Then came the patent:

By these presents be it known,
To all who bend before your throne,
Fays and fairies, elves and sprites,
Beauteous dames and gallant knights,
That we, Oberon the grand,
Emperor of fairy land,

King of moonshine, prince of dreams,
Lord of Aganippe's streams,
Baron of the dimpled isles

That lie in pretty maidens' smiles,
Arch-treasurer of all the graces
Dispersed through fifty lovely faces,
Sovereign of the slipper's order,
With all the rites thereon that border,
Defender of the sylphic faith,

Declare-and thus your monarch saith:
Whereas there is a noble dame,

Whom mortals Countess Temple name,
To whom ourself did erst impart
The choicest secrets of our art,
Taught her to tune the harmonious line
To our own melody divine,

Taught her the graceful negligence,
Which, scorning art and veiling sense,
Achieves that conquest o'er the heart
Sense seldom gains, and never art:
This lady, 'tis our royal will

Our laureate's vacant seat should fill:

A chaplet of immortal bays

Shall crown her brow and guard her lays;

Of nectar sack an acorn cup

Be at her board each year fill'd up;

And as each quarter feast comes round

A silver penny shall be found

Within the compass of her shoe

And so we bid you all adieu!

Given at our palace of Cowslip-castle, the shortest night of the year.

How shall I tell you the greatest curiosity of the story? The whole plan and execution of the second act was laid and adjusted by my Lady Suffolk herself and Will. Chetwynd, master of the mint, Lord Bolingbroke's Oroonoko-Chetwynd; he fourscore, she past seventysix; and, what is more, much worse than I was, for, added to her deafness, she has been confined these three weeks with the gout in her eyes, was actually then in misery, and had been without sleep. What spirits, and cleverness, and imagination, at that age, and under those afflicting circumstances! You reconnoitre her old court knowledge, how charmingly she has applied it! Do you wonder I pass so many hours and evenings with her? Alas! I had like to have lost her this morning! They had poulticed her feet to draw the gout downwards, and began to succeed yesterday, but to-day it flew up into the head, and she was almost in convulsions with the agony, and

screamed dreadfully; proof enough how ill she was, for her patience and good breeding makes her for ever sink and conceal what she feels. This evening the gout has been driven back to her foot, and I trust she is out of danger. Her loss would be irreparable to me at Twickenham, where she is by far the most rational and agreeable company I have.

I don't tell you that the Hereditary Prince is still expected and not arrived. A royal wedding would be a flat episode after a real fairy tale, though the bridegroom is a hero. I have not seen your brother General yet, but have called on him. When come you yourself? Never mind the town and its filthy politics; we can go to the gallery at Strawberry-stay, I don't know whether we can or not, my hill is almost drowned, I don't know how your mountain is-well, we can take a boat, and always be gay there; I wish we may be so at seventysix and eighty! I abominate politics more and more; we had glories, and would not keep them: well! content, that there was an end of blood; then perks prerogative its ass's ears up; we are always to be saving our liberties, and then staking them again! 'Tis wearisome! I hate the discussion, and yet one cannot always sit at a gaming-table and never make a bet. I wish for nothing, I care not a straw for the ins or the outs; I determine never to think of them, yet the contagion catches one; can you tell any thing that will prevent infection! Well then, here I swear, no I won't swear, one always breaks one's oath. Oh, that I had been born to love a court like Sir William Breton! I should have lived and died with the comfort of thinking that courts there will be to all eternity, and the liberty of my country would never once have ruffled my smile, or spoiled my bow. I envy Sir William. Good night!

TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD.

Arlington Street, Jan. 22, 1764. MONSIEUR MONIN, who will deliver this to you, my dear lord, is the particular friend I mentioned in my last, and is, indeed, no par ticular friend of mine at all, but I had a mind to mislead my Lord Sandwich, and send you one letter which he should not open. This I write in peculiar confidence to you, and insist upon your keeping it entirely to yourself from every living creature. It will be an answer to several passages in your letters, to which I did not care to reply by the post.

Your brother was not pleased with your laying the stopping your bills to his charge. To tell you the truth, he thinks you as too much

a Of Brunswick.

b This letter does not appear.

Lord Hertford had claimed certain expenses of his journey to Paris which had been allowed to his predecessors, but which were refused to him; he therefore may have expressed a suspicion that his brother's opposition in Parliament rendered the ministers at home less favourable to him; but there never was any difference or coldness between the brothers in their private relations. This appears from their private letters at this period.-C.

So

inclined to courts and ministers, as you think him too little so. far from upbraiding him on that head, give me leave to say you have no reason to be concerned at it. You must be sensible, my dear lord, that you are far from standing well with the opposition, and should any change happen, your brother's being well with them, would prevent any appearance that might be disagreeable to you. In truth, I cannot think you have abundant reason to be fond of the administration. Lord Bute never gave you the least real mark of friendship. The Bedfords certainly do not wish you well: Lord Holland has amply proved himself your enemy: for a man of your morals, it would be a disgrace to you to be connected with Lord Sandwich; and for George Grenville, he has shown himself the falsest and most contemptible of mankind. He is now the intimate tool of the Bedfords, and reconciled to Lord Bute, whom he has served and disserved just as occasion or interest directed. In this situation of things, can you wonder that particular marks of favour are withheld from you, or that the expenses of your journey are not granted to you as they were to the Duke of Bedford?

b

You ask me how your letters please; it is impossible for me to learn, now I am so disconnected with every thing ministerial. I wish you not to make them please too much. The negotiations with France must be the great point on which the nation will fix its eyes: with France we must break sooner or later. Your letters will be strictly canvassed: I hope and firmly believe that nothing will appear in them but attention to the honour and interest of the nation; points, I doubt, little at the heart of the present administration, who have gone too far not to be in the power of France, and who must bear any thing rather than quarrel. I would not take the liberty of say. ing so much to you, if, by being on the spot, I was not a judge how very serious affairs grow, and how necessary it is for you to be upon your guard.

Another question you ask is, whether it is true that the opposition is disunited. I will give you one very necessary direction, which is, not to credit any court stories. Sandwich is the father of lies, and every report is tinctured by him. The administration give it out, and trust to this disunion. I will tell you very nearly what truth there is or is not in this. The party in general is as firmly and cor

In April 1763, Lord Bute surprised both his friends and his opponents by a sudden resignation. The motive of this resolution is still a mystery. Some have said, that having concluded the peace, his patriotic views and ambition were satisfied; others that he resigned in disgust at the falsehood and ingratitude of public men; others that he was driven from his station by libels and unpopularity. None of these reasons seem consistent with a desire which Lord Bute appears to have entertained, to return to office with a new administration. A clamour was long kept up against Lord Bute's secret and irresponsible influence; but it is now generally admitted that no such influence existed, and that Lord Bute soon ceased to have any weight in public affairs.-C.

Mr. Walpole was so vehement in his party feelings, that all his characters of politi cal enemies must be read with great distrust.-C.

c Lord Sandwich was an able minister, and so important a member of the administration to which Mr. Walpole was now opposed, that we must read all that he says of this lord with some "grains of allowance."-C.

dially united as ever party was. Consider, that without any heads or leaders at all, 102 men stuck to Wilkes, the worst cause they could have had, and with all the weight of the Yorkes against them. With regard to the leaders there is a difference. The old Chancellor is violent against the court: but, I believe, displeased that his son was sacrificed to Pratt, in the case of privilege. Charles Yorke resigned, against his own and Lord Royston's inclination, is particularly angry with Newcastle for complying with Pitt in the affair of privilege, and not less displeased that Pitt prefers Pratt to him for the seals; but then Norton is attorney-general, and it would not be graceful to return to court, which he has quitted, while the present ministers remain there. In short, as soon as the affair of Wilkes and privilege is at an end, it is much expected that the Yorkes will take part in the opposition. It is for that declaration that Charles Townshend says he waits. He again broke out strongly on Friday last against the ministry, attacking George Grenville, who seems his object. However, the childish fluctuation of his temper, and the vehemence of his brother George for the court, that is for himself, will for ever make Charles little to be depended on. For Mr. Pitt, you know, he never will act like any other man in the opposition, and to that George Grenville trusts: however, here are such materials, that if they could once be put in operation for a fortnight together, the present administration would be blown up. To this you may throw in dissensions among themselves: Lord Halifax and Lord Talbot are greatly dissatisfied. Lord Bute is reconciled to the rest; sees the King continually; and will soon want more power, or will have more jealousy than is consistent with their union. Many single men are ill disposed to them, particularly Lord George Sackville: indeed, nobody is with them, but as it is farther off from, or nearer to, quarter-day the nation is unanimous against them: a disposition, which their own foolish conduct during the episode of the Prince of Brunswick, to which I am now coming, has sufficiently manifested.

The fourth question put to him on his arrival was, "When do you go?" The servants of the King and Queen were forbid to put on their new clothes for the wedding, or drawing-room, next day, and

On the 19th of January, when the ministers were about to proceed to vote Wilkes in contempt, and expel him, a motion was made by Wilkes's friends to postpone the consideration of the affair till next day; this was lost by 239 to 102.-C.

b He means that the opposition had adopted Pratt's view instead of Mr. Yorke's.-C. This is not true; the real cause of his resignation is stated antè, p. 251; he certainly disagreed from the Duke of Newcastle and others of his friends, who made the matter of privilege a party question instead of treating it as a legal one, as Mr. Yorke did.

& Philip Lord Royston, afterwards second Earl of Hardwicke, elder brother of Mr. Charles Yorke.-E.

George, first Marquis of Townshend, at this time a major-general in the army. In the divisions on branches of the Wilkes question, we sometimes find General Townshend a teller on one side, and Mr. Townshend on the other.-C.

The Hereditary Prince, who came to England to marry the Princess Augusta, eldest sister of George III. He landed at Harwich on the 12th of January, and arrived the same evening at Somerset-house, where he was lodged. Lady Chatham, in a letter to Mr. Pitt, relates the following anecdote :-" Mrs. Boscawen tells me, that while the Prince was at Harwich, the people almost pulled down the house in which he was, in

ordered to keep them for the Queen's birth-day. Such pains were taken to keep the Prince from any intercourse with any of the opposition, that he has done nothing but take notice of them. He not only wrote to the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pitt, but has been at Hayes to see the latter, and has dined twice with the Duke of Cumberland; the first time on Friday last, when he was appointed to be at St James's at half an hour after seven, to a concert. As the time drew near, Féronce pulled out his watch; the Duke took the hint, and said, "I am sorry to part with you, but I fear your time is come." He replied "N'importe ;" sat on, drank coffee, and it was half an hour after eight before he sat out from Upper-Grosvenor street for St. James's. He and Princess Augusta have felt and shown their disgusts so strongly, and his suite have complained so much of the neglect and disregard of him, and of the very quick dismission of him, that the people have caught it, and on Thursday, at the play, received the King and Queen without the least symptom of applause, but repeated such outrageous acclamations to the Prince, as operated very visibly on the King's countenance. Not a gun was fired for the marriage, and Princess Augusta asking Lord Gowerb about some ceremony, to which he replied, it could not be, as no such thing had been done for the Prince of Orange; she said, it was extraordinary to quote that precedent to her in one case, which had been followed in no other. I could tell you ten more of these stories, but one shall suffice. The Royal Family went to the Opera on Saturday: the crowd not to be described: the Duchess of Leeds, Lady Denbigh, Lady Scarborough, and others, sat on chairs between "the scenes; the doors of the front boxes were thrown open, and the passages were all filled to the back of the stoves; nay, women of fashion stood on the very stairs till eight at night. In the middle of the second act, the Hereditary Prince, who sat with his wife and her brothers in their box, got up, turned his back to the King and Queen, pretending to offer his place to Lady Tankervilled and then to Lady Susan. You know enough of Germans and their stiffness to etiquette, to be sure that this could not be done inadvertently: especially as he repeated this, only without standing up, with one of his own gentlemen, in the third act.

I saw him, without any difficulty, from the Duchess of Grafton's box. He is extremely slender, and looks many years older than he

order to see him. A substantial Quaker insisted so strongly upon seeing him, that he was allowed to come into the room: he pulled off his hat to him, and said, Noble friend, give me thy hand! which was given, and he kissed it; although I do not fight myself, I love a brave man that will fight: thou art a valiant Prince, and art to be married to a lovely Princess: love her, make her a good husband, and the Lord bless you both!'" Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 272.-E.

The Prince's chief secretary.-E.

See

b Granville, second Earl Gower, afterwards first Marquis: groom of the stole.-E. William Charles Henry, Prince of Orange, who, in 1734, married Anne, eldest daughter of George II.-E.

Alicia Ashley, wife of Charles, third Earl of Tankerville, lady of the bedchamber to Princess Augusta. Nothing but Mr. Walpole's facetious ingenuity could have tortured the Prince's little attention to Lady Tankerville into a desire to insult the King.-C.