To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, Aug. 16, 1764.

I AM not gone north, so pray write to me. I am not going south, so pray come to me. The duke of Devonshire's journey to Spa has prevented the first, and twenty reasons the second; whenever, therefore, you are disposed to make a visit to Strawberry, it will rejoice to receive you in its old ruffs and fardingales, and without rouge, blonde, and run silks.

You have not said a word to me, ingrate as you are, about lord Herbert; does not he deserve one line? Tell me when I shall see you, that I may make no appointments to interfere with it. Mr. Conway, lady Ailesbury, and lady Lyttleton, have been at Strawberry with me for four and five days, so I am come to town to have my house washed; for you know I am a very Hollander in point of cleanliness. This town is a deplorable solitude; one meets nothing but Mrs. Holman, like the pelican in the wilderness. Adieu !

DEAR SIR,

TO THE REV. MR. COLE.

Yours ever.

Strawberry-hill, August 29, 1764.

Among the multitude of my papers, I have mislaid, though not lost, the account you were so good as to give me of your ancestor Tuer, as a painter. I have been hunting for it, to insert it in the new edition of my Anecdotes. It is not very reasonable to save myself trouble at the expense of your's; but perhaps you can much sooner turn to your notes than I find your letter. Will you be so good as to send me soon all the particulars you recollect of him. I have a print of sir Lionel Jenkins from his painting.

I did not send you any more orange-flowers, as you desired; for the continued rains rotted all the latter blow: but I had made a vast pot-pourri, from whence you shall have as much as you please, when I have the pleasure of seeing you here, which

I should be glad might be in the beginning of October, if it suits your convenience. At the same time you shall have a print of lord Herbert, which I think I did not send you.

I am most truly yours.

P.S. I trust you will bring me a volume or two of your MSS. of which I am most thirsty.

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

September 1, 1764.

I SEND you the reply to "The Counter-address;"1 it is the lowest of all Grub-street, and I hear is treated so. They have nothing better to say, than that I am in love with you, have been so these twenty years, and am no giant. I am a very constant old swain: they might have made the years above thirty; it is so long I have had the same unalterable friendship for you, independent of being near relations and bred up together. For arguments, so far from any new ones, the man gives up or denies most of the former. I own I am rejoiced not only to see how little they can defend themselves, but to know the extent of their malice and revenge! They must be sorely hurt, when reduced to such scurrility. Yet there is one paragraph, however, which I think is of *******'s own inditing. It says, I flattered, solicited, and then basely deserted him. I no more expected to hear myself accused of flattery, than of being in love with you; but I shall not laugh at the former as I do at the latter. Nothing but his own consummate vanity could suppose I had ever stooped to flatter him! or that any man was connected with him, but who was low enough to be paid for it. Where has he one such attachment?

You have your share, too-The miscarriage at Rochfort now directly laid at your door: repeated insinuations against your courage:—but I trust you will mind them no more than I do, excepting the flattery, which I shall not forget, I promise

them.

A pamphlet written by Mr. Walpole, in answer to another, called “ An ress to the Public on the late dismissal of a General Officer " [Or.]

I came to town yesterday on some business, and found a case.- When I opened it, what was there but my lady Ailesbury's most beautiful of all pictures! Don't imagine I can think it intended for me, or that, if it could be so, I would hear of such a thing. It is far above what can be parted with, or accepted. I am serious-there is no letting such a picture, when one has accomplished it, go from where one can see it every day. I should take the thought equally kind and friendly, but she must let me bring it back, if I am not to do any thing else with it, and it came by mistake. I am not so selfish to deprive her of what she must have such pleasure in seeing. I shall have more satisfaction in seeing it at Park-place; where, in spite of the worst kind of malice, I shall persist in saying my heart is fixed. They may ruin me, but no calumny shall make me desert you. Indeed your case would be completely cruel, if it was more honourable for your relations and friends to abandon you than to stick to you. My option is made, and I scorn their abuse as much as I despise their power.

I think of coming to you on Thursday next for a day or two, unless your house is full, or you hear from me to the contrary. Adieu !

Yours ever.

TO THE REV. DR. BIRCH.

September 3, 1764.

SIR,

I AM extremely obliged to you for the favour of your letter, and the enclosed curious one of sir William Herbert. It would have made a very valuable addition to Lord Herbert's Life, which is now too late, as I have no hope that lord Powis will permit any more to be printed. There were indeed so very few, and but half of those for my share, that I have not it in my power to offer you a copy, having disposed of my part. It is really a pity that so singular a curiosity should not be public;-but I must not complain, as lord Powis has been so good as to indulge my request thus far.

2 A landscape executed in worsteds by lady Ailesbury. [Or.]

DEAR SIR,

TO THE REV. MR. COLE.

Strawberry-hill, September 25, 1764.

The third week in October will be just as convenient to me as any other time, and as you choose it, more agreeable; because when you are so obliging to take the trouble of coming so far, I should not be easy if it laid you under any difficulty. Shall we therefore settle it for the 22d or 23d of October?

Your ever obliged humble servant.

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Strawberry-hill, Oct. 5, 1764.

IT is over with us!-If I did not know your firmness, I would have prepared you by degrees; but you are a man, and can hear the worst at once. The duke of Cumberland1 is dead." I have heard it but this instant. The duke of Newcastle was come to breakfast with me, and had pulled out a letter from lord Frederick, with a hopeless account of the poor duke of Devonshire. Ere I could read it, colonel Schutz called at the door and told my servant this fatal news! I know no more—it must be at Newmarket, and very sudden; for the duke of Newcastle had a letter from Hodgson, dated on Monday,

1 William duke of Cumberland, son of George II. [Or.]

2 This report proved to be unfounded. The duke of Cumberland, the hero of Culloden, was suddenly seriously indisposed at Newmarket, when this letter was written, from the breaking out of the wound which he received at the battle of Dettingen; but his demise did not take place until the 31st October in the following year. On the morning of that day, he was at Court; in the afternoon, he dined with lord Albemarle, and drank tea with the princess of Brunswick at St. James's; from whence he came to his own house, in Upper Grosvenor-street, to be present at a council. Just as the lord Chancellor and the duke of Newcastle arrived, he complained of a pain in his shoulder, and of being cold and shivering; and, desiring to be laid on a couch, which was done, he said to lord Albemarle, "It is all over." Sir Charles Wintringham, the King's physician, was immediately summoned, but his efforts to save him were ineffectual, and he expired without the slightest struggle in about twenty minutes from the commencement of his attack. [Ed.]

which said the duke was perfectly well, and his gout gone:yes, to be sure, into his head. Princess Amelia had endeavoured to prevent his going to Newmarket, having perceived great alteration in his speech, as the duke of Newcastle had.Well! it will not be.-Every thing fights against this country! Mr. Pitt must save it himself-or, what I do not know whether he will not like as well, share in overturning its liberty—if they will admit him; which I question now if they will be fools enough to do.

You see I write in despair. I am for the whole, but perfectly tranquil. We have acted with honour, and have nothing to reproach ourselves with. We cannot combat fate. We shall be left almost alone; but I think you will no more go with the torrent than I will. Could I have foreseen this tide of ill-fortune, I would have done just as I have done; and my conduct shall show I am satisfied I have done right. For the rest, come what come may, I am perfectly prepared! and, while there is a free spot of earth upon the globe, that shall be my country. I am sorry it will not be this, but to-morrow I shall be able to laugh as usual. What signifies what happens when one is seven-and-forty, as I am to-day?

66

They tell me 'tis my birthday"-but I will not go on with Antony, and say

" and I'll keep it

With double pomp of sadness,"

No; when they can smile who ruin a great country, sure those who would have saved it may indulge themselves in that cheerfulness which conscious integrity bestows. I think I shall come to you next week; and, since we have no longer any plan of operations to settle, we will look over the map of Europe, and fix upon a pleasant corner for our exile-for, take notice, I do not design to fall upon my dagger, in hopes that some Mr. Addison a thousand years hence may write a dull tragedy about me. I will write my own story a little more cheerfully than he would; but I fear now I must not print it at my own press. Adieu! You were a philosopher before you had any occasion to be so: pray continue so; you have ample occasion!

Yours ever.