the events of this new reign-if I am not made secretary of stateif I am, I shall certainly take care to let you know it.

I had really begun to think that the lawyers for once talked sense, when they said the King never dies. He probably got his death, as he liked to have done two years ago, by viewing the troops for the expedition from the wall of Kensington Garden. My Lady Suffolk told me about a month ago that he had often told her, speaking of the dampness of Kensington, that he would never die there. For my part, my man Harry will always be a favourite: he tells me all the amusing news; he first told me of the late Prince of Wales's death, and to-day of the King's.

Thank you, Mr. Chute is as well as can be expected-in this national affliction. Sir Robert Brown has left every thing to my Lady-aye, every thing, I believe his very avarice.

Lord Huntingtower wrote to offer his father eight thousand pounds of Charlotte's fortune, if he would give them one thousand a-year in present, and settle a jointure on her. The Earl returned this truly laconic, for being so unnatural, an answer. "Lord Huntingtower, I answer your letter as soon as I receive it; I wish you joy; I hear your wife is very accomplished. Yours, Dysart." I believe my Lady Huntingtower must contrive to make it convenient for me, that my Lord Dysart should die-and then he will. I expect to be a very respectable personage in time, and to have my tomb set forth like the Lady Margaret Douglas, that I had four earls to my nephews, though I never was one myself. Adieu! I must go govern the nation.

MY DEAR LORD,

TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.

Arlington Street, October 26, 1760.

I BEG your pardon for so long a silence in the late reign; I knew nothing worth telling you; and the great event of this morning you will certainly hear before it comes to you by so sober and regular a personage as the postman. The few circumstances known yet are, that the King went well to bed last night; rose well at six this morning; went to the water-closet a little after seven; had a fit, fell against a bureau, and gashed his right temple: the valet de chambre heard a noise and a groan, and ran in the King tried to speak, but died instantly. I should hope this would draw you southward: such scenes are worth looking at, even by people who regard them with such indifference as your lordship and I. I say no more, for what will mix in a letter with the death of a King! I am my lady's and your lordship's most faithful servant.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, Tuesday, October 28.

THE new reign dates with great propriety and decency; the civilest letter to Princess Emily; the greatest kindness to the duke; the utmost respect to the dead body. No changes to be made but those absolutely necessary, as the household, &c.-and what some will think the most unnecessary, in the representative of power. There are but two new cabinet counsellors named; the Duke of York and Lord Bute, so it must be one of them. The Princess does not remove to St. James's, so I don't believe it will be she. To-day England kissed hands, so did I, and it is more comfortable to kiss hands with all England, than to have all England ask why one kisses hands. Well! my virtue is safe; I had a gracious reception, and yet I am almost as impatient to return to Strawberry, as I was to leave it on the news. There is great dignity and grace in the King's manner. I don't say this, like my dear Madame de Sévigné, because he was civil to me, but the part is well acted. If they do as well behind the scenes, as upon the stage, it will be a very complete reign. Hollinshed, or Baker, would think it begins well, that is, begins ill; it has rained without intermission, and yesterday there came a cargo of bad news, all which, you know, are similar omens to a man who writes history upon the information of the clouds. Berlin is taken by the Prussians, the hereditary Prince beaten by the French. Poor Lord Downe has had three wounds. He and your brother's Billy Pitt are prisoners. Johnny Waldegrave was shot through the hat and through the coat; and would have been shot through the body, if he had had any. Irish Johnson is wounded in the hand; Ned Harvey somewhere; and Prince Ferdinand mortally in his reputation for sending this wild detachment. Mr. Pitt has another reign to set to rights. The Duke of Cumberland has taken Lord Sandwich's, in Pall-mall; Lord Chesterfield has offered his house to Princess Emily; and if they live at Hamptoncourt, as I suppose his court will, I may as well offer Strawberry for a royal nursery; for at best it will become a cakehouse; 'tis such a convenient airing for the maids of honour. If I was not forced in conscience to own to you, that my own curiosity is exhausted, I would ask you, if you would not come and look at this new world; but a new world only reacted by old players is not much worth seeing; I shall return on Saturday. The Parliament is prorogued till the day it was to have met; the will is not opened; what can I tell you more? Would it be news that all is hopes and fears, and that great lords look as if they dreaded wanting bread? would this be news? believe me, it all grows stale soon. I had not seen such a sight these three-and-thirty years: I came eagerly to town; I laughed for three days: I am tired already. Good night!

P. S. I smiled to myself last night. Out of excess of attention, which costs me nothing, when I mean it should cost nobody else

any thing, I went last night to Kensington to inquire after Princess Emily and Lady Yarmouth: nobody knew me, they asked my name. When they heard it, they did not seem ever to have heard it before, even in that house. I waited half an hour in a lodge with a footman of Lady Yarmouth's; I would not have waited so long in her room a week ago; now it only diverted me. Even moralizing is entertaining, when one laughs at the same time; but I pity those who don't moralize till they cry.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Oct. 28, 1760. THE deaths of Kings travel so much faster than any post, that I cannot expect to tell you news, when I say your old master is dead. But I can pretty well tell you what I like best to be able to say to you on this occasion, that you are in no danger. Change will scarce reach to Florence when its hand is checked even in the capital. But I will move a little regularly, and then you will form your judgment more easily.

This is Tuesday; on Friday night the King went to bed in perfect health, and rose so the next morning at his usual hour of six; he called for and drank his chocolate. At seven, for every thing with him was exact and periodic, he went into the closet to dismiss his chocolate. Coming from thence, his valet de chambre heard a noise; waited a moment, and heard something like a groan. He ran in, and in a small room between the closet and bedchamber he found the King on the floor, who had cut the right side of his face against the edge of a bureau, and who after a gasp expired. Lady Yarmouth was called, and sent for Princess Amelia; but they only told the latter that the King was ill and wanted her. She had been confined for some days with a rheumatism, but hurried down, ran into the room without farther notice, and saw her father extended on the bed. She is very purblind, and more than a little deaf. They had not closed his eyes: she bent down close to his face, and concluded he spoke to her, though she could not hear him-guess what a shock when she found the truth. She wrote to the Prince of Wales-but so had one of the valets de chambre first. He came to town and saw the Duke and the privy council. He was extremely kind to the first-and in general has behaved with the greatest propriety, dignity, and decency. He read his speech to the council with much grace, and dismissed the guards on himself to wait on his grandfather's body. It is intimated, that he means to employ the same ministers, but with reserve to himself of more authority than has lately been in fashion. The Duke of York and Lord Bute are named of the cabinet council. The late King's will is not yet opened. To-day every

a William Duke of Cumberland.

body kissed hands at Leicester-house, and this week, I believe, the King will go to St. James's. The body has been opened; the great ventricle of the heart had burst. What an enviable death! In the greatest period of glory of this country, and of his reign, in perfect tranquillity at home, at seventy-seven, growing blind and deaf, to die without a pang, before any reverse of fortune, or any distasted peace, nay, but two days before a ship load of bad news: could he have chosen such another moment? The news is bad indeed! Berlin taken by capitulation, and yet the Austrians behaved so savagely that even the Russians felt delicacy, were shocked, and checked them! Nearer home, the hereditary Prince has been much beaten by Monsieur de Castries, and forced to raise the siege of Wesel, whither Prince Ferdinand had sent him most unadvisedly: we have scarce an officer unwounded. The secret expedition will now, I conclude, sail, to give an éclat to the new reign. Lord Albemarle does not command it, as I told you, nor Mr. Conway, though both applied.

Nothing is settled about the Parliament; not even the necessary changes in the household. Committees of council are regulating the mourning and the funeral. The town, which between armies, militia, and approaching elections, was likely to be a desert all the winter, is filled in a minute, but every thing is in the deepest tranquillity. People stare; the only expression. The moment any thing is declared, one shall not perceive the novelty of the reign. A nation without parties is soon a nation without curiosity. You may now judge how little your situation is likely to be affected. I finish; I think I feel ashamed of tapping the events of a new reign, of which probably I shall not see half. If I was not unwilling to balk your curiosity, I should break my pen, as the great officers do their white wands, over the grave of the old King. Adieu !

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, Oct. 31, 1760.

WHEN you have changed the cipher of George the Second into that of George the Third, and have read the addresses, and have shifted a few lords and grooms of the bedchamber, you are master of the history of the new reign, which is indeed but a new lease of the old one. The Favourite took it up in a high style; but having, like my Lord Granville, forgot to ensure either house of Parliament, or the mob, the third house of Parliament, he drove all the rest to unite. They have united, and have notified their resolution of governing as before: not but the Duke of Newcastle cried for his old master, de

a The Russians and Austrians obtained possession of Berlin, while Frederick was employed in watching the great Austrian army. They were, however, soon driven from it.-D. b Of Brunswick; afterwards the celebrated duke of that name.-D.

sponded for himself, protested he would retire, consulted every body whose interest it was to advise him to stay, and has accepted to-day, thrusting the dregs of his ridiculous life into a young court, which will at least be saved from the imputation of childishness, by being governed by folly of seventy years growth.

The young King has all the appearance of being amiable. There is great grace to temper much dignity and extreme good-nature, which breaks out on all occasions. Even the household is not settled yet. The greatest difficulty is the master of the horse. Lord Huntingdon is so by all precedent; Lord Gower, I believe, will be so. Poor Lord Rochford is undone: nobody is unreasonable to save him. The Duke of Cumberland has taken Schomberg-house in Pall-mall; Princess Emily is dealing for Sir Richard Lyttelton's in Cavendishsquare. People imagined the Duke of Devonshire had lent her Burlington-house; I don't know why, unless they supposed she was to succeed my Lady Burlington in every thing.

A week has finished my curiosity fully; I return to Strawberry tomorrow, and I fear go next week to Houghton, to make an appearance of civility to Lynn, whose favour I never asked, nor care if I have or not; but I don't know how to refuse this attention to Lord Orford, who begs it.

I trust you will have approved my behaviour at court, that is, my mixing extreme politeness with extreme indifference. Our predecessors, the philosophers of ancient days, knew not how to be disinterested without brutality; I pique myself on founding a new sect. My followers are to tell kings, with excess of attention, that they don't want them, and to despise favour with more good breeding than others practise in suing for it. We are a thousand times a greater nation than the Grecians: why are we to imitate them? Our sense is as great, our follies greater; sure we have all the pretensions to superiority! Adieu!

P.S. As to the fair widow Brown, I assure you the devil never sowed two hundred thousand pounds in a more fruitful soil: every guinea has taken root already. I saw her yesterday; it shall be some time before I see her again.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, Nov. 4, 1760.

I AM not gone to Houghton, you see: my Lord Orford is come to town, and I have persuaded him to stay and perform decencies.

King George the Second is dead richer than Sir Robert Brown, though perhaps not so rich as my Lord Hardwicke. He has left fifty thousand pounds between the Duke, Emily, and Mary; the Duke has given up his share. To Lady Yarmouth a cabinet, with the contents; they call it eleven thousand pounds. By a German deed, he gives the Duke to the value of one hundred and eighty tho usand