you have returned them to us very different. When they came to Blackheath, he got out of the chaise to go to his brother Lord Chesterfield's, made her a low bow, and said, "Madame, I hope I shall never see your face again." She replied, "Sir, I will take all the care I can that you never shall." He lays no gallantry to her charge.

We are sending you another couple, the famous Garrick, and his once famous wife. He will make you laugh as a mimic, and as he knows we are great friends, will affect great partiality to me; but be a little upon your guard, remember he is an actor.

My poor niece [Lady Waldegrave] has declared herself not breeding: you will be charmed with the delicacy of her manner in breaking it to General Waldegrave. She gave him her Lord's seal with the coronet. You will be more charmed with her. On Sunday the Bishop of Exeter [her brother-in-law] and I were talking of this new convulsion in politics-she burst out in a flood of tears, reflecting on the great rank which her Lord, if living, would naturally attain on this occasion.

I think I have nothing more to tell you, but a bon-mot of my Lady Townshend [Harrison]. She has taken a strange little villa at Paddington, near Tyburn. People were wondering at her choosing such a situation, and asked her, in joke, what sort of neighbourhood she had: "Oh," said she, one that can never tire me, for they are hanged every week." Good night. This would be a furious long letter, if it was not short by containing a whole revolution.

872. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 3, 1763.

I HAVE but a minute's time for answering your letter; my house is full of people, and has been so from the instant I breakfasted, and more are coming; in short, I keep an inn; the sign, "The Gothic Castle." Since my Gallery was finished I have not been in it a quarter of an hour together; my whole time is passed in giving tickets for seeing it, and hiding myself while it is seen. Take my advice, never build a charming house for yourself between London and Hampton-court: everybody will live in it but you. I fear you must give up all thoughts of the Vine for this year, at least for some time. The poor master is on the rack; I left him the day before yesterday in bed, where he had been ever since Monday with

the gout in both knees and one foot, and suffering martyrdom every night. I go to see him again on Monday. He has not had so bad a fit these four years, and he has probably the other foot still to come. You must come to me at least in the mean time, before he is well enough to receive you. After next Tuesday I am unengaged, except on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday following; that is, the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth, when the family from Park-place are to be with me. Settle your motions, and let me know them as soon as you can, and give me as much time as you can spare. I flatter myself the General' and Lady Grandison will keep the kind promise they made me, and that I shall see your brother John and Mr. Miller too.

My niece is not breeding. You shall have the auction books as soon as I can get them, though I question if there is anything in your way; however, I shall see you long before the sale, and we will talk on it.

There has been a revolution and a re-revolution, but I must defer the history till I see you, for it is much too big for a letter written in such a hurry as this. Adieu !

873. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 7, 1763.

As I am sure the house of Conway will not stay with me beyond Monday next, I shall rejoice to see the house of Montagu this day se'nnight (Wednesday), and shall think myself highly honoured by a visit from Lady Beaulieu;' I know nobody that has a better taste, and it would flatter me exceedingly if she should happen to like Strawberry. I knew you would be pleased with Mr. Thomas Pitt; he is very amiable and very sensible, and one of the very few that I reckon quite worthy of being at home at Strawberry.

I have again been in town to see Mr. Chute; he thinks the worst over, yet he gets no sleep, and is still confined to his bed: but his spirits keep up surprisingly. As to your gout, so far from pitying you, 'tis the best thing that can happen to you. All that claret and

1 General Montagu, who, in the preceding February, had married the Countess dowager of Grandison.-WRIGHT.

2 Isabella, eldest daughter and co-heir of John, Duke of Montagu, died 1749, and relict of William, Duke of Manchester, died 1739; married, secondly (1746), Edward Hussey, Esq., afterwards Lord Beaulieu. She is the heroine of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams's poem, 'Isabella, or the Morning.' See vol ii. p. 33, and post, p. 117.CUNNINGHAM.

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.1

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 quâ 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.