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393. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Strawberry Hill, August 6, 1754.

FROM Sunday next, which is the eleventh, till the four or five-andtwentieth, I am quite unengaged, and will wait upon you any of the inclusive days, when your house is at leisure, and you will summon me; therefore, you have nothing to do but to let me know your own time or, if this period does not suit you, I believe I shall be able to come to you any part of the first fortnight in September; for, though I ought to go to Hagley, it is incredible how I want resolution to tap such a journey.

I wish you joy of escaping such an accident as breaking the Duke's [of Cumberland] leg; I hope he and you will be known to posterity together by more dignified wounds than the kick of a horse. As I can never employ my time better than in being your biographer, I beg you will take care that I may have no such plebeian mishaps upon my hands; or, if the Duke is to fall out of battle, he has such delicious lions and tigers, which I saw the day before yesterday at Windsor, that he will be exceedingly to blame, if he does not give some of them an exclusive patent for tearing him to pieces.

There is a beautiful tiger at my neighbour Mr. Crammond's here, of which I am so fond, that my Lady Townshend says it is the only thing I ever wanted to kiss. As you know how strongly her ladyship sympathises with the Duke, she contrived to break the tendon of her foot, the very day that his leg was in such danger. Adieu !

P.S. You may certainly do what you please with the Fable;' it is neither worth giving nor refusing.

394. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, Aug. 29, 1754.

You may be sure that I shall always be glad to see you whenever you like to come hither, but I cannot help being sorry that you are determined not to like the place, nor to let the Colonel like it; a conclusion I may very justly make, when, I think, for these four

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1 In July, 1754, I wrote The Entail,' a fable in verse.- Walpole's Short Notes, i. Ixviii.-CUNNINGHAM.

upon

years, you have contrived to visit it only when there is not a leaf the trees. Villas are generally designed for summer: you are the single person who think they look best in winter. You have still a more unlucky thought; which is, to visit the Vine in October. When I saw it in the middle of summer, it was excessively damp; you will find it a little difficult to persuade me to accompany you thither on stilts, and I believe Mr. Chute will not be quite happy that you prefer that season; but for this I cannot answer at present, for he is at Mr. Morris's in Cornwall. I shall expect you and the Colonel here at the time you appoint. I engage.for no farther, unless it is a very fine season indeed. I beg my compliments to Miss Montagu, and am yours ever.

395. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Oct 6, 1754.

You have the kindest way in the world, my dear Sir, of reproving my long silence, by accusing yourself. I have looked at my dates, and though I was conscious of not having written to you for a long time, I did not think it had been so long as three months. I ought to make some excuse, and the truth is all I can make: if you have heard by any way in the world that a single event worth mentioning has happened in England for these three months, I will own myself guilty of abominable neglect. If there has not, as you know my unalterable affection for you, you will excuse me, and accuse the times. Can one repeat often, that everything stagnates? At present we begin to think that the world may be roused again, and that an East Indian war and a West Indian war may beget such a thing as an European war. In short, the French have taken such cavalier liberties with some of our forts, that are of great consequence to cover Virginia, Carolina, and Georgia, that we are actually despatching two regiments thither. As the climate and other American circumstances are against these poor men, I pity them, and think them too many, if the French mean nothing farther; too few, if they do. Indeed, I am one of those that feel less resentment when we are attacked so far off: I think it an obligation to be eaten the last.

You have entertained me much with the progress of the history of the Delmontis, and obliged me. I wish I could say I was not shocked at the other part of your letter, where you mention the

re-establishment of the Inquisition at Florence. Had Richcourt power enough to be so infamous! was he superstitious, fearful, revengeful, or proud of being a tool of the court of Rome? What is the fate of the poor Florentines, who are reduced to regret the Medicis, who had usurped their government! You may be glad, my dear child, that I am not at Florence; I should distress your ministerial prudence, your necessary prudence, by taking pleasure to speak openly of Richcourt as he deserves: you know my warmth upon power and church power!

The Boccaneri seems to be one of those ladies who refine so much upon debauchery as to make even matrimony enter into their scheme of profligacy. I have known more than one instance, since the days of the Signora Messalina, where the lady has not been content to cuckold her husband, but with another husband. All passions carried to extremity embrace within their circle even their opposites. I don't know whether Charles the Fifth did not resign the empire out of ambition of more fame. I must contradict myself in saying all passions; I don't believe Sir Robert Brown will ever be so covetous as to find a pleasure in squandering.

Mr. Chute is much yours: I am going with him in a day or two to his Vine, where I shall try to draw him into amusing himself a little with building and planting; hitherto he has done nothing with his estate-but good.

You will have observed what precaution I had taken, in the smallness of the sheet, not to have too much paper to fill; and yet you see how much I have still upon my hands! As, I assure you, were I to fill the remainder, all I should say would be terribly wiredrawn, do excuse me you shall hear an ample detail of the first Admiral Vernon that springs out of our American war; and I promise you at least half a brick of the first sample that is sent over of any new Porto Bello. The French have tied up the hands of an excellent fanfaron, a Major Washington,' whom they took, and engaged not to serve for a year. In his letter, he said, "Believe me, as the cannon-balls flew over my head, they made a most delightful sound." When your relation, General Guise, was marching up to Carthagena, and the pelicans whistled round him, he said, "What would Chloe' give for some of these to make a pelican pie ?" The conjecture made that scarce a rodomontade; but what pity it is, that

1 The celebrated Liberator of America, who had been serving in the English army against the French for some time with much distinction.-DOVER.

2 The Duke of Newcastle's French cook [vol. i. p. 185.]-WALPOLE.

a man who can deal in hyperboles at the mouth of a cannon, should be fond of them with a glass of wine in his hand! I have heard Guise affirm, that the colliers at Newcastle feed their children with fire-shovels! Good night.

396. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 24, 1754.

You have obliged me most extremely by telling me the progress you have made in your most desirable affair.' I call it progress; for, notwithstanding the authority you have for supposing there may be a compromise, I cannot believe that the Duke of Newcastle would have affirmed the contrary so directly, if he had known of it. Mr. Brudenel very likely has been promised my Lord Lincoln's interest, and then supposed he should have the Duke's. However, that is not your affair: affair: if anybody has reason to apprehend a breach of promise, it is poor Mr. Brudenel. He can never come into competition with you; and without saying anything to reflect on him, I don't know where you can ever have a competitor, and not have the world on your side.

Though the tenure is precarious, I cannot help liking the situation for you. Anything that sets you in new lights, must be for your advantage. You are naturally indolent and humble, and are content with being perfect in whatever you happen to be. It is not flattering you to say, nor can you deny it, with all your modesty, that you have always made yourself master of whatever you have attempted, and have never made yourself master of anything without shining extremely in it. If the King lives, you will have his favour; if he lives at all, the Prince must have a greater establishment, and then you will have the King's partiality to countenance your being removed to some distinguished place about the Prince: if the King should fail, your situation in his family, and your age, naturally recommend you to an equal place in the new household. I am the more desirous of seeing you at court, because, when I consider the improbability of our being in a situation to make war, I am earnest to have you have other opportunities of being one of the first men in this country, besides by being a general. Don't think all I say on this subject compliment. I can have no view in flattering you;

1 His appointment as groom of the bedchamber to King George II.-CUNNINGHAM.

and you have a still better reason for believing me sincere, which is, that you know well that I thought the same of you, and professed the same to you, before I was of an age to have either views or flattery; indeed, I believe you know me enough to be sure that I am as void of both now as when I was fourteen, and that I am so little apt to court anybody, that if you heard me say the same to anybody but yourself, you would easily think that I spoke what I thought.

George Montagu and his brother are here, and have kept me from meeting you in town: we go on Saturday to the Vine. I fear there is too much truth in what you have heard of your old mistress.' When husband, wife, lover, and friend tell everything, can there but be a perpetual fracas? My dear Harry, how lucky you was in what you escaped, and in what you have got! People do sometimes avoid, not always, what is most improper for them; but they do not afterwards always meet with what they most deserve. But how lucky you are in everything! and how ungrateful a man to Providence if you are not thankful for so many blessings as it has given you! I won't preach, though the dreadful history which I have just heard of poor Lord Drumlanrig' is enough to send one to La Trappe. My compliments to all yours, and Adieu !

397. TO RICHARD BENTLEY, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, November 3, 1754.

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I HAVE finished all my parties, and am drawing towards a conclusion here: the Parliament meets in ten days: the House, I hear, will be extremely full-curiosity drawing as many to town as party used to do. The minister [the Duke of Newcastle] in the House of Lords is a new sight in these days.

1 Lady Caroline Petersham.-CUNNINGHAM.

2 Only son of Charles third Duke of Queensberry, who was shot by the accidental discharge of his pistol on his journey from Scotland to London, in company with his parents and newly married wife, a daughter of the Earl of Hopetoun. Lady Mary Wortley thus alludes to this calamity in a letter to her daughter :-" "The Duchess of Queensberry's misfortune would move compassion in the hardest heart; yet, all circumstances coolly considered, I think the young lady deserves most to be pitied, being left in the terrible situation of a young and, I suppose, rich widowhood; which is walking blindfold upon stilts amidst precipices, though perhaps as little sensible of her danger, as a child of a quarter old would be in the paws of a monkey leaping on the tiles of a house."-WRIGHT.

3 In this Parliament Walpole sat for Castle Rising. CUNNINGHAM.

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