away your Pettegola. What I like much worse is your recovering your strength so slowly; but I trust to the warm weather.

Miss Granville, daughter of the late Lord Lansdown, is named maid of honour, in the room of Miss Hamilton, who I told you is to be Lady Brook: they are both so small! what little eggs they will lay!

How does my Princess! does not she deign to visit you too? Is Saded there still? Is Madame Suares quite gone into devotion yet? Tell me any thing-I love any thing that you write to me. night!

Good

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

London, April 29, 1742.

By yours of April 17, N. S. and some of your last letters, I find my Lady Walpole is more mad than ever-why, there never was so wild a scheme as this, of setting up an interest through Lord Chesterfield! one who has no power; and, if he had, would think of, or serve her, one of the last persons upon earth. What connexion has he with, what interest could he have in obliging her? and, but from views, what has he ever done, or will he ever do? But is Richcourt so shallow, and so ambitious, as to put any trust in these projects? My dear child, believe me, if I was to mention them here, they would sound so chimerical, so womanish, that I should be laughed at for repeating them. For yourself, be quite at rest, and laugh, as I do, at feeble, visionary malice, and assure yourself, whoever mentions such politics to you, that my Lady Walpole must have very frippery intelligence from hence, if she can raise no better views and on no better foundations. For the poem you mention, I never read it: upon inquiry, I find there was such a thing, though now quite obsolete: undoubtedly not Pope's, and only proves what I said before, how low, how paltry, how uninformed her ladyship's correspondents must be.

We are now all military! all preparations for Flanders! no parties but reviews; no officers, but "hope" they are to go abroad-at least, it is the fashion to say so. I am studying lists of regiments and names of colonels-not that " I hope I am to go abroad," but to talk of those who do. Three thousand men embarked yesterday and the day

in the walls of his house at Florence. Mrs. Goldsworthy, the wife of the English consul, had taken refuge in it when driven from Leghorn by an earthquake.-D.

a Mrs. Goldsworthy.

George Granville, Lord Lansdown, Pope's "Granville the polite," one of Queen Anne's twelve peers, and one of the minor poets of that time. He died in 1734, without male issue, and his honours extinguished.-D.

c Princess Craon.

d The Chevalier de Sade.

• Count Richcourt was a Lorrainer, and chief minister of Florence; there was a great connexion between him and Lady Walpole.

before, and the thirteen thousand others sail as soon as the transports can return. Messieurs d'Allemagne roll their red eyes, stroke up their great beavers, and look fierce-you know one loves a review and a tattoo.

We had a debate yesterday in the House on a proposal for replacing four thousand men of some that are to be sent abroad, that, in short, we might have fifteen thousand men to guard the kingdom. This was strongly opposed by the Tories, but we carried it in the committee, 214 against 123, and to-day, in the House, 280 against 169. Sir John Barnard, Pultney, the new ministry, all the Prince's people, except the Cobham cousins, the Lord Mayor, several of the Opposition, voted with us; so you must interpret Tories in the strongest sense of the word.

The Secret Committee has desired leave to-day to examine three members, Burrel, Bristow, and Hanbury Williams: the two first are directors of the Bank; and it is upon an agreement made with them, and at which Williams was present, about remitting some money to Jamaica, and in which they pretend Sir Robert made a bad bargain, to oblige them as members of Parliament. They all three stood up, and voluntarily offered to be examined; so no vote passed upon it.

These are all the political news: there is little of any other sort; so little gallantry is stirring, that I do not hear of so much as one maid of honour who has declared herself with child by any officer, to engage him not to go abroad. I told you once or twice that Miss Hamilton is going to be married to Lord Brook: somebody wished Lord Archibald joy. He replied, " Providence has been very good to my family."

We had a great scuffle the other night at the Opera, which interrupted it. Lord Lincoln was abused in the most shocking manner by a drunken officer, upon which he kicked him, and was drawing his sword, but was prevented. They were put under arrest, and the next morning the man begged his pardon before the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Albemarle, and other officers, in the most submissive terms. I saw the quarrel from the other side of the house, and rushing to get to Lord Lincoln, could not for the crowd. I climbed into the front boxes, and stepping over the shoulders of three ladies, before I knew where I was, found I had lighted in Lord Rockingham's lap. It was ridiculous! Good night!

a The royal family.

b Pitts, Grenvilles, Lytteltons, all related by marriage, or female descent, to Lord Cobham.-D.

Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, a devoted follower of Sir Robert Walpole. His various satirical poems against the enemies and successors of that minister are well known, and must ever be admired for their ease, their spirit, and the wit and humour of their sarcasm. It was said at the time, that Sir Charles's poetry had done more in three months to lower and discredit those it was written against, than the Craftsman and other abusive papers had been able to effect against Sir Robert in a long series of years.-D.

d Lewis Watson, second Earl of Rockingham. He married Catharine, second daughter and coheir of Sir George Sondes, Earl of Feversham, and died in 1745.—D.

DEAR WEST,

TO RICHARD WEST, ESQ.

London, May 4, 1742.

YOUR letter made me quite melancholy, till I came to the postscript of fine weather. Your so suddenly finding the benefit of it, makes me trust you will entirely recover your health and spirits with the warm season: nobody wishes it more than I: nobody has more reason, as few have known you so long.

Don't be afraid of your letters being dull. I don't deserve to be called your friend, if I were impatient at hearing your complaints. I do not desire you to suppress them till their causes cease; nor should I expect you to write cheerfully while you are ill. I never design to write any man's life as a stoic, and consequently should not desire him to furnish me with opportunities of assuring posterity what pains he took not to show any pain.

If you did amuse yourself with writing any thing in poetry, you know how pleased I should be to see it; but for encouraging you to it, d'ye see, 'tis an age most unpoetical! 'Tis even a test of wit to dislike poetry; and though Pope has half a dozen old friends that he has preserved from the taste of last century, yet, I assure you, the generality of readers are more diverted with any paltry prose answer to old Marlborough's secret history of Queen Mary's robes. I do not think an author would be universally commended for any production in verse, unless it were an ode to the Secret Committee, with rhymes of liberty and property, nation and administration.

Wit itself is monopolized by politics; no laugh would be ridiculous if it were not on one side or t'other. Thus Sandys thinks he has spoken an epigram, when he crincles up his nose and lays a smart accent on ways and means.

We may, indeed, hope a little better now to the declining arts. The reconciliation between the royalties is finished, and fifty thousand pounds a-year more added to the heir apparent's revenue. He will have money now to tune up Glover, and Thomson, and Dodsley again:

Et spes et ratio studiorum in Cæsare tantum,

Asheton is much yours. He has preached twice at Somerset Chapel with the greatest applause. I do not mind his pleasing the generality, for you know they ran as much after Whitfield as they could after Tillotson; and I do not doubt but St. Jude converted as many honourable women as St. Paul. But I am sure you would approve his compositions, and admire them still more when you heard him deliver them. He will write to you himself next post, but is not mad enough with his fame to write you a sermon. Adieu, dear child! Write me the progress of your recovery, and believe it will give me a sincere pleasure; for I am, yours ever.

Mr. West died in less than a month from the date of this letter, in the twenty-sixth year of his age. [See antè, p. 121.] In his last letterto Gray, written a few days before

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Downing Street, May 6, 1742.

I HAVE received a long letter from you of the 22d of April. It amazes me! that our friends of Florence should not prove our friends." Is it possible? I have always talked of their cordiality, because I was convinced they could have no shadow of interest in their professions: -of that, indeed, I am convinced still-but how could they fancy they had? There is the wonder! If they wanted common honesty, they seem to have wanted common sense more. What hope of connexion could there ever be between the English ministry and the Florentine nobility? The latter have no views of being, or knowledge for being envoys, &c. They are too poor and proud to think of trading with us; too abject to hope for the restoration of their liberty from us-and, indeed, however we may affection our own, we have showed no regard for their liberty-they have had no reason ever to expect that from us! In short, to me it is mystery! But how could you not tell me some particulars? Have I so little interested myself with Florence, that you should think I can be satisfied without knowing the least particulars? I must know names. Who are these wretches

that I am to scratch out of my list? I shall give them a black blot the moment I know who have behaved ill to you. Is Casa Ferroni of the number? I suspect it-that was of your first attachments. Are the prince and princess dirty?-the Suares?-tell me, tell me! Indeed, my dear Mr. Chute, I am not of your opinion, that he should shut himself up and despise them; let him go abroad and despise them. Must he mope because the Florentines are like the rest of the world? But that is not true, for the world in England have not declared themselves so suddenly. It has not been the fashion to desert the earl and his friends: he has had more concourse, more professions, and has still, than in the height of his power. So your neighbours have been too hasty: they are new style, at least, eleven days before us. Tell them, tell Richcourt, tell his Cleopatra, that all their hopes are vanished, all their faith in Secret Committees-the reconciliation is made, and whatever reports their secretships may produce, there will be at least above a hundred votes added to our party.

b

his death, he says, "I will take my leave of you for the present, with a vale et vive paulisper cum vivis" so little was he aware of the short time that he himself would be numbered among the living. But this is almost constantly the case with those who die of that most flattering of all diseases, a consumption. "Shall humanity," says Mason, "be thankful or sorry that it is so? Thankful, surely! for as this malady generally attacks the young and the innocent, it seems the merciful intention of Heaven, that to these death should come unperceived, and, as it were, by stealth; divested of one of its sharpest stings, the lingering expectation of their dissolution."—E.

This alludes to an account given by Sir Horace Mann, in one of his letters, of the change he had observed in the manner of many of the Florentines towards himself since Sir Robert Walpole's retirement from office, upon the supposition entertained by them that he was intimately connected with the fallen minister.-D.

b Lady Walpole.

Their triumph has been but in hope, and their hope has failed in two months.

As to your embroil with Richcourt, I condemn you excessively: not that you was originally in fault, but by seeming to own yourself so. He is an impertinent fellow, and will be so if you'll let him. My dear child, act with the spirit of your friends here; show we have lost no credit by losing power, and that a little Italian minister must not dare to insult you. Publish the accounts I send you; which I give you my honour are authentic. If they are not, let Cytheris, your Antony's travelling concubine, contradict them.

You tell me the St. Quintin is arrived at Genoa: I see by the prints of to-day that it is got to Leghorn: I am extremely glad, for I feared for it, for the poor boy, and for the things. Tell me how you like your secretary. I shall be quite happy, if I have placed one with you that you like.

I laughed much at the family of cats I am to receive. I believe they will be extremely welcome to Lord Islay now; for he appears little, lives more darkly and more like a wizard than ever. These huge cats will figure prodigiously in his cell: he is of the mysterious, dingy nature of Stosch.

As words is what I have not rhetoric to find out to thank you for sending me this paragraph of Madame Goldsworthy, I can only tell you that I have laughed for an hour at it. This was one of my Lady Pomfret's correspondents.

There seems to be a little stop in our embarkations: since the first, they have discovered that the horse must not go till all the hay is provided. Three thousand men will make a fine figure towards supporting the balance of power! Our whole number was to be but sixteen; and if all these cannot be assembled before the end of July, what will be said of it?

The Secret Committee go on very pitifully: they are now inquiring about some custom-house officers that were turned out at Weymouth for voting wrong at elections. Don't you think these articles will prove to the world what they have been saying of Sir Robert for these twenty years? The House still sits in observance to them; which is pleasant to me, for it keeps people in town. We have operas too; but they are almost over, and if it were not for a daily east wind, they would give way to Vauxhall and Chelsea. The new directors have agreed with the Fumagalli for next year, but she is to be second woman: they keep the Visconti. Did I never mention the Bettina, the first dancer. It seems she was kept by a Neapolitan prince, who is extremely jealous of her coming hither. About a fortnight ago she fell ill, upon which her Neapolitan footman made off immediately. She dances again, but is very weak, and thinks herself poisoned.

Adieu! my dear child; tell me you are well, easy, and in spirits: kiss the Chutes for me, and believe me, &c.