and likely to act or conceive, always gave me apprehensions of your meeting with disagreeable scenes-and then there is another animal still more absurd than Florentine men or English boys, and that is, travelling governors, who are mischievous into the bargain, and whose pride is always hurt because they are sure of its never being indulged. They will not learn the world, because they are sent to teach it, and as they come forth more ignorant of it than their pupils, take care to return with more prejudices, and as much care to instil all theirs into their pupils. Don't assemble them! Since I began my letter, the King of Portugal's death is contradicted for the future, I will be as circumspect as one of your Tuscan residents was, who being here in Oliver's time, wrote to his court, "Some say the Protector is dead; others that he is not: for my part, I believe neither one nor t'other."

Will you send me some excellent melon seeds? I have a neighbour who shines in fruit, and have promised to get him some: Zatteè, I think he says, is a particular sort. I don't know the best season for sending them, but you do, and will oblige me by some of the best sorts.

I suppose you know all that execrable history that occasioned an insurrection lately at Paris, where they were taking up young children to try to people one of their colonies, in which grown persons could never live. You have seen too, to be sure, in the papers the bustle that has been all this winter about purloining some of our manufacturers to Spain. I was told to-day that the informations, if they had had rope given them, would have reached to General Wall. Can you wonder? Why should Spain prefer a native of England' to her own subjects, but because he could and would do us more hurt than a Spaniard could? a grandee is a more harmless animal by far than an Irish Papist. We stifled this evidence we are in their power; we forgot at the last peace to renew the most material treaty! Adieu! You would not forget a material treaty.

1 General Richard Wall was of Irish parents, but I believe not born in these dominions.-WALPOLE. He came to England in 1747, on a secret mission from Ferdinand, and continued as ambassador at the British court till 1754, when he was recalled, to fill the high office of minister for foreign affairs.—WRIGHT.

311. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Sept. 1, 1750.

HERE, my dear child, I have two letters of yours to answer. I will go answer them; and then, if I have anything to tell you, I will. I accept very thankfully all the civilities you showed to Madame Capello on my account, but don't accept her on my account: I don't know who has told you that I liked her, but you may believe me, I never did. For the Damers,' they have lived much in the same world that I do. He is moderately sensible, immoderately proud, self-sufficient, and whimsical. She is very sensible, has even humour, if the excessive reserve and silence that she draws from both father and mother would let her, I may almost say, ever show it. You say, "What people do we send you!" I reply, "What people we do not send you!" Those that travel are reasonable, compared with those who can never prevail on themselves to stir beyond the atmosphere of their own whims. I am convinced that the opinions I give you about several people must appear very misanthropic; but yet, you see, you are generally forced to own at last that I did not speak from prejudice: but I won't triumph, since you own that I was in the right about the Barrets. I was a little peevish with you in your last, when I came to the paragraph where you begin to say "I have made use of all the interest I have with Mr. Pelham." I concluded you was proceeding to say, "to procure your arrears; "instead of that, it was, to make him serve Mr. Milbank-will you never have done obliging people? do begin to think of being obliged. I dare say Mr. Milbank is a very pretty sort of man, very sensible of your attentions, and who will never forget them till he is past the Giogo. You recommend him to me: to show you that I have not naturally an inclination to hate people, I am determined not to be acquainted with him, that I may not hate him for forgetting you. Mr. Pelham will be a little surprised at not finding his sister' at Hanover. That was all a pretence of his wise

1 Joseph Damer, afterwards created Baron Milton in Ireland, married Lady Caroline Sackville, daughter of Lionel, Duke of Dorset.-WALPOLE.

2 Thomas Pelham, of Stanmer; a young gentleman who travelled with Mr. Milbank.-Walpole.

3 The highest part of the Apennine between Florence and Bologna.-WALPOLE. 4 Mrs. Temple, widow of Lord Palmerston's son: she was afterwards married to Lord Abergavenny.-WALPOLE.

that

relations here, who grew uneasy that he was happy in a way they had not laid out for him: Mrs. Temple is in Sussex. They looked upon the pleasure of an amour of choice as a transient affair; so, to make his satisfaction permanent, they proposed to marry him, and to a girl' he scarce ever saw!

I suppose you have heard all the exorbitant demands of the Heralds for your pedigree! I have seen one this morning, infinitely richer and better done, which will not cost more: it is for my Lady Pomfret. You would be entertained with all her imagination in it. She and my lord both descend from Edward I., by his two Queens. The pedigree is painted in a book: instead of a vulgar genealogical tree, she has devised a pine-apple plant, sprouting out of a basket, on which is King Edward's head; on the leaves are all the intermediate arms: the fruit is sliced open, and discovers the busts of the Earl and Countess, from whence issue their issue! I have had the old Vere pedigree lately in my hands, which derives that house from Lucius Verus; but I am now grown to bear no descent but my Lord Chestersfield's, who has placed among the portraits of his ancestors two old heads, inscribed Adam de Stanhope and Eve de Stanhope ; the ridicule is admirable. Old Peter Le Neve," the herald, who thought ridicule consisted in not being of an old family, made this epitaph, and it was a good one, for young Craggs, whose father had been a footman, "Here lies the last who died before the first of his family!" Pray mind, how I string old stories to-day! This old Craggs, who was angry with Arthur Moore,' who had worn a livery too, and who was getting into a coach with him, turned about and said, "Why, Arthur, I am always going to get up behind; are not you?" I told this story the other day to George Selwyn, whose passion is to see coffins and corpses, and executions: he replied, "that Arthur Moore had had his coffin chained to that of his

1 Frances, second daughter of Henry Pelham, chancellor of the exchequer. Mr. Thomas Pelham married Miss Frankland.-Walpole.

2 Peter Le Neve, Norroy King of Arms. In his own strange will (printed by Curll), he describes himself as "son and heir of Francis Neve alias Le Neve, late citizen and draper of London, son of Fermian Neve, alias Le Neve, late of Ringland in the county of Norfolk, gent., both long since deceased."-CUNNINGHAM.

3 The elder Craggs was footman to Lady Mary Mordaunt, the gallant Duchess of Norfolk. (See Lady Mary Wortley's 'Account of the Court of George I.') He died March 16, 1720-1, exactly one month after his son, the secretary, and friend of Addison and Pope.-CUNNINGHAM.

4 Arthur Moore, father of James Moore Smyth. Pope has made him immortal :"Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws,

Imputes to me and my d-d works the cause."--CUNNINGHAM.

1

mistress."-"Lord!" said I, "how do you know?"-"Why, I saw them the other day in a vault at St. Giles's." He was walking this week in Westminster Abbey with Lord Abergavenny, and met the man who shows the tombs, "Oh! your servant, Mr. Selwyn; I expected to have seen you here the other day, when the old Duke of Richmond's body was taken up." Shall I tell you another story of George Selwyn before I tap the chapter of Richmond, which you see opens here very apropos? With this strange and dismal turn, he has infinite fun and humour in him. He went lately on a party of pleasure to see places with Lord Abergavenny and a pretty Mrs. Frere, who love one another a little. At Cornbury there are portraits of all the royalists and regicides, and illustrious headless." Mrs. Frere ran about, looked at nothing, let him look at nothing, screamed about Indian paper, and hurried over all the rest. George grew peevish, called her back, told her it was monstrous, when he had come so far with her, to let him see nothing; "And you are a fool, you don't know what you missed in the other room."-" Why, what?"—"Why, my Lord Holland's' picture."-"Well! what is my Lord Holland to me?"-" Why, do you know," said he, "that my Lord Holland's body lies in the same vault in Kensington church with my Lord Abergavenny's mother?" Lord! she was so obliged, and thanked him a thousand times.

The Duke of Richmond' is dead, vastly lamented: the Duchess is left in great circumstances. Lord Albemarle, Lord Lincoln, the Duke of Marlborough, Duke of Leeds, and the Duke of Rutland, are talked of for Master of the Horse. The first is likeliest to succeed; the Pelhams wish most to have the last: you know he is Lady Catherine's brother, and at present attached to the Prince. His son Lord Granby's match, which is at last to be finished tomorrow, has been a mighty topic of conversation lately. The bride is one of the great heiresses of old proud Somerset. Lord Winchilsea, who is her uncle, and who has married the other sister very loosely to his own relation, Lord Guernsey, has tied up Lord Granby so

1 The first Duke of Richmond, natural son of Charles II. by the Duchess of Portsmouth. His body was removed (1750) from Henry VII.'s Chapel to Chichester Cathedral.-CUNNINGHAM.

2 See Note, vol. i. p. 6.-CUNNINGHAM.

3 Henry Rich, Earl of Holland, beheaded 1649, and buried at Kensington.CUNNINGHAM.

✦ Catherine, daughter of Lieutenant-General Tatton, buried at Kensington, Dec. 12, 1729.-CUNNINGHAM.

5 Charles, second Duke of Richmond, grandson of King Charles II. Fielding calls him "the late excellent Duke of Richmond," (on Robbers, p. 107.)-CUNNINGHAM.

rigorously that the Duke of Rutland has endeavoured to break the match. She has four thousand pounds a-year: he is said to have the same in present, but not to touch hers. He is in debt ten thousand pounds. She was to give him ten, which now Lord Winchilsea refuses. Upon the strength of her fortune, Lord Granby proposed to treat her with presents of twelve thousand pounds; but desired her to buy them. She, who never saw nor knew the value of ten shillings while her father lived, and has had no time to learn it, bespoke away so roundly, that for one article of the plate she ordered ten sauceboats: besides this, she and her sister have squandered seven thousand pounds a-piece in all kinds of baubles and frippery ; so her four thousand pounds a-year is to be set apart for two years to pay her debts. Don't you like this English management? two of the greatest fortunes meeting and setting out with poverty and want! Sir Thomas Bootle, the Prince's Chancellor, who is one of the guardians, wanted to have her tradesmen's bills taxed; but in the mean time he has wanted to marry her Duchess-mother: his loveletter has been copied and dispersed everywhere. To give you a sufficient instance of his absurdity, the first time he went with the Prince of Wales to Cliefden, he made a night-gown, cap, and slippers of gold brocade, in which he came down to breakfast the next morning.

My friend M'Lean' is still the fashion: have not I reason to call him my friend? He says, if the pistol had shot me, he had another for himself. Can I do less than say I will be hanged if he is? They have made a print, a very dull one, of what I think I said to Lady Caroline Petersham about him,

"Thus I stand like the Turk with his doxies around!"

You have seen in the papers a Hanoverian duel, but may be you don't know that it was an affair of jealousy. Swiegel, the slain, was here two years ago, and paid his court so assiduously to the Countess," that it was intimated to him to return; and the summer we went thither afterwards, he was advised to stay at his villa. Since that, he has grown more discreet and a favourite. Freychappel came hither lately, was proclaimed a beauty by the monarch, and to return the compliment, made a tender of all his charms where Swiegel had. The latter recollected his own passion, jostled Freychappel, fought,

1 James M'Lean, called "the gentleman highwayman," executed at Tyburn, October 3, 1750.-CUNNINGHAM.

2 Lady Yarmouth.-WALPOLE.