Is not my Lady Ailesbury weary of her travels? Pray make her my compliments,-unless she has made you any such declaration as Lady Mary Coke's. I am delighted with your description of the bedchamber of the House of Orange, as I did not see it; but the sight itself must have been very odious, as the hero and heroine are so extremely ugly. I shall give it my Lady Townshend as a new topic of matrimonial satire.

Mr. Churchill and Lady Mary have been with me two or three days, and are now gone to Sunning. I only tell you this, to hint that my house will hold a married pair; indeed, it is not quite large enough for people who lie, like the patriarchs, with their whole genealogy, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and oxes, and asses, in the same chamber with them. Adieu! do let this be the last letter, and come home.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Mistley, July 14, 1748.

I WOULD by no means resent your silence while you was at Pisa, if it were not very convenient; but I cannot resist the opportunity of taking it ill, when it serves to excuse my being much more to blame; and therefore, pray mind, I am very angry, and have not written, because you had quite left me off-and if I say nothing from hence, do not imagine it is because I am at a gentleman's house whom you don't know, and threescore miles from London, and because I have been but three days in London for above this month: I could say a great deal if I pleased, but I am very angry, and will not. I know several pieces of politics from Ipswich that would let you into the whole secret of the peace; and a quarrel at Dedham assembly, that is capable of involving all Europe in a new war-nay, I know that Admiral Vernon knows of what you say has happened in the West Indies, and of which nobody else in England knows a word-but please to remember that you have been at the baths, and don't deserve that I should tell you a tittle-nor will I. In revenge, I will tell you something that happened to me four months ago, and which I would not tell you now, if I had not forgot to tell it you when it happened— nay, I don't tell it you now for yourself, only that you may tell it the Princess: I truly and seriously this winter won and was paid a milleleva at pharaoh; literally received a thousand and twenty-three sixpences for one: an event that never happened in the annals of pharaoh, but to Charles II.'s Queen Dowager, as the Princess herself

On the 19th of the preceding December, Mr. Conway had marred Caroline, widow of Charles Bruce, Earl of Ailesbury, and only daughter of Lieutenant-General John Campbell, afterwards fourth Duke of Argyle.-E.

b Mistley near Manningtree, in Essex, the seat of Richard Rigby, Esq.

He lived near Ipswich.

informed me ever since I have treated myself as Queen Dowager, and have some thoughts of being drawn so.

There are no good anecdotes yet arrived of the Duke of Newcastle's travels, except that at a review which the Duke made for him, as he passed through the army, he hurried about with his glass up to his eye, crying, "Finest troops! finest troops! greatest General!" then broke through the ranks when he spied any Sussex man, kissed him in all his accoutrements,-my dear Tom such an one! chattered of Lewes races; then back to the Duke with " Finest troops! greatest General!"-and in short was a much better show than any review. The Duke is expected over immediately; I don't know if to stay, or why he comes-I mean, I do know, but am angry, and will not tell.

I have seen Sir James Grey, who speaks of you with great affection, and recommends himself extremely to me by it, when I am not angry with you; but I cannot possibly be reconciled till I have finished this letter, for I have nothing but this quarrel to talk of, and I think I have worn that out-so adieu! you odious, shocking, abominable monster!

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill,

I BEG you will let me know whether the peace has arrived in Italy, or if you have heard any thing of it; for in this part of the world nobody can tell what has become of it. They say the Empress Queen has stopped it; that she will not take back the towns in Flanders, which she says she knows are very convenient for us, but of no kind of use to her, and that she chooses to keep what she has got in Italy. However, we are determined to have peace at any rate, and the conditions must jumble themselves together as they can. These are the politics of Twickenham, my metropolis; and, to tell you the truth, I believe pretty near as good as you can have any where.

As to my own history, the scene is at present a little gloomy: my Lord Orford is in an extreme bad state of health, not to say a dangerous state: my uncle' is going off in the same way my father did. I don't pretend to any great feelings of affection for two men, because they are dying, for whom it is known I had little before, my brother especially having been as much my enemy as it was in his power to be; but I cannot with indifference see the family torn to pieces, and falling into such ruin as I foresee; for should my brother die soon, leaving so great a debt, so small an estate to pay it off, two great places sinking, and a wild boy of nineteen to succeed, there would be an end to the glory of Houghton, which had my father proportioned more to his fortune, would probably have a longer duration. This is

• Lord Orford did not die till 1751, and old Horace Walpole not till 1757.-D.

b Auditor of the exchequer and master of the buck-hounds.

an unpleasant topic to you who feel for us-however, I should not talk of it to one who would not feel. Your brother Gal. and I had a very grave conversation yesterday morning on this head; he thinks so like you, so reasonably and with so much good nature, that I seem to be only finishing a discourse that I have already had with you. As my fears about Houghton are great, I am a little pleased to have finished a slight memorial' of it, a description of the pictures, of which I have just printed an hundred, to give to particular people: I will send you one, and shall beg Dr. Cocchi to accept another.

If I could let myself wish to see you in England, it would be to see you here: the little improvements I am making have really turned Strawberry Hill into a charming villa: Mr. Chute, I hope, will tell you how pleasant it is; I mean literally tell you, for we have a glimmering of a Venetian prospect; he is just going from hence to town by water, down our Brenta.

You never say a word to me from the Princess, nor any of my old friends: I keep up our intimacy in my own mind; for I will not part with the idea of seeing Florence again. Whenever I am displeased here, the thoughts of that journey are my resource; just as cross would-be devout people, when they have quarrelled with this world, begin packing up for the other. Adieu!

DEAR GEORGE,

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Mistley, July 25, 1748.

I HAVE wished you with me extremely you would have liked what I have seen. I have been to make a visit of two or three days to Nugent, and was carried to see the last remains of the glory of the old Aubrey de Veres, Earls of Oxford. They were once masters of almost this entire county, but quite reduced even before the extinction of their house: the last Earl's son died at a miserable cottage, that I was shown at a distance; and I think another of the sisters, besides Lady Mary Vere, was forced to live upon her beauty.

Henningham Castle, where Harry the Seventh was so sumptuously

a "Edes Walpolianæ, or a Description of the Pictures at Houghton Hall, in Norfolk," first printed in 1747, and again in 1752.

b See Hume's History of England, vol. iii. p. 399. ["The Earl of Oxford, his favourite general, having splendidly entertained him at his castle of Henningham, was desirous of making a parade of his magnificence at the departure of his royal guest; and ordered all his retainers, with their liveries and badges, to be drawn up in two lines, that their appearance might be the more gallant and splendid. My lord,' said the King, 'I have heard much of your hospitality; but the truth far exceeds the report: these handsome gentlemen and yeomen whom I see on both sides of me are no doubt your menial servants.' The Earl smiled, and confessed that his fortune was too narrow for such magnificence. They are most of them,' subjoined he, my retainers, who are come to do service at this time, when they know I am honoured with your Majesty's presence.* The King started a little, and said, ' By my faith! my lord, I thank you for your good

banquetted, and imposed that villanous fine for his entertainment, is now shrunk to one vast curious tower, that stands on a spacious mount raised on a high hill with a large fosse. It commands a fine prospect, and belongs to Mr. Ashurst, a rich citizen, who has built a trumpery new house close to it. In the parish church is a fine square monument of black marble of one of the Earls; and there are three more tombs of the family at Earl's Colne, some miles from the castle. I could see but little of them, as it was very late, except that one of the Countesses has a headdress exactly like the description of Mount Parnassus, with two tops. I suppose you have heard much of Gosfield, Nugent's seat. It is extremely in fashion, but did not answer to me, though there are fine things about it; but being situated in a country that is quite blocked up with hills upon hills, and even too much wood, it has not an inch of prospect. The park is to be sixteen hundred acres, and is bounded with a wood of five miles round; and the lake, which is very beautiful, is of seventy acres, directly in a line with the house, at the bottom of a fine lawn, and broke with very pretty groves, that fall down a slope into it. The house is vast, built round a very old court that has never been fine; the old windows and gateway left, and the old gallery, which is a bad narrow room, and hung with all the late patriots, but so ill done, that they look like caricatures done to expose them, since they have so much disgraced the virtues they pretended to. The rest of the house is all modernized, but in patches, and in the bad taste that came between the charming venerable Gothic and pure architecture. There is a great deal of good furniture, but no one room very fine: no tolerable pictures. Her dressing-room is very pretty, and furnished with white damask, china, japan, loads of easy chairs, bad pictures, and some pretty enamels. But what charmed me more than all I had seen, is the library chimney, which has existed from the foundation of the house; over it is an alto-relievo in wood, far from being ill done, of the battle of Bosworth Field. It is all white, except the helmets and trappings, which are gilt, and the shields, which are properly blazoned with the arms of all the chiefs engaged. You would adore it.

We passed our time very agreeably; both Nugent and his wife are very good-humoured, and easy in their house to a degree. There was nobody else but the Marquis of Tweedale; his new Marchioness, who is infinitely good-humoured and good company, and sang a thousand French songs mighty prettily; a sister of Nugent's, who does not figure; and a Mrs. Elliot, sister to Mrs. Nugent, who crossed over and figured in with Nugent: I mean she has turned Catholic, as he has Protestant. She has built herself a

cheer, but I must not allow my laws to be broken in my sight: my attorney must speak with you.' Oxford is said to have paid no less than fifteen thousand marks, as a compensation for his offence."]

a Daughter of the Earl of Granville.

b Harriot, wife of Richard Elliot, Esq., father of the first Lord St. Germains, and a daughter of Mr. Secretary Craggs. For a copy of verses addressed by Mr. Pitt to this lady, see the Chatham Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 373.-E.

very pretty small house in the park, and is only a daily visiter. Nugent was extremely communicative of his own labours; repeated us an ode of ten thousand stanzas to abuse Messieurs de la Gallerie, and read me a whole tragedy, which has really a great many pretty things in it; not indeed equal to his glorious ode on religion and liberty, but with many of those absurdities which are so blended with his parts. We were overturned coming back, but, thank you, we were not at all hurt, and have been to-day to see a large house and a pretty park belonging to a Mr. Williams; it is to be sold. You have seen in the papers that Dr. Bloxholme is dead. He cut his throat. He always was nervous and vapoured; and so good-natured, that he left off his practice from not being able to bear seeing so many melancholy objects. I remember him with as much wit as ever I knew; there was a pretty correspondence of Latin odes that passed between him and Hodges.

You will be diverted to hear that the Duchess of Newcastle was received at Calais by Locheil's regiment under arms, who did duty himself while she stayed. The Duke of Grafton is going to Scarborough; don't you love that endless back-stairs policy? and at his time of life! This fit of ill health is arrived on the Prince's going to shoot for a fortnight at Thetford, and his grace is afraid of not being civil enough or too civil.

Since I wrote my letter I have been fishing in Rapin for any particulars relating to the Veres, and have already found that Robert de Vere, the great Duke of Ireland, and favourite of Richard the Second, is buried at Earl's Colne, and probably under one of the tombs I saw there; I long to be certain that the lady with the strange coiffure is Lancerona, the joiner's daughter, that he married after divorcing a princess of the blood for her. I have found, too, that King Stephen's Queen died at Henningham, a castle belonging to Alberic de Vere in short, I am just now Vere mad, and extremely mortified to have Lancerona and Lady Vere Beauclerk's Portuguese grandmother blended with this brave old blood. Adieu! I go to town the day after to-morrow, and immediately from thence to Strawberry Hill. Yours ever.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, Aug. 11, 1748.

I AM arrived at great knowledge in the annals of the house of Vere

Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, was the favourite of Richard the Second; who created him Marquis of Dublin and Duke of Ireland, and transferred to him by patent the entire sovereignty of that island for life.

b Alberic de Vere was an Earl in the reign of Edward the Confessor.

Daughter of Thomas Chambers, Esq., and married to Lord Vere Beauclerc, third son of the first Duke of St. Albans by his wife Diana, daughter of Aubrey de Vere, Earl of Oxford.