished you joy of your chivalry, I would not send you a formal congratulation on the actual despatch of your patent: I had nothing new to tell you: forms between you and me would be new indeed.

You have heard of the nomination of my friend and relation, Lord Hertford, to the embassy of Paris: you will by this time have learned or perceived, that he is not likely to go thither. They have sent demands too haughty to be admitted, and we are preparing a fleet to tell them we think so. In short, the prospect is very warlike. The ministry are so desirous of avoiding it, that they make no preparations on land-will that prevent it? Their partisans d-n the plantations, and ask if we are to involve ourselves in a war for them? Will that question weigh with planters and West Indians? I do not love to put our trust in a fleet only: however, we do not touch upon the Pretender; the late rebellion suppressed is a comfortable ingredient, at

Count de Haslang, many years minister from Bavaria to the British court.-E.
Francis Seymour Conway, Earl of Hertford; his mother was sister to Lady Walpole.

least, in a new war.
knows but the egg of this war may be addled?

You know I call this the age of abortions: who

Elections, very warm in their progress, very insignificant in their consequence, very tedious in their attendance, employ the Parliament solely. The King wants to go abroad, and consequently to have the Houses prorogued: the Oxfordshire election says no to him: the war says no to him: the town say we shall sit till June. Balls, masquerades, and diversions don't trouble their heads about the Parliament or the war: the righteous, who hate pleasures and love prophecies, (the most unpleasant things in the world, except their completion,) are finding out parallels between London and Nineveh, and other goodly cities of old, who went to operas and ridottos when the French were at their gatesyet, if Arlington Street were ten times more like to the most fashionable street in Tyre or Sidon, it should not alarm me: I took all my fears out in the rebellion: I was frightened enough then; I will never have another panic. I would not indeed be so pedantic as to sit in St. James's market in an armed chair to receive the French, because the Roman consuls received the Gauls in the forum. They shall be in Southwark before I pack up a single miniature.

The Duke of Dorset goes no more to Ireland: Lord Hartington is to be sent thither with the olive branch. Lord Rochford is groom of the stole; Lord Poulet has resigned the bedchamber on that preference, and my nephew and Lord Essex are to be lords of the bedchamber. It is supposed that the Duke of Rutland will be master of the horse, and the Dorset again lord steward. But all this will come to you as very antique news, if a whisper that your brother has heard to-day be true, of your having taken a trip to Rome. If you are there when you receive this, pray make my Lady Pomfret's compliments to the statues in the Capitol, and inform them that she has purchased her late lord's collection of statues, and presented them to the University of Oxford. The present Earl, her son, is grown a speaker in the House of Lords, and makes comparisons between Julius Cæsar and the watchmen of Bristol, in the same style as he compared himself to Cerberus, who, when he had one head cut off, three others sprang up in its room. I shall go to-morrow to Dr. Mead's sale, and ruin myself in bronzes and vases-but I will not give them to the University of Oxford. Adieu! my dear Sir Knight.

TO RICHARD BENTLEY, ESQ.

Arlington Street, March 27, 1755. YOUR chimney is come, but not to honour: the caryatides are fine

Henrietta Louisa, Countess-dowager of Pomfret, having quarrelled with her eldest son, who was ruined and forced to sell the furniture of his seat at Easton Neston, bought his statues, which had been part of the Arundelian collection, and had been purchased by his grandfather.

A design for a chimney-piece, which, at Mr. Walpole's desire, Mr. Bentley had made for Lord Strafford.

and free, but the rest is heavy: Lord Strafford is not at all struck with it, and thinks it old-fashioned: it certainly tastes of Inigo Jones. Your myrtles I have seen in their pots, and they are magnificent, but I fear very sickly. In return, I send you a library. You will receive, some time or other, or the French for you, the following books: a fourth volume of Dodsley's Collection of Poems, the worst tome of the four; three volumes of Worlds; Fielding's Travels, or rather an account how his dropsy was treated and teased by an innkeeper's wife in the Isle of Wight; the new Letters of Madame de Sévigné, and Hume's History of Great Britain; a book which, though more decried than ever book was, and certainly with faults, I cannot help liking much. It is called Jacobite, but in my opinion is only not George-abite: where others abuse the Stuarts, he laughs at them: I am sure he does not spare their ministers. Harding, who has the History of England at the ends of his parliament fingers, says, that the Journals will contradict most of his facts. If it is so, I am sorry; for his style, which is the best we have in history, and his manner, imitated from Voltaire, are very pleasing. He has showed very clearly that we ought to quarrel originally with Queen Elizabeth's tyranny for most of the errors of Charles the First. As long as he is willing to sacrifice some royal head, I would not much dispute with him which it should be. I incline every day to lenity, as I see more and more that it is being very partial to think worse of some men than of others. If I was a king myself, I dare say I should cease to love a republic. My Lady Rochford desired me t'other day to give her a motto for a ruby ring, which had been given by a handsome woman of quality to a fine man; he gave it to his mistress, she to Lord *****, he to my lady; who, I think, does not deny that it has not yet finished its travels. I excused myself for some time, on the difficulty of reducing such a history to a poesy-at last I proposed this:

This was given by woman to man, and by man to woman.

Are you most impatient to hear of a French war, or the event of the Mitchell election? If the former is uppermost in your thoughts, I can tell you, you are very unfashionable. The Whigs and Tories in Rome, Athens, and Jerusalem never forgot national points with more zeal, to attend to private faction, than we have lately. After triumphs repeated in the committee, Lord Sandwich and Mr. Fox were beaten largely on the report. It was a most extraordinary day! The Tories, who could not trust one another for two hours, had their last consult at the Horn Tavern just before the report, and all but nine or ten voted in a body (with the Duke of Newcastle) against agreeing to it: then Sir John Philipps, one of them, moved for a void election, but was deserted by most of his clan. We now begin to turn our hands to foreign war. In the rebellion, the ministry was so unsettled that nobody seemed to care who was king. Power is now so established that I must do the engrossers the justice to say, that

a Nicholas Harding, Esq. clerk of the House of Commons.-E.

they seem to be determined that their own King shall continue so. Our fleet is great and well manned; we are raising men and money, and messages have been sent to both houses from St. James's, which have been answered by very zealous cards. In the mean time, sturdy mandates are arrived from France; however with a codicil of moderation, and power to Mirepoix still to treat. He was told briskly -"Your terms must come speedily; the fleets will sail very quickly; war cannot then be avoided."

I have passed five entire days lately at Dr. Mead's sale, where, however, I bought very little as extravagantly as he paid for every thing, his name has even resold them with interest. Lord Rockingham gave two hundred and thirty guineas for the Antinous-the dearest bust that, I believe, was ever sold; yet the nose and chin were repaired and very ill. Lord Exeter bought the Homer for one hundred and thirty. I must tell you a piece of fortune: I supped the first night of the sale at Bedford-house, and found my Lord Gower dealing at silver pharaoh to the women. "Oh!" said I laughing, "I laid out six-and-twenty pounds this morning, I will try if I can win it back," and threw a shilling upon a card: in five minutes I won a five-hundred leva, which was twenty-five pounds eleven shillings. I have formerly won a thousand leva, and at another five hundred leva. With such luck, shall not I be able to win you back again?

Last Wednesday I gave a feast in form to the Hertfords. There was the Duke of Grafton, Lord and Lady Hertford, Mr. Conway, and Lady Ailesbury; in short, all the Conways in the world, my Lord Orford, and the Churchills. We dined in the drawing-room below stairs, amidst the Eagle, Vespasian, &c. You never saw so Roman a banquet; but withal my virtù, the bridegroom seemed the most venerable piece of antiquity. Good night! The books go to Southampton on Monday. Yours ever.

TO RICHARD BENTLEY, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, April 13, 1755.

Ir I did not think that you would expect to hear often from me at so critical a season, I should certainly not write to you to-night: I am here alone, out of spirits, and not well. In short, I have depended too much upon my constitution being like

Grass, that escapes the scythe by being low;

and having nothing of the oak in the sturdiness of my stature, I imagined that my mortality would remain pliant as long as I pleased. But I have taken so little care of myself this winter, and kept such bad hours, that I have brought a slow fever upon my nights, and am worn to a skeleton: Bethel has plump cheeks to mine. However, as it would be unpleasant to die just at the beginning of a war, I am