MY DEAR LORD, TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD. Strawberry Hill, July 22, 1761. I LOVE to be able to contribute to your satisfaction, and I think few things would make you happier than to hear that we have totally defeated the French combined armies, and that Mr. Conway is safe. The account came this morning: I had a short note from poor Lady Ailesbury, who was waked with the good news before she had heard there had been a battle. I don't pretend to send you circumstances, no more than I do of the wedding and coronation, because you have relations and friends in town nearer and better informed. Indeed, only the blossom of victory is come yet. Fitzroy is expected, and another fuller courier after him. Lord Granby, to the mob's heart's content, has the chief honour of the day-rather, of the two days. The French behaved to the mob's content too, that is, shamefully: and all this glory cheaply bought on our side. Lieutenant-colonel Keith killed, and Colonel Marlay and Harry Townshend wounded. If it produces a peace, I shall be happy for mankind-if not, shall content myself with the single but pure joy of Mr. Conway's being safe. Well! my lord, when do you come? You don't like the question, but kings will be married and must be crowned-and if people will be earls, they must now and then give up castles and new fronts for processions and ermine. By the way, the number of peeresses that propose to excuse themselves makes great noise; especially as so many are breeding, or trying to breed, by commoners, that they cannot walk. I hear that my Lord Delawar, concluding all women would not dislike the ceremony, is negotiating his peerage in the city, and trying if any great fortune will give fifty thousand pounds for one day, as they often do for one night. I saw Miss*** this evening at my Lady Suffolk's, and fancy she does not think my Lord **** quite so ugly as she did two months ago. Adieu, my lord! This is a splendid year! TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Strawberry Hill, July 22, 1761. FOR my part, I believe Mademoiselle Scuderi drew the plan of this year. It is all royal marriages, coronations, and victories; they come tumbling so over one another from distant parts of the globe, that it looks just like the handywork of a lady romance writer, whom it costs nothing but a little false geography to make the Great Mogul in love with a Princess of Mecklenburg, and defeat two marshals of France as he rides post on an elephant to his nuptials. I don't know where I am. I had scarce found Mecklenburg Strelitz with a magnifying-glass before I am whisked to Pondicherri—well, I take it, and raze it. I begin to grow acquainted with Colonel Coote, and to figure him packing up chests and diamonds, and sending them to his wife against the King's wedding-thunder go the Tower guns, and behold, Broglio and Soubise are totally defeated; if the mob have not much stronger heads and quicker conceptions than I have, they will conclude my Lord Granby is become nabob. How the deuce in two days can one digest all this? Why is not Pondicherri in Westphalia? I don't know how the Romans did, but I cannot support two victories every week. Well, but you will want to know the particulars. Broglio and Soubise united, attacked our army on the 15th, but were repulsed; the next day, the Prince Mahomet Alli Cawn-no, no, I mean Prince Ferdinand, returned the attack, and the French threw down their arms and fled, run over my Lord Harcourt, who was going to fetch the new Queen; in short, I don't know how it was, but Mr. Conway is safe, and I am as happy as Mr. Pitt himself. We have only lost a Lieutenant-colonel Keith; Colonel Marlay and Harry Townshend are wounded. I could beat myself for not having a flag ready to display on my round tower, and guns mounted on all my battlements. Instead of that, I have been foolishly trying on my new pictures upon my gallery. However, the oratory of our Lady of Strawberry shall be dedicated next year on the anniversary of Mr. Conway's safety. Think with his intrepidity, and delicacy of honour wounded, what I had to apprehend; you shall absolutely be here on the sixteenth of next July. Mr. Hamilton tells me your King does not set out for his new dominions till the day after the coronation; if you will come to it, I can give you a very good place for the procession; where, is a profound secret, because, if known, I should be teased to death, and none but my first friends shall be admitted. I dined with your secretary yesterday; there were Garrick and a young Mr. Burke, who wrote a book in the style of Lord Bolingbroke, that was much admired. He is a sensible man, but has not worn off his authorism yet, and thinks there is nothing so charming as writers, and to be one. He will know better one of these days. I like Hamilton's little Marly; we walked in the great allée, and drank tea in the arbour of treillage; they talked of Shakspeare and Booth, of Swift and my Lord Bath, and I was thinking of Madame Sévigné. Good night-I have a dozen other letters to write; I must tell my friends how happy I am not as an Englishman, but as a cousin. The King had just announced his intention of demanding in marriage the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg Strelitz.-E. b The news of the capture of Pondicherry had only arrived on the preceding day.-E. c Mr. Burke's "Vindication of Natural Society," in imitation of Lord Bolingbroke's style, which came out in the spring of 1756, was his first avowed production.-E. 12* TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Strawberry Hill, July 23, 1761. WELL, mon beau cousin! you may be as cross as you please now: when you beat two Marshals of France and cut their armies to pieces, I don't mind your pouting; but in good truth, it was a little vexatious to have you quarrelling with me, when I was in greater pain about you than I can express. I will say no more; make a peace, under the walls of Paris if you please, and I will forgive you all-but no more battles: consider, as Dr. Hay said, it is cowardly to beat the French now. Don't look upon yourselves as the only conquerors in the world. Pondicherri is ours, as well as the field of Kirk Denckirk. The park guns never have time to cool; we ruin ourselves in gunpowder and skyrockets. If you have a mind to do the gallantest thing in the world after the greatest, you must escort the Princess of Mecklenburgh through France. You see what a bully I am; the moment the French run away, I am sending you on expeditions. I forgot to tell you that the King has got the isle of Dominique and the chickenpox, two trifles that don't count in the midst of all these festivities. No more does your letter of the 8th, which I received yesterday: it is the one that is to come after the 16th, that I shall receive graciously. Friday 24th. Not satisfied with the rays of glory that reached Twickenham, I came to town to bask in your success; but am most disagreeably disappointed to find you must beat the French once more, who seem to love to treat the English mob with subjects for bonfires. I had got over such an alarm, that I foolishly ran into the other extreme, and concluded there was not a French battalion left entire upon the face of Germany. Do write to me; don't be out of humour, but tell me every motion you make: I assure you I have deserved you should. Would you were out of the question, if it were only that I might feel a little humanity! There is not a blacksmith or linkboy in London that exults more than I do, upon any good news, since you went abroad. What have I to do to hate people I never saw, and to rejoice in their calamities? Heaven send us peace, and you home! Adieu! TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, July 28, 1761. No, I shall never cease being a dupe, till I have been undeceived round by every thing that calls itself a virtue. I came to town yesterday, through clouds of dust, to see The Wishes, and went actually feeling for Mr. Bentley, and full of the emotions he must be suffering. What do you think, in a house crowded, was the first thing I saw ? Mr. and Madame Bentley, perched up in the front boxes, and acting audience at his own play! No, all the impudence of false patriotism never came up to it. Did one ever hear of an author that had courage to see his own first night in public? I don't believe Fielding or Foote himself ever did; and this was the modest, bashful Mr. Bentley, that died at the thought of being known for an author even by his own acquaintance! In the stage-box was Lady Bute, Lord Halifax, and Lord Melcombe. I must say, the two last entertained the house as much as the play; your King was prompter, and called out to the actor every minute to speak louder. The other went backwards behind the scenes, fetched the actors into the box, and was busier than Harlequin. The curious prologue was not spoken, the whole very ill acted. It turned out just what I remembered it; the good parts extremely good, the rest very flat and vulgar; the genteel dialogue, I believe, might be written by Mrs. Hannah. The audience were extremely fair: the first act they bore with patience, though it promised very ill; the second is admirable, and was much applauded; so was the third; the fourth woful; the beginning of the fifth it seemed expiring, but was revived by a delightful burlesque of the ancient chorus, which was followed by two dismal scenes, at which people yawned, but were awakened on a sudden by Harlequin's being drawn up to a gibbet, nobody knew why or wherefore: this raised a prodigious and continued hiss, Harlequin all the while suspended in the air, at last they were suffered to finish the play, but nobody attended to the conclusion. Modesty and his lady all the while sat with the utmost indifference; I suppose Lord Melcombe had fallen asleep before he came to this scene, and had never read it. The epilogue was about the King and new Queen, and ended with a personal satire on Garrick not very kind on his own stage. To add to the judgment of his conduct, Cumberland two days ago published a pamphlet to abuse him. It was given out for to-night with more claps than hisses, but I think will not do unless they reduce it to three acts. I am sorry you will not come to the coronation. The place I offered I am not sure I can get for any body else; I cannot explain it to you, because I am engaged to secrecy: if I can get it for your brother John I will, but don't tell him of it, because it is not sure. Adieu! The piece was coldly received by the town. Cumberland says that, "when the last of the three Wishes produced the ridiculous catastrophe of the hanging of Harlequin in full view of the audience, my uncle, the author, then sitting by me, whispered in my ear, 'If they don't damn this, they deserve to be damned themselves;' and whilst he was yet speaking the roar began, and The Wishes were irrevocably damned."-E. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Strawberry Hill. THIS is the 5th of August, and I just receive your letter of the 17th of last month by Fitzroy. I heard he had lost his pocket-book with all his despatches, but had found it again. He was a long time finding the letter for me. You do nothing but reproach me; I declare I will bear it no longer, though you should beat forty more Marshals of France. I have already writ you two letters that would fully justify me if you receive them; if you do not, it is not I that am in fault for not writing, but the post-offices for reading my letters, content if they would forward them when they have done with them. They seem to think, like you, that I know more news than any body. What is to be known in the dead of summer, when all the world is dispersed? Would you know who won the sweepstakes at Huntingdon? what parties are at Woburn? what officers upon guard in Betty's fruit-shop? whether the peeresses are to wear long or short tresses at the coronation? how many jewels Lady Harrington borrows of actresses? All this is your light summer wear for conversation; and if my memory were as much stuffed with it as my ears, I might have sent you volumes last week. My nieces, Lady Waldegrave and Mrs. Keppel, were here five days, and discussed the claim or disappointment of every miss in the kingdom for maid of honour. Unfortunately this new generation is not at all my affair. I cannot attend to what concerns them. Not that their trifles are less important than those of one's own time, but my mould has taken all its impressions, and can receive no more. I must grow old upon the stock I have. I, that was so impatient at all their chat, the moment they were gone, flew to my Lady Suffolk, and heard her talk with great satisfaction of the late Queen's coronation-petticoat. The preceding age always appears respectable to us (I mean as one advances in years), one's own age interesting, the coming age neither one nor t'other. You may judge by this account that I have writ all my letters, or ought to have written them; and yet, for occasion to blame me, you draw a very pretty picture of my situation: all which tends to prove that I ought to write to you every day, whether I have any thing to say or not. I am writing, I am building-both works that will outlast the memory of battles and heroes! Truly, I believe, the one will as much as t'other. My buildings are paper, like my writings, and both will be blown away in ten years after I am dead; if they had not the substantial use of amusing me while I live, they would be worth little indeed. I will give you one instance that will sum up the vanity of great men, learned men, and buildings altogether. I heard lately, that Dr. Pearce, a very learned personage, had consented to let the tomb of Aylmer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, a very great per |