vulsive fits, to be had only of the maker." Adieu! my dear Sir. To-day looks summerish, but we have no rain yet.

383. TO JOHN CHUTE, ESQ.

MY DEAR SIR:

Arlington Street, May 14, 1754.

I WROTE to you the last day of last month: I only mention it to show you that I am punctual to your desire. It is my only reason for writing to-day, for I have nothing new to tell you. The town is empty, dusty, and disagreeable; the country is cold and comfortless; consequently I daily run from one to t'other, as if both were so charming that I did not know which to prefer. I am at present employed in no very lively manner, in reading a treatise on commerce, which Count Perron has lent me, of his own writing: this obliges me to go through with it, though the subject and the style of the French would not engage me much. It does not want

sense.

T'other night, a description was given me of the most extraordinary declaration of love that ever was made. Have you seen young Poniatowski?1 He is very handsome. You have seen the figure of the Duchess of Gordon," who looks like a raw-boned Scotch metaphysician that has got a red face by drinking water. One day at the drawing-room, having never spoken to him, she sent one of the foreign ministers to invite Poniatowski to dinner with her for the next day. He bowed and went. The moment the door opened, her two little sons, attired like Cupids, with bows and arrows, shot at him; and one of them literally hit his hair, and was very near putting his eye out, and hindering his casting it to the couch

Where she, another sea-born Venus, lay.

The only company besides this Highland goddess were two Scotchmen, who could not speak a word of any language but their own Erse; and, to complete his astonishment at this allegorical entertainment, with the dessert there entered a little horse, and galloped round the table; a hieroglyphic I cannot solve. Poniatowski accounts for this profusion of kindness by his great-grandmother

1 Stanislaus, the ill-fated King of Poland.-WALPOLE.

2 Lady Catherine Gordon, daughter of the Earl of Aberdeen, widow of Cosmo, Duke of Gordon, who died in 1752. She married, secondly, Colonel Saates Morris.WRIGHT.

being a Gordon; but I believe it is to be accounted for by Adieu! my dear Sir.

MY DEAR SIR:

384. TO RICHARD BENTLEY, ESQ.

Arlington Street, May 18, 1754. UNLESS you will be exact in dating your letters, you will occasion me much confusion. Since the undated one which I mentioned in my last, I have received another as unregistered, with the fragment of the rock, telling me of one which had set sail on the 18th, I suppose of last month, and been driven back: this I conclude was the former undated. Yesterday, I received a longer, tipped with May 8th. You must submit to this lecture, and I hope will amend by it. I cannot promise that I shall correct myself much in the intention I had of writing to you seldomer and shorter at this time of year. If you could be persuaded how insignificant I think all I do, how little important it is even to myself, you would not wonder that I have not much empressement to give the detail of it to anybody else. Little excursions to Strawberry, little parties to dine there, and many jaunts to hurry Bromwich, and the carver, and Clermont, are my material occupations. Think of sending these 'cross the sea!-The times produce nothing: there is neither party, nor controversy, nor gallantry, nor fashion, nor literature-the whole proceeds like farmers regulating themselves, their business, their views, their diversions, by the almanac. Mr. Pelham's death has scarce produced a change; the changes in Ireland, scarce a murmur. Even in France the squabbles of the parliament and clergy are under the same opiate influence.-I don't believe that Mademoiselle Murphy (who is delivered of a prince, and is lodged openly at Versailles) and Madame Pompadour will mix the least grain of ratsbane in one another's tea. I, who love to ride in the whirlwind, cannot record the yawns of such an age!

The little that I believe you would care to know relating to the Strawberry annals is, that the great tower is finished on the outside, and the whole whitened, and has a charming effect, especially as the verdure of this year is beyond what I have ever seen it: the grove nearest the house comes on much; you know I had almost despaired of its ever making a figure. The bow-window room over the supper-parlour is finished; hung with a plain blue paper,

1 See letter to Conway, May 24, 1753.-CUNNINGHAM.

with a chintz bed and chairs; my father and mother over the chimney in the Gibbons frame,' about which you know we were in dispute what to do. I have fixed on black and gold, and it has a charming effect over your chimney with the two dropping points, which is executed exactly; and the old grate of Henry VIII. which you bought, is within it. In each panel round the room is a single picture; Gray's, Sir Charles Williams's, and yours, in their black and gold frames; mine is to match yours; and, on each side the door, are the pictures of Mr. Churchill and Lady Mary, with their son, on one side; Mr. Conway and Lady Ailesbury on the other. You can't imagine how new and pretty this furniture is.-I believe I must get you to send me an attestation under your hand that you knew nothing of it, that Mr. Rigby may allow that at least this one room was by my own direction. As the library and great parlour grow finished, you shall have exact notice.

From Mabland' I have little news to send you, but that the obelisk is danced from the middle of the rabbit-warren into his neighbour's garden, and he pays a ground-rent for looking at it there. His shrubs are hitherto unmolested,

Et Mary boniacos3 gaudet revirescere lucos!

The town is as busy again as ever on the affair of Canning, who has been tried for perjury. The jury would have brought her in guilty of perjury, but not wilful, till the judge informed them that that would rather be an Irish verdict; they then brought her in simply guilty, but recommended her. In short, nothing is discovered; the most general opinion is, that she was robbed, but by some other gipsy. For my own part, I am not at all brought to believe her story, nor shall, till I hear that living seven-and-twenty days without eating is among one of those secrets for doing impossibilities, which I suppose will be at last found out, and about the time that I am dead, even some art of living for ever.

You was in pain for me, and indeed I was in pain for myself, on the prospect of the sale of Dr. Mead's miniatures. You may be

1 By Eckardt and Wootton, and sold at the Strawberry Hill sale to the Marquis of Lansdowne for 51l. 98.-CUNNINGHAM.

2 A cant name which Mr. Walpole had given to Lord Radnor's whimsical house and grounds at Twickenham.-BERRY.

3 Lord Radnor's garden was full of statues, &c., like that at Marylebone.WALPOLE.