the Cavendishes, know; nor have we heard one word from either Duke or Duchess of any rupture. I hope she will not be so weak as to part, and that her father and mother will prevent it. It is not unlucky that she has seen none of the Bedfords lately, who would be glad to blow the coals. Lady Waldegrave was with her one day, but I believe not alone.

There was nobody at Park-place but Lord' and Lady William Campbell. Old Sir John Barnard' is dead; for other news, I have none. I beg you will always say a great deal for me to my lady. As I trouble you with such long letters, it would be unreasonable to overwhelm her too. You know my attachment to everything that is yours. My warmest wish is to see an end of the present unhappy posture of public affairs, which operate so shockingly even on our private. If I can once get quit of them, it will be no easy matter to involve me in them again, however difficult it may be, as you have found, to escape them. Nobody is more criminal in my eyes than George Grenville, who had it in his power to prevent what has happened to your brother. Nothing could be more repugnant to all the principles he has ever most avowedly and publicly professedbut he has opened my eyes-such a mixture of vanity and meanness, of falsehood and hypocrisy, is not common even in this country! It is a ridiculous embarras after all the rest, and yet you may conceive the distress I am under about my Lady Blandford,' and the negotiations I am forced to employ to avoid meeting him there, which I am determined not to do.

I shall be able, when I see you, to divert you with some excellent stories of a principal figure on our side; but they are too long and too many for a letter, especially of a letter so prolix as this. Adieu, my dear lord!

1 Lord William, brother of General Conway's lady, and third brother of the fifth Duke of Argyle; his wife was Sarah, daughter of W. Teard, Esq., of Charleston.CROKER.

2 See vol. i., p. 106,and vol. iv, p. 264.-CUNNINGHAM.

3 Maria Catherine de Jonge, a Dutch lady, widow of William Godolphin, Marquis of Blandford, and sister of Isabella Countess of Denbigh; they were near neighbours and intimate acquaintances of Mr. Walpole's.-CROKER. See Walpole's Works, iv. 391, for a copy of verses entitled "A Card to Lady Blandford."-CUNNINGHAM,

SIR;

941. TO THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT.

Arlington Street, Aug. 29, 1764.

As you have always permitted me to offer you the trifles printed at my press, I am glad to have one [Lord Herbert's Life] to send you of a little more consequence than some in which I have had myself too great a share. The singularity of the work I now trouble you with is greater merit than its rarity; though there are but two hundred copies, of which only half are mine. If it amuses an hour or two of your idle time, I am overpaid. My greatest ambition is to pay that respect which every Englishman owes to your character and services; and therefore you must not wonder if an inconsiderable man seizes every opportunity, however awkwardly, of assuring you, Sir, that he is, Your most devoted, &c.

DEAR SIR:

942. TO THE REV. WILLIAM COLE.

Strawberry Hill, Aug, 29, 1764. AMONG the multitude of my papers I have mislaid, though not lost, the account you was 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 yours; 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.

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

943. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

September 1, 1764.

I SEND you the reply to the Counter-Address; 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 George Grenville'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.

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 seriousthere 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 anything else with it, and it came by mistake. I am not so selfish as to deprive her of what she must have such pleasure in seeing. I shall have more satisfaction in seeing it at Park-place;

A landscape executed in worsteds by Lady Ailesbury. It is now at Strawberry Hill.-WALPOLE.

VOL. IV.

T

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.

SIR :

944. TO THE REV. DR. BIRCH.

September 3, 1764.

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

The following letter and its characteristic enclosure are here published for the first time. Birch's letter caused Walpole's acknowledgment printed above.

SIR,

TO THE HON. HORACE WALPOLE.

Norfolk Street in the Strand, 30th August 1764.

THE inclosed is a copy of the letter of Sir William Herbert mentioned to you by Dr. Watson, which I had thoughts of sending you some time ago, upon an accidental sight of your elegant edition of Lord Herbert of Cherbury's Life of Himself, and remarking in it the passage where his lordship speaks of Sir William, his fatherin-law, as being noted to be of a very high mind, of which you will think this letter a full proof. The copy from which I took what I send you, was in an old hand, and given me several years ago by William Jones, Esq., F.R.S., and an eminent mathematician, deceased.

I observed in Lord Herbert's Life, in a page which I have forgot [p. 135], but you will easily recollect, that he speaks of a court-wit, who in your edition, I think, bears the name of Tom Cogge. I am persuaded, that the person meant was Thomas Carew, Esq., sometimes spelt Cary and Carye, of whom we have a volume of poems, songs, and sonnets, with a masque. He was one of the gentlemen of the Privy Chamber to King Charles I. and sewer in ordinary to his majesty. His character is given by Lord Clarendon in the history of his own life.

Monsieur Balagny, who is said by Lord Herbert to have killed eight or nine men in single fight, died himself of the wounds which he received in an encounter with Monsieur Pimocin, whom he killed in the streets of Paris in March 1611-12, as appears from Sir Ralph Winwood's Memorials, vol. iii. p. 350, 353.

I am, &c.

Тно. ВІКОН.

Copy of a Letter of Sir William Herbert of St. Julian's, în Monmouthshire, to a gentleman of the family of Morgan, of Glantyrnam.

SIR, PERUSE this letter in God's name. Be not disquieted. I reverence your hoary hair. Although in your son I find too much folly and lewdness, yet in you I expect gravity and wisdom. It hath pleased your son late at Bristol, to deliver a

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. I am, Sir, Your much obliged humble servant,

H. W.

challenge to a man of mine on the behalf of a gentleman, as he said, as good as myself. Who he was he named not, neither do I know: but if he be as good as myself, it must either be for virtue, for birth, for ability, or for calling and dignity. For virtue I think he meant not; for it is a matter that exceeds his judgment. If for birth, he must be the heir male of an earl, the heir in blood of ten earls, for in testimony thereof I bear their several coats; besides, he must be of the blood royal, for by my grandmother Devereux I am lineally and legitimately descended out of the body of Edward the Fourth. If for ability, he must have a thousand pounds a-year in possession, a thousand pounds a-year more in expectation, and must have some thousands in substance besides. If for calling and dignity, he must be a knight and lord of several signiories in several kingdoms, a lieutenant of his county, and a counsellor of a province.

Now to lay all circumstances aside, be it known to your son or to any man else, that if there be any one who beareth the name of a gentleman, and whose words are of reputation in his county, that doth say, or dare say that I have done unjustly, spoken an untruth, stained my reputation or credit in this matter or in any matter else, wherein your son is exasperated, I say he lieth in his throat, and my sword shall maintain my word upon him in any place or province wheresoever he dare, where I stand not sworn to observe the peace. But if they be such, as are within my governance, and over whom I have authority, I will, for their reformation, chastise them with justice, and for their malapert misdemeanour bind them to their good behaviour. Of this sort I account your son and his like, against whom I shall shortly direct my warrant, if this my warning will not reform him. And so I thought good to advertise you hereof and leave you to God.

From St. Julian.

Your loving cousin,

WILLIAM HERBERT.

Birch adds, that Sir William Herbert's daughter and co-heir, Mary, was married February 28th 1598, to Edward Herbert, afterwards Lord Herbert of Cherbury.

To this I will here append an omitted passage in Lord Herbert's Life, with Walpole's hitherto unpublished note.

At page 60, Edit. 4th, 1770. "One was in defence of my cozen, Sir Francis Newport's daughter, who was married to John Barker, of Hamon, for the younger brother and heir to the said John Barker having betraied my cozen, who though (sic) she using, perchance, some more liberty than became her with a servant in the house, whom she favoured above the rest, Walter Barker, as I was told by another, nourished the said familiarity, and afterwards discovered it to his brother, which part of his being treacherous, as I conceived, I thought fit to send him a challenge which-"

This paper was given to me in 1789, by W. Seward, Esq., who told me it was copied by Mr. Ingram from the original MS., which MS., I suppose, is the copy of the Memoires of which I had heard, but never saw. The passage was not in the copy which Lord Powis lent me, and from which this edition was printed.-Hor. Walpole. --CUNNINGHAM.