assure them of my re-thinking. Adieu, dear Madam! Don't you think we had better write oftener and shorter. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, Oct. 8, 1761. I CANNOT Swear I wrote to you again to offer your brother the place for the coronation; but I was confident I did, nay, I think so still: my proofs are, the place remained vacant, and I sent to old Richard to inquire if Mr. John was not arrived. He had no great loss, as the procession returned in the dark. Your King' will have heard that Mr. Pitt resigned last Monday. Greater pains have been taken to recover him than were used to drive him out. He is inflexible, but mighty peaceable. Lord Egremont is to have the seals to-morrow. It is a most unhappy event - France and Spain will soon let us know we ought to think so. For your part, you will be invaded; a blacker rod than you will be sent to Ireland. Would you believe that the town is a desert? The wedding filled it, the coronation crammed it; Mr. Pitt's resignation has not brought six people to London. As they could not hire a window and crowd one another to death to see him give up the seals, it seems a matter of perfect indifference. If he will accuse a single man of checking our career of glory, all the world will come to see him hanged; but what signifies the ruin of a nation, if no particular man ruins it? The Duchess of Marlborough died the night before last. 'The Earl of Halifax, lord-lieutenant of Ireland. 2 The following is Mr. Pitt's own account of this transaction, in a letter to Alderman Beckford :-"A difference of opinion with regard to measures to be taken against Spain, of the highest importance to the honour of the crown and to the most essential national interests, and this founded on what Spain had already done, not on what that court may further intend to do, was the cause of my resigning the seals. Lord Temple and I submitted in writing, and urged our most humble sentiments to his Majesty; which being overruled by the united opinion of the rest of the King's servants, I resigned, on Monday the 5th, in order not to remain responsible for measures which I was no longer allowed to guide." Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 158.-E. Thank you for your descriptions; pray continue them. Mrs. Delany I know a little, Lord Charlemont's villa is in Chambers's book.1 I have nothing new to tell you; but the grain of mustard seed sown on Monday will soon produce as large a tree as you can find in any prophecy. Adieu ! P. S. Lady Mary Wortley is arrived. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 10, 1761. PRAY, Sir, how does virtue sell in Ireland now? I think for a province they have now and then given large prices. Have you a mind to know what the biggest virtue in the world is worth? If Cicero had been a drawcansir instead of a coward, and had carried the glory of Rome to as lofty a height as he did their eloquence, for how much do you think he would have sold all that reputation? Oh! sold it! you will cry, vanity was his predominant passion; he would have trampled on sesterces like dirt, and provided the tribes did but erect statues enough for him, he was content with a bit of Sabine mutton; he would have preferred his little Tusculan villa, or the flattery of Caius Atticus at Baiæ, to the wealth of Croesus, or to the luxurious banquets of Lucullus. Take care, there is not a Tory gentleman, if there is one left, who would not have laid the same wager twenty years ago on the disinterestedness of my Lord Bath. Come, you tremble, you are so incorrupt yourself you would give the world Mr. Pitt was so too. You adore him for what he has done for us; you bless him for placing England at the head of Europe, and you don't hate him for infusing as much spirit into us, as if a Montague, Earl of Salisbury, was still at the head of our enemies. Nothing could be more just. We owe the recovery of 'Sir William Chambers's "Treatise on Civil Architecture;" a work which Walpole describes as "the most sensible book, and the most exempt from prejudices, that was ever written on that science." It first appeared in 1759. A fourth edition, edited by Mr. Gwilt, was published in 1825.-E. our affairs to him, the splendour of our country, the conquest of Canada, Louisbourg, Guadaloupe, Africa, and the East. Nothing is too much for such services; accordingly, I hope you will not think the barony of Chatham, and three thousand pounds a-year for three lives too much for my Lady Hester. She has this pittance: good night! P. S. I told you falsely in my last that Lady Mary Wortley was arrived I cannot help it if my Lady Denbigh cannot read English in all these years, but mistakes Wrottesley for Wortley. TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY. Strawberry Hill, Oct. 10, 1761. I DON'T know what business I had, Madam, to be an economist it was out of character. I wished for a thousand more drawings in that sale at Amsterdam, but concluded they would be very dear; and not having seen them, I thought it too rash to trouble your ladyship with a large commission. I wish I could give you as good an account of your commission; but it is absolutely impracticable. I employed one of the most sensible and experienced men in the customhouse; and all the result was, he could only recommend me to Mr. Amyand as the newest, and consequently the most polite of the commissioners - but the Duchess of Richmond had tried him before-to no purpose. There is no way of recovering any of your goods, but purchasing them again at the sale. What am I doing, to be talking to you of drawings and chintzes, when the world is all turned topsy turvy? Peace, as the poets would say, is not only returned to heaven, but has carried her sister Virtue along with her!-Oh! no, Peace will keep no such company- Virtue is an errant strumpet, and loves diamonds as well as my Lady Harrington, and is as fond of a coronet as my Lord Melcombe.1 Worse! worse! Bubb Dodington, having for many years placed his ambition on the acquisition of a coronet, obtained the long-wished-for prize in the preceding April.-E. 1 She will set men to cutting throats, and pick their pockets at the same time. I am in such a passion, I cannot tell you what I am angry about why, about Virtue and Mr. Pitt; two errant cheats, gipsies! I believe he was a comrade of Elizabeth Canning, when he lived at Enfield-wash. In short, the council were for making peace; But he, as loving his own pride and purposes, And in conclusion-nonsuits my mediators. He insisted on a war with Spain, was resisted, and last Monday resigned. The city breathed vengeance on his opposers, the council quaked, and the Lord knows what would have happened; but yesterday, which was only Friday, as this giant was stalking to seize the Tower of London, he stumbled over a silver penny, picked it up, carried it home to Lady Hester, and they are now as quiet, good sort of people, as my Lord and Lady Bath who lived in the vinegarbottle. In fact, Madam, this immaculate man has accepted the Barony of Chatham for his wife, with a pension of three thousand pounds a year for three lives; and though he has not quitted the House of Commons, I think my Lord Anson would now be as formidable there. The pension he has left us, is a war for three thousand lives! perhaps, for twenty times three thousand lives!-But Does this become a soldier? this become Whom armies follow'd, and a people loved? What! to sneak out of the scrape, prevent peace, and avoid the war! blast one's character, and all for the comfort of a paltry annuity, a long-necked peeress, and a couple of Grenvilles! The city looks mighty foolish, I believe, and possibly even Beckford may blush. Lord Temple resigned yesterday: I suppose his virtue pants for a dukedom. Lord Egremont has the seals; Lord Hardwicke, I fancy, the privy seal; and George Grenville, no longer Speaker, is to be the cabinet minister in the House of Commons. Oh! Madam, I am glad you are inconstant to Mr. Conway, though it is only with a Barbette! If you piqued yourself on your virtue, I should expect you would sell it to the master of a Trechscoot. I told you a lie about the King's going to Ranelagh — No matter; there is no such thing as truth. Garrick exhibits the coronation, and, opening the end of the stage, discovers a real bonfire and real mob: the houses in Drury-lane let their windows at threepence a head. Rich is going to produce a finer coronation, nay, than the real one; for there is to be a dinner for the Knights of the Bath and the Barons of the Cinque-ports, which Lord Talbot refused them. I put your Caufields and Stauntons into the hands of one of the first heralds upon earth, and who has the entire pedigree of the Careys; but he cannot find a drop of Howard or Seymour blood in the least artery about them. Good night, Madam! to TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. Arlington Street, Oct. 12, 1761. It is very lucky that you did not succeed in the expedition to Rochfort. Perhaps you might have been made a peer; and as Chatham is a naval title, it might have fallen your share. But it was reserved to crown greater glory: and lest it should not be substantial pay enough, three thousand pounds a year for three lives go along with it. Not to Mr. Pitt- you can't suppose it. Why truly, not the title, but the annuity does, and Lady Hester is the baroness; that, if he should please, he may earn an earldom himself. Don't believe me, if you have not a mind. I know I did not believe those who told me. But ask the gazette that swears it ask the King, who has kissed Lady Hesterask the city of London, who are ready to tear Mr. Pitt to pieces ask forty people I can name, who are overjoyed at it and then ask me again, who am mortified, and who have been the dupe of his disinterestedness. Oh, my dear Harry! I beg you on my knees, keep your virtue: do let me think there is still one man upon earth who despises |