enrolled in the number. My own works, I suppose, are dead and buried; but, as I am not impatient to be interred with them, I hope you will leave that office to the parson of the parish, and I shall be, as long as I live, yours, &c.

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Arlington Street, Aug. 30, 1773.

I RETURNED last night from Houghton,' where multiplicity of business detained me four days longer than I intended, and where I found a scene infinitely more mortifying than I expected; though I certainly did not go with a prospect of finding a land flowing with milk and honey. Except the pictures, which are in the finest preservation, and the woods, which are become forests, all the rest is ruin, desolation, confusion, disorder, debts, mortgages, sales, pillage, villany, waste, folly, and madness. I do not believe that five thousand pounds would put the house and buildings into good repair. The nettles and brambles in the park are up to your shoulders; horses have been turned into the garden, and banditti lodged in every cottage. The perpetuity of livings that come up to the park-pales have been sold—and every farm let for half its value. In short, you know how much family-pride I have, and consequently may judge how much I have been mortified! Nor do I tell you half, or near the worst circumstances. I have just stopped the torrent—and that is all. I am very uncertain whether I must not fling up the trust; and some of the difficulties in my way seem unsurmountable, and too dangerous not to alarm even my zeal; since I must not ruin myself, and hurt those for whom I must feel, too, only to restore a family that will end with myself, and to retrieve an estate from which I am not likely ever to receive the least advantage.

If you will settle with the Churchills your journey to Chalfont, and will let me know the day, I will endeavour to meet

Whither he had gone during the mental alienation of his nephew, George Earl of Orford, to endeavour to settle and arrange his affairs.

you there; I hope it will not be till next week. I am overwhelmed with business but, indeed, I know not when I shall be otherwise! I wish you joy of this endless summer.

TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 24, 1773.

THE multiplicity of business which I found chalked out to me by my journey to Houghton, has engaged me so much, my dear lord, and the unpleasant scene opened to me there struck me so deeply, that I have neither had time nor cheerfulness enough to flatter myself I could amuse my friends by my letters. Except the pictures, I found everything worse than I expected, and the prospect almost too bad to give me courage to pursue what I am doing. I am totally ignorant in most of the branches of business that are fallen to my lot, and not young enough to learn any new business well. All I can hope is to clear the worst part of the way; for, in undertaking to retrieve an estate, the beginning is certainly the most difficult of the work—it is fathoming a chaos. But I will not unfold a confusion to your lordship which your good sense will always keep you from experiencing— very unfashionably; for the first geniuses of this age hold, that the best method of governing the world is to throw it into disorder. The experiment is not yet complete, as the rearrangement is still to come.

I am very seriously glad of the birth of your nephew,1 my lord; I am going this evening with my gratulations; but have been so much absent and so hurried, that I have not yet had the pleasure of seeing Lady Anne, though I have called twice. To Gunnersbury I have had no summons this summer: I receive such honours, or the want of them, with proper respect. Lady Mary Coke, I fear, is in chace of a Dulcineus that she will never meet. When the ardour of peregrination is a little abated, will not she

A son of John Earl of Buckingham, who died young.

probably give in to a more comfortable pursuit; and, like a print I have seen of the blessed martyr Charles the First, abandon the hunt of a corruptible for that of an incorruptible crown? There is another beatific print just published in that style: it is of Lady Huntingdon. With much pompous humility, she looks like an old basket-woman trampling on her coronet at the mouth of a cavern.-Poor Whitfield! if he was forced to do the honours of the spelunca!-Saint Fanny Shirley is nearer consecration. I was told two days ago that she had written a letter to Lady Selina that was not intelligible. Her grace of Kingston's glory approaches to consummation in a more worldly style. The Duke' is dying, and has given her the whole estate, seventeen thousand a-year. I am told she has already notified the contents of the will, and made offers of the sale of Thoresby. Pious matrons have various ways of expressing decency.

Your lordship's new bow-window thrives. I do not want it to remind me of its master and mistress, to whom I am ever the most devoted humble servant.

TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.

Arlington Street, Nov. 15, 1773.

I AM very sorry, my dear lord, that you are coming towards us so slowy and unwillingly. I cannot quite wonder at the latter. The world is an old acquaintance that does not improve upon one's hands: however, one must not give way to the disgusts it creates. My maxim, and practice, too, is to laugh, because I do not like to cry. I could shed a pail-full of tears over all I have seen and learnt since my poor nephew's misfortune-the more one has to do with men. the worse one finds them. But can one mend them? Shall we shut ourselves up from them? No. We should grow humorists—and of all animals an Englishman is least made to live alone. For my part, I am conscious of so many

No.

1 The Duke of Kingston died on the 22d of September, when all his honours became extinct.-E.

faults, that I think I grow better the more bad I see in my neighbours; and there are so many I would not resemble, that it makes me watchful over myself. You, my lord, who have forty more good qualities than I have, should not seclude yourself. I do not wonder you despise knaves and fools; but remember, they want better examples; they will never grow ashamed by conversing with one another.

I came to settle here on Friday, being drowned out of Twickenham. I find the town desolate, and no news in it, but that the ministry give up the Irish tax- -some say, because it will not pass in Ireland; others, because the city of London would have petitioned against it; and some, because there were factions in the council-which is not the most incredible of all. I am glad, for the sake of some of my friends who would have suffered by it, that it is over.1 In other respects, I have too much private business of my own to think about the public, which is big enough to take care of itself.

I have heard of some of Lady Mary Coke's mortifications. I have regard and esteem for her good qualities, which are many; but I doubt her genius will never suffer her to be quite happy. As she will not take the psalmist's advice of not putting trust, I am sure she would not follow mine; for, with all her piety, King David is the only royal person she will not listen to, and therefore I forbear my sweet counsel. When she and Lord Huntingdon meet, will not they put you in mind of Count Gage and Lady Mary Herbert, who met in the mines of Asturias, after they had failed of the crown of Poland ?-Adieu, my dear lord! Come you and

1 A tax upon absentees. Mr. Hardy, in his Memoirs of Lord Charlemont, says, that the influence of the Whig leaders predominated so far as to oblige the ministers to relinquish the measure.-E.

2" The crown of Poland, venal twice an age,

To just three millions stinted modest Gage."

Pope, in a note to the above couplet, states that Mr. Gage and Lady Mary Herbert, " each of them, in the Mississippi scheme, despised to realize above three hundred thousand pounds; the gentleman with a view to the purchase of the crown of Poland, the lady on a vision of the like royal nature: they have since retired into Spain, where they are still in search of gold, in the mines of the Asturias.”—E.

my lady among us. You have some friends that are not odious, and who will be rejoiced to see you both-witness, Yours most faithfully.

for one,

TO LADY MARY COKE.1

[1773?]

YOUR ladyship's illustrious exploits are the constant theme of my meditations. Your expeditions are so rapid, and to such distant regions, that I cannot help thinking you are possessed of the giant's boots that stepped seven leagues at a stride, as we are assured by that accurate historian Mother Goose. You are, I know, Madam, an excellent walker, yet methinks seven leagues at once are a prodigious straddle for a fair lady. But whatever is your manner of travelling, few heroines ancient or modern can be compared to you for length of journeys. Thalestris, Queen of the Amazons, and M. M. or N. N. Queen of Sheba, went each of them the Lord knows how far to meet Alexander the Great and Solomon the Wise; the one to beg the favour of having a daughter (I suppose) and heiress by him; and the other, says scandal, to grant a like favour to the Hebrew monarch. Your ladyship, who has more real Amazonian principles, never makes visits but to empresses, queens, and princesses; and your country is enriched with the maxims of wisdom and virtue which you collect in your travels. For such great ends did Herodotus, Pythagoras, and other sages, make voyages to Egypt, and every distant kingdom; and it is amazing how much their own countries were benefited by what those philosophers learned in their peregrinations. Were it not that your ladyship is actuated by such public spirit, I could put you in mind, Madam, of an old story that might save you a great

See the two preceding letters. It will be recollected that Lady Mary Coke was sister-in-law to the Earl of Strafford, and widow of Viscount Coke, heir apparent of Thomas Earl of Leicester, who died without issue by her, in his father's lifetime. Lady Mary died at a great age in 1811.-E.

VOL. V.

2 A