as many thanks for me as you can, between your receiving this, and your next going to bully Richcourt, or whisper Count Lorenzi. I laughed heartily at your idea of the latter's hopping into matrimony; and I like as much Stainville's jumping into Richcourt's place. If your pedigree, which is on its journey, arrives before his fall, he will not dare to exclude you from the libro d'oro-why, child, you will find yourself as sumptuously descended as

"All the blood of all the Howards,"

or as the best-bred Arabian mare, that ever neighed beneath Abouâl-cb-saba-bedin-lolo-ab-alnin! But pray now, how does cet homme la, as the Princess used to call him, dare to tap the chapter of birth? I thought he had not had a grandfather since the creation, that was not born within these twenty years!-But come, I must tell you news, big news! the treaty of commerce with Spain is arrived signed. Nobody expected it would ever come, which I believe is the reason it is reckoned so good; for autrement one should not make the most favourable conjectures, as they don't tell us how good it is. In general, they say, the South Sea Company is to have one hundred thousand pounds in lieu of their annual ship; which, if it is not over and above the ninety-five thousand pounds that was allowed to be due to them, it appears to me only as if there were some halfpence remaining when the bill was paid, and the King of Spain had given them to the Company to drink his health. What does look well for the treaty is, that stocks rise to high-water mark; and what is to me as clear, is, that the exploded Don Benjamin' has repaired what the patriot Lord Sandwich had forgot, or not known to do at Aix-laChapelle. I conclude Keene will now come over and enjoy the Sabbath of his toils. He and Sir Charles [H. Williams] are the plenipotentiaries in fashion. Pray, brush up your Minyhood, and figure too blow the coals between the Pope and the Venetians, till the Inquisition burns the latter, and they the Inquisition. If you should happen to receive instructions on this head, don't wait for St.

1 Benjamin Keene, [died 1758] afterwards knight of the bath, ambassador at Madrid, was exceedingly abused by the Opposition in Sir Robert Walpole's time, under the name of Don Benjamin, for having made the convention in 1739.-WALPOLE. Mr. Pelham, in a letter to Mr. Pitt of the 12th of October 1750, announcing the signing of the treaty with Spain, says, "I hope and believe, when you see it and consider the whole, you will be of opinion, that my friend Keene has acted ably, honestly, and bravely; but, poor man! he is so sore with old bruises, that he still feels the smart, and fears another thrashing." See Chatham Correspondence, vol. i. p. 50.WRIGHT.

George's day before you present your memorial to the Senate, as they say Sir Harry Wotton was forced to do for St. James's, when those aquatic republicans had quarrelled with Paul the Fifth, and James the First thought the best way in the world to broach a schism was by beginning it with a quibble. I have had some Protestant hopes too of a civil war in France, between the King and his clergy: but it is a dull age, and people don't set about cutting one another's throats with any spirit! Robbing is the only thing that goes on with any vivacity, though my friend Mr. M'Lean is hanged. The first Sunday after his condemnation, three thousand people went to see him; he fainted away twice with the heat of his cell. You can't conceive the ridiculous rage there is of going to Newgate; and the prints that are published of the malefactors, and the memoirs of their lives and deaths set forth with as much parade as-as-Marshal Turenne'swe have no Generals worth making a parallel.

The pasquinade was a very good one.' When I was desiring you to make speeches for me to Dr. Cocchi, I might as well have drawn a bill upon you too in Mr. Chute's name; for I am sure he will never write himself. Indeed, at present he is in his brother's purgatory, and then you will not wonder if he does nothing but pray to get out of it. I am glad you are getting into a villa: my castle will, I believe, begin to rear its battlements next spring. I have got an immense cargo of painted glass from Flanders: indeed, several of the pieces are Flemish arms; but I call them the achievements of the old Counts of Strawberry. Adieu!

315. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Nov. 19, 1750.

I STAYED to write to you, till I could tell you that I had seen Mr. Pelham and Mr. Milbank, and could give you some history of a new administration-but I found it was too long to wait for either. I pleaded with your brother as I did with you against visiting your friends, especially when, to encourage me, he told me that you had given them a very advantageous opinion of me. That is the very reason, says I, why I don't choose to see them: they will be extremely civil to me at first: and then they will be told I have

It alluded to the quarrel between the Pope and the Venetians.-Marforio asked Pasquin, "Perche si triste?"-" Perche non avremo più Commedia, Pantalone è partito."-Dover.

horns and hoofs, and they will shun me, which I should not like. I know how unpopular I am with the people with whom they must necessarily live: and, not desiring to be otherwise, I must either seek your friends where I would most avoid them, or have them very soon grow to avoid me. However, I went and left my name for Mr. Pelham, where your brother told me he lodged, eight days ago; he was to come but that night to his lodgings, and by his telling your brother he believed I had not been, I concluded he would not accept that for a visit; so last Thursday, I left my name for both-to-day is Monday, and I have heard nothing of them-very likely I shall before you receive this-I only mention it to show you that you was in the wrong and I in the right, to think that there would be no empressement for an acquaintance. Indeed, I would not mention it, as you will dislike being disappointed by any odd behaviour of your friends, if it were not to justify myself, and convince you of my attention in complying with whatever you desire of me. The King, I hear, commends Mr. Pelham's dancing; and he must like Mr. Milbank, as he distinguished himself much in a tournament of bears at Hanover.

For the Ministry, it is all in shatters; the Duke of Newcastle is returned more averse to the Bedfords than ever he smothered that Duke with embraces at their first meeting, and has never borne to be in the room with him since. I saw the meeting of Octavia and Cleopatra; the Newcastle was all haughtiness and coldness. Mr. Pelham, who foresaw the storm, had prudently prepared himself for the breach by all kind of invectives against the house of Leveson. The ground of all, besides Newcastle's natural fickleness and jealousy, is, that the Bedford and Sandwich have got the Duke [of Cumberland]. A crash has been expected, but people now seem to think that they will rub on a little longer, though all the world seems indifferent whether they will or not. Mankind is so sick of all the late follies and changes, that nobody inquires or cares whether the Duke of Newcastle is Prime Minister, or whom he will associate with him. The Bedfords have few attachments, and Lord Sandwich is universally hated. The only difficulty is, who shall succeed them; and it is even a question whether some of the old discarded must not cross over and figure in again. I mean, it has even been said, that Lord Granville will once more be brought upon the stage :-if he should,

1 The Duchesses of Newcastle and Bedford.-WALPOLE.

2" So anxious was the Duke of Newcastle to remove his colleague, that he actually

and should push too forward, could they again persuade people to resign with them? The other nominees for the Secretaryship are, Pitt, the Vienna Sir Thomas Robinson, and even that formal piece of dullness at the Hague, Lord Holderness. The talk of the Chancellor's [Hardwicke] being president, in order to make room, by the promotion of the Attorney [Ryder] to the seals, for his second son [Charles Yorke] to be Solicitor, as I believe I once mentioned to you, is revived; though he told Mr. Pelham, that if ever he retired, it should be to Wimple.' In the mean time, the Master of the Horse, the Groom of the Stole, the Presidentship, (vacant by the nomination of Dorset to Ireland in the room of Lord Harrington, who is certainly to be given up to his master's dislike,) and the Blues, are still vacant. Indeed, yesterday I heard that Honeywood' was to have the latter. Such is the Interregnum of our politics! The Prince's faction lie still, to wait the event, and the disclosing of the new treaty. Your friend Lord Fane some time ago had a mind to go to Spain: the Duke of Bedford, who I really believe is an honest man, said very bluntly, "Oh! my lord, nobody can do there but Keene." Lord North is made governor to Prince George with a thousand a-year, and an earl's patent in his pocket; but as the passing of the patent is in the pocket of time, it would not sell for much. There is a new preceptor, one Scott, recommended by Lord Bolingbroke. You may add that recommendation to the chapter of our wonderful politics.

3

I have received your letter from Fiesoli Hill; poor Strawberry blushes to have you compare it with such a prospect as yours. I say nothing to the abrupt sentences about Mr. B. I have long seen his humour and a little of your partiality to his wife.

We are alarmed with the distemper being got among the horses: few have died yet, but a farrier who attended General Ligonier's dropped down dead in the stable. Adieu!

proposed, either to open a negotiation with Earl Granville for settling a new administration, or to concilitate the Duke of Cumberland, without the interposition of Mr. Pelham, by agreeing to substitute Lord Sandwich in the room of the Duke of Bedford."--Coxe's Pelham, vol. ii. p. 137.-WRIGHT.

1 Wimpole; the Chancellor's seat in Cambridgeshire.-WALPOLE.

2 Sir Philip Honey wood, knight of the bath.-WALPOLE.

3 Charles, Lord Viscount Fane, formerly minister at Florence.--WALPOLE.

4 Coxe states, that Mr. Scott was recommended to the Prince of Wales by Lord Bathurst, at the suggestion of Lord Bolingbroke, and that he was favoured by the Princess. WRIGHT.-Scott was sub-preceptor, and though a good man and clever, as Lord Waldegrave tells us (p. 10), had but little weight and influence :-the mother and the nursery were too influential.-CUNNINGHAM.

316. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Dec. 19, 1750.

WELL! you may be easy; your friends have been to see me at last, but it has so happened that we have never once met, nor have I even seen their persons. They live at Newcastle-house; and though I give you my word my politics are exceedingly neutral, I happen to be often at the court of Bedford. The Interministerium still subsists; no place is filled up but the Lieutenancy of Ireland; the Duke of Dorset was too impatient to wait. Lord Harrington remains a melancholy sacrifice to the famous general Resignation,' which he led up, and of which he is the only victim. Overtures have been made to Lord Chesterfield to be President; but he has declined it; for he says he cannot hear causes, as he is grown deaf. I don't think the proposal was imprudent, for if they should happen, as they have now and then happened, to want to get rid of him again, they might without consequence; that is, I suppose nobody would follow him out, any more than they did when he resigned voluntarily. For these two days everybody has expected to see Lord Granville president, and his friend the Duke of Bolton, colonel of the Blues; two nominations that would not be very agreeable, nor probably calculated to be so to the Duke [of Cumberland], who favours the Bedford faction. His old governor Mr. Poyntz is just dead, ruined in his circumstances by a devout brother, whom he trusted, and by a simple wife, who had a devotion of marrying dozens of her poor cousins at his expense: you know she was the 'Fair Circassian.'' Mr. Poyntz was called a very great man, but few knew anything of his talents, for he was timorous to childishness. The Duke has done greatly for his family, and secured his places for his children, and sends his two sons abroad, allowing them eight hundred pounds a-year. The little Marquis of Rockingham has drowned himself in claret; and old Lord Dartmouth

1 In the year 1746.—Walpole.

2 Stephen Poyntz, formerly British minister in Sweden, after being tutor to Lord Townshend's sons.-WALPOLE.

3 Anna Maria Mordaunt, maid of honour to Queen Caroline [married to Poyntz in 1738]. A young gentleman at Oxford wrote the Fair Circassian' on her, and died for love of her. WALPOLE. She had been a great beauty; the poem of "The Fair Circassian' was written by a gentleman who was in love with her. Walpole's George III. vol. i. p. 238.-CUNNINGHAM.