possible, from two at noon till past five in the morning, as we did but last Thursday. The new opposition attacked the address.-Who are the new opposition ?-Why, the old opposition: Pitt and the Grenvilles; indeed, with Legge instead of Sir George Lyttelton. Judge how entertaining it was to me to hear Lyttelton answer Grenville, and Pitt Lyttelton! The debate, long and uninterrupted as it was, was a great deal of it extremely fine: the numbers did not answer to the merit: the new friends, the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Fox, had 311 to 105. The bon-mot in fashion is, that the staff was very good, but they wanted private men. Pitt surpassed himself, and then I need not tell you that he surpassed Cicero and Demosthenes. What a figure would they, with their formal, laboured cabinet orations, make vis-à-vis his manly vivacity and dashing eloquence at one o'clock in the morning, after sitting in that heat for eleven hours! He spoke above an hour and a half, with scarce a bad sentence: the most admired part was a comparison he drew of the two parts of the new administration, to the conflux of the Rhone and the Saone; "the latter a gentle, feeble, languid stream, languid but not deep; the other a boisterous and overbearing torrent ; but they join at last; and long may they continue united, to the comfort of each other, and to the glory, honour, and happiness of this nation!" I hope you are not mean-spirited enough to dread an invasion, when the senatorial contests are reviving in the temple of Concord.-But will it make a party? Yes, truly; I never saw so promising a prospect. Would not it be cruel, at such a period to be laid up?

I have only had a note from you to promise me a letter; but it is not arrived :-but the partridges are, and well; and I thank you.

England seems returning: for those who are not in Parliament, there are nightly riots at Drury-lane, where there is an anti-Gallican party against some French dancers. The young men of quality have protected them till last night, when, being Opera night, the galleries were victorious.

Montagu writes me many kind things for you: he is in Cheshire,

1 Walpole means the disposition towards mobs and rioting at public places, which was then common among young men, and had been a sort of fashion in his early youth.-WRIGHT.

2 A spectacle brought out by Garrick, in the beginning of this month, at Drurylane, gave great offence to the public, in consequence of the number of foreigners employed in it; and, on the sixth representation, a violent riot took place, by which a damage to the theatre was incurred of several thousand pounds.-WRIGHT.

but comes to town this winter. Adieu! I have so much to say, that I have time to say but very little.

P.S. George Selwyn hearing much talk of a sea-war or a continent, said, "I am for a sca-war and a continent admiral.

445. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Nov. 16, 1755.

I HAVE received a letter from you of Oct. 25th, full of expectation of the invasion I announced to you-but we have got two new partics erected, and if you imagine that the invasion is attended to, any more than as it is played off by both those parties, you know little of England. The Parliament met three days ago: we have been so un-English lately as to have no parties at all, have now got what never was seen before, an opposition in administration. Mr. Pitt, Mr. Legge, and their adherents, no great number, have declared open and unrelenting war with the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Fox; and on the address, which hinted approbation of the late treaties, and promised direct support of Hanover, we sat till five the next morning. If eloquence could convince, Mr. Pitt would have had more than 105 against 311; but it is long since the arts of persuasion were artful enough to persuade―rhetoric was invented before places and commissions! The expectation of the world is suspended, to see whether these gentlemen will resign or be dismissed: perhaps neither; perhaps they may continue in place and opposition; perhaps they may continue in place and not oppose. Bossuet wrote 'L'Histoire des Variations de l'Eglise-I think I could make as entertaining a history, though not so well written, des Variations de l'Etat:' I mean of changes and counter-changes of party. The Duke of Newcastle thought himself undone, beat up all quarters for support, and finds himself stronger than ever. Mr. Fox was thought so unpopular, that his support was thought as dangerous as want of defence; every thing bows to him. The Tories hate both him and Pitt so much, that they sit still to see them worry one another; they don't seem to have yet found out that while there are parts and ambition, they will be obliged to follow and to hate by turns every man who has both.

I don't at all understand my Lady Orford's politics; but that is

no wonder, when I am sure she does not understand ours. Nobody knows what to make of the French inactivity: if they intend some great stroke, the very delay and forbearance tells us to prepare for it, and a surprise prepared for loses much of its value. For my own part, I have not prophetic sagacity enough to foresee what will be even the probable event either of our warlike or domestic politics. I desired your brother to write you an account of General Johnson's victory; the only great circumstance in our favour that has happened yet. The greatest mystery of all is the conduct of Admiral Boscawen; since he left England, though they write private letters to their friends, he and all his officers have not sent a single line to the Admiralty; after great pain and uncertainty about him, a notion prevailed yesterday, how well-founded I know not, that without any orders he is gone to attack Louisbourgh-considering all I have mentioned, he ought to be very sure of success. Adieu! my dear Sir, I have told you the heads of all I know, and have not time to be more particular.

P.S. I am glad to be able to contradict an untruth, before I send it away Admiral Boscawen and his fleet are arrived, and have brought along with them a French man-of-war of seventy-four guns.

446. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, Nov. 25, 1755.

I HAVE been so hurried since I came to town, and so enclosed in the House of Commons, that I have not been able to write a line. sooner. I now write, to notify that your plants will set out according to your direction next Monday, and are ordered to be left at Namptwich.

I differ with the doctors about planting evergreens in spring; if it happens to be wet weather, it may be better than exposing them to a first winter; but the cold dry winds, that generally prevail in spring, are ten times more pernicious. In my own opinion, the end of September is the best season, for then they shoot before the hard weather comes. But the plants I send you are so very small, that they are equally secure in any season, and would bear removing in the middle of summer; a handful of dung will clothe them all for the whole winter.

There is a most dreadful account of an earthquake in Lisbon,' but several people will not believe it. There have been lately such earthquakes and waterquakes, and rocks rent, and other strange phenomena, that one would think the world exceedingly out of repair. I am not prophet enough to believe that such convulsions relate solely to the struggles between Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, or even portend any between the Georges and Jameses. You have already heard, I suppose, that Pitt, Legge, and George Grenville, are dismissed, and that Sir George Lyttelton is Chancellor of the Exchequer. My Lord Temple says that Sir George Lyttelton said he would quit his place when they did, and that he has kept his word! The world expects your cousin to resign; but I believe all efforts are used to retain him. Joan, the fair maid of Saxe-Gotha, did not speak to Mr. Fox or Sir George when they kissed her hand last Sunday. No more places are vacated or filled up yet.

It is an age since I have heard from Mr. Bentley; the war or the weather have interrupted all communication. Adieu! let me know, at your leisure, when one is likely to see you.

447. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Dec. 4, 1755.

LONG before you receive this, my dear Sir, you will have learned general, if not particular accounts of the dreadful desolation at Lisbon: the particulars indeed are not yet come hither; all we have heard hitherto is from France, and from Sir Benjamin Keene at Madrid. The catastrophe is greater than ever happened even in your neighbourhood, Naples. Our share is very considerable, and by some reckoned at four millions. We are dispatching a ship with a present of an hundred thousand pounds in provisions and necessaries, for they want everything. There have been Kings of Spain who would have profited of such a calamity; but the present monarch has only acted as if he had a title to Portugal, by showing himself a father to that people.*

We are settled, politically, into a regular opposition. Mr. Pitt, Mr. Legge, and George Grenville have received their dismissions,

1 The dreadful earthquake, on the 1st of November, which laid nearly the whole city in ruins. The number of inhabitants who lost their lives was variously reported, but generally estimated at about ten thousand.--WRIGHT.

2 The Spanish monarch did not long preserve that spirit of justice.- WALPOLE.

and oppose regularly. Sir George Lyttelton, who last year broke with that connection, is made Chancellor of the Exchequer. As the subsidies are not yet voted, and as the opposition, though weak in numbers, are very strong in speakers, no other places will be given away till Christmas, that the re-elections may be made in the holidays.

There are flying reports that General Johnson, our only hero at present, has taken Crown-point, but the report is entirely unconfirmed by any good authority. The invasion that I announced to you, is very equivocal; there is some suspicion that it was only called in as an ally to the subsidiary treaties: many that come from France say, that on their coasts they are dreading an invasion from us. Nothing is certain but their forbearance and good-breeding-the meaning of that is very uncertain.

Shall I send away a letter with only these three paragraphs! I must, if I write at all. There are no private news at all; the earth-. quake, the opposition, and the war, are the only topics; each of those topics will be very fruitful, and you shall hear of their offspring-at present, good night!

448. TO RICHARD BENTLEY, ESQ.

Arlington Street, Dec. 17, 1755.

AFTER an immense interval, I have at last received a long letter from you, of a very old date (November 5th), which amply indemnifies my patience; nay, almost makes me amends for your blindness; for I think, unless you had totally lost your eyes, you would not refuse me a pleasure so easy to yourself as now and then sending me a drawing. I can't call it laziness; one may be too idle to amuse one's self, but sure one is never so fond of idleness as to prefer it to the power of obliging a person one loves! And yet I own your letter has made me amends, the wit of your pen recompenses the stupidity of your pencil; the castus you have taken up supplies a little the artem you have relinquished. I could quote twenty passages that have charmed me; the picture of Lady Prudence and her family; your idol that gave you hail when you prayed for sunshine; misfortune the teacher of superstition; unmarried people being the fashion in heaven; the Spectator-hacked phrases; Mr. Spence's blindness to Pope's mortality; and, above all, the criticism on the Queen in Hamlet, is most delightful. There