with Dr. Robertson's writings, who has an excellent genius, with admirable style and manner; and yet I cannot help thinking, that there is a good deal of Scotch puffing and partiality, when the booksellers have given the Doctor three thousand pounds for his Life of Charles V., for composing which he does not pretend to have obtained any new materials.

I am going into Warwickshire; and I think shall go on to Lord Strafford's, but propose returning before the end of September. Yours ever.

TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.

Strawberry Hill, Monday, Oct. 10, 1768.

I GIVE you a thousand thanks, my dear Lord, for the account of the ball at Welbeck. I shall not be able to repay it with a relation of the masquerade to-night;1 for I have been confined here this week with the gout in my foot, and have not stirred off my bed or couch since Tuesday. I was to have gone to the great ball at Sion on Friday, for which a new road, paddock, and bridge were made, as other folks make a dessert. I conclude Lady Mary Coke has, and will tell you of all these pomps, which Health thinks so serious, and Sickness with her grave face tells one are so idle. Sickness may make me moralize, but I assure you she does not want humour. She has diverted me extremely with drawing a comparison between the repose (to call neglect by its dignified name) which I have enjoyed in this fit, and the great anxiety in which the whole world was when I had the last gout, three years ago—you remember my friends were then coming into power. Lord Weymouth was so good as to call at least once every day, and inquire after me; and the foreign ministers insisted that I should give them the satisfaction of seeing me,

1 A masquerade given at the Opera-house by the King of Denmark; one of the most magnificent which had ever been given in England. The jewels worn on the occasion by the maskers were estimated to be of the value of two millions.-E.

that they might tranquillize their sovereigns with the certainty of my not being in any danger. The Duke and Duchess of Newcastle were so kind, though very nervous themselves, as to send messengers and long messages every day from Claremont. I cannot say this fit has alarmed Europe quite so much. I heard the bell ring at the gate, and asked with much majesty if it was the Duke of Newcastle had sent? "No, Sir, it was only the butcher's boy." The butcher's boy is, indeed, the only courier I have had. Neither the King of France nor King of Spain appears to least concern about me.

be under the

My dear Lord, I have had so many of these transitions in my life, that you will not wonder they divert me more than a masquerade. I am ready to say to most people, “Mask, I know you." I wish I might choose their dresses!

When I have the honour of seeing Lady Strafford, I shall beseech her to tell me all the news; for I am too nigh and too far to know any. Adieu, my dear Lord!

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, Nov. 10, 1768.

I HAVE not received the cheese, but I thank you as much beforehand. I have been laid up with a fit of the gout in both feet and a knee; at Strawberry for an entire month, and eight days here: I took the air for the first time the day before yesterday, and am, considering, surprisingly recovered by the assistance of the bootikins and my own perseverance in drinking water. I moulted my stick to-day, and have no complaint but weakness left. The fit came just in time to augment my felicity in having quitted Parliament. I do not find it so uncomfortable to grow old, when one is not obliged to expose oneself in public.

I neither rejoice nor am sorry at your being accommodated in your new habitation. It has long been plain to me that you choose to bury yourself in the ugliest spot you can find,

at a distance from almost all your acquaintance; so I give it up; and then I am glad you are pleased.

Nothing is stirring but politics, and chiefly the worst kind of politics, elections. I trouble myself with no sort, but seek to pass what days the gout leaves me or bestows on me, as quietly as I can. I do not wonder at others, because I doubt I am more singular than they are; and what makes me happy would probably not make them so. My best compliments to your brother; I shall be glad to see you both when you come; though for you, you don't care how little time you pass with your friends. Yet I am, and ever shall be Yours most sincerely.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, Nov. 15, 1768.

You cannot wonder when I receive such kind letters from you, that I am vexed our intimacy should be reduced almost to those letters. It is selfish to complain, when you give me such good reasons for your system: but I grow old; and the less time we have to live together, the more I feel a separation from a person I love so well; and that reflection furnishes me with arguments in vindication of my peevishness. Methinks, though the contrary is true in practice, prudence should be the attribute of youth, not of years. When we

approach to the last gate of life, what does it signify to provide for new furnishing one's house? Youth should have all those cares; indeed, charming youth is better employed. It leaves foresight to those that have little occasion for it. You and I have both done with the world, the busy world, and therefore I would smile with you over what we have both seen of it, and luckily we can smile both, for we have quitted it willingly, not from disgust nor mortifications. However, I do not pretend to combat your reasons, much less would I draw you to town a moment sooner than it is convenient to you, though I shall never forget your offering it. not so much in town that I wish we were nearer,

Nay, it is

as in the

VOL. V.

country. Unless one lives exactly in the same set of company, one is not much the better for one's friends being in London. I that talk of giving up the world, have only given up the troubles of it, as far as that is possible. I should speak more properly in saying, that I have retired out of the world into London. I always intend to place some months between me and the moroseness of retirement. We are not made for solitude. It gives us prejudices, it indulges us in our own humours, and at last we cannot live without them.

My gout is quite gone; and if I had a mind to disguise its remains, I could walk very gracefully, except on going down stairs. Happily it is not the fashion to hand anybody; the nymph and I should soon be at the bottom.

Your old cousin Newcastle is going; he has had a stroke of the palsy, and they think will not last two days.1 I hope he is not sensible, as I doubt he would be too averse to his situation. Poor man! he is not like my late amiable friend, Lady Hervey; two days before she died, she wrote to her son Bristol these words: "I feel my dissolution coming on, but I have no pain; what can an old woman desire more?" This was consonant to her usual propriety — yes, propriety is grace, and thus everybody may be graceful, when other graces are fled. Oh! but you will cry, is not this a contradiction to the former part of your letter? Prudence is one of the graces of age;-why-yes, I do not know but it may beand yet I don't know how, it is a musty quality; one hates to allow it to be a grace—come, at least it is only like that one of the graces that hides her face. In short, I have ever been so imprudent, that though I have much corrected myself, I am not at all vain of such merit. I have purchased it for much more than it was worth. I wish you joy of Lord Guildford's amendment; and always take a full part in your satisfaction or sorrow. Adieu! Yours ever.

'The Duke of Newcastle died on the 17th.-E.

Lady Hervey died on the 2nd of September, in the sixty-eighth year of her age.-E.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, Dec. 1, 1768.

I LIKE your letter, and have been looking at my next door but one. The ground-story is built, and the side walls will certainly be raised another floor, before you think of arriving. I fear nothing for you but the noise of workmen, and of this street in front and Piccadilly on the other side. If you can bear such a constant hammering and hurricane, it will rejoice me to have you so near me; and then I think I must see you oftener than I have done these ten years. Nothing can be more dignified than this position. From my earliest memory Arlington-street has been the ministerial street. The Duke of Grafton is actually coming into the house of Mr. Pelham, which my Lord President is quitting, and which occupies too the ground on which my father lived; and Lord Weymouth has just taken the Duke of Dorset's; yet you and I, I doubt, shall always live on the wrong side of the way.

Lord Chatham is reconciled to Lord Temple and George Grenville. The second is in great spirits on the occasion; and yet gives out that Lord Chatham earnestly solicited it. The insignificant Lepidus patronizes Antony, and is sued to by Augustus! Still do I doubt whether Augustus will ever come forth again. Is this a peace patched up by Livia for the sake of her children, seeing the imbecility of her husband? or is Augustus to own he has been acting a changeling, like the first Brutus, for near two years? I do not know, I remain in

doubt.

Wilkes has struck an artful stroke. The ministers, devoid of all management in the House of Commons, consented that he should be heard at the bar of the House, and appointed to-morrow, forgetting the election for Middlesex is to come on

1 Through the mediation of their mutual friend, Mr. Calcraft, a reconciliation between Lord Chatham and Earl Temple took place at Hayes, on the 25th of November, to which Mr. Grenville heartily acceded. See Chatham Correspondence, vol. iii. p. 349.-E.

Mr. Wilkes, on the 14th of November, had presented a petition to the House of Commons, praying for a redress of his grievances.-E.