his coat, and then received a wound fourteen inches deep into his body. He was carried to his house in Berkeleystreet, made his will with the greatest composure, and dictated a paper, which, they say, allows it was a fair duel, and died at nine this morning. Lord Byron is not gone off, but says he will take his trial, which, if the Coroner brings in a verdict of manslaughter, may, according to precedent, be in the House of Lords, and without the ceremonial of Westminster Hall. George Selwyn is much missed on this occasion, but we conclude it will bring him over.1 feel for both families, though I know none of either, but poor Lady Carlisle, whom I am sure you will pity.

2

Our last three Saturdays at the Opera have been prodigious, and a new opera by Bach3 last night was so crowded, that there were ladies standing behind the scenes during the whole performance. Adieu! my dear lord: as this goes by a private hand, you may possibly receive its successor before it.

TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD.

Arlington Street, Feb. 12, 1765.

A GREAT many letters pass between us, my dear lord, but I think they are almost all of my writing. I have not heard from you this age. I sent you two packets together by Mr. Freeman, with an account of our chief debates. Since the long day, I have been much out of order with a cold and cough, that turned to a fever: I am now taking James's powder, not without apprehensions of the gout, which it gave me two or three years ago.

There has been nothing of note in Parliament but one

'Mr. Selwyn's morbid curiosity after trials and executions is well known.-C.

2 Isabella, only sister of Lord Byron, wife of the fourth Earl of Carlisle.-E.

3" Adriano in Siria." The expectations of the public the first night this drama was performed occasioned such a crowd at the King's theatre as had seldom been seen there before; but whether from heat or inconvenience, the unreasonableness of expectation, the composer being out of fancy, or too anxious to please, Dr. Burney says, the opera failed, and that every one came out of the theatre disappointed.-E.

slight day on the American taxes,' which, Charles Townshend supporting, received a pretty heavy thump from Barré, who is the present Pitt, and the dread of all the vociferous Norths and Rigbys, on whose lungs depended so much of Mr. Grenville's power. Do you never hear them to Paris?

The operations of the opposition are suspended in compliment to Mr. Pitt, who has declared himself so warmly for the question on the Dismission of officers, that that motion waits for his recovery. A call of the House is appointed for next Wednesday, but as he has had a relapse, the motion will probably be deferred. I should be very glad if it was to be dropped entirely for this session, but the young men are warm and not easily bridled.

If it was not too long to transcribe, I would send you an entertaining petition of the perriwig-makers to the King, in which they complain that men will wear their own hair. Should one almost wonder if carpenters were to remonstrate, that since the peace their trade decays, and that there is no demand for wooden legs? Apropos, my Lady Hertford's friend, Lady Harriot Vernon,3 has quarrelled with me for smiling at the enormous head-gear of her daughter, Lady Grosvenor. She came one night to Northumberland-house with such display of friz, that it literally spread beyond her shoulders. I happened to say it looked as if her parents had stinted her in hair before marriage, and that she was determined to indulge her fancy now. This, among ten thousand things said by all the world, was reported to Lady Harriot, and has occasioned my disgrace. As she never found fault with anybody herself, I excuse her! You will be less surprised to

The resolutions which were the foundation of the famous Stampact.-E.

2 The substance of this petition, and the grave answer which the King was advised to give to such a ludicrous appeal, are preserved in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1765, p. 95; where also we learn that Mr. Walpole's idea of the Carpenters' petition was put in practice, and his Majesty was humbly entreated to wear a wooden leg himself, and to enjoin all his servants to do the same. It may, therefore, be presumed that this jeu d'esprit was from the pen of Mr. Walpole.-C.

3

Lady Harriot Wentworth, sister of the last Lord Strafford, wife of Henry Vernon, Esq. and mother of Lady Grosvenor, whose intrigue with the Duke of Cumberland made so much noise.-C.

hear that the Duchess of Queensberry has not yet done dressing herself marvellously: she was at court on Sunday in a gown and petticoat of red flannel. The same day the Guerchys made a dinner for her, and invited Lord and Lady Hyde,' the Forbes's, and her other particular friends: in the morning she sent word she was to go out of town, but as soon as dinner was over, arrived at Madame de Guerchy's, and said she had been at court.

Poor Madame de Seillern, the imperial ambassadress, has lost her only daughter and favourite child, a young widow of twenty-two, whom she was expecting from Vienna. The news came but this day se'nnight; and the ambassador, who is as brutal as she is gentle and amiable, has insisted on her having company at dinner to-day, and her assembly as usual.

The town says that Lord and Lady Abergavenny are parted, and that he has not been much milder than Monsieur de Seillern on the chapter of a mistress he has taken. I don't know the truth of this; but his lordship's heart, I believe, is more inflammable than tender.

3

Lady Sophia Thomas has begged me to trouble you with a small commission. It is to send me for her twelve little bottles of "le Baume de Vie, composé par le Sieur Lievre, apoticaire distillateur du Roi." If George Selwyn or Lord March are not set out, they would bring it with pleasure, especially as she lives at the Duke of Queensberry's.

We have not a new book, play, intrigue, marriage, elopement, or quarrel; in short, we are very dull. For politics, unless the ministers wantonly thrust their hands into some fire, I think there will not even be a smoke. I am glad of it, for my heart is set on my journey to Paris, and I hate everything that stops me. Lord Byron's foolish trial is likely to protract the session a little; but unless there is any particu

1 Thomas Villers, second son of Lord Jersey, first Lord Hyde of his family: his lady was Charlotte, daughter of Lady Jane Hyde, wife of William Earl of Essex, daughter of Henry, second Earl of Clarendon, and sister of the Duchess of Queensberry.-C.

2 George, fifteenth Lord Abergavenny; and his lady, Henrietta Pelham, sister of the first Earl Chichester: she died in 1768.-E.

Lady Sophia Keppel, daughter of the first Earl of Albemarle, and wife of Colonel Thomas.-E.

lar business, I shall not stay for a puppet-show. Indeed, I can defend my staying here by nothing but my ties to your brother. My health, I am sure, would be better in another climate in winter. Long days in the House kill me, and weary me into the bargain. The individuals of each party are alike indifferent to me; nor can I at this time of day grow to love men whom I have laughed at all my lifetimeno, I cannot alter;-Charles Yorke or a Charles Townshend are alike to me, whether ministers or patriots. Men do not change in my eyes, because they quit a black livery for a white one. When one has seen the whole scene shifted round and round so often, one only smiles, whoever is the present Polonius or the gravedigger, whether they jeer the Prince, or flatter his phrenzy.

Thursday night, 14th.

The new assembly-room at Almack's was opened the night before last, and they say is very magnificent, but it was empty; half the town is ill with colds, and many were afraid to go, as the house is scarcely built yet. Almack advertised that it was built with hot bricks and boiling water- think what a rage there must be for public places, if this notice, instead of terrifying, could draw anybody thither. They tell me the ceilings were dropping with wet-but can you believe me, when I assure you the Duke of Cumberland was there? -Nay, had had a levee in the morning, and went to the Opera before the assembly! There is a vast flight of steps, and he was forced to rest two or three times. If he dies of it, and how should he not?-it will sound very silly when Hercules or Theseus ask him what he died of, to reply, "I caught my death on a damp staircase at a new club-room."

Williams, the reprinter of the North Briton, stood in the pillory to-day in Palace-yard. He went in a hackney-coach, the number of which was 45. The mob erected a gallows opposite to him, on which they hung a boot1 with a bonnet of Then a collection was made for Williams, which

straw.

1 A Jack-boot, in allusion to the Christian name and title of Lord Bute.-C.

496

CORRESPONDENCE OF HON. HORACE WALPOLE. 1765.

amounted to near 2007. In short, every public event informs the administration how thoroughly they are detested, and that they have not a friend whom they do not buy. Who can wonder, when every man of virtue is proscribed, and they have neither parts nor characters to impose even upon the mob! Think to what a government is sunk, when a Secretary of State is called in Parliament to his face "the most profligate sad dog in the kingdom," and not a man can open his lips in his defence. Sure power must have some strange unknown charm, when it can compensate for such contempt! I see many who triumph in these bitter pills which the ministry are so often forced to swallow; I own I do not; it is more mortifying to me to reflect how great and respectable we were three years ago, than satisfactory to see those insulted who have brought such shame upon us. "Tis poor amends to national honour to know, that if a printer is set in the pillory, his country wishes it was my Lord This, or Mr. That. They will be gathered to the Oxfords, and Bolingbrokes, and ignominious3 of former days; but the wound they have inflicted is perhaps indelible. That goes to my heart, who had felt all the Roman pride of being one of the first nations upon earth! Good night! I will go to bed, and dream of Kings drawn in triumph; and then I will go to Paris, and dream I am proconsul there: pray, take care not to let me be wakened with an account of an invasion having taken place from Dunkirk ! Yours ever, H. W.

1

1 In a blue purse trimmed with orange, the colour of the revolution, in opposition to the Stuart.-C. 2 See antè, p. 489.

We might be surprised at finding a person of Mr. Walpole's taste and judgment, describing Harley and St. John as ignominious, if we did not recollect, that during their administration his father had been sent to the Tower, and expelled the House of Commons for alleged official corruptions. It were to be wished that Mr. Walpole's personal prejudices could always be traced to so amiable a source.-C.

The demolition of Dunkirk was one of the articles of the late treaty of peace, on which discussions were still depending.-C.

END OF THE FOURTH VOLUME.

LONDON: PRINTED BY S. BENTLEY, BANGOR HOUSE, SHOE LANE.