sold it as mine, and it was believed so till people had read it, because my name and that of Pulteney had been apt to answer one another, and because that war was dirtily revived by the latter in his libel; but the deceit soon vanished; the answer appeared to have much more knowledge of the subject than I have, and a good deal more temper than I should probably have exerted, if I had thought it worth my while to proceed to an answer; but though my Lord Bath is unwilling to enter lists in which he has suffered so much shame, I am by no means fond of entering them; nor was there any honour to be acquired, either from the contest or the combatant.

My history of artists proceeds very leisurely; I find the subject dry and uninteresting, and the materials scarce worth arranging: yet I think I shall execute my purpose, at least as far as relates to painters. It is a work I can scribble at any time, and on which I shall bestow little pains; things that are so soon forgotten should not take one up too much. I had consulted Mr. Lethinkai, who told me he had communicated to Mr. Vertue what observations he had made. I believe they were scanty, for I find small materials relating to architects among his manuscripts. Adieu!

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, May 6, 1760.

THE extraordinary history of Lord Ferrers is closed: he was executed yesterday. Madness, that in other countries is a disorder, is here a systematic character; it does not hinder people from forming a plan of conduct, and from even dying agreeably to it. You remember how the last Ratcliffe died with the utmost propriety; so did this horrid lunatic, coolly and sensibly. His own and his wife's relations had asserted that he would tremble at last. No such thing; he shamed heroes. He bore the solemnity of a pompous and tedious procession of above two hours, from the Tower to Tyburn, with as much tranquillity as if he was only going to his own burial, not to his own execution. He even talked on indifferent subjects in the passage; and if the sheriff and the chaplains had not thought that they had parts to act, too, and had not consequently engaged him. in most particular conversation, he did not seem to think it necessary to talk on the occasion; he went in his wedding-clothes, marking the only remaining impression on his mind. The ceremony he was in a hurry to have over: he was stopped at the gallows by the vast crowd, but got out of his coach as soon as he could, and was but seven minutes on the scaffold, which was hung with black, and prepared by the undertaker of his family at their expense. There was a new contrivance for sinking the stage under him, which did not play well; and he suffered a little by the delay, but was dead in four minutes. The mob was decent, and admired him, and almost pitied him; so they would Lord George, whose execution they are so angry at

missing. I suppose every highwayman will now preserve the blue handkerchief he has about his neck when he is married, that he may die like a lord. With all his madness, he was not mad enough to be struck with his aunt Huntingdon's sermons. The Methodists have nothing to brag of his conversion, though Whitfield prayed for him and preached about him. Even Tyburn has been above their reach. I have not heard that Lady Fanny dabbled with his soul; but I believe she is prudent enough to confine her missionary zeal to subjects where the body may be her perquisite.

When am I likely to see you? The delightful rain is come-we look and smell charmingly. Adieu!

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill, May 7, 1760.

WHAT Will your Italians say to a peer of England, an earl of one of the best of families, tried for murdering his servant, with the utmost dignity and solemnity, and then hanged at the common place of execution for highwaymen, and afterwards anatomized? This must seem a little odd to them, especially as they have not lately had a Sixtus Quintus. I have hitherto spoken of Lord Ferrers to you as a wild beast, a mad assassin, a low wretch, about whom I had no curiosity. If I now am going to give you a minute account of him, don't think me so far part of an English mob, as to fall in love with a criminal merely because I have had the pleasure of his execution. I certainly did not see it, nor should have been struck with mere intrepidity-I never adored heroes, whether in a cart or a triumphal car -but there has been such wonderful coolness and sense in all this man's last behaviour, that it has made me quite inquisitive about him -not at all pity him. I only reflect, what I have often thought, how little connexion there is between any man's sense and his sensibility -so much so, that instead of Lord Ferrers having any ascendant over his passions, I am disposed to think, that his drunkenness, which was supposed to heighten his ferocity, has rather been a lucky circumstance-what might not a creature of such capacity, and who stuck at nothing, have done, if his abilities had not been drowned in brandy? I will go back a little into his history. His misfortunes, as he called them, were dated from his marriage, though he has been guilty of horrid excesses unconnected with matrimony, and is even believed to have killed a groom who died a year after receiving a cruel beating from him. His wife, a very pretty woman, was sister of Sir William Meredith, had no fortune, and he says, trepanned him into marriage, having met him drunk at an assembly in the country, and kept him so till the ceremony was over. As he always kept himself so afterwards, one need not impute it to her. In every other

* Sir William Meredith, Bart. of Hanbury, in Cheshire. The title is now extinct.-D.

respect, and one scarce knows how to blame her for wishing to be a countess, her behaviour was unexceptionable. He had a mistress before and two or three children, and her he took again after the separation from his wife. He was fond of both and used both ill: his wife so ill, always carrying pistols to bed, and threatening to kill her before morning, beating her, and jealous without provocation, that she got separated from him by act of Parliament, which appointed receivers of his estate in order to secure her allowance. This he could not bear. However, he named his steward for one, but afterwards finding out that this Johnson had paid her fifty pounds without his knowledge, and suspecting him of being in the confederacy against him, he determined, when he failed of opportunities of murdering his wife, to kill the steward, which he effected as you have heard. The shocking circumstances attending the murder, I did not tell you-indeed, while he was alive, I scarce liked to speak my opinion even to you; for though I felt nothing for him, I thought it wrong to propagate any notions that might interfere with mercy, if he could be thought deserving it—and not knowing into what hands my letter might pass before it reached yours, I chose to be silent, though nobody could conceive greater horror than I did for him at his trial. Having shot the steward at three in the afternoon, he persecuted him till one in the morning, threatening again to murder him, attempting to tear off his bandages, and terrifying him till in that misery he was glad to obtain leave to be removed to his own house; and when the earl heard the poor creature was dead, he said he gloried in having killed him. You cannot conceive the shock this evidence gave the court-many of the lords were standing to look at him-at once they turned from him with detestation. I had heard that on the former affair in the House of Lords, he had behaved with great shrewdness-no such thing appeared at his trial. It is now pretended, that his being forced by his family against his inclination to plead madness, prevented his exerting his parts-but he has not acted in any thing as if his family had influence over him-consequently his reverting to much good sense leaves the whole inexplicable. The very night he received sentence, he played at picquet with the warders and would play for money, and would have continued to play every evening, but they refuse. Lord Cornwallis, governor of the Tower, shortened his allowance of wine after his conviction, agreeably to the late strict acts on murder. This he much disliked, and at last pressed his brother the clergyman to intercede that at least he might have more porter; for, said he, what I have is not a draught. His brother represented against it, but at last consenting (and he did obtain it). then said the earl, "Now is as good a time as any to take leave of you-adieu!" A minute journal of his whole behaviour has been kept, to see if there was any madness in it. Dr. Munro since the

a She afterwards married Lord Frederick Campbell, brother of the Duke of Argyle, and was an excellent woman. (She was unfortunately burned to death at Lord Frederick's seat, Combe Bank, in Kent-D.)

trial has made an affidavit of his lunacy. The Washingtons were certainly a very frantic race, and I have no doubt of madness in him, but, not of a pardonable sort. Two petitions from his mother and all his family were presented to the King, who said, as the House of Lords had unanimously found him guilty, he would not interfere. Last week my lord keeper very good-naturedly got out of a gouty bed to present another: the King would not hear him. "Sir," said the keeper, "I don't come to petition for mercy or respite; but that the four thousand pounds which Lord Ferrers has in India bonds, may be permitted to go according to his disposition of it to his mistress, children, and the family of the murdered man." "With all my heart," said the King, "I have no objection; but I will have no message carried to him from me." However, this grace was notified to him and gave him great satisfaction: but unfortunately it now appears to be law, that it is forfeited to the sheriff of the county where the fact was committed; though when my Lord Hardwicke was told that he had disposed of it, he said, to be sure he may before conviction.

Dr. Pearce, Bishop of Rochester, offered his service to him: he thanked the Bishop, but said, as his own brother was a clergyman, he chose to have him. Yet he had another relation who has been much more busy about his repentance. I don't know whether you have ever heard that one of the singular characters here is a Countess of Huntingdon, aunt of Lord Ferrers. She is the Saint Theresa of the Methodists. Judge how violent bigotry must be in such mad blood! The Earl, by no means disposed to be a convert, let her visit him, and often sent for her, as it was more company; but he grew sick of her, and complained that she was enough to provoke any body. She made her suffragan, Whitfield, pray for and preach about him, and that impertinent fellow told his enthusiasts in his sermon, that my Lord's heart was stone. The earl wanted much to see his mistress: my Lord Cornwallis, as simple an old woman as my Lady Huntingdon herself, consulted her whether he should permit it. "Oh! by no means; it would be letting him die in adultery!" In one thing she was more sensible. He resolved not to take leave of his children, four girls, but on the scaffold, and then to read to them a paper he had drawn up, very bitter on the family of Meredith, and on the House of Lords for the first transaction. This my Lady Huntingdon persuaded him to drop, and he took leave of his children the day before. He wrote two letters in the preceding week to Lord Cornwallis on some

a Zachariah Pearce, translated from the see of Bangor in 1756. He was an excellent man, and later in life, in the year 1768, finding himself growing infirm, he presented to the world the rare instance of disinterestedness, of wishing to resign all his pieces of preferment. These consisted of the deanery of Westminster and bishopric of Rochester. The deanery he gave up, but was not allowed to do so by the bishopric, which was said, as a peerage, to be inalienable.-D.

Lady Selina Shirley, daughter of an Earl of Ferrers. (Selina Shirley, second daughter and coheiress of Washington Earl Ferrers, and widow of Theophilus Hastings, ninth Earl of Huntingdon. She was the peculiar patroness of enthusiasts of all sorts in religion.-D.)

of these requests: they were cool and rational, and concluded with desiring him not to mind the absurd requests of his (Lord Ferrers's) family in his behalf. On the last morning he dressed himself in his wedding clothes, and said, he thought this, at least, as good an occasion of putting them on as that for which they were first made. He wore them to Tyburn. This marked the strong impression on his mind. His mother wrote to his wife in a weak angry style, telling her to intercede for him as her duty, and to swear to his madness. But this was not so easy; in all her cause before the Lords, she had persisted that he was not mad.

Sir William Meredith, and even Lady Huntingdon had prophesied that his courage would fail him at last, and had so much foundation, that it is certain Lord Ferrers had often been beat:-but the Methodists were to get no honour by him. His courage rose where it was most likely to fail,-an unlucky circumstance to prophets, especially when they have had the prudence to have all kind of probabilty on their side. Even an awful procession of above two hours, with that mixture of pageantry, shame, and ignominy, nay, and of delay, could not dismount his resolution. He set out from the Tower at nine, amidst crowds, thousands. First went a string of constables; then one of the sheriffs, in his chariot and six, the horses dressed with ribands; next Lord Ferrers, in his own landau and six, his coachman crying all the way; guards at each side; the other sheriff's chariot followed empty, with a mourning coach-and-six, a hearse, and the Horse Guards. Observe, that the empty chariot was that of the other sheriff, who was in the coach with the prisoner, and who was Vaillant, the French bookseller in the Strand. How will you decipher all these strange circumstances to Florentines? A bookseller in robes and in mourning, sitting as a magistrate by the side of the Earl; and in the evening, every body going to Vaillant's shop to hear the particulars. I wrote to him, as he serves me, for the account: but he intends to print it, and I will send it you with some other things, and the trial. Lord Ferrers at first talked on indifferent matters, and observing the prodigious confluence of people, (the blind was drawn up on his side,) he said," But they never saw a lord hanged, and perhaps will never see another." One of the dragoons was thrown by his horse's leg entangling in the hind wheel: Lord Ferrers expessed much concern, and said, "I hope there will be no death to-day but mine," and was pleased when Vaillant told him the man was not hurt. Vaillant made excuses to him on his office. "On the contrary," said the Earl, "I am much obliged to you. I feared the disagreeableness of the duty might make you depute your under-sheriff. As you are so good as to execute it yourself, I am persuaded the dreadful apparatus will be conducted with more expedition." The chaplain of the Tower, who sat backwards, then thought it his turn to speak, and began to talk on religion; but Lord Ferrers received it impatiently. However, the chaplain persevered, and said, he wished to bring his lordship to some confession or acknowledgment of contrition for a crime so repugnant to the laws of God and man, and wished him to

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