are talked of. I am so afraid of ticklish situations for you, that in case of the latter's removal, I should scarce wish you Turin. I cannot quit this chapter without lamenting Keene! my father had the highest opinion of his abilities, and indeed his late negotiations have been crowned with proportionate success. He had great wit, agreeableness, and an indolent good-humour that was very pleasing: he loved our dearest Gal.!

The King of Prussia is quite idle; I think he has done nothing this fortnight but take Breslau, and Schweidnitz, and ten or a dozen generals, and from thirty to fifty thousand prisoners-in this respect he contradicts the omne majus continet in se minus. I trust he is galloping somewhere or other with only a groom to get a victory. Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick has galloped a little from one: when we were expecting that he would drive the French army into the sea. and were preparing to go to Harwich to see it, he turned back, as if he wanted to speak with the King of Prussia. In a street very near me they do not care to own this; but as my side of Arlington Street is not ministerial, we plain-dealing houses speak our mind about it. Pray, do not you about that or any thing else; remember you are an envoy, and though you must not presume to be as false as an ambassador, yet not a grain of truth is consistent with your character. Truth is very well for such simple people as me, with my Fari quæ sentiat, which my father left me, and which I value more than all he left me; but I am errantly wicked enough to desire you should lie and prosper. I know you don't like my doctrine, and therefore I will compound with you for holding your tongue. Adieu! my dear child-shall we never meet? Are we always to love one another at the discretion of a sheet of paper? I would tell you in another manner that I am ever yours.

P. S. I will not plague you with more than a postscript on my eyes: I write this after midnight quite at my ease; I think the greatest benefit I have found lies between old rum and elder-water, (three spoonfuls of the latter to one of the former,) and dipping my head in a pail of cold water every morning the moment I am out of bed. This I am told may affect my hearing, but I have too constant a passion for my eyes to throw away a thought on any rival.

SIR,

TO DR. DUCAREL.

Arlington Street, January 12, 1758.

I HAVE the pleasure to let you know, that his grace the Archbishop' has, with the greatest politeness and goodness, sent me word, by the Dean of Exeter, that he gives me leave to have the illumination copied,

a Dr. Matthew Hutton. He died in the following April, and was succeeded in the archbishopric by Dr. Secker.

either at your chambers, or at my own house, giving you a receipt for it. As the former would be so inconvenient to me as to render this favour useless, I have accepted the latter with great joy; and will send a gentleman of the exchequer, my own deputy, to you, Sir, on Monday next, with my receipt, and shall beg the favour of you to deliver the MS. to him, Mr. Bedford. I would wait on you myself, but have caught cold at the visit I made you yesterday, and am besides going to Strawberry Hill, from whence I propose to bring you a little print, which was never sold, and not to be had from any body else; which is, the arms of the two Clubs at Arthur's ; a print exceedingly in request last year. When I have more leisure, for at this time of the year I am much hurried, I shall be able, I believe, to pick you out some other curiosities; and am, Sir, &c.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Feb. 9, 1758.

ONE would not have believed that I could so long have wanted something to form a letter; but I think politics are gone into winterquarters: Mr. Pitt is in bed with the gout, and the King of Prussia writing sonnets to Voltaire; but his Majesty's lyre is not half so charming as his sword: if he does not take care, Alexander will ride home upon his verses. All England has kept his birthday; it has taken its place in our calendar next to Admiral Vernon's and my Lord Blakeney's; and the people, I believe, begin to think that Prussia is some part of Old England. We had bonfires and processions, illuminations and French horns playing out of windows all night.

In the mean time there have been some distant grumblings of a war with Spain, which seem blown over: a new Russian army in march has taken its place. The Duke of Richelieu is said to be banished for appropriating some contributions to his own use: if he does not take care to prove that he meant to make as extravagant use of them as ever Marquis Catiline did, it will be a very bourgeois termination of such a gallant life! By the rage of expense in our pleasures, in the midst of such dearness and distress, one would think we had opportunities of contributions too! The simple Duke of St. Albans, who is retired to Brussels for debt, has made a most sumptuous funeral in public for a dab of five months old that he had by his cookmaid. But our glaring extravagance is the constant high

Designed by Mr. Walpole's friend, Lord Edgecumbe, and engraved by Grignion. "b On Admiral Vernon's taking Porto Bello in 1740, the populace of London celebrated his birthday; and some doubts arising on the specific day, they celebrated it again, and I think continued to do so for two or three subsequent years.

He plundered the Electorate so indecently, that on his return to Paris having built a pavilion in his garden, it was nicknamed le Pavillon d'Hanovre.

d The third Duke of that title.

price given for pictures: the other day at Mr. Furnese's auction a very small Gaspar sold for seventy-six guineas; and a Carlo Maratti, which too I am persuaded was a Giuseppe Chiari, Lord Egremont bought at the rate of two hundred and sixty pounds. Mr. Spencerb gave no less than two thousand two hundred pounds for the Andrea Sacchi and the Guido from the same collection. The latter is of very dubious originality: my father, I think, preferred the Andrea Sacchi to his own Guido, and once offered seven hundred pounds for it, but Furnese said, "Damn him, it is for him; he shall pay a thousand." There is a pewterer, one Cleeve, who some time ago gave one thousand pounds for four very small Dutch pictures. I know but one dear picture not sold, Cooper's head of Oliver Cromwell, an unfinished miniature; they asked me four hundred pounds for it! But pictures do not monopolize extravagance; I have seen a little ugly shell called a Ventle-trap sold for twenty-seven guineas. However, to do us justice, we have magnificence too that is well judged. The Palmyra and Balbec are noble works to be undertaken and executed by private men. There is now established a Society for the encouragement of Arts, Sciences, and Commerce, that is likely to be very serviceable; and I was pleased yesterday with a very grand seigneurial design of the Duke of Richmond, who has collected a great many fine casts of the best antique statues, has placed them in a large room in his garden, and designs to throw it open to encourage drawing. I have offered him to let my eagle be cast.

Adieu! If any thing happens, I will not, nor ever do wait for a regular interval of writing to you.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Feb. 10, 1758.

THIS campaign does not open with the vivacity of the last; the hero of the age has only taken Schweidnitz yet—he had fought a

Henry Furnese had been a lord of the treasury. He was a friend of Lord Bath, and personally an enemy to Sir Robert Walpole.

b John first Earl Spencer.

Robert Wood, Esq. under secretary of state, Mr. Dawkins, and Mr. Bouverie. For a notice of these splendid works, see antè, p. 191.—E.

Mr. William Shipley, of Northampton, being persuaded that a society to give premiums, in the manner of one in Ireland, would be highly beneficial to the country, came to London several times in the year 1752 and 1753, and talked about it to Mr. Henry Baker, who was of the same opinion, but doubted the possibility of bringing it into effect. However, in 1753, a general recommendation of such a society was drawn up, printed, and dispersed; and by indefatigable pains taken by Mr. Shipley to put it into the hands of persons of quality and fortune, this scheme was carried into execution. See Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, vol. v. p. 275.-E.

• Charles Lenox, third Duke of Richmond. His grace had recently ordered a room to be opened at his house in Whitehall, containing a large collection of original plaster casts from the best antique busts and statues at Rome and Florence, to which all artists, and youths above twelve years of age, had access. For the encouragement of genius, he also bestowed two medals annually on those who executed the two best models.-E.

battle or two by this time last year. But this is the case of Fame. A man that astonishes at first, soon makes people impatient if he does not continue in the same andante key. I have heard a good answer of one of the Duke of Marlborough's generals, who dining with him at a city feast, and being teased by a stupid alderman, who said to him, "Sir, yours must be a very laborious employment !" replied, "Oh, no; we fight about four hours in a morning, and two or three after dinner, and then we have all the rest of the day to ourselves." I shall not be quite so impatient about our own campaign as I was last year, though we have another secret expedition on foot-they say, to conquer France, but I believe we must compound for taking the Isle of Wight, whither we are sending fourteen thousand men. The Hero's uncle reviewed them yesterday in Hyde Park on their setting out. The Duke of Marlborough commands, and is, in reality, commanded by Lord George Sackville. We shall now see how much greater generals we have than Mr. Conway, who has pressed to go in any capacity, and is not suffered!

Mr. Pitt is again laid up with the gout, as the Duke of Bedford is confined in Ireland by it. His grace, like other kings I have known, is grown wonderfully popular there since he was taken prisoner and tied hand and foot. To do faction justice, it is of no cowardly nature; it abuses while it attacks, and loads with panegyric those it defeats. We have nothing in Parliament but a quiet struggle for an extension of the Habeas corpus. It passed our House swimmingly, but will be drowned with the same ease in the House of Lords. On the new taxes we had an entertaining piece of pomp from the Speaker: Lord Strange (it was in a committee) said, "I will bring him down from the gallery," and proposed that the Speaker should be exempt from the place tax. He came down, and besought not to be excepted-Lord Strange persisted-so did the Speaker. After the debate, Lord Strange going out said, "Well, did I not show my dromedary well?" I should tell you that one of the fashionable sights of the winter has been a dromedary and camel, the proprietor of which has entertained the town with a droll variety of advertisements.

You would have been amazed, had you been here at Sir Luke Schaub's auction of pictures. He had picked up some good old copies cheap when he was in Spain during the contentions there between the houses of Austria and Bourbon, and when many grandees being confiscated, the rest piqued themselves on not profiting of their spoils. With these Sir Luke had some fine small ones, and a parcel of Flemish, good in their way. The late Prince offered him twelve thousand pounds for the whole, leaving him the enjoyment for his life. As he knew the twelve thousand would not be forthcoming, he art

a

George II. uncle of the King of Prussia.

b Lord Chesterfield, in a letter to his son of the 8th, says, "Every thing goes smoothly in Parliament: the King of Prussia has united all our parties in his support, and the Tories have declared that they will give Mr. Pitt unlimited credit for this session: there has not been one single division yet upon public points, and I believe will not.”—E.

fully excused himself by saying he loved pictures so much that he knew he should fling away the money. Indeed, could he have touched it, it had been well; the collection was indubitably not worth four thousand pounds. It has sold for near eight! A copy of the King of France's Raphael went for seven hundred pounds. A Segismonda, called by Corregio, but certainly by Furoni his scholar, was bought in at upwards of four hundred pounds. In short, there is Sir James Lowther, Mr. Spencer, Sir Richard Grosvenor, boys with twenty and thirty thousand a-year, and the Duchess of Portland, Lord Ashburnham, Lord Egremont, and others with near as much, who care not what they give. I want to paint my coat and sell it off my back-there never was such a season. I am mad to have the Houghton pictures sold now; what injury to the creditors to have them postponed, till half of these vast estates are spent, and the other half grown ten years older!

Lord Corke is not the editor of Swift's History, but one Dr. Lucas, a physicianed apothecary, who some years ago made such factious noise in Ireland-the book is already fallen into the lowest contempt. I wish you joy of the success of the Cocchi family; but how three hundred crowns a year sound after Sir Luke Schaub's auction! Adieu! my dear Sir.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Feb. 23, 1758.

THOUGH the inactivity of our parliamentary winter has let me be an idle correspondent, I am far from having been so remiss as the posts have made me seem. I remember to have thought that I had no letter on board the packet that was taken; but since the 20th of November I have writ to you on December 14, January 11, February 9. The acquittal of General Mordaunt would, I thought, make you entirely easy about Mr. Conway. The paper war on their subject is

a The three days' sale produced seven thousand seven hundred and eighty-four pounds five shillings.-E.

b It was purchased by the Duchess Dowager of Portland, for seven hundred and three pounds ten shillings.-E.

Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley, only daughter of Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford, and heiress of the vast possessions of the Newcastle branch of the Cavendishes. She married William Bentinck, second Duke of Portland.-D.

d Swift's "History of the Four last Years of Queen Anne," was first published in this year.-E.

Dr. Johnson, in a review of Dr. Lucas's Essay on Waters, which appeared in the Literary Magazine for 1756, thus speaks of him: "The Irish ministers drove him from his native country by a proclamation, in which they charge him with crimes of which they never intended to be called to the proof, and oppressed him by methods equally irresistible by guilt and innocence: let the man thus driven into exile, for having been the friend of his country, be received in every other place as a confessor of liberty; and let the tools of power be taught in time, that they may rob, but cannot impoverish." In 1761, Dr. Lucas was elected representative for Dublin. He died in 1771, and a statue to his honour is erected in the Royal Exchange of Dublin.-E.