1.

Lord Chatham is reconciled to lord Temple and George Grenville. The second is in great spirits on the occasion; and yet gives out that lord Chatham earnestly solicited it. The insignificant Lepidus patronizes Antony, and is sued to by Augus tus! Still do I doubt whether Augustus will ever come forth again. Is this a peace patched up by Livia for the sake of her children, seeing the imbecility of her husband? or is Augustus to own he has been acting a changeling, like the first Brutus, for near two years? I do not know, I remain in doubt.

Wilkes has struck an artful stroke. The ministers, devoid of all management in the House of Commons, consented that he should be heard at the bar of the House, and appointed to-morrow, forgetting the election for Middlesex is to come on next Thursday: one would think they were impatient to advance riots. Last Monday Wilkes demanded to examine lord Temple: when that was granted, he asked for lord Sandwich and lord March. As the first had not been refused, the others could not. The lords were adjourned till to-day, and, I suppose, are now sitting on this perplexing demand. If lord Temple desires to go to the bar of the Commons, and the others desire to be excused, it will be difficult for the Lords to know what to do. Sandwich is frightened out of his senses, and March does not like it. Well! this will cure ministers and great lords of being flippant in dirty tyranny, when they see they may be worried for it four years afterwards.

The Commons, I suppose, are at this minute as hotly engaged on the Cumberland election between Sir James Lowther and the duke of Portland. Oh! how delightful and comfortable to be sitting quietly here and scribbling to you, perfectly indifferent about both houses!

You will just escape having your brains beaten out, by not coming this fortnight. The Middlesex election will be over. Adieu !

Yours ever.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Strawberry-hill, Sunday, March 26, 1769.

I BEG your pardon; I promised to send you news, and I had quite forgot that we have had a rebellion; at least, the duke of

Bedford says so. Six or eight hundred merchants, English,

Dutch, Jews, Gentiles, had been entreated to protect the Protestant succession, and consented They set out on Wednesday noon in their coaches and chariots, chariots not armed with scythes like our Gothic ancestors. At Temple-bar they met several regiments of foot dreadfully armed with mud, who discharged a sleet of dirt on the royal troop. Minerva, who had forgotten her dreadful Ægis, and who, in the shape of Mr. Boehm, carried the address, was forced to take shelter under a cloud in Nando's coffee-house, being more afraid of Buckhorse than ever Venus was of Diomed; in short, it was a dismal day; and if lord Talbot had not recollected the patriot feats of his youth and recommenced bruiser, I don't know but the duchess of Kingston,3 who has so long preserved her modesty, from both her husbands, might not have been ravished in the drawing-room. Peace is at present restored, and the rebellion adjourned to the thirteenth of April; when Wilkes and colonel Luttrell are to fight a pitched

1 A great riot took place on the 22d March 1769, when a cavalcade of the merchants and tradesmen of the city of London, who were proceeding to St. James's with a loyal address, were so maltreated by the populace, that the gentleman, Mr. Boehm, to whom the address was entrusted, was obliged to take refuge in Nando's coffee-house. His coach was rifled, but the address escaped the search of the rioters, and was, after considerable delay, during which a second had been voted and prepared, eventually presented at St. James's. [Ed.]

2 His lordship seems not to have forgotten his former prowess; for, though he had his staff of office broken in his hand, and was deserted by his servants, he secured two of the most active of the rioters. His example recalled the military to their duty, who, without employing either guns or bayonets, then captured fifteen more. [Ed.]

3 The duke of Kingston had married miss Chudleigh on the 8th of this month; the Consistory Court of London having declared, on the 11th February previous, that the lady was free from any matrimonial contract with the right hon. Augustus John Hervey, esq. On the 19th she was presented, upon her marriage, to their majesties, who honoured her by wearing her favours, as did all the great officers of state. [Ed.]

battle at Brentford, the Philippi of Antoninus. Tityre tu patulæ recubans sub tegmine fagi, know nothing of these broils. You don't convert your plough-shares into falchions, nor the mud of Adderbury into gunpowder. I tremble for my painted windows, and write talismans of number forty-five on every gate and postern of my castle. Mr. Hume is writing the Revolutions of Middlesex, and a troop of barnacle geese are levied to defend the capital. These are melancholy times! Heaven send we do not laugh till we cry!

London, Tuesday, 28th.

OUR ministers, like their Saxon ancestors, are gone to hold a wittenagemot on horseback at Newmarket. Lord Chatham, we are told, is to come forth after the holidays and place himself at the head of the discontented. When I see it I shall believe it. Lord Frederick Campbell is, at last, to be married this evening to the dowager countess of Ferrers. The duchess of Grafton is actually countess of Ossory. This is a short gazette; but, consider, it is a time of truce.

Adieu !

Yours ever.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, April 15, 1769.

I SHOULD be very sorry to believe half your distempers. I am heartily grieved for the vacancy that has happened in your mouth, though you describe it so comically. As the only physic I believe in is prevention, you shall let me prescribe to you. Use a little bit of alum twice or thrice in a week, no bigger than half your nail, till it has all dissolved in your mouth, and then spit out. This has fortified my teeth, that they are as strong as the pen of Junius. I learned it of Mrs. Grosvenor, who had not

* Lady Anne Liddel, only daughter of Henry Liddel, lord Ravensworth, married in 1756, to Augustus Henry, third duke of Grafton, being divorced from whom by act of parliament, she married, secondly, 26th March 1769, the earl of Ossory. [Ed.]

The letters of Junius were now in course of publication,, and exciting, as may well be supposed, great attention. [Ed.]

a speck in her teeth to her death. For your other complaints, I revert to my old sermon, temperance. If you will live in a hermitage, methinks it is no great addition to live like a hermit. Look in Sadeler's prints, they had beards down to their girdles; and with all their impatience to be in heaven, their roots and water kept them for a century from their wishes. I have lived all my life like an anchoret in London, and within ten miles, shed my skin after the gout, and am as lively as an eel in a week after. Mr. Chute, who has drunk no more wine than a fish, grows better every year. He has escaped this winter with only a little pain in one hand. Consider that the physicians recommend wine, and then can you doubt of its being poison? Medicines may cure a few acute distempers, but how should they mend a broken constitution? they would as soon mend a broken leg. Abstinence and time may repair it, nothing else can; for when time has been employed to spoil the blood, it cannot be purified in a moment.

2

Wilkes, who has been chosen member of parliament almost as often as Marius was consul, was again re-elected on Thursday. The house of Commons, who are as obstinate as the county, have again rejected him. To-day they are to instate colonel Luttrel in his place. What is to follow I cannot say, but I doubt grievous commotions. Both sides seem so warm, that it will be difficult for either to be in the right. This is not a merry subject, and therefore I will have done with it. If it comes to blows, I intend to be as neutral as the gentleman that was going out with his hounds the morning of Edgehill. I have seen too much of parties to list with any of them.

You promised to return to town, but now say nothing of it. You had better come before a passport is necessary. Adieu! Yours ever.

2 Wilkes having been expelled the House of Commons, on the 3d February 1769, was elected M.P. for Middlesex a third time on the 16th of March. On the 17th the election was declared by the house to be null and void, and a new writ was ordered to be issued; and on the day of election (13th April), Wilkes, Luttrell, and Serjeant Whitaker presented themselves as candidates, when Wilkes, having a majority, was declared duly elected. On the 14th this election was pronounced void, and on the 15th Henry Laws Luttrell, esq., was declared duly elected, and took his seat accordingly. [Ed.]

- 1.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, May 11, 1769.

You are so wayward, that I often resolve to give you up to your humours. Then something happens with which I can divert you, and my good-humour returns. Did not you say you should return to London long before this time? At least, could you not tell me you had changed your mind? why am I to pick it out from your absence and silence, as Dr. Warburton found a future state in Moses's saying nothing of the matter! I could go on with a chapter of severe interrogatories, but I think it more cruel to treat you as a hopeless reprobate; yes, you are graceless, and as I have a respect for my own scolding, I shall not throw it away upon you,

Strawberry has been in great glory; I have given a festino there that will almost mortgage it. Last Tuesday all France dined there: Monsieur and Madame du Chatelet, the duc de Liancour, three more French ladies, whose names you will find in the enclosed paper, eight other Frenchmen, the Spanish and Portuguese ministers, the Holdernesses, Fitzroys, in short we were four-and-twenty. They arrived at two. At the gates, of the castle I received them dressed in the cravat of Gibbins's carving, and a pair of gloves embroidered up to the elbows that had belonged to James the first. The French servauts stared, and firmly believed this was the dress of English country gentlemen. After taking a survey of the apartments, we went to the printing-house, where I had prepared the enclosed verses, with translations by Monsieur de Lille, one of the company. The

1 Le marquis du Châtelet, was son to la marquise du Châtelet, the commentator upon Newton, and the Amelie of Voltaire. The scandalous chronicles of the time give to Voltaire the honour of his paternity. [Ed.]

2 The duc de Liancourt, of the family of de la Rochefoucault, grand maitre de la garde-robe du roi. At the commencement of the revolution his conduct was much blamed by those attached to the court. He eventually

emigrated to England, and after residing here some time visited America, and published an account of his travels in that country, which is remarkable for a display of ill-will and enmity towards this country, its interests, and every thing connected with it. [Ed.]

3 M. de Lille was an officer of the French cavalry, an agreeable man in society, and the author of many pretty ballads, and vers de société. [Ed.]