got so bad a cold that he could not go last night to the masquerade. Adieu! my dear child! there is nothing well that I don't wish you, but my wishes are very ineffectual!

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

May 18, 1748.

HERE I am with the poor Chutehed," who has put on a shoe but today for the first time. He sits at the receipt of custom, and one passes most part of the day here; the other part I have the misfortune to pass en Pigwiggin. The ceremony of dining is not over yet: I cannot say that either the Prince or the Princess look the comelier for what has happened. The town says, my Lady Anson has no chance for looking different from what she did before she was married and they have a story of a gentleman going to the Chancellor to assure him, that if he gave his daughter to the Admiral, he would be obliged hereafter to pronounce a sentence of dissolution of the marriage. The Chancellor replied, that his daughter had been taught to think of the union of the soul, not of the body: the gentleman then made the same confidence to the Chancelloress, and received much such an answer: that her daughter had been bred to submit herself to the will of God. I don't at all give you all this for true; but there is an ugly circumstance in his voyages of his not having the curiosity to see a beautiful captive, that he took on board a Spanish ship. There is no record of Scipio's having been in Doctors' Commons. I have been reading these voyages, and find them very silly and contradictory. He sets out with telling you, that he had no soldiers sent with him but old invalids without legs or arms; and then in the middle of the book there is a whole chapter to tell you what they would have done if they had set out two months sooner, and that was no less than conquering Peru and Mexico with this disabled army. At the end there is an account of the neglect he received from the Viceroy of Canton, till he and forty of his sailors put out a great fire in that city, which the Chinese and five hundred firemen could not do, which he says proceeded from their awkwardness; a new character of the Chinese! He was then admitted to an audience, and found two hundred men at the gate of the city, and ten thousand in the square before the palace, all new dressed for the purpose. This is about as true as his predecessor Gulliver *** out the fire at Lilliput. The King is still wind-bound; the fashionable bon mot is, that the Duke of Newcastle has tied a stone about his neck and sent him to sea. The city grows furious about the peace; there is one or two very uncouth Hanover articles, besides a persuasion of a pension to

John Chute, Esq. of the Vine of Hampshire.

b Lord Anson had married, on the 25th of April, Lady Elizabeth Yorke, Lord Chancellor Hardwicke's eldest daughter, an ingenious woman and a poetess. She died without issue in 1760.-E.

the Pretender, which is so very ignominious, that I don't know how to persuade myself it is true. The Duke of Argyle has made them give him three places for life of a thousand and twelve hundred a-year for three of his court, to compensate for their making a man president of the session against his inclination. The Princess of Wales has got a confirmed jaundice, but they reckon her much better. Sir Harry Calthrop is gone mad: he walked down Pall Mall t'other day with his red riband tied about his hair; said he was going to the King, and would not submit to be blooded till they told him the King commanded it.

I went yesterday to see Marshal Wade's house, which is selling by auction it is worse contrived on the inside than is conceivable, all to humour the beauty of the front. My Lord Chesterfield said, that to be sure he could not live in it, but intended to take the house over against it to look at it. It is literally true, that all the direction he gave my Lord Burlington was to have a place for a large cartoon of Rubens that he had bought in Flanders; but my lord found it necessary to have so many correspondent doors, that there was no room at last for the picture; and the Marshal was forced to sell the picture to my father: it is now at Houghton."

As Windsor is so charming, and particularly as you have got so agreeable a new neighbour at Frogmore, to be sure you cannot wish to have the prohibition taken off of your coming to Strawberry Hill. However, as I am an admirable Christian, and as I think you seem to repent of your errors, I will give you leave to be so happy as to come to me when you like, though I would advise it to be after you have been at Roel, which you would not be able to bear after my paradise. I have told you a vast deal of something or other, which you will scarce be able to read; for now Mr. Chute has the gout, he keeps himself very low and lives upon very thin ink. My compliments to all your people. Yours ever.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, May 26, 1746.

GOOD-BY to you! I am going to my Roel too. I was there yesterday to dine, and it looked so delightful, think what you will, that I shall go there to-morrow to settle, and shall leave this odious town to the ***, to the regency, and the dowagers; to my Lady Townshend, who is not going to Windsor, to old Cobham, who is not going out of the world yet, and to the Duchess of Richmond, who

Walpole gives the following account of this picture, in his description of Houghton :"Meleager and Atalanta, a cartoon, by Rubens, larger than life; brought out of Flanders by General Wade: it being designed for tapestry, all the weapons are in the left hand of the figure. For the story, see Ovid's Metamorphoses, lib. 3. When General Wade built his house in Burlington Garden, Lord Burlington gave the design for it."-E.

b A house of Mr. Montagu's in Gloucestershire.

does not go out with her twenty-fifth pregnancy: I shall leave too more disagreeable Ranelagh, which is so crowded, that going there t'other night in a string of coaches we had a stop of six-and-thirty minutes. Princess Emily, finding no marriage articles for her settled at the congress, has at last determined to be old and out of danger; and has accordingly ventured to Ranelagh, to the great improvement of the pleasures of the place. The Prince has given a silver cup to be rowed for, which carried every body up the Thames: and afterwards there was a great ball at Carlton House. There have two good events happened at that court: the town was alarmed t'other morning by the firing of guns, which proved to be only from a large merchantman come into the river. The city construed it into the King's return, and the peace broke; but Chancellor Bootle and the Bishop of Oxford, who loves a labour next to promoting the cause of it, concluded the Princess was brought to bed, and went to court upon it. Bootle, finding the Princess dressed, said, "I have always heard, Madam, that women in your country have very easy labours; but I could not have believed it was so well as I see." The other story is of Prince Edward. The King, before he went away, sent Stainberg to examine the Prince's children in their learning. The Baron told Prince Edward, that he should tell the King, what great proficiency his Highness had made in his Latin, but that he wished he would be a little more perfect in his German grammar, and that would be of signal use to him. The child squinted at him, and said, "German grammar! why any dull child can learn that." There, I have told you royalties enough!

My Pigwiggin dinners are all over, for which I truly say grace. I have had difficulties to keep my countenance at the wonderful clumsiness and uncouth nicknames that the Duke has for all his offspring: Mrs. Hopefull, Mrs. Tiddle, Puss, Cat, and Toe, sound so strange in the middle of a most formal banquet! The day the peace was signed, his grace could find nobody to communicate joy with him: he drove home, and bawled out of the chariot to Lady Rachael," Cat! Cat!" She ran down, staring over the balustrade; he cried, "Cat! Cat! the peace is made, and you must be very glad, for I am very glad."

I send you the only new pamphlet worth reading, and this is more the matter than the manner. My compliments to all your tribe. Adieu !

P. S. The divine Asheton has got an ague, which he says prevents his coming amongst us.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, June 7, 1748.

DON'T reproach me in your own mind for not writing, but reproach the world for doing nothing; for making peace as slowly as they

made war. When any body commits an event, I am ready enough to tell it you; but I have always declared against inventing news; when I do, I will set up a newspaper.

The Duke of Newcastle is not gone; he has kissed hands, and talks of going this week: the time presses, and he has not above three days left to fall dangerously ill. There are a thousand wagers laid against his going he has hired a transport, for the yacht is not big enough to convey all the tables and chairs and conveniences that he trails along with him, and which he seems to think don't grow out of England. I don't know how he proposes to lug them through Holland and Germany, though any objections that the map can make to his progress don't count, for he is literally so ignorant, that when one goes to take leave of him, he asks your commands into the north, concluding that Hanover is north of Great Britain, because it is in the northern province, which he has just taken: you will scarce believe this, but upon my honour it is true.

The preliminaries wait the accession of Spain, before they can ripen into peace. Niccolini goes to Aix-la-Chapelle, and will be much disappointed if his advice is not asked there: he talks of being at Florence in October.

Sir William Stanhope has just given a great ball to Lady Caroline - Petersham, to whom he takes extremely, since his daughter married herself to Mr. Ellis, and as the Petershams are relations, they propose to be his heirs. The Chuteheds agreed with me, that the house, which is most magnificently furnished, all the ornaments designed by Kent, and the whole festino, puts us more in mind of Florence, than any thing we had seen here. There were silver-pharaoh and whist for the ladies that did not dance, deep basset and quinze for the men; the supper very fine.

I am now returning to my villa, where I have been making some. alterations you shall hear from me from Strawberry Hill, which I have found out in my lease is the old name of my house; so pray, never call it Twickenham again. I like to be there better than I have liked being any where since I came to England. I sigh after Florence, and wind up all my prospects with the thought of returning there. I have days when I even set about contriving a scheme for going to you, and though I don't love to put you upon expecting me, I cannot help telling you, that I wish more than ever to be with you again. I can truly say, that I never was happy but at Florence, and you must allow that it is very natural to wish to be happy once more. Adieu!

a The Right Hon. Welbore Ellis, afterwards created Lord Mendip. His first wife was Elizabeth, only daughter of Sir William Stanhope, K. B. She died in 1761.-D.

DEAR HARRY,

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Strawberry Hill, June 27th, 1748.

I HAVE full as little matter for writing as you can find in a camp. I do not call myself farmer or country gentleman; for though I have all the ingredients to compose those characters, yet, like the ten pieces of card in the trick you found out, I don't know how to put them together. But, in short, planting and fowls and cows and sheep are my whole business, and as little amusing to relate to any body else as the events of a stillborn campaign. If I write to any body, I am forced to live upon what news I hoarded before I came out of town; and the first article of that, as I believe it is in every body's gazette, must be about my Lord Coke. They say, that since he has been at Sunning Hill with Lady Mary, she has made him a declaration in form, that she hates him, that she always did, and that she always will. This seems to have been a very unnecessary notification. However, as you know his part is to be extremely in love, he is very miserable upon it; and relating his woes at White's, probably at seven in the morning, he was advised to put an end to all this history and shoot himself-an advice they would not have given him if he were not insolvent. He has promised to consider of it.

The night before I left London, I called at the Duchess of Richmond's, who has stayed at home with the apprehension of a miscarriage. The porter told me there was no drawing-room till Thursday. In short, he did tell me what amounted to as much, that her grace did not see company till Thursday, then she should see every body: no excuse, that she was gone out or not well. I did not stay till Thursday to kiss hands, but went away to Vauxhall: as I was coming out, I was overtaken by a great light, and retired under the trees of Marble Hall to see what it should be. There came a long procession of Prince Lobkowitz's footmen in very rich new liveries, the two last bearing torches; and after them the Prince himself, in a new sky-blue watered tabby coat, with gold button-holes, and a magnificent gold waistcoat fringed, leading Madame l'Ambassadrice de Venise in a green sack with a straw hat, attended by my Lady Tyrawley, Wall, the private Spanish agent, the two Miss Molyneux's, and some other men. They went into one of the Prince of Wales's barges, had another barge filled with violins and hautboys, and an open boat with drums and trumpets. This was one of the fêtes des adieux. The nymph weeps all the morning, and says she is sure she shall be poisoned by her husband's relations when she returns for her behaviour with this Prince.

I have no other news, but that Mr. Fitzpatrick has married his Sukey Young, and is very impatient to have the Duchess of Bedford come to town to visit her new relation.

Now first printed.

47

VOL. I.

b See antè, p. 498.-E.