ceived the command but yesterday, at two o'clock, till that moment thinking himself extremely well at court; but it seems the King said he was tired of having two secretaries, of which one would do nothing, and t'other could do nothing; he would have a secretary who both could act and would. Pitt had as short a notice of this resolution as the sufferer, and was little better pleased. He is something softened for the present by the offer of cofferer for Jemmy Grenville, which is to be ceded by the Duke of Leeds, who returns to his old post of justice in eyre, from whence Lord Sandys is to be removed, some say to the head of the board of trade. Newcastle, who enjoys this fall of Holderness's, who had deserted him for Pitt, laments over the former, but seems to have made his terms with the new favourite: if the Bedfords have done so too, will it surprise you? It will me, if Pitt submits to this humiliation; if he does not, I take for granted the Duke of Bedford will have the other seals. The temper with which the new reign has hitherto proceeded, seems a little impeached by this sudden act, and the Earl now stands in the direct light of minister, if the House of Commons should cavil at him. Lord Delawar kissed hands to-day for his earldom; the other new peers are to follow on Monday. There are horrid disturbances about the militia in Northumberland, where the mob have killed an officer and three of the Yorkshire militia, who, in return, fired and shot twenty-one. Adieu! I shall be impatient to hear some consequence of my first paragraph. P.S. Saturday.-I forgot to tell you that Lord Hardwicke has written some verses to Lord Lyttelton, upon those the latter made on Lady Egremont. If I had been told that he had put on a bag, and was gone off with Kitty Fisher, I should not have been more astonished. Poor Lady Gowerd is dead this morning of a fever in her lying-in. I believe the Bedfords are very sorry; for there is a new opera this evening. a In consequence of the expiration of the three years' term of service, prescribed by the Militia-act, and the new ballot about to take place.-E. b The following are the lines alluded to, "Addition extempore to the verses on Lady Egremont: "Fame heard with pleasure-straight replied, First on my roll stands Wyndham's bride, My trumpet oft I've raised to sound Her modest praise the world around; But notes were wanting-canst thou find A celebrated courtesan of the day.-E. d Daughter of Scroope Duke of Bridgewater. The serious opera of Tito Manlio, by Cocchi. By a letter from Gray to Mason, of the 22d of January, the Opera appears at this time to have been in a flourishing condi. tion-"The Opera is crowded this year like any ordinary theatre. Elisi is finer than any thing that has been here in your memory; yet, as I suspect, has been finer than he is: he appears to be near forty, a little pot-bellied and thick-shouldered, otherwise no bad figure; has action proper, and not ungraceful. We have heard nothing, since I remember operas, but eternal passages, divisions, and flights of execution: of these he has absolutely TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. March 21, 1761. Or the enclosed, as you perceive, I tore off the seal, but it has not been opened. I grieve at the loss of your suit, and for the injustice done you, but what can one expect but injury, when forced to have recourse to law? Lord Abercorn asked me this evening if it was true that you are going to Ireland? I gave a vague answer, and did not resolve him how much I knew of it. I am impatient for the reply to your compliment. There is not a word of newer news than what I sent you last. The Speaker has taken leave, and received the highest compliments, and substantial ones too; he did not over-act, and it was really a handsome scene. I go to my election on Tuesday, and, if I do not tumble out of the chair and break my neck, you shall hear from me at my return. I got the box for Miss Rice; Lady Hinchinbrook is dead. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Houghton, March 25, 1761. HERE I am at Houghton! and alone! in this spot, where (except two hours last month) I have not been in sixteen years! Think what a crowd of reflections! No; Gray, and forty churchyards, could not furnish so many: nay, I know one must feel them with greater indifference than I possess, to have patience to put them into verse. Here I am, probably for the last time of my life, though not for the last time: every clock that strikes tells me I am an hour nearer to yonder church-that church, into which I have not yet had courage to enter, where lies that mother on whom I doated, and who doated on none; whether merely from judgment, or a little from age, I will not affirm: his point is expression, and to that all the graces and ornaments he inserts (which are few and short) are evidently directed. He gets higher, they say, than Farinelli; but then this celestial note you do not hear above once in a whole opera; and he falls from this altitude at once to the mellowest, softest, strongest tones (about the middle of his compass) that can be heard. The Mattei, I assure you, is much improved by his example, and by her great success this winter; but then the burlettas and the Paganina, I have not been so pleased with any thing these many years. She is too fat, and above forty, yet handsome withal, and has a face that speaks the language of all nations. She has not the invention, the fire, and the variety of action that the Spiletta had; yet she is light, agile, ever in motion, and, above all, graceful; but then, her voice, her ear, her taste in singing; good God! as Mr. Richardson, the painter, says." Works, vol. iii, p. 268.-E. * Mr. Onslow held the office of Speaker of the House of Commons for above thirty-three years, and during part of that time enjoyed the lucrative employment of treasurer of the navy: "notwithstanding which," says Mr Hatsell, "it is an anecdote perfectly well known, that on his quitting the Chair, his income from his private fortune, which had always been inconsiderable, was rather less than it had been in 1727, when he was first elected into it. Superadded to his great and accurate knowledge of the history of this country, and of the minuter forms and proceedings of Parliament, the distinguishing features of his character were a regard and veneration for the British constitution, as it was declared and established at the Revolution."-E. me! There are the two rival mistresses of Houghton, neither of whom ever wished to enjoy it! There too lies he who founded its greatness, to contribute to whose fall Europe was embroiled; there he sleeps in quiet and dignity, while his friend and his foe, rather his false ally and real enemy, Newcastle and Bath, are exhausting the dregs of their pitiful lives in squabbles and pamphlets. The surprise the pictures" gave me is again renewed; accustomed for many years to see nothing but wretched daubs and varnished copies at auctions, I look at these as enchantment. My own description of them seems poor; but shall I tell you truly, the majesty of Italian ideas almost sinks before the warm nature of Flemish colouring. Alas! don't I grow old? My young imagination was fired with Guido's ideas; must they be plump and prominent as Abishag to warm me now? Does great youth feel with poetic limbs, as well as see with poetic eyes? In one respect I am very young, I cannot satiate myself with looking: an incident contributed to make me feel this more strongly. A party arrived just as I did, to see the house, a man and three women in riding dresses, and they rode post through the apartments. I could not hurry before them fast enough; they were not so long in seeing for the first time, as I could have been in one room, to examine what I knew by heart. I remember formerly being often diverted with this kind of seers; they come, ask what such a room is called, in which Sir Robert lay, write it down, admire a lobster on a cabbage in a market-piece, dispute whether the last room was green or purple, and then hurry to the inn for fear the fish should be over-dressed. How different my sensations! not a picture here but recalls a history; not one, but I remember in Downing-street or Chelsea, where queens and crowds admired them, though seeing them as little as these travellers! When I had drank tea, I strolled into the garden; they told me it was now called the pleasure-ground. What a dissonant idea of pleasure! those groves, those allées, where I have passed so many charming moments, are now stripped up or overgrown-many fond paths I could not unravel, though with a very exact clew in my memory: I met two gamekeepers, and a thousand hares! In the days when all my soul was tuned to pleasure and vivacity (and you will think, perhaps, it is far from being out of tune yet), I hated Houghton and its solitude; yet I loved this garden, as now, with many regrets, I love Houghton; Houghton, I know not what to call it, a monument of grandeur or ruin! How I have wished this evening for Lord Bute! how I could preach to him! For myself, I do not want to be preached to; I have long considered, how every Balbec must wait for the chance of a Mr. Wood. The servants wanted to lay me in the great apartment-what, to make me pass my night as I have a This magnificent collection of pictures was sold to the Empress of Russia, and some curious particulars relative to the sale will be found in Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature. A series of engravings was likewise made from them, which was published in 1788, under the title of "The Houghton Gallery: a collection of prints, from the best pictures in the possession of the Earl of Orford.”—E. done my evening! It were like proposing to Margaret Roper to be a duchess in the court that cut off her father's head, and imagining it would please her. I have chosen to sit in my father's little dressingroom, and am now by his scrutoire, where, in the heights of his fortune, he used to receive the accounts of his farmers, and deceive himself, or us, with the thoughts of his economy. How wise a man at once, and how weak! For what has he built Houghton? for his grandson to annihilate, or for his son to mourn over. If Lord Burleigh could rise and view his representative driving the Hatfield stage, he would feel as I feel now. Poor little Strawberry! at least it will not be stripped to pieces by a descendant! You will find all these fine meditations dictated by pride, not by philosophy. Pray consider through how many mediums philosophy must pass, before it is purified how often must it weep, how often burn!" My mind was extremely prepared for all this gloom by parting with Mr. Conway yesterday morning; moral reflections or commonplaces are the livery one likes to wear, when one has just had a real misfortune. He is going to Germany: I was glad to dress myself up in transitory Houghton, in lieu of very sensible concern. To-morrow I shall be distracted with thoughts, at least images of very different complexion. I go to Lynn, and am to be elected on Friday. I shall return hither on Saturday, again alone, to expect Burleighides on Sunday, whom I left at Newmarket. I must once in my life see him on his grandfather's throne. Epping, Monday night, thirty-first.-No, I have not seen him; he loitered on the road, and I was kept at Lynn till yesterday morning. It is plain I never knew for how many trades I was formed, when at this time of day I can begin electioneering, and succeed in my new vocation. Think of me, the subject of a mob, who was scarce ever before in a mob, addressing them in the town-hall, riding at the head of two thousand people through such a town as Lynn, dining with above two hundred of them, amid bumpers, huzzas, songs, and tobacco, and finishing with country dancing at a ball and sixpenny whisk! Í have borne it all cheerfully; nay, have sat hours in conversation, the thing upon earth that I hate; have been to hear misses play on the harpsichord, and to see an alderman's copies of Rubens and Carlo Marat. Yet to do the folks justice, they are sensible, and reasonable, Wife of William Roper, Esq. and eldest and favourite daughter of Sir Thomas More. She bought the head of her ill-fated parent, when it was about to be thrown into the Thames, after having been affixed to London bridge; and on being questioned by the Privy Council about her conduct, she boldly replied, that she had done so that "it might not become food for fishes." She survived her father nine years, and died at the age of thirty-six, in 1544, and was buried at St. Dunstan's church, Canterbury; the box containing her father's head being placed on her coffin.-E. The prayer of Sir Robert Walpole, recorded on the foundation-stone, was, that "after its master, to a mature old age, had long enjoyed it in perfection, his latest descendants might safely possess it to the end of time."-E. and civilized; their very language is polished since I lived among them. I attribute this to their more frequent intercourse with the world and the capital, by the help of good roads and postchaises, which, if they have abridged the King's dominions, have at least tamed his subjects. Well, how comfortable it will be to-morrow, to see my parroquet, to play at loo, and not be obliged to talk seriously! The Heraclitus of the beginning of this letter will be overjoyed on finishing it to sign himself your old friend, DEMOCRITUS. P.S. I forgot to tell you that my ancient aunt Hammond came over to Lynn to see me; not from any affection, but curiosity. The first thing she said to me, though we have not met these sixteen years, was, "Child, you have done a thing to-day, that your father never did in all his life; you sat as they carried you,-he always stood the whole time." Madam," said I, "when I am placed in a chair, I conclude I am to sit in it; besides, as I cannot imitate my father in great things, I am not at all ambitious of mimicking him in little ones." I am sure she proposes to tell her remarks to my uncle Horace's ghost, the instant they meet. 66 TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Arlington Street, April 10, 1761. IF Prince Ferdinand had studied how to please me, I don't know any method he could have lighted upon so likely to gain my heart, as being beaten out of the field before you joined him. I delight in a hero that is driven so far that nobody can follow him. He is as well at Paderborn, as where I have long wished the King of Prussia, the other world. You may frown if you please at my imprudence, you who are gone with all the disposition in the world to be well with your commander; the peace is in a manner made, and the anger of generals will not be worth sixpence these ten years. We peaceable folks are now to govern the world, and you warriors must in your turn tremble at our subjects the mob, as we have done before your hussars and court-martials. I am glad you had so pleasant a passage. My Lord Lyttelton would say, that Lady Mary Coke, like Venus, smiled over the waves, et mare præstabat eunti. In truth, when she could tame me, she must have had little trouble with the ocean. Tell me how many burgomasters she has subdued, or how many would have fallen in love with her if they had not fallen asleep? Come, has she saved twopence by her charms? Have they abated a farthing of their imposi tions for her being handsomer than any thing in the seven provinces? Does she know how political her journey is thought? Nay, my Lady a From Harwich to Helvoetsluys. |