port are very kind to you, when they prefer the shape of lameness to that of apoplexies, or dropsies, or fevers, or pleurisies.

Let me have a line certain what day I may expect your party, that I may pray to the sun to illuminate the cabinet. Adieu!

DEAR SIR:

874. TO THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE GRENVILLE.'

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 7, 1763.

THOUGH I am sensible I have no pretensions for asking you a favour, and, indeed, should be very unwilling to trespass on your good nature, yet I flatter myself I shall not be thought quite impertinent in interceding for a person, who I can answer has neither been to blame, nor any way deserved punishment, and therefore, I think you, Sir, will be ready to save him from prejudice. The person is my deputy, Mr. Grosvenor Bedford, who, above five-and-twenty years ago, was appointed Collector of the Customs in Philadelphia by my father.

I hear he is threatened to be turned out. If the least fault can be laid to his charge, I do not desire to have him protected. If there cannot, I am too well persuaded, Sir, of your justice not to be sure you will be pleased to protect him.

When I have appealed to your good nature and justice, it would be impertinent to say more than that I am, &c. &c.

HORACE WALPOLE.

875. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 13, 1763.

THE Administration is resettled: the Opposition does not come in; and the old Ministers have resumed their functions. The Duke of Bedford, who had formerly advised to invite Mr. Pitt to court, finding himself omitted in Mr. Pitt's list, is cordially united, nay, incorporated with the Administration; he has kissed hands for President of the Council. Lord Sandwich is the new Secretary of State, Lord Egmont the new head of the Admiralty, and Lord Hilsborough the new First Lord of Trade, for Lord Shelburne, whom I mentioned to you in my last, has resigned in the midst of these bustles. Many reasons are given, but the only one that people

1 Now first collected. --CUNNINGHAM.

VOL. IV.

I

choose to take is, that, thinking Mr. Pitt must be Minister, and finding himself tolerably obnoxious to him, he is seeking to make his peace at any rate.

This concussion has produced one remarkable event, the total removal of Lord Bute, which Mr. Grenville and Lord Halifax made the absolute sine qua non of their re-acceptance. The favourite Earl has given it under his hand that he will go abroad. Thus ends his foolish drama-not its consequences, for the flames he has lighted up will not be extinguished soon.

I could tell you a great deal of what is reported of the dialogue in the closet, but not a circumstance which is not denied on one side or the other, for though there were but two interlocutors, there is a total disagreement in the relation. Parties will not meet in better humour next session for this abortive negotiation: the paper-war is rekindled with violence, but produces no wit; nay, scarce produces the bulk of a pamphlet, for the fashionable warfare at present is carried on by anonymous' letters in the daily newspapers, which die as suddenly as other lies of the day. This skirmishing is sharp and lively, but not very entertaining.

I have not a syllable of other news to send you. You must take this rather as a codicil to my last letter, than as pretending to be a letter itself. The Parliament, I suppose, will not meet till after Christmas, and till then little material is likely to happen; unless some notable death should intervene, which, considering the tottering condition of some principal performers, is not unlikely. An old statesman who has November to pass through in his way to preferment, may chance never to arrive at it. Adieu!

876. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 3, 1763.

I WAS just getting into my chaise to go to Park-place, when I received your commission for Mrs. Crosby's pictures; but I did not neglect it, though I might as well, for the old gentlewoman was a little whimsical, and though I sent my own gardener and farmer with my cart to fetch them on Friday, she would not deliver them, she said, till Monday; so this morning they were forced to go again.

1 It is certain that from this time, when anonymous writers could get their letters printed in the daily newspapers, pamphlets grew exceedingly rare.-WALPOLE. Walpole himself became a frequent contributor.-CUNNINGHAM.

They are now all safely lodged in my cloister; when I say safely, you understand, that two of them have large holes in them, as witness this bill of lading signed by your aunt. There are eleven in all, besides Lord Halifax, seven half-lengths and four heads; the former are all desirable, and one of the latter; the three others woful. Mr. Wicks is now in the act of packing them, for we have changed our minds about sending them to London by water, as your waggoner told Louis last time I was at Greatworth, that if they were left at the Old Hat,' near Acton, he would take them up and convey them to Greatworth; so my cart carries them thither, and they will set out towards you next Saturday.

I felt shocked, as you did, to think how suddenly the prospect of joy at Osterly was dashed after our seeing it. However, the young lover' died handsomely. Fifty thousand pounds will dry tears, that at most could be but two months old. His brother, I heard, has behaved still more handsomely, and confirmed the legacy, and added from himself the diamonds that had been prepared for her. Here is a charming wife ready for anybody that likes a sentimental situation, a pretty woman, and a large fortune.'

I have been often at Bulstrode from Chalfont, but I don't like it. It is Dutch and triste. The pictures you mention in the gallery would be curious if they knew one from another; but the names are lost, and they are only sure that they have so many pounds of ancestors in the lump. One or two of them indeed I know, as the Earl of Southampton,' that was Lord Essex's friend.

The works of Park-place go on bravely; the cottage will be very pretty, and the bridge sublime, composed of loose rocks, that will appear to have been tumbled together there the very wreck of the deluge. One stone is of fourteen hundred weight. It will be worth a hundred of Palladio's bridges, that are only fit to be used in an opera. I had a ridiculous adventure on my way hither. A Sir Thomas Reeves wrote to me last year, that he had a great quantity of heads of painters, drawn by himself from Dr. Mead's collection, of which

1 Francis Child, Esq., the banker at Temple-bar, and member for Bishop's Castle, who died on the 23rd of September. He was to have been married in a few days to the only daughter of the Hon. Robert Trevor Hampden, one of the postmastersgeneral.-WRIGHT.

2 Miss Hampden was married in the May following to Henry, twelfth Earl of Suffolk.-WRIGHT.

3 A half-length, with his cat, his companion in the Tower. This picture is now (1857) at Welbeck. Among the additional MSS. in the British Museum is a list of the Bulstrode pictures communicated to Sir William Musgrave in 1762, by the Duchess of Portland.-CUNNINGHAM.

many were English, and offered me the use of them. This was one of the numerous unknown correspondents which my books have drawn upon me. I put it off then, but being to pass near his door [at Holyport], for he lives but two miles from Maidenhead, I sent him word I would call on my way to Park-place. After being carried to three wrong houses, I was directed to a very ancient mansion [Filberts], composed of timber, and looking as unlike modern habitations, as the picture of Penderel's house in Clarendon. The garden was overrun with weeds, and with difficulty we found a bell. Louis came riding back in great haste, and said, “Sir, the gentleman is dead suddenly." You may imagine I was surprised; however, as an acquaintance I had never seen was a very endurable misfortune, I was preparing to depart; but happening to ask some women, that were passing by the chaise, if they knew any circumstance of Sir Thomas's death, I discovered that this was not Sir Thomas's house, but belonged to a Mr. Mecke,' a fellow of a college at Oxford, who was actually just dead, and that the antiquity itself had formerly been the residence of Nell Gwyn. Pray inquire after it the next time you are at Frogmore. I went on, and after a mistake or two more found Sir Thomas, a man about thirty in age, and twelve in understanding; his drawings very indifferent, even for the latter calculation. I did not know what to do or say, but commended them, and his child, and his house; said I had all the heads, hoped I should see him at Twickenham, was afraid of being too late for dinner, and hurried out of his house before I had been there twenty minutes. It grieves one to receive civilities when one feels obliged, and yet finds it impossible to bear the people that bestow them.

I have given my assembly, to show my Gallery, and it was glorious; but happening to pitch upon the feast of tabernacles, none of my Jews could come, though Mrs. Clive proposed to them to change their religion; so I am forced to exhibit once more. For the morning spectators, the crowd augments instead of diminishing. It is really true that Lady Hertford called here t'other morning, and I was reduced to bring her by the back gate into the kitchen; the house was so full of company that came to see the Gallery, that I had nowhere else to carry her. Adieu!

P. S. I hope the least hint has never dropped from the Beaulieus

The Rev. Mr. Mecke, of Pembroke College. He died on the 26th of September. -WRIGHT.

of that terrible picture of Sir Charles Williams, that put me into such confusion the morning they breakfasted here.' If they did observe the inscription, I am sure they must have seen too how it distressed me. Your collection of pictures is packed up, and makes two large cases and one smaller.

My next assembly will be entertaining; there will be five countesses, two bishops, fourteen Jews, five papists, a doctor of physic, and an actress [Mrs. Clive]; not to mention Scotch, Irish, East and West Indians.

I find that, to pack up your pictures, Louis has taken some paper out of a hamper of waste, into which I had cast some of the Conway Papers, perhaps only as useless; however, if you find any such in the packing, be so good as to lay them by for me.

DEAR SIR:

877. TO THE REV. WILLIAM COLE.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 8, 1763.

You are always obliging to me and always thinking of me kindly; yet for once you have forgotten the way of obliging me most. You do not mention any thought of coming hither, which you had given me cause to hope would be about this time. I flatter myself nothing has intervened to deprive me of that visit. Lord Hertford goes to France the end of next week; I shall be in town to take leave of him; but after the 15th, that is, this day se'nnight, I shall be quite unengaged, and the sooner I see you after the 15th, the better, for I should be sorry to drag you across the country in the badness of November roads.

I shall treasure up your notices against my second edition; for the volume of Engravers is printed off, and has been some time; I only wait for some of the plates. The book you mention I have not seen, nor do you encourage me to buy it. Some time or other

however I will get you to let me turn it over.

As I will trust that you will let me know soon when I shall have the pleasure of seeing you here, I will make this a very short letter indeed. I know nothing new or old worth telling you.

1 The portrait of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, holding a paper inscribed Isabella or the Morning.' See p. 112.-CUNNINGHAM.