be solicitor, as I believe I once mentioned to you, is revived; though he told Mr. Pelham, that if ever he retired, it should be to Wimple. In the mean time, the Master of the Horse, the Groom of the Stole, the Presidentship, (vacant by the nomination of Dorset to Ireland in the room of Lord Harrington, who is certainly to be given up to his master's dislike,) and the Blues, are still vacant. Indeed, yesterday I heard that Honeywood' was to have the latter. Such is the Interregnum of our politics! The Prince's faction lie still, to wait the event, and the disclosing of the new treaty. Your friend Lord Fane some time ago had a mind to go to Spain: the Duke of Bedford, who I really believe is an honest man, said very bluntly, "Oh! my lord, nobody can do there but Keene." Lord North is made governor to Prince George with a thousand a-year, and an earl's patent in his pocket; but as the passing of the patent is in the pocket of time, it would not sell for much. There is a new preceptor, one Scott,d recommended by Lord Bolingbroke. You may add that recommendation to the chapter of our wonderful politics.

I have received your letter from Fiesoli Hill; poor Strawberry blushes to have you compare it with such a prospect as yours. I say nothing to the abrupt sentences about Mr. B. I have long seen his humour-and a little of your partiality to his wife.

We are alarmed with the distemper being got among the horses: few have died yet, but a farrier who attended General Ligonier's dropped down dead in the stable. Adieu!

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Dec. 19, 1750.

WELL! you may be easy; your friends have been to see me at last, but it has so happened that we have never once met, nor have I even seen their persons. They live at Newcastle-house; and though I give you my word my politics are exceedingly neutral, I happen to be often at the court of Bedford. The Interministerium still subsists; no place is filled up but the Lieutenancy of Ireland; the Duke of Dorset was too impatient to wait. Lord Harrington remains a melancholy sacrifice to the famous general Resignation, which he led up, and of which he is the only victim. Overtures have been made to Lord Chesterfield to be president; but he has declined it; for he says he cannot hear causes, as he is grown deaf. I don't think the proposal was imprudent, for if they should happen, as they have

a Wimpole the Chancellor's seat in Cambridgeshire.

b Sir Philip Honey wood, knight of the bath.

Charles, Lord Viscount Fane, formerly minister at Florence.

e

d Coxe states, that Mr. Scott was recommended to the Prince of Wales by Lord Bathurst, at the suggestion of Lord Bolingbroke, and that he was favoured by the Princess.-E.

* In the year 1746.

now and then happened, to want to get rid of him again, they might without consequence; that is, I suppose nobody would follow him out, any more than they did when he resigned voluntarily. For these two days every body has expected to see Lord Granville president, and his friend the Duke of Bolton, colonel of the Blues; two nominations that would not be very agreeable, nor probably calculated to be so to the Duke, who favours the Bedford faction. His old governor Mr. Poyntz is just dead, ruined in his circumstances by a devout brother, whom he trusted, and by a simple wife, who had a devotion of marrying dozens of her poor cousins at his expense: you know she was the Fair Circassian. Mr. Poyntz was called a very great man, but few knew any thing of his talents, for he was timorous to childishness. The Duke has done greatly for his family, and secured his places for his children, and sends his two sons abroad, allowing them eight hundred pounds a year. The little Marquis of Rockingham has drowned himself in claret; and old Lord Dartmouth is dead of age. When Lord Bolingbroke's last work was published, on the State of Parties at the late King's accession, Lord Dartmouth said, he supposed Lord Bolingbroke believed every body was dead who had lived at that period.

There has been a droll cause in Westminster Hall: a man laid another a wager that he produced a person who should weigh as much again as the Duke. When they had betted, they recollected not knowing how to desire the Duke to step into a scale. They agreed to establish his weight at twenty stone, which, however, is supposed to be two more than he weighs. One Bright was then produced, who is since dead, and who actually weighed forty-two stone and a half. As soon as he was dead, the person who had lost objected that he had been weighed in his clothes, and thought it was impossible to suppose that his clothes could weigh above two stone, they went to law. There were the Duke's twenty stone bawled over a thousand times,—but the righteous law decided against the man who had won!

Poor Lord Lempster is more Cerberus' than ever; (you remember his bon-mot that proved such a blunder;) he has lost twelve thousand

a Stephen Poyntz, formerly British minister in Sweden, after being tutor to Lord -Townshend's sons.

Anna Maria Mordaunt, maid of honour to Queen Caroline. A young gentleman at Oxford wrote the "Fair Circassian" on her, and died for love of her. [The "Fair Circassian," a dramatic performance which appeared in 1720, has been generally attributed to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Croxall, author of "Fables of Æsop and others, translated into English, with instructive applications," who died in 1752, at an advanced age.]

e William, first Earl of Dartmouth, secretary of state to Queen Anne. He died on the 15th of December, in his seventy-ninth year.-E.

Edward Bright died at Malden in Essex, on the 10th of November, at the age of thirty. He was an active man till a year or two before that event; when his corpulency so overpowered his strength, that his life was a burthen to him.-E.

title.

Eldest son of Thomas Former, Earl of Pomfret, whom, in 1753, he succeeded in the

f When he was on his travels, and run much in debt, his parents paid his debts: some more came out afterwards; he wrote to his mother, that he could only compare himself to Cerberus, who, when one head was cut off, had another spring up in its room.

pounds at hazard to an ensign of the Guards-but what will you think of the folly of a young Sir Ralph Gore, who took it into his head that he would not be waited on by drawers in brown frocks and blue aprons, and has literally given all the waiters at the King's Arms rich embroideries and laced clothes!

The town is still empty: the parties for the two playhouses are the only parties that retain any spirit. I will tell you one or two bon-mots of Quin the actor. Barry would have had him play the ghost in Hamlet, a part much beneath the dignity of Quin, who would give no other answer but, "I won't catch cold behind." I don't know whether you remember that the ghost is always ridiculously dressed, with a morsel of armour before, and only a black waistcoat and breech behind. The other is an old one, but admirable. When Lord Tweedale was nominal secretary of State for Scotland, Mitchell, his secretary, was supping with Quin, who wanted him to stay another bottle; but he pleaded my lord's business. "Then," said Quin, "only stay till I have told you a story. A vessel was becalmed: the master looked up and called to one of the cabin-boys on the top of the mast, 'Jack, what are you doing? Nothing, Sir.' He called to another, a little below the first, Will, what are you doing? Helping Jack, Sir." Adieu!

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill, Dec. 22, 1750.

As I am idling away some Christmas days here, I begin a letter to you, that perhaps will not set out till next year. Any changes in the ministry will certainly be postponed till that date: it is even believed that no alteration will be made till after the session; they will get the money raised and the new treaty ratified in Parliament before they break and part. The German ministers are more alarmed, and seem to apprehend themselves in as tottering a situation as some of the English: not that any secretary of state is jealous of them-their Countess is on the wane. The housekeeper at Windsor, an old monster that Verrio painted for one of the Furies, is dead. The revenue is large, and has been largely solicited. Two days ago, at the drawing-room, the gallant Orondates strode up to Miss Chudleigh, and told her he was glad to have an opportunity of obeying her commands, that he appointed her mother housekeeper at Windsor,

a In 1747, when only a captain, Sir Ralph distinguished himself at the battle of Laffeldt. In 1764, he was created Baron Gore, and in 1771, Earl of Ross: in 1788, he was appointed commander-in-chief in Ireland, and died in 1802.-E.

b Andrew Mitchell, afterwards commissary at Antwerp. [And, for many years, envoy from England to the court of Prussia. In 1765 he was created a knight of the bath, and died at Berlin in 1771. His valuable collection of letters, forming sixty-eight volumes, was purchased in 1810, by the trustees of the British Museum.-E.

Lady Yarmouth. The new amour did not proceed.

d Mrs. Marriot.

and hoped she would not think a kiss too great a reward-against all precedent he kissed her in the circle. He has had a hankering these two years. Her life, which is now of thirty years' standing, has been a little historic. Why should not experience and a charming face on her side, and near seventy years on his, produce a title?

Madame de Mirepoix is returned: she gives a lamentable account of another old mistress, her mother. She has not seen her since the Princess went to Florence, which she it seems has left with great regret; with greater than her beauty, whose ruins she has not discovered: but with few teeth, few hairs, sore eyes, and wrinkles, goes bare-necked and crowned with jewels! Madame Mirepoix told me a reply of Lord Cornbury, that pleased me extremely. They have revived at Paris old Fontenelle's opera of Peleus and Thetis: he complained of being dragged upon the stage again for one of his juvenile performances, and said he could not bear to be hissed now: Lord Cornbury immediately replied to him out of the very opera,

"Jupiter en courroux

Ne peut rien contre vous,

Vous êtes immortel."

Our old laureat has been dying: when he thought himself at the extremity, he wrote this lively, good-natured letter to the Duke of Grafton :

"MAY IT PLEASE YOUR GRACE,

"I know no nearer way of repaying your favours for these last twenty years than by recommending the bearer, Mr. Henry Jones, for the vacant laurel: Lord Chesterfield will tell you more of him. I don't know the day of my death, but while I live, I shall not cease to be, your Grace's, &c.

"COLLEY CIBBER."

I asked my Lord Chesterfield who this Jones is; he told me a better poet would not take the post, and a worse ought not to have it. There are two new bon-mots of his lordship much repeated, better than his ordinary. He says, "he would not be president, because he would not be between two fires ;" and that "the two brothers are

She was, though maid of honour, privately married to Augustus, second son of the late Lord Hervey, by whom she had two children; but disagreeing, the match was not owned. She afterwards, still maid of honour, lived very publicly with the Duke of Kingston, and at last married him-during Mr. Hervey's life.

b Princess Craon, formerly mistress of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine.

I think he was an Irish bricklayer; he wrote an "Earl of Essex." ["Having a natural inclination for the Muses," says his biographer, "he pursued his devotions to them even during the labours of his mere mechanical avocations, and composing a line of brick and a line of verse alternately, his wall and poems rose up in growth together." His tragedy of the "Earl of Essex" came out at Covent Garden in 1753, and met with considerable success. He died in great want, in 1770.-E.]

d Meaning President of the Council. The two fires were the Pelham brothers; between whom all private intercourse was at this time suspended.—E.

like Arbuthnot's Lindamira and Indamora; the latter was a peaceable, tractable gentlewoman, but her sister was always quarrelling and kicking, and as they grew together, there was no parting them.

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You will think my letters are absolute jest-and-story books, unless you will be so good as to dignify them with the title of Walpoliana. Under that hope, I will tell you a very odd new story. A citizen had advertised a reward for the discovery of a person who had stolen sixty guineas out of his scrutoire. He received a message from a condemned criminal in Newgate, with the offer of revealing the thief. Being a cautious grave personage, he took two friends along with him. The convict told him that he was the robber; and when he doubted, the fellow began with these circumstances; “You came home such a night, and put the money into your bureau: I was under your bed: you undressed, and then went to the foot of the garret stairs, and cried, Mary, come to bed to me-'' 'Hold, hold," said the citizen, "I am convinced." "Nay," said the fellow, you shall hear all, for your intrigue saved your life. Mary replied, If any body wants me, they may come up to me:' you went: I robbed your bureau in the mean time, but should have cut your throat, if you had gone into your bed instead of Mary's." The conclusion of my letter will be a more serious story, but very proper for the Walpoliana. I have given you scraps of Ashton's history. To perfect his ingratitude, he has struck up an intimacy with my second brother, and done his utmost to make a new quarrel between us, on the merit of having broke with me on the affair of Dr. Middleton. I don't know whether I ever told you that my brother hated Middleton, who was ill with a Dr. Thirlby, a creature of his. He carried this and his jealousy of me so far, that once when Lord Mountford brought Middleton for one night only to Houghton, my brother wrote my father a most outrageous letter, telling him that he knew I had fetched Middleton to Houghton to write my father's life, and how much more capable Thirlby was of that task. Can one help admiring in these instances the dignity of human nature? Poor Mrs. Middleton is alarmed with a scheme that I think she very justly suspects as a plot of the clergy to get at and suppress her husband's papers. He died in a lawsuit with a builder, who has since got a monition from the Commons for her to produce all the Doctor's effects and papers. The whole debt is but eight hundred pounds. She offered ten thousand pounds security, and the fellow will not take it. Is there clergy in it, or no? Adieu!

a See the Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus in Swift's Works; Indamora alludes to Mr. Pelham, Lindamira to the Duke of Newcastle.

b For a notice of the Doctor, see antè.-E.