To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq. Strawberry-hill, November 12, 1763. I SEND you the catalogue as you desired; and as I told you, you will, I think, find nothing to your purpose: the present lord bought all the furniture pictures at Navestock :1 the few now to be sold are the very fine ones of the best masters, and likely to go at vast prices, for there are several people determined to have some one thing that belonged to Lord Waldegrave. I did not get the catalogue till the night before last, too late to send by the post, for I had dined with sir Richard Lyttleton at Richmond, and was forced to return by Kew-bridge, for the Thames was swelled so violently that the ferry could not work. I am here quite alone in the midst of a deluge, without Mrs. Noah, but with half as many animals. The waters are as much out as they were last year, when her vice-majesty of Ireland, that now is, sailed to Newmarket with both legs out at the fore glass, was here. A-propos, the Irish court goes on ill; they lost a question by forty the very first day on the address. The Irish, not being so absurd or so complimental as Mr. Allen, they would not suffer the word adequate to pass. The prime minister is so unpopular that they think he must be sent back. His patent and Rigby's are called in question. You see the age is not favourable to prime ministers : well! I am going amidst it all, very unwillingly; I had rather stay here, for I am sick of the storms, that once loved them so cordially over and above, I am not well; this is the third winter my nightly fever has returned; it comes like the bellman before Christmas, to put me in mind of my mortality. 2 Sir Michael Foster is dead, a Whig of the old rock; he is a greater loss to his country than the prim attorney-general,3 who has resigned, or than the attorney's father,' who is dying, will be. 1 In Essex, the seat of the Waldegraves. [Ed.] 2 The countess of Northumberland. [Ed.] 3 The hon. Charles Yorke, who was subsequently appointed lord high chancellor, but died suddenly, 22d January 1770, while the patent of his creation to the barony of Morden was in progress. [Ed.] 4 Philip Yorke, first earl of Hardwicke, whose death did not take place however until the 6th March 1764. [Ed.] My gallery is still in such request, that, though the middle of November, I gave out a ticket to-day for seeing it. I see little of it myself, for I cannot sit alone in such state; I should think myself like the mad duchess of Albemarle, who fancied herself empress of China. Adieu! Yours ever. I ask you nothing about your coming, for I conclude we shall not see you till Christmas. My compliments to your brother John, and your almoner Mr. Miller. To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq. Arlington-street, Nov. 20, 1763. You are in the wrong; believe me you are in the wrong to stay in the country; London never was so entertaining since it had a steeple or a madhouse. Cowards fight duels; secretaries of state turn methodists on the Tuesday, and are expelled the play-house for blasphemy on Friday. I am not turned methodist, but patriot, and, what is more extraordinary, am not going to have a place. What is more wonderful still, lord Hardwicke has made two of his sons resign their employments. I know my letter sounds as enigmatic as Merlin's almanack: but my events have really happened. I had almost persuaded myself like you to quit the world; thank my stars I did not. Why I have done nothing but laugh since last Sunday; though on Tuesday I was one of a hundred and eleven, who were outvoted by three hundred; no laughing matter generally to a true patriot, whether he thinks his country undone or himself. Nay, I am still more absurd; even for my dear country's sake I cannot bring myself to connect with lord Hardwicke, or the duke of Newcastle, though they are in the minority—an unprecedented case, not to love every body one despises, when they are of the same side. On the contrary, I fear I resemble a fond woman, and dote on the dear betrayer. In short, and to write something that you can understand, you know I have long had 5 Widow of Christopher duke of Albemarle, and daughter of the duke of Newcastle. [Or.] a partiality for your cousin Sandwich, who has out Sandwiched himself. He has impeached Wilkes for a blasphemous poem,' and has been expelled for blasphemy himself by the beef-steak club at Covent-garden. Wilkes has been shot by Martin,2 and instead of being burnt at an auto da fé, as the bishop of Gloucester intended, is reverenced as a saint by the mob, and, if he dies, I suppose, the people will squint themselves into convulsions at his tomb, in honour of his memory. Now is not this better than feeding one's birds and one's bantams, poring one's eyes out over old histories, not half so extraordinary as the present, or ambling to squire Bencow's on one's padnag, and playing at cribbage with one's brother John and one's parson? Prithee come to town, and let us put off taking the veil for another year besides, by this time twelvemonth we are sure the world will be a year older in wickedness, and we shall have more matter for meditation. One would not leave it methinks till it comes to the worst, and that time cannot be many months off. In the mean time, I have bespoken a dagger, in case the circumstance should grow so classic as to make it becoming to kill oneself; however, though disposed to quit the world, as I have no mind to leave it entirely, I shall put off my death to the last minute, and do nothing rashly, till I see Mr. Pitt and lord Temple place themselves in their curule chairs in St. James'smarket, and resign their throats to the victors. I am determined to see them dead first, lest they should play me a trick, and be hobbling to Buckingham-house, while I am shivering and waiting for them on the banks of Lethe. Adieu! Yours, HORATIUS. 1 An Essay on Woman, for the publication of which Wilkes was indicted in the Court of King's Bench, 21st February 1764, and found guilty. [Ed.] A duel was fought, 16th November 1763, between Mr. Wilkes and Samuel Martin, esq. M.P. for Camelford and late secretary to the treasury, who having been grossly abused in the North Briton, challenged Wilkes, and wounded him severely. [Ed.] DEAR SIR, TO THE REV. MR. COLE. Arlington-street, Dec. 6, 1763. According to custom I am excessively obliged to you: you are continually giving me proofs of your kindness. I have now three packets to thank you for, full of information, and have only lamented the trouble you have given yourself. I am glad for the tomb's sake and my own that sir Giles Allington's monument is restored. The draught you have sent is very perfect. The account of your ancestor Tuer shall not be forgotten in my next edition. The pedigree of Allington I had from Collins before his death, but I think not so perfect as yours. You have made one little slip in it: my mother was grand-daughter, not daughter of sir John Shorter, and was not heiress, having three brothers, who all died after her, and we only quarter the arms of Shorter, which I fancy occasioned the mistake, by their leaving no children. The verses by sir Edward Walpole, and the translation by Bland, are published in my description of Houghton. I am come late from the House of Lords, and am just going to the opera, so you will excuse me saying more than that I have a print of archbishop Hutton for you (it is Dr. Ducarel's), and a little plate of Strawberry; but I do not send them by the post, as it would crease them: if you will tell me how to convey them otherwise, I will. I repeat many thanks to you. To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq. Arlington-street, Jan. 11, 1764. Ir is an age, I own, since I wrote to you; but, except politics, what was there to send you? and for politics, the present are too contemptible to be recorded by any body but journalists, gazetteers, and such historians! The ordinary of Newgate, or Mr. * * * *, who write for their monthly half-crown, and who are indifferent whether lord Bute, lord Melcombe, or Maclean,' is their hero, may swear they find diamonds on dung-hills; but you will excuse me, if I let our correspondence lie dormant 1A celebrated highwayman. [Ed.] rather than deal in such trash. I am forced to send lord Hertford and sir Horace Mann such garbage, because they are out of England, and the sea softens and makes palatable any potion, as it does claret; but, unless I can divert you, I had rather wait till we can laugh together: the best employment for friends, who do not mean to pick one another's pocket, nor make a property of either's frankness. Instead of politics, therefore, I shall amuse you to-day with a fairy tale. I was desired to be at my lady Suffolk's on new year's morn, where I found lady Temple and others. On the toilette, miss Hotham spied a small round box. She seized it with all the eagerness and curiosity of eleven years. In it was wrapped up a heart-diamond ring, and a paper in which, in a hand as small as Buckinger's, who used to write the Lord's Prayer in the compass of a silver penny, were the following lines: Sent by a sylph, unheard, unseen, A new year's gift from Mab our queen: You will be pinch'd all black and blue. To shew abroad your mottled face: Then seal your lips, put on the ring, And sometimes think of Ob. the king. You will easily guess that lady Temple3 was the poetess, and that we were delighted with the genteelness of the thought and execution. The child, you may imagine, was less transported with the poetry than the present. Her attention, however, was hurried backwards and forwards from the ring to a new coat, that she had been trying on when sent for down; impatient to revisit her coat, and to shew the ring to her maid, she whisked up stairs; when she came down again, she found a letter sealed, and lying on the floor-new exclamations! lady Suffolk bade her open it here it is : Your tongue, too nimble for your sense, Is guilty of a high offence; Hath introduced unkind debate, And topsy-turvy turned our state. 2 Niece of the countess of Suffolk. [Ed.] 3 Anna, one of the daughters and co-heiresses of Thomas Chambers, of the county of Middlesex, esq., and wife of Richard Grenville Temple, earl Temple, to whom she was married, 9th May 1737. [Ed.] |