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support two victories every week. Well, but you will want to know the particulars. Broglio and Soubise, united, attacked our army on the fifteenth, but were repulsed; the next day, the prince Mahomet Alli Cawn-no, no, I mean prince Ferdinand, returned the attack, and the French threw down their arms, and fled, run over my lord Harcourt, who was going to fetch the new queen; in short, I don't know how it was, but Mr. Conway is safe, and I am as happy as Mr. Pitt himself. We have only lost a lieutenant-colonel Keith; colonel Marlay and Harry Townshend are wounded.

I could beat myself for not having a flag ready to display on my round tower, and guns mounted on all my battlements. Instead of that, I have been foolishly trying on my new pictures upon my gallery. However, the oratory of our lady of Strawberry shall be dedicated next year on the anniversary of Mr. Conway's safety. Think with his intrepidity, and delicacy of honour wounded, what I had to apprehend; you shall absolutely be here on the sixteenth of next July. Mr. Hamilton* tells me your king does not set out for his new dominions till the day after the coronation; if you will come to it, I can give you a very good place for the procession; where, is a profound secret, because, if known, I should be teased to death, and none but my first friends shall be admitted. I dined with your secretary yesterday; there were Garrick and a young Mr. Burke,5 who wrote a book in the style of lord Bolingbroke, that was much admired. He is a sensible man, but has not worn off his authorism yet, and thinks there is nothing so charming as writers, and to be one. He will know better one of these days. I like Hamilton's little Marly; we walked in the great allée, and drank tea in the arbour of treillage; they talked of Shakspeare and Booth, of Swift and my lord Bath, and I was thinking of Madame Sevigné. Good night! I have a dozen other letters to write ; I must tell my friends how happy I am not as an Englishman, but as a cousin.

4 Mr. Montagu's private secretary. [Ed.]

Yours ever.

5 The celebrated Edmund Burke, who came into parliament two years after this. Many of his earliest political writings, which were published anonymously, were so masterly in style and argument, that they were generally attributed to lord Bolingbroke. [Ed.]

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Strawberry-hill, July 23, 1761.

WELL, mon beau cousin! you may be as cross as you please now: when you beat two marshals of France and cut their armies to pieces, I don't mind your pouting; but, in good truth, it was a little vexatious to have you quarrelling with me, when I was in greater pain about you than I can express. I will say no more; make a peace, under the walls of Paris if you please, and I will forgive you all-but no more battles: consider, as Dr. Hay said, it is cowardly to beat the French now.

Don't look upon yourselves as the only conquerors in the world. Pondicherri is ours, as well as the field of Kirk Denckirk. The park guns never have time to cool; we ruin ourselves in gunpowder and sky-rockets. If you have a mind to do the gallantest thing in the world after the greatest, you must escort the princess of Mecklenburgh' through France. You see what a bully I am; the moment the French run away, I am sending you on expeditions. I forgot to tell you that the king has got the isle of Dominique and the chicken-pox, two trifles that don't count in the midst of all these festivities. No more does your letter of the 8th, which I received yesterday: it is the one that is to come after the 16th, that I shall receive graciously.

Friday, 24th.

Not satisfied with the rays of glory that reached Twickenham, I came to town to bask in your success; but am most disagreeably disappointed to find you must beat the French once more, who seem to love to treat the English mob with subjects for bonfires. I had got over such an alarm, that I foolishly ran into the other extreme, and concluded there was not a French battalion left entire upon the face of Germany. Do write to me; don't be out of humour, but tell me every motion you make: I assure you I have deserved you should. Would you were out of the question, if it were only that I might feel a little humanity! There is not a blacksmith or linkboy in London that exults more than I do, upon any good news, since you

1 Her late Majesty. [Or.]

went abroad. What have I to do to hate people I never saw, and to rejoice in their calamities? Heaven send us peace, and you home! Adieu !

Yours ever.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, July 28, 1761.

No, I shall never cease being a dupe, till I have been undeceived round by every thing that calls itself a virtue. I came to town yesterday, through clouds of dust, to see The Wishes, and went actually feeling for Mr. Bentley, and full of the emotions he must be suffering. What do you think, in a house crowded, was the first thing I saw? Mr. and Madame Bentley, perched up in the front boxes, and acting audience at his own play! No, all the impudence of false patriotism never came up to it. Did one ever hear of an author that had courage to see his own first night in public? I don't believe Fielding or Foote himself ever did, and this was the modest, bashful Mr. Bentley, that died at the thought of being known for an author even by his own acquaintance. In the stage-box, was lady Bute, lord Halifax, and lord Melcombe. I must say, the two last entertained the house as much as the play; your king was prompter, and called out to the actor every minute to speak louder. The other went backwards and forwards behind the scenes, fetched the actors into the box, and was busier than harlequin. The curious prologue was not spoken, the whole very ill acted. It turned out just what I remembered it; the good parts extremely good, the rest very flat and vulgar; the genteel dialogue, I believe, might be written by Mrs. Hannah. The audience was extremely fair: the first act they bore with patience, though it promised very ill; the second is admirable, and was much applauded; so was the third; the fourth woeful; the beginning of the fifth it seemed expiring, but was revived by a delightful burlesque of the ancient chorus, which was followed by two dismal scenes, at which people yawned, but were awakened on a sudden by Harlequin's being drawn up to a gibbet, nobody new why or wherefore this raised a prodigious and continued

hiss, Harlequin all the while suspended in the air-at last they were suffered to finish the play, but nobody attended to the conclusion. Modesty and his lady all the while sat with the utmost indifference; I suppose lord Melcombe had fallen asleep before he came to this scene, and had never read it. The epilogue was about the king and new queen, and ended with a personal satire on Garrick not very kind on his own stage. To add to the judgment of this conduct, Cumberland two days ago published a pamphlet to abuse him. It was given out for tonight with more claps than hisses, but I think will not do unless they reduce it to three acts.

I am sorry you will not come to the coronation. The place I offered, I am not sure I can get for any body else; I cannot explain it to you, because I am engaged to secrecy; if I can get it for your brother John, I will, but don't tell him of it, because it is not sure. Adieu !

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Yours ever.

THIS is the 5th of August, and I just

Strawberry-hill.

receive your letI heard he had

ter of the 17th of last month by Fitzroy.' lost his pocket-book with all his dispatches, but had found it again. He was a long time finding the letter for me.

You do nothing but reproach me; I declare I will bear it no longer, though you should beat forty more marshals of France. I have already writ you two letters that would fully justify me if you receive them ; if you do not, it is not I that am in fault for not writing, but the post-offices for reading my letters, content if they would forward them when they have done with them. They seem to think, like you, that I know more news than any body. What is to be known in the dead of summer, when all the world is dispersed? Would you know who won the sweepstakes at Huntingdon? what parties are at Woburn? what officers upon guard in Betty's fruit-shop? whether the peeresses are to wear long or short tresses at the coro

1 George Fitzroy, afterwards created lord Southampton. [Or.]

nation? how many jewels lady ***** borrows of actresses? All this is your light summer wear for conversation; and, if my memory were as much stuffed with it as my ears, I might have sent you volumes last week. My nieces, lady Waldegrave and Mrs. Keppel, were here five days, and discussed the claim or disappointment of every miss in the kingdom for maid of honour. Unfortunately this new generation is not at all my affair. I cannot attend to what concerns them-Not that their trifles are less important than those of one's own time, but my mould has taken all its impressions, and can receive no more. I must grow old upon the stock I have. I, that was so impatient at all their chat, the moment they were gone, flew to my lady Suffolk, and heard her talk with great satisfaction of the late queen's coronationpetticoat. The preceding age always appears respectable to us (I mean as one advances in years), one's own age interesting, the coming age neither one nor t'other.

You may judge by this account that I have writ all my letters, or ought to have written them; and yet, for occasion to blame me, you draw a very pretty picture of my situation: all which tends to prove that I ought to write to you every day, whether I have any thing to say or not. I am writing, I am buildingboth works that will outlast the memory of battles and heroes! Truly, I believe, the one will as much as t'other. My buildings are paper, like my writings, and both will be blown away in ten years after I am dead; if they had not the substantial use of amusing me while I live, they would be worth little indeed. I will give you one instance that will sum up the vanity of great men, learned men, and buildings altogether. I heard lately, that Dr. Pearce, a very learned personage, had consented to let the tomb of Aylmer de Valence, earl of Pembroke, a very great personage, be removed for Wolfe's monument; that at first he had objected, but was wrought upon by being told that hight Aylmer was a knight templar, a very wicked set of people, as his lordship had heard, though he knew nothing of them, as they are not mentioned by Longinus. I own I thought this a made story, and wrote to his lordship, expressing my concern that one

2 Dr. Zachary Pearce, dean of Westminster, afterwards bishop of Rochester; celebrated for his critical abilities and philological learning, which were displayed in his edition of Longinus, &c. Born in London, 1690; died 29th June, 1774. [Ed.]

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