ton," Mr. West, Mr. Fonnereau, Mr. Thompson, and Mr. Ellis. On theirs Mr. Bance, George Grenville, Mr. Hooper, Sir Charles Mordaunt, Mr, Phillips, Mr. Pitt, and Mr. Stuart. On casting up the numbers, the four first on ours, and the three first on their list, appeared to have the majority: so no great harm will come from this, should it pass the Lords; which it is not likely to do. I have now told you, I think, all the political news, except that the troops continue going to Flanders, though we hear no good news yet from Holland.

If we can prevent any dispute between the two Houses, it is believed and much hoped by the Court, that the Secret Committee will desire to be dissolved: if it does, there is an end of all this tempest! I must tell you an ingenuity of Lord Raymond,d an epitaph on the Indemnifying Bill-I believe you would guess the author:

Interr'd beneath this marble stone doth lie

The Bill of Indemnity;

To show the good for which it was designed,
It died itself to save mankind.

My Lady Townshend made me laugh the other night about your old acquaintance, Miss Edwin; who, by the way, is grown almost a Methodist. My lady says she was forced to have an issue made on one side of her head, for her eyes, and that Kent advised her to have another on the other side for symmetry.

There has lately been published one of the most impudent things that ever was printed; it is called "The Irish Register," and is a list of all the unmarried women of any fashion in England, ranked in order, duchesses-dowager, ladies, widows, misses, &c. with their names at length, for the benefit of Irish fortune-hunters, or as it is said, for the incorporating and manufacturing of British commodities. Miss Edwards is the only one printed with a dash, because they have placed

* Sir William Middleton, Bart. of Belsay Castle, Northumberland, the third baronet of the family. He was member for Northumberland, and died in 1767.-D.

b Welbore Ellis, member of parliament for above half a century; during which period he held the different offices of a lord of the admiralty, secretary at war, treasurer of the navy, vice-treasurer of Ireland, and secretary of state. He was created Lord Mendip in 1794, with remainder to his nephew, Viscount Clifden, and died February 2, 1802, at the age of eighty-eight.-D.

e Sir Charles Mordaunt, of Massingham, in Norfolk, the sixth baronet of the family. He was member for the county of Warwick, and died in 1778.-D.

a Robert, the second Lord Raymond, son of the lord chief justice. [On whose death, in 1753, without issue, the title expired.]

• William Kent, of whom Walpole himself drew the following just character:-"He was a painter, an architect, and the father of modern gardening. In the first character he was below mediocrity; in the second, he was a restorer of the science; in the last, an original, and the inventor of an art that realizes painting and improves nature. Mahomet imagined an elysium, Kent created many."-The misfortune of Kent was, that his fame and popularity in his own age were so great, that he was employed to give designs for all things, even for those which he could know nothing about-such as ladies' birthday dresses, which he decorated with the five orders of architecture. These absurdities drew upon him the satire of Hogarth.-D. [Walpole further states of Kent, that Pope undoubtedly contributed to form his taste.]

Miss Edwards, an unmarried lady of great fortune, who openly kept Lord Anne Hamilton.

her among the widows. I will send you this, "Miss Lucy in Town," and the magazines, by the first opportunity, as I should the other things, but your brother tells me you have had them by another hand. I received the cedrati, for which I have already thanked you: but I have been so much thanked by several people to whom I gave some, that I can very well afford to thank you again.

As to Stosch expecting any present from me, he was so extremely well paid for all I had of him, that I do not think myself at all in his debt: however, you was very good to offer to pay him.

As to my Lady Walpole, I shall say nothing now, as I have not seen either of the two persons since I received your letter to whom I design to mention her; only that I am extremely sorry to find you still disturbed at any of the little nonsense of that cabal. I hoped that the accounts which I have sent you, and which, except in my last letter, must have been very satisfactory, would have served you as an antidote to their legends; and I think the great victory in the House of Lords, and which, I assure you, is here reckoned prodigious, will raise your spirits against them. I am happy you have taken that step about Sir Francis Dashwood; the credit it must have given you with the King will more than counterbalance any little hurt you might apprehend from the cabal.

I am in no hurry for any of my things; as we shall be moving from hence as soon as Sir Robert has taken another house, I shall not want them till I am more settled.

Adieu! I hope to tell you soon that we are all at peace, and then I trust you will be so. A thousand loves to the Chutes. How I long to see you all!

P. S. I unseal my letter to tell you what a vast and, probably, final victory we have gained to-day. They moved, that the Lords flinging out the Bill of Indemnity was an obstruction of justice, and might prove fatal to the liberties of this country. We have sat till this moment, seven o'clock, and have rejected this motion by 245 to 193. The call of the House, which they have kept off from fortnight to fortnight, to keep people in town, was appointed for to-day. The moment the division was over, Sir John Cotton rose and said, “As I think the inquiry is at an end, you may do what you will with the call." We have put it off for two months. There's a noble postscript!

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

London, June 3, 1742.

I HAVE Sent Mr. Chute all the news; I shall only say to you that I have read your last letter about Lady W. to Sir R. He was not at all surprised at her thoughts of England, but told me that last week my Lord Carteret had sent him a letter which she had written to him,

to demand his protection. This you may tell publicly; it will show her ladyship's credit.

Here is an epigram, which I believe will divert you: it is on Lord Islay's garden upon Hounslow Heath.

Old Islay, to show his fine delicate taste

In improving his gardens purloined from the waste,
Bade his gard'ner one day to open his views,
By cutting a couple of grand avenues:
No particular prospect his lordship intended,

But left it to chance how his walks should be ended.

With transport and joy he beheld his first view end
In a favourite prospect-a church that was ruin'd—
But alas! what a sight did the next cut exhibit!
At the end of the walk hung a rogue on a gibbet!
He beheld it and wept, for it caused him to muse on
Full many a Campbell that died with his shoes on.
All amazed and aghast at the ominous scene,
He order'd it quick to be closed up again

With a clump of Scotch firs that served for a Screen.

Sir Robert asked me yesterday about the Dominichin, but I did not know what to answer: I said I would write to you about it. Have you bought it? or did you quite put it off? I had forgot to mention it again to you. If you have not, I am still of opinion that you should buy it for him. Adieu!

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

June 10, the Pretender's birthday, which, by the way, I believe he did not expect to keep at Rome this year, 1742.

of

SINCE I wrote you my last letter, I have received two from you the 27th May and 3d of June, N. S. I hope you will get my two packets; that is, one of them was addressed to Mr. Chute, and in them was all my fagot of compliments.

Is not poor Scully vastly disappointed that we are not arrived? But really, will that mad woman never have done? does she still find credit for her extravagant histories. I carried her son with me to Vauxhall last night: he is a most charming boy, but grows excessively like her in the face.

These lines were written by Bramston, author of "The Art of Politics," and "The Man of Taste." [The Reverend James Bramston, vicar of Starling, Sussex. Pope took the line in the Dunciad, "Shine in the dignity of F. R. S." from his Man of Taste;-" a satire," says Warton, "in which the author has been guilty of the absurdity of making his hero laugh at himself and his own follies." He died in 1744.]

An Irish tailor at Florence, who let out ready-furnished apartments to travelling English. Lady W. had reported that Lord Orford was flying from England and would come thither.

c George Walpole, afterwards the third Earl of Orford. He succeeded to the earldom in 1751, and was appointed lord-lieutenant and custos rotulorum of the county of Norfolk. Mr. Pitt, in a letter, written in 1759, says, "Nothing could make a better appearance

I don't at all foresee how I shall make out this letter: every body is gone out of town during the Whitsuntide, and many will not return, at least not these six weeks; for so long they say it will be before the Secret Committee make their Report, with which they intend to finish. We are, however, entertained with pageants every day-reviews to gladden the heart of David," and triumphs to Absalom! Heb and his wife went in great parade yesterday through the city and the dust to dine at Greenwich; they took water at the Tower, and trumpeting away to Grace Tosier's,

Like Cimon, triumph'd over land and wave.

I don't know whether it was my Lord of Bristol or some of the Saddlers' Company who had told him that this was the way "to steal the hearts of the people." He is in a quarrel with Lord Falmouth. There is just dead one Hammond, a disciple of Lord Chesterfield, and equerry to his royal highness: he had parts, and was just come into parliament, strong of the Cobham faction, or nepotism, as Sir Robert calls it. The White Prince desired Lord Falmouth to choose Dr. Lee, who, you know, has disobliged the party by accepting a lordship of the admiralty. Lord Falmouth has absolutely refused, and insists upon choosing one of his own brothers: his highness talks loudly of opposing him. The borough is a Cornish one.

There is arrived a courier from Lord Stair, with news of Prince Lobkowitz having cut off five thousand French. We are hurrying away the rest of our troops to Flanders, and say that we are in great spirits, and intend to be in greater when we have defeated the French too.

For my own particular, I cannot say I am well; I am afraid I have a little fever upon my spirits, or at least have nerves, which, you know, every body has in England. I begin the cold-bath tomorrow, and talk of going to Tunbridge, if the parliament rises soon. Sir R. who begins to talk seriously of Houghton, has desired me to

than the two Norfolk battalions: Lord Orford, with the port of Mars himself, and really the genteelest figure under arms I ever saw, was the theme of every tongue." Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 4.-E.

a George the Second.

b Frederic, Prince of Wales.

e Dr. Secker, afterwards Bishop of Oxford. (And eventually Archbishop of Canterbury. According to Walpole, he was bred a man-midwife.-D). [Secker had committed in Walpole's eyes, the unpardonable offence of having "procured a marriage between the heiress of the Duke of Kent and the chancellor's (Hardwicke's) son;" he, therefore, readily propagated the charges of his being "a presbyterian, a man-midwife, and president of a very free-thinking club," (Memoires, i. p. 56,) when the fact is, the parents of Secker were Dissenters, and he for a time pursued the study, though not the practice of medicine and surgery. The third charge is a mere falsehood. See also Quarterly Review, xxvii. p. 187.]

d The Prince was a member of the Saddlers' company.

Hugh Boscawen, second Viscount Falmouth, a great dealer in boroughs. It is of him that Lord Dodington tells the story, that he went to the minister to ask a favour, which the latter seemed unwilling to grant; upon which Lord Falmouth said, "Remember, Sir, we are seven !"-D.

Author of Love Elegies. [See antè, p. 210.]

go with him thither; but that is not all settled. Now I mention Houghton, you was in the right to miss a gallery there; but there is one actually fitting up, where the green-house was, and to be furnished with the spoils of Downing-street.

I am quite sorry you have had so much trouble with those odious cats of Malta: dear child, fling them into the Arno, if there is water enough at this season to drown them; or, I'll tell you, give them to Stosch, to pay the postage he talked of. I have no ambition to make my court with them to the old wizard.

I think I have not said any thing lately to you from Patapan; he is handsomer than ever, and grows fat: his eyes are charming; they have that agreeable lustre which the vulgar moderns call sore eyes, but the judicious ancients golden eyes, ocellos Patapanicos.

The process is begun against her Grace of Beaufort, and articles exhibited in Doctors' Commons. Lady Townshend has had them copied, and lent them to me. There is every thing proved to your heart's content, to the birth of the child, and much delectable reading. Adieu! my dear child; you see I have eked out a letter: I hate missing a post, and yet at this dead time I have almost been tempted to invent a murder or a robbery. But you are good, and will be persuaded that I have used my eyes and ears for your service; when, if it were not for you, I should let them lie by in a drawer from week's end to week's end. Good night!

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Downing Street, June 14, 1742.

We were surprised last Tuesday with the great good news of the peace between the Queen and the King of Prussia. It was so unexpected and so welcome, that I believe he might get an act of parliament to forbid any one thinking that he ever made a slip in integrity. Then, the repeated accounts of the successes of Prince Charles and Lobkowitz over the French have put us into the greatest spirits. Prince Charles is extremely commended for courage and conduct, and makes up a little for other flaws in the family.

It is at last settled that Lords Gower, Cobham, and Bathurst are to come in. The first is to be privy-seal, and was to have kissed

Frances, daughter and heir of the last Lord Scudamore, wife of Henry Somerset, Duke of Beaufort; from whom she was divorced for adultery with Lord Talbot. She was afterwards married to Colonel Fitzroy, natural son of the Duke of Grafton. [The duke having clearly proved the incontinence of his wife, obtained a divorce in March 1743-4.]

b John Leveson Gower, second Lord Gower; in 1746 created an earl. He died in 1754.-E.

Allan, first Lord Bathurst, one of the twelve Tory peers created by Queen Anne, in 1711. He was the friend of Pope, Congreve, Swift, Prior, and other men of letters. He lived to see his eldest son chancellor of England, and died at the advanced age of ninety. one, in 1775; having been created an earl in 1772.-D.