entry in our very-very remarkable wager-book: "Lord Mountford bets Sir John Bland twenty guineas that Nash outlives Cibber!" How odd that these two old creatures, selected for their antiquities, should live to see both their wagerers put an end to their own lives! Cibber is within a few days of eighty-four, still hearty, and clear, and well. I told him I was glad to see him look so well: "'Faith," said he, "it is very well that I look at all!"I shall thank you for the Ormer shells and roots; and shall desire your permission to finish my letter already. As the Parliament is to meet so soon, you are likely to be overpowered with my dispatches. -I have been thinning my wood of trees, and planting them out more into the field: I am fitting up the old kitchen for a chinaroom: I am building a bedchamber for myself over the old blueroom, in which I intend to die, though not yet; and some trifles of this kind, which I do not specify to you, because I intend to reserve a little to be quite new to you. Adieu!

MY DEAR SIR:

442. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, Nov. 8, 1755.

You oblige me extremely by giving me this commission; and though I am exceedingly unlike Solomon in every thing else, I will at least resemble him in remembering you to the Hiram from whom I obtained my cedars of Libanus. He is by men called Christopher Gray, nurseryman at Fulham. I mention cedars first, because they are the most beautiful of the evergreen race, and because they are the dearest; half a guinea a-piece in baskets. The arbutus are scarce a crown a-piece, but they are very beautiful: the lignumvitæ I would not recommend to you; they stink abominably if you touch them, and never make a handsome tree: the Chinese arborvitæ is very beautiful. I have a small nursery myself, scarce bigger than one of those pleasant gardens which Solomon describes, and which if his fair one meant the church, I suppose must have meant the church-yard. Well, out of this little parsley-bed of mine, I can furnish you with a few plants, particularly three Chinese arbor-vitas, a dozen of the New England or Lord Weymouth's pine, which is that beautiful tree that we have so much admired at the Duke of

'This remarkable Book (I have seen it) is still preserved at White's.-CUNNINGHAM. 2 Lord Mountford would have been the winner. Cibber died in 1757; Nash in 1761.-WRIGHT.

VOL. II.

I I

Argyll's for its clean straight stem, the lightness of its hairy green, and for being feathered quite to the ground: they should stand in a moist soil, and care must be taken every year to clear away all plants and trees around them, that they may have free air and room to expand themselves. Besides these I shall send you twelve stone or Italian pines, twelve pinasters, twelve black spruce firs, two Caroline cherries, thirty evergreen cytisus, a pretty shrub that grows very fast, and may be cut down as you please, fifty Spanish brooms, and six acacias, the genteelest tree of all, but you must take care to plant them in a first row, and where they will be well sheltered, for the least wind tears and breaks them to pieces. All these are ready, whenever you will give me directions, how, and where to send them. They are exceedingly small, as I have but lately taken to propagate myself; but then they will travel more safely, will be more sure of living, and will grow faster than larger. Other sorts of evergreens, that you must have, are silver and Scotch firs; Virginia cedars, which should stand forwards and have nothing touch them ; and above all cypresses, which, I think, are my chief passion; there is nothing so picturesque, where they stand two or three in a clump, upon a little hillock, or rising above low shrubs, and particularly near buildings. There is another bit of picture, of which I am fond, and that is a larch or a spruce fir planted behind a weeping willow, and shooting upwards as the willow depends. I think for courts about a house, or winter gardens, almond trees mixed with evergreens, particularly with Scotch firs, have a pretty effect, before any thing else comes out; whereas almond trees, being generally planted among other trees, and being in bloom before other trees have leaves, have no ground to show the beauty of their blossoms. Gray at Fulham sells cypresses in pots at half a crown a-piece; you turn them out of the pot with all their mould, and they never fail. I think this is all you mean; if you have any more gardenquestions or commissions, you know you command my little knowledge.

I am grieved that you have still any complaints left. Dissipation, in my opinion, will be the best receipt; and I do not speak merely for my own sake, when I tell you, how much I wish to have you keep your resolution of coming to town before Christmas. I am still more pleased with the promise you make to Strawberry, which you have never seen in its green coat since it cut its teeth. I am here all alone, and shall stay till Tuesday, the day after the birth-day. On Thursday begins our warfare, and, if we may believe signs and

tokens, our winter will be warlike: I mean at home; I have not much faith in the invasion. Her Royal Highness and His Royal Highness are likely to come to an open rupture. His grace of Newcastle, who, I think, has gone under every nickname, waits I believe to see to which he will cling. There have been two Worlds' by my Lord Chesterfield lately, very pretty, the rest very indifferent.

443. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Arlington Street, Nov. 15, 1755.

I PROMISED you histories, and there are many people that take care I should have it in my power to keep my word. To begin in order, I should tell you, that there were 289 members at the Cockpit meeting, the greatest number ever known there: but Mr. Pitt, who is too great a general to regard numbers, especially when there was a probability of no great harmony between the commanders, did not, however, postpone giving battle. The engagement was not more decisive than long: we sat till within a quarter of five in the morning; an uninterrupted serious debate from before two. Lord Hillsborough moved the address, and very injudiciously supposed an opposition. Martin,' Legge's secretary, moved to omit in the address the indirect approbation of the treaties, and the direct assurances of protection to Hanover. These questions were at length divided; and against Pitt's inclination, the last, which was the least unpopular, was first decided by a majority of 311 against 105. Many then went away; and on the next division the numbers were 290 to 89. These are the general outlines. The detail of the speeches, which were very long, and some extremely fine, it would be impossible to give you in any compass. On the side of the opposition (which I must tell you by the way, though it set out decently, seems extremely resolved) the speakers (I name them in their order) were the 3rd Colebrook, Martin, Northey, Sir Richard Lyttelton, Dodington, George Grenville, Sir F. Dashwood, Beckford, Sir G. Lee, Legge, Potter, Dr. Hay, George Townshend, Lord Egmont, Pitt, and Admiral Vernon on the other side were, Lord Hillsborough, Obrien, young

1 The Princess Dowager and the Duke of Cumberland.-CUNNINGHAM.

2 Samuel Martin, celebrated for his duel with Wilkes. He procured the reversion of one of Walpole's offices, and as an expectant for his death is the subject of many of Walpole's sarcasms.-CUNNINGHAM.

Stanhope,' Hamilton, Alstone, Ellis, Lord Barrington, Sir G. Lyttelton, Nugent, Murray, Sir T. Robinson, my uncle [old Horace], and Mr. Fox. As short as I can, I will give you an account of them. Sir Richard, Beckford, Potter, G. Townshend, the Admiral of course, Martin, Stanhope, and Ellis, were very bad: Dodington was well, but very acceding: Dr. Hay by no means answers his reputation; it was easy, but not striking. Lord Egmont was doubling, absurd, and obscure. Sir G. Lee and Lord Barrington were much disliked; I don't think so deservedly. Poor Alstone was mad, and spoke ten times to order. Sir George, our friend, was dull and timid. Legge was the latter. Nugent roared, and Sir Thomas rumbled. My uncle did justice to himself, and was as wretched and dirty as his whole behaviour for his coronet has been. Mr. Fox was extremely fatigued, and did little. Geo. Grenville's was very fine and much beyond himself, and very pathetic. The Attorney-general [Murray] in the same style, and very artful, was still finer. Then there was a young Mr. Hamilton' who spoke for the first time, and was at once perfection: his speech was set, and full of antithesis, but those antetheses were full of argument: indeed his speech was the most argumentative of the whole day; and he broke through the regularity of his own composition, answered other people, and fell into his own track again with the greatest ease. His figure is advantageous, his voice strong and clear, his manner spirited, and the whole with the ease of an established speaker. You will ask, what could be beyond this? Nothing, but what was beyond what ever was, and that was Pitt! He spoke at past one, for an hour and thirty-five minutes: there was more humour, wit, vívacity, finer language, more boldness, in short, more astonishing perfections, than even you, who are used to him, can conceive. He was not abusive, yet very attacking on all sides: he ridiculed my Lord Hillsborough, crushed poor Sir George, terrified the Attorney, lashed my Lord

1 Son of the Earl of Chesterfield; who upon this occasion addressed the House for the first time. “His father,” says Dr. Maty, "took infinite pains to prepare him for his first appearance as a speaker. The young man seems to have succeeded tolerably well upon the whole, but on account of his shyness was obliged to stop, and, if I am not mistaken, to have recourse to his notes. Lord Chesterfield used every argument in his power to comfort him, and to inspire him with confidence and courage to make some other attempt; but I have not heard that Mr. Stanhope ever spoke again in the House."-WRIGHT.

2 Sir George Lyttelton.-WALPOLE.

3 William Gerard Hamilton [died 1796]. It was this speech which, not being followed, as was naturally expected, by repeated exhibitions of similar eloquence acquired for him the name of single-speech Hamilton.-WALPOLE.

Granville, painted my Lord of Newcastle, attacked Mr. Fox, and even hinted up to the Duke [of Cumberland]. A few of the Scotch were in the minority, and most of the Princess's people, not all: all the Duke of Bedford's in the majority. He himself spoke in the other House for the address (though professing incertainty about the treaties themselves), against my Lord Temple and Lord Halifax, without a division. My Lord Talbot was neuter; he and I were of a party my opinion was strongly with the opposition; I could not vote for the treaties; I would not vote against Mr. Fox. It is ridiculous perhaps, at the end of such a debate, to give an account of my own silence; and as it is of very little consequence what I did, so it is very unlike me to justify myself. You know how much I hate professions of integrity; and my pride is generally too great to care what the generality of people say of me: but your heart is good enough to make me wish you should think well of mine.

You will want to know what is to be the fate of the ministry in opposition: but that I can't tell you. I don't believe they have determined what to do, more than oppose, nor that it is determined what to do with them. Though it is clear that it is very humiliating to leave them in place, you may conceive several reasons why it is not eligible to dismiss them. You know where you are, how easy it is to buy an opposition who have not places; but tell us what to do with an opposition that has places? If you say, Turn them out; I answer, That is not the way to quiet any opposition, or a ministry so constituted as ours at present. Adieu!

444. TO RICHARD BENTLEY, ESQ.

Arlington Street, Nov. 16, 1755.

NEVER was poor invulncrable immortality so soon brought to shame! Alack! I have had the gout! I would fain have persuaded myself that it was a sprain; and, then, that it was only the gout come to look for Mr. Chute at Strawberry Hill: but none of my evasions will do! I was, certainly, lame for two days; and though I repelled it-first, by getting wet-shod, and then by spirits of camphire; and though I have since tamed it more rationally by leaving off the little wine I drank, I still know where to look for it whenever I have an occasion for a political illness.-Come, my constitution is not very much broken, when, in four days after such a mortifying attack, I could sit in the House of Commons, full as