it me. 1 does, and lady Hesther 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 But ask the gazette that swears it—ask the king, who has kissed lady Hesther-ask 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 money. I wrote you an account last week of his resignation. Could you have believed that in four days he would have tumbled from the conquest of Spain to receiving a quarter's pension from Mr. West? To-day he has advertised his seven coach-horses to be sold-Three thousand pounds of his own will not keep a coach and six. I protest I believe he is mad, and lord Temple thinks so too; for he resigned the same morning that Pitt accepted the pension. George Grenville is minister in the House of Commons. I don't know who will be speaker. They talk of Prowse, Hussey, Bacon, and even of old sir John Rushout. Delaval has said an admirable thing: he blames Pitt-not as you and I do; but calls him fool; and says, if he had gone into the city, told them he had a poor wife and children unprovided for, and had opened a subscription, he would have got five hundred thousand pounds, instead of three thousand pounds a year. In the mean time the good man has saddled us with a war which we can neither carry on nor carry off. 'Tis pitiful! 'tis wondrous pitiful! Is the communication stopped, that we never hear from you? I own 'tis an Irish question. I am out of humour: my visions are dispelled, and you are still abroad. As I cannot put Mr. Pitt to death, at least I have buried him here is his epitaph: Admire his eloquence-It mounted higher Adore his services-our Lions view Ranging, where Roman eagles never flew : -But oh! beware three thousand pounds a year! 1 Secretary to the treasury. [Or.] 2 October 13. JEMMY Grenville resigned yesterday. Lord Temple is all hostility; and goes to the drawing-room to tell every body how angry he is with the court-but what is sir Joseph Wittol, when Nol Bluff is pacific? They talk of erecting a tavern in the city, called The Salutation: the sign to represent lord Bath and Mr. Pitt embracing. These are shameful times. Adieu ! Yours ever. To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq. Strawberry-hill, October 24, 1761. I HAVE got two letters from you, and am sensibly pleased with your satisfaction. I love your cousin for his behaviour to you; he will never place his friendship better. His parts and dignity, I did not doubt, would bear him out. I fear nothing but your spirits and the frank openness of your heart; keep them within bounds, and you will return in health, and with the serenity I wish you long to enjoy. You have heard our politics; they do not mend; sick of glory, without being tired of war, and surfeited with unanimity before it had finished its work, we are running into all kinds of confusion. The city have bethought themselves, aud have voted that they will still admire Mr. Pitt; consequently, he, without the check of seeming virtue, may do what he pleases. An address of thanks to him has been carried by one hundred and nine against fifteen, and the city are to instruct their members; that is, because we are disappointed of a Spanish war, we must have one at home. Merciful! how old I am grown! Here am I, not liking a civil war! Do you know me? I am no longer that Gracchus, who, when Mr. Bentley told him something or other, I don't know what, would make a sect, answered quickly, " will 2 The right hon. James Grenville, brother of lord Temple, born 12th February, 1715, and died 14th September, 1783, leaving two sons, James, born 6th July, 1742, created baron Glastonbury, with a special remainder to his brother, general Richard Grenville, in 1797, and died unmarried 26th April 1825, when the title became extinct, general Grenville having died in 1823. [Ed.] it make a party?" In short, I think I am always to be in contradiction; now I am loving my country. Worksop is burnt down; I don't know the circumstances; the duke and duchess are at Bath; it has not been finished a month; the last furniture was brought in for the duke of York: I have some comfort that I had seen it, and, except the bare chambers, in which the queen of Scots lodged, nothing remained of ancient time. I am much obliged to Mr. Hamilton's civilities; but I don't take too much to myself; yet it is no drawback to think that he sees and compliments your friendship for me. I shall use his permission of sending you any thing that I think will bear the sea; but how must I send it? by what conveyance to the sea, and where deliver it? Pamphlets swarm already; none very good, and chiefly grave; you would not have them. Mr. Glover has published his long-hoarded Medea, as an introduction to the House of Commons; it had been more proper to usher him from school to the university. There are a few good lines, not much conduct, and a quantity of iambics and trochaics, that scarce speak English, and yet have no rhyme to keep one another in countenance. If his chariot is stopped at Temple-bar, I suppose he will take it for the straits of Thermopylæ, and be delivered of his first speech before its time. The catalogue of the duke of Devonshire's collection is only in the six volumes of the Description of London. I did print about a dozen, and gave them all away so totally, that on searching, I had not reserved one for myself. When we are at leisure, I will reprint a few more, and you shall have one for your speaker. I don't know who is to be ours: Prowse, they say, has refused; sir J. Cust3 was the last named: but I am here and know nothing; sorry that I shall hear any thing on Tuesday se'nnight. 1 The duke of Norfolk's fine seat at Worksop Manor, Nottinghamshire, was burnt down on the 20th October 1761. The damage was estimated at £100,000. When the duke heard of it, he exclaimed, "God's will be done!" and the duchess, "How many besides us are sufferers by the like calamity." [Ed.] 2 Glover's Tragedy of Medea. [Ed.] 3 Sir John Cust was elected speaker, and approved of by the king, 6th November 1761. [Ed.] Pray pick me up any prints of lord-lieutenants, Irish bishops, ladies-nay, or patriots; but I will not trouble you for a snuffbox or toothpick-case, made of a bit of the Giant's Causeway. My Anecdotes of Painting will scarcely appear before Christmas. My gallery and cabinet are at full stop till spring, but I shall be sorry to leave it all in ten days; October, that scarce ever deceived one before, has exhibited a deluge; but it has recovered, and promised to behave well as long as it lives, like a dying sinner. Good night. Yours ever. P.S. My niece lost the coronation for only a daughter.* It makes me smile, when I reflect that you are come into the world again, and that I have above half left it. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY. 2 Strawberry-hill, June 28, 1760. How strange it seems! You are talking to me of the king's wedding, while we are thinking of a civil war. Why, the king's wedding was a century ago, almost two months; even the coronation that happened half an age ago, is quite forgot. The post to Germany cannot keep pace with our revolutions. Who knows but you may still be thinking that Mr. Pitt is the most disinterested man in the world? Truly, as far as the votes of a common-council can make him so, he is. Like Cromwell, he has always promoted the self-denying ordinance, and has contrived to be excused from it himself. The city could no longer choose who should be their man of virtue; there was not one left: by all rules they ought next to have pitched upon one who was the oldest offender: instead of that, they have re-elected the most recent: and, as if virtue was a borough, Mr. Pitt is re-chosen for it, on vacating his seat. Well, but all this is very very serious: I shall offer you a prophetic picture, and shall be very glad if I am not a true soothsayer. The city have voted an address of thanks to Mr. Pitt, and given instructions to their The countess of Waldegrave, who was brought to bed of a daughter on the 7th October 1761. [Ed.] members; the chief articles of which are, to promote an inquiry into the disposal of the money that has been granted, and to consent to no peace, unless we are to retain all, or very near all, our conquests. Thus the city of London usurp the right of making peace and war. But is the government to be dictated to by one town? By no means. But suppose they are not-what is the consequence? How will the money be raised? If it cannot be raised without them, Mr. Pitt must again be minister: that you think would easily be accommodated. Stay, stay; he and lord Temple have declared against the whole cabinet council. Why, that they have done before now, and yet have acted with them again. It is very true; but a little word has escaped Mr. Pitt, which never entered into his former declarations; nay, nor into Cromwell's, nor Hugh Capet's, nor Julius Cæsar's, nor any reformer's of ancient time. He has happened to say, he will guide. Now, though the cabinet council are mighty willing to be guided, when they cannot help it, yet they wish to have appearances saved: they cannot be fond of being told they are to be guided; still less, that other people should be told so. Here, then, is Mr. Pitt and the common-council on one hand, the great lords on the other. I protest, I do not see but it will come to this. Will it allay the confusion, if Mr. Fox is retained on the side of the court? Here are no Whigs and Tories, harmless people, that are content with worrying one another for 150 years together. The new parties are, I will, and You shall not; and their principles do not admit delay. However, this age is of suppler mould than some of its predecessors; and this may come round again, by a coup de baguette, when one least expects it. If it should not, the honestest part one can take is to look on, and try if one can do any good if matters go too far. I am charmed with the castle of Hercules; it is the boldest 2 1 Mr. Pitt declared in the council, he "would no longer remain in a situation, which made him responsible for measures he was no longer allowed to guide;" an observation which called forth from the earl of Grenville, the president, the remark, that "however he (Mr. Pitt) might have convinced himself of his infallibility, still it remains that we should be equally convinced before we can resign our understanding to his dictation, or join with him in the measure he proposes." [Ed.] 2 Alluding to a description of a building in Hesse Cassel, given by Mr. Conway in one of his letters. [Or.] |