eldest young lady, who has had her leg cut off, does not yet know of the loss of her mother and sisters, but believes them much hurt, and not able even to write to her; by degrees they intend to tell her that her mother grows worse and then dies. Till this week she did not know she had lost a limb herself, they keeping the mangled part in a frame. One of her sisters, she of eleven, who is still lame with her bruises, was lately brought to her. They had not prepared the child, thinking she knew nothing of what had happened to Miss Molesworth. The moment the girl came in, she said, "Oh! poor Harriet! they tell me your leg is cut off!" Still this did not undeceive her. She replied, "No, it is not." The method they have since taken to acquaint her with it was very artful: they told her her leg must be taken off, and then softened the shock by letting her know the truth. She wept much, but soon comforted herself, saying, "Thank God, it is not my arm, for now I can still amuse myself." It would surprise one that at her age so many indications should not lead her to the full extent of her calamity; but they keep her in a manner intoxicated with laudanum. She is in the widow Lady Grosvenor's house, and the humanity, tenderness, and attention of Lord Grosvenor to her is not to be described. The youngest girl overheard the servants in the next room talking of her mother's death, and would not eat anything for two days.

Lord Bath's extravagant avarice and unfeelingness on his son's death rather increases. Lord Pulteney left a kind of Will, saying he had nothing to give, but made it his request to his father to give his post-chaise and one hundred pounds to his cousin Colman; the same sum and his pictures to another cousin, and recommended the Lakes, his other cousins, to him. Lord Bath sent Colman and Lockman word they might get their hundred pounds as they could, and for the chaise and pictures they might buy them if they pleased, for they would be sold for his son's debts; and he expressed great anger at the last article, saying, that he did not know what business it was of his son to recommend heirs to him.

I have told you of our French: we have got another curious one,

1 George Colman, son of Lady Bath's sister, author of several dramatic works, and afterwards manager of the Little Theatre in the Haymarket.-WALPOLE. "Let me place Mr. Murray, the present Attorney-General, before your eyes; look steadfastly towards him, and see what a rapid progress he hath made towards wealth and great reputation. You have as good parts When you are at Lincoln's Inn, I tell

you beforehand that I will have you closely watched and be constantly informed how you employ your time. * * I must have no running to play-houses." Lord Bath to Colman, January 20, 1755.-CUNNINGHAM.

La Condamine, qui se donne pour philosophe. He walks about the streets, with his trumpet and a map, his spectacles on, and hat under his arm.

But, to give you some idea of his philosophy, he was on the scaffold to see Damien executed. His deafness was very inconvenient to his curiosity; he pestered the confessor with questions to know what Damien said: "Monsieur, il jure horriblement." La Condamine replied, "Ma foi, il n'a pas tort;" not approving it, but as sensible of what he suffered. Can one bear such want of feeling? Oh! but as a philosopher he studied the nature of man in torments;-pray, for what? One who can so far divest himself of humanity as to be, uncalled, a spectator of agony, is not likely to employ much of his time in alleviating it. We have lately had an instance that would set his philosophy to work. A young highwayman was offered his life after condemnation, if he would consent to have his leg cut off, that a new styptic might be tried. "What!” replied he, "and go limping to the devil at last? no, I'll be d- -d first"-and was hanged!

Mr. Crawford has given me the second plan of Inigo Jones's church at Leghorn, for which I thank you. I am happy that you are easy about your brother James: I had told you he would write; have not you received that letter?

No public news. Parliamentary and political campaigns end when the military used to begin, and, thank God, we have now not them!

Did I, or did I not, tell you how much I am diverted with his serenity of Modena's match with that old, battered, painted, debauched Simonetta? An antiquated bagnio is an odd place for conscience to steal a wedding in! Two and twenty years ago she was as much repaired as Lady Mary Wortley, or as her own new spouse. Why, if they were not past approaching them, their faces must run together like a palette of colours, and they would be disputing to which such an eyebrow or such a cheek belonged. The first time I saw her, at the fair of Reggio, in 1741, I was to dine. with her; and going at three o'clock, found her in a loose linen gown, with no other woman, playing at faro with eleven men in white waistcoats and nightcaps. Such a scene was very new to me at that age! I did not expect that twenty years afterwards she

1 As La Condamine was on the scaffold, one of the executioners said to another, "Est-il des notres?" Non," replied he, 'Monsieur n'est qu'amateur."-Yet, La Condamine was a very humane and good man.

WALPOLE.

would become mistress of the duchy, or be a ladder to help the Duke to heaven.

2

June 7th.

Last night we had a magnificent entertainment at Richmond House, a masquerade and fireworks. A masquerade was a new sight to the young people, who had dressed themselves charmingly, without having the fear of an earthquake before their eyes, though Prince William and Prince Henry' were not suffered to be there. The Duchesses of Richmond and Grafton, the first as a Persian Sultana, the latter as Cleopatra, -and such a Cleopatra! were glorious figures, in very different styles. Mrs. Fitzroy in a Turkish dress, Lady George Lenox and Lady Bolingbroke as Grecian girls, Lady Mary Coke as Imoinda, and Lady Pembroke as a pilgrim, were the principal beauties of the night. The whole garden was illuminated, and the apartments. An encampment of barges decked with streamers in the middle of the Thames, kept the people from danger, and formed a stage for the fireworks, which were placed, too, along the rails of the garden. The ground rooms lighted, with suppers spread, the houses covered and filled with people, the bridge, the garden full of masks, Whitehall crowded with spectators to see the dresses pass, and the multitude of heads on the river who came to light by the splendour of the fire-wheels, composed the gayest and richest scene imaginable, not to mention the diamonds and sumptuousness of the habits. The Dukes of York and Cumberland, and the Margrave of Anspach, were there, and about six hundred masks. Adieu!

856. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, June 16, 1763.

I Do not like your putting off your visit hither for so long. Indeed, by September the Gallery will probably have all its fine clothes on, and by what have been tried, I think it will look very well. The fashion of the garments to be sure will be ancient, but I have given them an air that is very becoming. Princess Amelia was here last night while I was abroad; and if Margaret is not too much prejudiced by the guinea left, or by natural partiality to what servants call our house, I think was pleased, particularly with the Chapel.

1 Afterwards Dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland.-WALPOLE.

2 Eldest daughter of Sir Peter Warren.-WALPOLE.

As Mountain-George will not come to Mahomet-me, Mahomet-I must come to Greatworth. Mr. Chute and I think of visiting you about the seventeenth of July, if you shall be at home, and nothing happens to derange our scheme; possibly we may call at Horton; we certainly shall proceed to Drayton, Burleigh, Fotheringay, Peterborough, and Ely; and shall like much of your company, all, or part of the tour. The only present proviso I have to make is the health of my niece [Lady Waldegrave], who is at present much out of order (we think not breeding), and who was taken so ill on Monday, that I was forced to carry her suddenly to town, where I yesterday left her better at her father's [Sir Edward Walpole's].

There has been a report that the new Lord Holland [Mr. Fox] was dead at Paris, but I believe it is not true. I was very indifferent about it eight months ago it had been lucky. I saw his jackall t'other night in the meadows, the Secretary at War,' so emptily-important and distilling paragraphs of old news with such solemnity, that I did not know whether it was a man or the Utrecht gazette.

857. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, June 30, 1763. MONSIEUR DE LA CONDAMINE will certainly have his letter; but, my dear Sir, it is equally sure that I shall not deliver it myself. I have given it to my Lord Hertford for him, while I act being in the country. To tell you the truth, La Condamine is absurdity itself. He has had a quarrel with his landlady, whose lodgers being disturbed by La Condamine's servant being obliged to bawl to him, as he is deaf, wanted.to get rid of him. He would not budge: she dressed two chairmen for bailiffs to force him out. The next day he published an address to the people of England, in the newspaper, informing them that they are the most savage nation in or out of Europe. This is pretty near truth; and yet I would never have abused the Iroquois to their faces in one of their own gazettes. I honour La Condamine's zeal for inoculation, which is combated by his countrymen. Even here, nonsense attacks it; that is of course, for the practice is sense; but I wish humane men, or men of reflection, would be content to feel and to think, without advertising themselves by a particular denomination. But they will call them

1 Welbore Ellis, Esq., afterwards Lord Mendip. The meadows were at Twickenham. -CUNNINGHAM.

selves philosophers, and the instant they have created themselves a character, they think they must distinguish themselves by it, and run into all kind of absurdities. I wish they would consider that the most desirable kind of understanding is the only kind that never aims at any particularity; I mean common sense. This is not Monsieur de la Condamine's kind; and Count Lorenzi must excuse me if I avoid the acquaintance. I think I said something of him in a former letter.

Lord Strathmore is arrived, and has brought the parcel. He has been twice at Palazzo Pitti. I prefer the master of the latter. The Lord is too doucereux and Céladonian.'

You say I am patron of the French; I fear they do not think so. Very, very few of them have struck me. Then the trouble of conversing in a language not one's own, and the difficulty of expressing one's ideas as one would, disheartens me. Madame de Boufflers has pleased me most, and conceives us the best; though I doubt whether she will return so partial to us as she came. She told me one day, "Dans ce pays-ci c'est un effort perpétuel pour se divertir;" and she did not seem to think we succeed. However, next spring I must go to Paris, which at present, like the description of the grave, is the way of all flesh. Foley, the banker at Paris, told Lord Strathmore, that thirty thousand pounds have been remitted hence every month since the Peace, for the English that flock thither.

Your account of Lord Northampton is moving. He will, I fear, be little better for Tronchin, who, I am assured, from very good judges at Paris, is little better than a charlatan.

I have nothing to tell you, and I am glad of it; we have a long repose from politics; and it is comfortable when folks can be brought to think or talk of something else, which they seldom will in winter. My Gallery occupies me entirely, but grows rather too magnificent for my humility; however, having at no time created myself a philosopher, I am at liberty to please myself, without minding a contradiction or two. Adieu!

858. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, July 1, 1763.

MR. CHUTE and I intend to be with you on the seventeenth or eighteenth; but as we are wandering swains, we do not drive one

1 Too much of a swain, a Céladon.-WALPOLE.