I will take care to inform myself as well as I can, and, if you allow me to trouble you again, will send you the exact account as far as I can obtain it. I love my country, but I do not love any of my countrymen that have been capable, if they have been so, of a foul assassination. I should have made this inquiry directly, and informed you of the result of it in this letter, had I been in London; but the respect I owe you, sir, and my impatience to thank you for so unexpected a mark of your favour, made me choose not to delay my gratitude for a single post. I have the honour to be, sir,

Your most obliged and most obedient humble servant.

To the EARL of STRAFFORD.

Strawberry-hill, June 25, 1768.

You ordered me, my dear lord, to write to you, and I am always ready to obey you, and to give you every proof of attachment in my power: but it is a very barren season for all but cabalists, who can compound, divide, multiply No. 45 forty-five thousand different ways. I saw in the papers to-day,

that somehow or other this famous number and the number of the beast in the Revelations is the same-an observation from which different persons will draw various conclusions. For my part, who have no ill wishes to Wilkes, I wish he was in Patmos, or the New Jerusalem, for I am exceedingly tired of his name. The only good thing I have heard in all this controversy was of a man who began his letter thus: "I take the Wilkes-andliberty to assure you," &c.

I peeped at London last week, and found a tolerably full opera. But now the birth-day is over, I suppose every body will go to waters and races till his majesty of Denmark arrives. He is extremely amorous; but stays so short a time, that the ladies who intend to be undone must not haggle. They must do their business in the twinkling of an allemande, or he will be flown. Don't you think he will be a little surprised, when he inquires for the seraglio in B*** house, to find, in full of all accounts, two old Mecklenburgheresses?

Is it true that **** is turned methodist? It will be a great acquisition to the sect to have their hymns set by Giardini.

Pope Joan Huntingdon will be deposed, if the husband becomes first minister. I doubt, too, the saints will like to call at Canterbury and Winchester in their way to Heaven. My charity is so small, that I do not think their virtue a jot more obdurate than that of patriots.

We have had some severe rain; but the season is now beautiful, though scarce hot. The hay and the corn promise that we shall have no riots on their account. Those black dogs the whiteboys or coal-heavers are dispersed or taken; and I really see no reason to think we shall have another rebellion this fortnight. The most comfortable event to me is, that we shall have no civil war all the summer at Brentford. I dreaded two kings there; but the writ for Middlesex will not be issued till the parliament meets; so there will be no pretender against king Glynn.' As I love peace, and have done with politics, I quietly acknowledge the king de facto; and hope to pass and repass unmolested through his majesty's long, lazy, l ** capital.2

My humble duty to my lady Strafford and all her pheasants. I have just made two cascades; but my naiads are fools to Mrs. C **** or my lady S * * * *, and don't give me a gallon of water in a week.-Well, this is a very silly letter! But you must take the will for the deed. Adieu, my dear lord!

Your most faithful servant.

To MONSIEUR DE VOLTAIRE.

Strawberry-hill, July 27, 1768.

ONE can never, sir, be sorry to have been in the wrong, when one's errors are pointed out to one in so obliging and masterly a manner. Whatever opinion I may have of Shakspeare, I should think him to blame, if he could have seen the letter you have done me the honour to write to me, and yet not conform to the rules you have there laid down. When he lived, there had not been a Voltaire both to give laws to the stage, and to show on what good sense those laws were founded. Your art, sir, goes still farther: for you have supported your argu

1 Serjeant Glynn, member of parliament for Middlesex. [Or.]
2 Brentford. [Or.]

ments, without having recourse to the best authority, your own works. It was my interest perhaps to defend barbarism and irregularity. A great genius is in the right, on the contrary, to show that when correctness, nay, when perfection is demanded, he can still shine, and be himself, whatever fetters are imposed on him. But I will say no more on this head; for I am neither so unpolished as to tell you to your face how much I admire you, nor, though I have taken the liberty to vindicate Shakspeare against your criticisms, am I vain enough to think myself an adversary worthy of you. I am much more proud of receiving laws from you, than of contesting them. It was bold in me to dispute with you even before I had the honour of your acquaintance; it would be ungrateful now when you have not only taken notice of me, but forgiven me. The admirable letter you have been so good as to send me, is a proof that you are one of those truly great and rare men who know at once how to conquer and to pardon.

I have made all the inquiry I could into the story of M. de Jumonville; and though your and our accounts disagree, I own I do not think, sir, that the strongest evidence is in our favour. I am told we allow he was killed by a party of our men, going to the Ohio. Your countrymen say he was going with a flag of truce. The commanding officer of our party said M. de Jumonville was going with hostile intentions; and that very hostile orders were found after his death in his pocket. Unless that officer had proved that he had previous intelligence of those orders, I doubt he will not be justified by finding them afterwards; for I am not at all disposed to believe that he had the foreknowledge of your hermit,' who pitched the old woman's nephew into the river, because ce jeune homme auroit assassiné sa tante dans un an.

I am grieved that such disputes should ever subsist between two nations who have every thing in themselves to create happiness, and who may find enough in each other to love and

1 An allusion to the fable in Zadig, which is said to have been founded upon Parnell's Hermit, but which was most probably taken from one of the Contes Devots," De l'Hermite qu'un ange conduisit dans le Siècle," and of which a translation, or rather modernization, is to be found in the fifth volume of le Grand D'Aussy, Fabliaux (p. 165, ed. 1829). The original old French version has been printed by Meou, in his Nouveau Recueil de Fabliaux et Contes, tom. ii. p. 216. [Ed.]

admire. It is your benevolence, sir, and your zeal for softening the manners of mankind; it is the doctrine of peace and amity which you preach, that have raised my esteem for you even more than the brightness of your genius. France may claim you in the latter light, but all nations have a right to call you their countryman du côté du cœur. It is on the strength of that connection that I beg you, sir, to accept the homage of,

Sir, your most obedient humble servant.

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Strawberry-hill, August 9, 1768.

You are very kind, or else you saw into my mind, and knew that I have been thinking of writing to you, but had not a pen full of matter. True, I have been in town, but I am more likely to learn news here; where at least we have it like fish, that could not find vent in London. I saw nothing there but the ruins of loo, lady Hertford's cribbage, and lord B * * *, like patience on a monument, smiling in grief. He is totally ruined, and quite charmed. Yet I heartily pity him. To Virginia he cannot be indifferent: he must turn their heads somehow or other. If his graces do not captivate them, he will enrage them to fury; for I take all his douceur to be enamelled on iron.

My life is most uniform and void of events, and has nothing worth repeating. I have not had a soul with me, but accidental company now and then at dinner. Lady Holderness, lady Ancram, lady Mary Coke, Mrs. Ann Pitt, and Mr. Hume, dined here the day before yesterday. They were but just gone, when George Selwyn, lord Bolingbroke, and sir William Musgrave, who had been at Hampton-court, came in, at nine at night, to drink tea. They told me, what I was very glad to hear, and what I could not doubt, as they had it from the duke of Grafton himself, that bishop Cornwallis1 goes to Canterbury.

The hon. Frederick Cornwallis, seventh son of Charles fourth baron Cornwallis, was translated from the see of Lichfield and Coventry to that of Canterbury, on the death of archbishop Secker. [Ed.]

I feared it would be *** * ; but it seems he had secured all the back-stairs, and not the great stairs. As the last head of the church had been on the midwife line, I suppose goody **** had hopes; and as he had been president of an atheistical club, to be sure Warburton did not despair. I was thinking it would make a good article in the papers, that three bishops had supped with Nancy Parsons at Vauxhall, in their way to Lambeth. I am sure **** would have been of the number; and * * * *, who told the duke of Newcastle, that if his grace had commanded the Blues at Minden, they would have behaved better, would make no scruple to cry up her chastity.

The king of Denmark comes on Thursday; and I go tomorrow to see him. It has cost three thousand pounds to newfurnish an apartment for him at St. James's; and now he will not go thither, supposing it would be a confinement. He is to lodge at his own minister Dieden's.

Augustus Hervey,3 thinking it the bel air, is going to sue for a divorce from the Chudleigh. He asked lord B * * * * t'other day, who was his proctor, as he would have asked for his tailor. The nymph has sent him word, that if he proves her his wife he must pay her debts; and she owes sixteen thousand pounds. This obstacle thrown in the way, looks as if she was not sure of being duchess of Kingston. The lawyers say, it will be no valid plea; it not appearing that she was Hervey's wife, and therefore the tradesmen could not reckon on his paying them.

Yes, it is my Gray, Gray the poet, who is made professor of modern history; and I believe it is worth 500l. a year. I knew nothing of it till I saw it in the papers; but believe it was Stonehewer that obtained it for him.

2 Thomas Secker, archbishop of Canterbury. [Or.]

3 Augustus John Hervey, second son of lord Hervey, whom Pope satirized, and grandson of John first earl of Bristol. His lordship married privately, on the 4th August 1744, the celebrated miss Chudleigh, who, in twenty-five years afterwards, 8th March 1769, publicly espoused Evelyn Pierrepoint duke of Kingston; for which offence her ladyship was impeached before the House of Peers, and the marriage declared illegal. She subsequently retired to the Continent, where she died in 1788. His lordship succeeded to the earldom as third earl, on the 18th March 1775, and dying without issue, 22d December 1779, was succeeded by his brother Frederick Augustus bishop of Derry. [Ed.]