which I obtained from the cathedral of Gloucester, when it was new. paved; they are inlaid in the floor of my China-room. I would have got enough to pave it entirely; but the canons, who were flinging them away, had so much devotion left, that they enjoined me not to pave a pagoda with them, nor put them to any profane use. As scruples increase in a ratio to their decrease, I did not know but a china-room might casuistically be interpreted a pagoda, and sued for no more. My Cloister is finished and consecrated; but as I intend to convert the old blue and white hall next to the China-room into a Gothic columbarium, I should seriously be glad to finish the floor with Norman tiles. However, as I shall certainly make you a visit in about two months, I will wait till then, and bring the dimensions with me. Depend upon it, I will pay some of your debts to M. de Lislebonne; that is, I will make as great entertainments for him as any one can, who almost always dines alone in his dressing-room; I will show him everything all the morning, as much as any one can, who lies abed till noon, and never gets dressed till two o'clock; and I will endeavour to amuse him with variety of diversions every evening as much as any one can, who does nothing but play at loo till midnight, or sit behind Lady Mary Coke in a corner of a box at the Opera. Seriously, though, I will try to show him that I think distinctions paid to you and my sister favours to me, and will make a point of adding the few civilities which his name, rank, and alliance with the Guerchy's can leave necessary. M. de Guerchy is adored here, and will find so, particularly at this juncture, when he has been most cruelly and publicly insulted by a mad, but villainous fellow, one D'Eon, left here by the Duc de Nivernois, who in effect is still worse treated. This creature, who has been made minister plenipotentiary, which turned his brain, as you have already heard, had stolen Nivernois's private letters, and has published them, and a thousand scandals on M. de Guerchy, in a very thick quarto. The affair is much too long for a letter, makes great noise, and gives as great offence. The council have met to-day to consider how to avenge Guerchy and punish D'Eon. I hope a legal remedy is in their power. I will say little on the subject of Robert; you know my opinion of his capacity, and I dare say think as I do. He is worth taking pains with. I heartily wish those pains may have success. The cure performed by James's powder charms me more than surprises I have long thought it could cure everything but physicians. me. Politics are all becalmed. Lord Bute's reappearance on the scene, though his name is in no play-bill, may chance to revive the hurlyburly. My Lord Townshend has not named Charles [his second son] in his Will, who is as much disappointed as he has often disappointed others. We had last night a magnificent ball at my Lady Cardigan's. Those fiddles play'd that never play'd before, We, that is, the totum pro parte,-you do not suspect me, I hope, of any youthfullities ;-d'autant moins of dancing; that I have rumours of gout flying about me, and would fain coax them into my foot. I have almost tried to make them drunk, and inveigle them thither in their cups; but as they are not at all familiar chez moi, they formalise at wine, as much as a middle-aged woman who is just beginning to drink in private. Adieu, my dear Sir! my best love to all of you. As Horace is evidently descended from the Conqueror, I will desire him to pluck up the pavement by the roots, when I want to transport it hither. 913. TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD. Arlington Street, April 5, 1764. YOUR idea, my dear lord, of the abusive paragraph on you being conceived at Paris,' and transmitted hither, tallies exactly with mine. I guessed that a satire on your whole establishment must come from thence I said so immediately to two or three persons; but, I did not tell you I thought so, because I did not choose to fill you with suggestions for which I had no ground, but in my own reasoning. Your arguments convince me I was in the right. Yet, were you master of proofs, the wisest thing you can do, is to act as if you had no suspicion; that is, to act as you have done, civilly, but coolly. There are men whom one would, I think, no more acknowledge for enemies than friends. One's resentment distinguishes them, and the only gratitude they can pay for that distinction is, to double the abuse. Wilkes's mind, you see, is sufficiently volatile, when he can 1 Lord Hertford suspected this paragraph to have been written by Mr. Wilkes ; which certainly would have been ungrateful, as Lord Hertford showed Mr. Wilkes more attention than most people thought proper to be shown by the King's ambassador to a person in Mr. Wilkes's circumstances.-CROKER. already forget Lord Sandwich and the Scotch, and can employ himself on you. He will soon flit to other prey, when you disregard him. It is my way I never publish a sheet, but buzz! out fly a swarm of hornets, insects that never settle upon you, if you don't strike at them; and whose venom is diverted to the next object that presents itself. We have divine weather. The Bishop of Carlisle [Lyttelton] has been with me two days at Strawberry, where we saw the eclipse' to perfection :—not that there was much sight in it. The air was very chill at the time, and the light singular; but there was not a blackbird that left off singing for it. In the evening, the Duke of Devonshire came with the Straffords from t'other end of Twickenham, and drank tea with us. They had none of them seen the Gallery since it was finished; even the Chapel was new to the Duke, he was so struck with it that he desired to offer at the shrine an incense-pot of silver philigrain. The election at Cambridge has ended, for the present, in strange confusion. The proctors, who were of different sides, assumed each a majority; the votes, however, appear to have been equal. The learned in university decisions say, an equality is a negative: if so, Lord Hardwicke is excluded. Yet the novelty of the case, it not having been very customary to solicit such a trifling honour, and the antiquated forms of proceeding retained in colleges, leave the matter wide open for further contention, an advantage Lord Sandwich cherishes as much as success. The grave are highly scandalised :popularity was still warmer. The under-graduates, who, having no votes, had consequently been left to their real opinions, were very near expressing their opinions against Lord Sandwich's friends in the most outrageous manner: hissed they were; and after the election, the juniors burst into the Senate-house, elected a fictitious Lord Hardwicke, and chaired him. The indecent arts and applications which had been used by the Twitcherites (as they are called, from Lord Sandwich's nick-name, Jemmy Twitcher,) had provoked 1 A considerable eclipse of the sun, which took place on the 1st of April. It was annular at Boulogne, in France, and of course nearly so at Paris and London.— CROKER. 2 The contest was between Lords Hardwicke and Sandwich; but, according to university forms, the poll was taken on the first name; there appeared among the Blackhoods for Lord Hardwicke, placet 103; non-placet 101: among the Whitehoods, the proctors' accounts differed; one made placet 108, non-placet 107; the other made placet 107, non-placet 101 on this a scrutiny was demanded, and refused, and a great confusion ensuing, the Vice-Chancellor adjourned the senate sine die.— CROKER. this rage. I will give you but one instance:-A voter, who was blooded on purpose that morning, was brought out of a madhouse with his keeper. This is the great and wise nation, which the philosopher Helvetius is come to study! When he says of us, C'est un furieux pais! he does not know that the literal translation is the true description of us. I don't know whether I did not tell you some lies in my last; very likely I tell you what I hear, and do not answer for truth but when I tell you what I know. How should I know anything? I am in no confidence; I think of both sides alike; I care for neither; I ask few questions. The King's journey to Hanover is contradicted. The return of Lord Bute is still a mystery. The zealous say, he declares for the administration; but some of the latter do not trust too much to that security; and, perhaps, they are in the right: I know what I think and why I think it; yet some, who do not go on ill grounds, have a middle opinion, that is not very reconcileable to mine. You will not wonder that there is a mystery, doubt, or irresolution. The scene will be opened further before I get to Paris. Lord Lyttelton and Lord Temple have dined with each other, and the reconciliation of the former with Mr. Pitt is concluded. It is well that enmities are as frail as friendships. The Archbishop and Bishops, who are so eager against Dr. Pearse's divorce from his see, not as illegal, but improper, and of bad example, have determined the King, who left it to them, not to consent to it, though the Bishop himself still insists on it. As this decision disappoints Bishop Newton, Lord Bath has obtained a consolatory promise for him of the mitre of London, to the great discomfort of Terrick and Warburton. You see Lord Bath does not hobble up the back-stairs for nothing. Oh, he is an excellent courtier! The Prince of Wales shoots him with play-thing arrows; he falls down dead; and the child kisses him to life again. Melancholy ambition! I heard him, t'other night, propose himself to Lady Townshend as a rich widow. Such spirits at fourscore are pleasing; but when one has lost all one's children, to be flattering those of Kings! The Bishop of Carlisle told me, that t'other day in the House of Lords, Warburton said to another of the bench, "I was invited by my Lord Mansfield to dine with that Helvetius, but he is a professed patron of atheism, a rascal, and a scoundrel, and I would not countenance him; besides, I should have worked him, and that Lord Mansfield would not have liked." No, in good truth: who can like such vulgarism! His French, too, I suppose, is equal to his wit and his piety. I dined, on Tuesday, with the imperial minister; we were twoand-twenty, collected from the four corners of the earth. Since it is become the fashion to banquet whole kingdoms by turns, I should pray, if I was minister, to be sent to Lucca. Have you received D'Eon's very curious book, which I sent by Colonel Keith? I do not find that the administration can discover any method of attacking him. Monsieur de Guerchy very properly determines to take no notice of it. In the mean time, the wit of it gains ground, and palliates the abomination, though it ought not. Princess Amelia asked me again about her trees. I gave her your message. She does not blame you, but Madame de Boufflers, for sending them so large. Mr. Legge is in a very bad way; but not without hopes his last night was better. Adieu! my dear lords and ladies! 914. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Strawberry Hill, April 9, 1764. THANK YOU, thank you for your accounts of the Duke of York, and of the reception you have given him. Why, you have feasted him as if you were sovereign of Tuscany! But pray, has the marshal consigned to you the revenues of the duchy? I tell you, you will be bankrupt; you will lie above ground in a velvet coffin, like the Spanish Ambassador's in Westminster Abbey! I did not doubt but the duke's good humour would charm you, and his ease; but I should tremble at your magnificence, unless he were his own elder brother, and could indemnify you. If the rumour of your banquets reaches Naples, you will have that whole city swarming to Florence, and knocking at your gate for that bread which they want at home. Seriously, I feel for the poor Neapolitans, since St. Januarius has not the secret of feeding them with five loaves and a few small fishes. We are full of a wonderful book, just published here, by the Chevalier D'Eon, who was secretary to the Duc de Nivernois, and who was made Plenipotentiary in his room, on having carried over the preliminaries, as he had before carried two or three treaties from Petersburgh, for which they never paid him. His honours turned his head, the first consequence of which was his extravagance last October at Lord Halifax's, of which you heard. The affection of |