You ask me if we are not in admiration of prince FerdinandIn truth, we have thought very little of him. He may outwit Broglio ten times, and not be half so much talked of as lord Talbot's backing his horse down Wesminster-hall. The generality are not struck with any thing under a complete victory. If you have a mind to be well with the mob of England, you must be knocked on the head like Wolfe, or bring home as many diamonds as Clive. We live in a country where so many follies or novelties start forth every day, that we have not time to try a general's capacity by the rules of Polybius. I have hardly left room for obligations-to your ladyship, for my commission at Amsterdam; to Mrs. Sally, for her teapots, which are likely to stay so long at the Hague, that I fear they will have begot a whole set of china; and to miss Conway and lady George, for thinking of me. Pray assure them of my re-thinking. Adieu, dear madam! Don't you think we had better write oftener and shorter? Yours most faithfully. To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq. Arlington-street, Oct. 8, 1761. I CANNOT swear I wrote to you again to offer your brother the place for the coronation; but I was confident I did, nay, I think so still: my proofs are, the place remained vacant; and I sent to old Richard to inquire if Mr. John was not arrived. He had no great loss, as the procession returned in the dark. Your king will have heard that Mr. Pitt resigned last Monday.' Greater pains have been taken to recover him than were used to drive him out. He is inflexible, but mighty 4 Lady Ailesbury's woman. [Or.] 1 The earl of Halifax, lord lieutenant of Ireland. [Or.] 2 Mr. Pitt resigned on Monday, 5th October 1761, on being outnumbered in the council when he proposed an immediate declaration of war against Spain. On a division it appeared that Mr. Pitt and his brother-in-law were the only members in favour of that measure. [Ed.] peaceable. Lord Egremont is to have the seals, to-morrow. It is a most unhappy event-France and Spain will soon let us know we ought to think so. For your part, you will be invaded; a blacker rod than you will be sent to Ireland. Would you believe that the town is a desert? The wedding filled it, the coronation crammed it; Mr. Pitt's resignation has not brought six people to London. As they could not hire a window and crowd one another to death to see him give up the seals, it seems a matter of perfect indifference. If he will accuse a single man of checking our career of glory, all the world will come to see him hanged; but what signifies the ruin of a nation, if no particular man ruins it? The duchess of Marlborough died the night before last. Thank you for your descriptions; pray continue them. Mrs. Delany I know a little, lord Charlemont's villa is in Chambers's book." I have nothing new to tell you; but the grain of mustard seed sown on Monday will soon produce as large a tree as you can find in any prophecy. Adieu. P.S. Lady Mary Wortley is arrived. Yours ever. To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq. Strawberry-hill, October 10, 1761. PRAY, sir, how does virtue sell in Ireland now? I think for a province they have now and then given large prices. Have you a mind to know what the biggest virtue in the world is worth? If Cicero had been a drawcansir instead of a coward, and had carried the glory of Rome to as lofty a height as he did their eloquence, for how much do you think he would have sold all that reputation? Oh! sold it! you will cry; vanity was his predominant passion; he would have trampled on sesterces like dirt, and provided the tribes did but erect statues 3 Sir William Chambers' Treatise on Civil Architecture—according to Walpole, "the most sensible book and the most exempt from prejudices that was ever written on that science." The first edition was published in 1759: the last was that edited by Gwilt in 1825. [Ed.] enough for him, he was content with a bit of Sabine mutton; he would have preferred his little Tusculan villa, or the flattery of Caius Atticus at Baiæ, to the wealth of Croesus, or to the luxurious banquets of Lucullus. Take care, there is not a Tory gentleman, if there is one left, who would not have laid the same wager twenty years ago on the disinterestedness of my lord Bath. Come, you tremble; you are so incorrupt yourself, you would give the world Mr. Pitt was so too. You adore him for what he has done for us; you bless him for placing England at the head of Europe, and you don't hate him for infusing as much spirit into us, as if a Montague, earl of Salisbury, was still at the head of our enemies. Nothing could be more just. We owe the recovery of our affairs to him, the splendour of our country, the conquest of Canada, Louisbourg, Guadeloupe, Africa, and the east. Nothing is too much for such services; accordingly, I hope you will not think the barony of Chatham, and three thousand pounds a year for three lives too much for my lady Esther. She has this pittance: good night. Yours ever. P.S. I told you falsely in my last that lady Mary Wortley was arrived I cannot help it if my lady Denbigh cannot read English in all these years, but mistakes Wrottesley for Wortley. TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY. Strawberry-hill, October, 10, 1761. I DON'T know what business I had, madam, to be an economist: it was out of character. I wished for a thousand more drawings in that sale at Amsterdam, but concluded they would be very dear; and not having seen them, I thought it too rash to trouble your ladyship with a large commission. I wish I could give you as good an account of your commission; but it is absolutely impraticable. I employed one of the most sensible and experienced men in the custom-house; and all the result was, he could only recommend me to Mr. Amyand as the newest, and consequently the most polite of the commissioners but the duchess of Richmond had tried him beforeto no purpose. There is no way of recovering any of your goods, but purchasing them again at the sale. * What am I doing, to be talking to you of drawings and chintzes, when the world is all turned topsy turvy? Peace, as the poets would say, is not only returned to heaven, but has carried her sister Virtue along with her!-Oh! no, Peace will keep no such company-Virtue is an errant * *, and loves diamonds as well as my lady ****, and is as fond of a coronet as my lord Melcombe. Worse! worse! She will set men to cutting throats, and pick their pockets at the same time. I am in such a passion, I cannot tell you what I am angry about-Why, about Virtue and Mr. Pitt; two errant cheats, gipsies! I believe he was a comrade of Elizabeth Canning,' when he lived at Enfield-wash. In short, the council were for making peace; But he, as loving his own pride and purposes, And in conclusion-nonsuits my mediators. He insisted on a war with Spain, was resisted, and last Monday resigned. The city breathed vengeance on his opposers, the council quaked, and the Lord knows what would have happened; but yesterday, which was only Friday, as this giant was stalking to seize the Tower of London, he stumbled over a silver penny, picked it up, carried it home to lady Esther, and they are now as quiet, good sort of people, as my lord and lady Bath who lived in the vinegar-bottle. In fact, madam, this immaculate man has accepted the barony of Chatham for his wife, with a pension of three thousand pounds a year for three lives; and, though he has not quitted the House of Commons, I think my lord A * *** would now be as formidable there. The pension he has left us, is a war for three thousand lives! perhaps, for twenty times three thousand lives!-But 1 In 1753, the attention of the whole country was arrested by the affair of Elizabeth Canning, who represented herself as having been carried off and maltreated at the house of Mrs. Webb, when, in fact, she had only gone out of the way to lie in. Her tale was for a long time believed to be true; nine persons were arrested, tried, and convicted upon her testimony, and would certainly have been hanged, had it not been that the Sessions papers accidentally fell into the hands of a gentleman, who published a pamphlet in which he proved the impossibility of the facts she stated being true. [Ed.] Does this become a soldier? this become What! to sneak out of the scrape, prevent peace, and avoid the war blast one's character, and all for the comfort of a paltry annuity, a long-necked peeress, and a couple of Grenvilles! The city looks mighty foolish, I believe, and possibly even Beckford may blush. Lord Temple resigned yesterday: I suppose his virtue pants for a dukedom. Lord Egremont has the seals; lord Hardwicke, I fancy, the privy seal; and George Grenville, no longer speaker, is to be the cabinet minister in the House of Commons. Oh! madam, I am glad you are inconstant to Mr. Conway, though it is only with a Barbette! If you piqued yourself on your virtue, I should expect you would sell it to the master of a Trechscoot. I told you a lie about the king's going to Ranelagh—No matter; there is no such thing as truth. Garrick exhibits the coronation, and, opening the end of the stage, discovers a real bonfire and real mob: the houses in Drury-lane let their windows at three-pence a head. Rich is going to produce a finer coronation, nay, than the real one; for there is to be a dinner for the knights of the Bath and the barons of the Cinque Ports, which lord Talbot refused them. I put your Caufields and Stauntons into the hands of one of the first heralds upon earth, and who has the entire pedigree of the Careys; but he cannot find a drop of Howard or Seymour blood in the least artery about them. Good night, madam! Yours most faithfully. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Arlington-street, October 12, 1761. It is very lucky that you did not succeed in the expedition to Rochfort. Perhaps you might have been made a peer; and as Chatham is a naval title, it might have fallen to your share. But it was reserved to crown greater glory: and, lest it should not be substantial pay enough, three thousand pounds a year for three lives go along with it. Not to Mr. Pitt-you can't suppose it. Why truly, not the title, but the annuity |