balance on his side; but though the armies are within a mile of one another, I don't think it clear there will be a battle, as we may lose much more than we can get. A defeat will cost Hanover and Hesse; a victory cannot be vast enough to leave us at liberty to assist the King of Prussia. He gave us a little advantage the other day; out-witted Daun, and took his camp and magazines, and aimed at Dresden; but to-day the siege is raised. Daun sometimes misses himself, but never loses himself. It is not the fashion to admire him, but for my part, I should think it worth while to give the Empress a dozen Wolfes and Laudons, to lay aside the cautious Marshal. Apropos to Wolfe, I cannot imagine what you mean by a design executing at Rome for his tomb. The designs have been laid before my Lord Chamberlain several months; Wilton, Adam, Chambers, and others, all gave in their drawings immediately; and I think the Duke of Devonshire decided for the first. Do explain this to me, or get a positive explanation of it—and whether anybody is drawing for Adam or Chambers.

Mr. Chute and Mr. Bentley, to whom I showed your accounts of the Papa-Portuguese war, were infinitely diverted, as I was too, with it. The Portuguese, "who will turn Jews not Protestants," and the Pope's confession, "which does more honour to his sincerity than to his infallibility," are delightful. I will tell you who will neither turn Jew nor Protestant, nay, nor Methodist, which is much more in fashion than either-Monsieur Fuentes will not; he has given the Virgin Mary (who he fancies hates public places, because he never met her at one,) his honour that he never will go to any more. What a charming sort of Spanish Ambassador! I wish they always sent us such-the worst they can do, is to buy half a dozen converts.

My Lady Lincoln,' who was ready to be brought to bed, is dead in three hours of convulsions. It has been a fatal year to great ladies within this twelvemonth have gone off Lady Essex, Lady Besborough, Lady Granby, Lady Anson, and Lady Lincoln. My Lady Coventry is still alive, sometimes at the point of death, sometimes recovering. They fixed the spring; now the autumn is to be critical for her.

I set out for my Lord Strafford's [Wentworth Castle] to-morrow se'nnight, so shall not be able to send you any victory this fortnight.

1 Catherine, eldest daughter of Henry Pelham, wife of Henry Clinton, Earl of Lincoln, afterwards Duke of Newcastle.-WALPOLE.

General Clive' is arrived all over estates and diamonds. If a beggar asks charity, he says, "Friend, I have no small brilliants about me."

I forgot to tell you that Stosch was to dine with General Guise." The latter has notified to Christ Church, Oxford, that in his will he has given them his collection of pictures. Adieu!

MY DEAR LORD:

676. TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.

Strawberry Hill, August 7, 1760.

You will laugh, but I am ready to cry, when I tell you that I have no notion when I shall be able to wait on you. Such a calamity!-My tower is not fallen down, nor Lady Fanny Shirley run away with another printer; nor has my Lady D **** insisted on living with me as half way to Weybridge. Something more disgraceful than all these, and wofully mortifying for a young creature, who is at the same time in love with Lady Mary Coke, and following the Duchess of Grafton and Loo all over the kingdom. In short, my Lord, I have got the gout-yes, the gout in earnest. I was seized on Monday morning, suffered dismally all night, am now wrapped in flannels like the picture of a Morocco ambassador, and am carried to bed by two servants. You see virtue and leanness are no preservatives. I write this now to your lordship, because I think it totally impossible that I should be able to set out the day after to-morrow, as I intended. The moment I can, I will; but this is a tyrant that will not let one name a day. All I know is, that it may abridge my other parties, but shall not my stay at Wentworth Castle. The Duke of Devonshire was so good as to ask me to be at Chatsworth yesterday, but I did not know it time enough. As it happens, I must have disappointed him. At present I look like Pam's father more than one of his subjects; only cne of my legs appears:

The rest my parti-colour'd robe conceals.

Adieu! my dear lord.

1 14th July 1760, Colonel Clive was introduced to his Majesty at Kensington, with Richard Clive, Esq., his father, and was most graciously received. 'Gentleman's Magazine for 1760,' p. 345.-CUNNINGHAM.

General Guise did leave his collection as he promised; but the University employing the son of Bonus, the cleaner of pictures, to repair them, he entirely repainted them, and as entirely spoiled them.-WALPOLE.

677. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Strawberry Hill, August 7, 1760.

I CAN give you but an unpleasant account of myself, I mean unpleasant for me; every body else I suppose it will make laugh. Come, laugh at once! I am laid up with the gout, am an absolute cripple, am carried up to bed by two men, and could walk to China as soon as cross the room. In short, here is my history: I have been out of order this fortnight, without knowing what was the matter with me; pains in my head, sicknesses at my stomach, dispiritedness, and a return of the nightly fever I had in the winter. I concluded a northern journey would take all this off-but, behold! on Monday morning I was seized as I thought with the cramp in my left foot; however, I walked about all day: towards evening it discovered itself by its true name, and that night I suffered a great deal. However, on Tuesday I was again able to go about the house; but since Tuesday I have not been able to stir, and am wrapped in flannels and swathed like Sir Paul Pliant on his wedding-night. expect to hear that there is a bet at Arthur's, which runs fastest, Jack Harris' or I. Nobody would believe me six years ago when I said I had the gout. They would do leanness and temperance honours to which they have not the least claim.

I

I don't yet give up my expedition; as my foot is much swelled, I trust this alderman distemper is going: I shall set out the instant I am able; but I much question whether it will be soon enough for me to get to Ragley [in Warwickshire] by the time the clock strikes Loo. I find I grow too old to make the circuit with the charming Duchess.2

I did not tell you about German skirmishes, for I knew nothing of them when two vast armies only scratch one another's faces, it gives me no attention. My gazette never contains above one or two casualties of foreign politics :-overlaid, one king; dead of convulsions, an electorate; burnt to death, Dresden.

I wish you joy of all your purchases; why, you sound as rich as if you had had the gout these ten years. I beg their pardon; but just at present, I am very glad not to be near the vivacity of either Missy

1 John Harris, of Hayne in Devonshire, married to Mr. Conway's eldest sister.WALPOLE. Compare Letter to Montagu of 7 Jan. 1755 (vol. ii. p. 415).-CUNNINGHAM. 2 Anne Liddell, Duchess of Grafton.-WALPOLE.

or Peter. I agree with you much about 'The Minor:'' there are certainly parts and wit in it. Adieu !

678. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, August 12, 1760.

In what part of the island you are just now, I don't know; flying about somewhere or other, I suppose. Well, it is charming to be so young! Here am I, lying upon a couch, wrapped up in flannels, with the gout in both feet-oh yes, gout in all the forms. Six years ago I had it, and nobody would believe me-now they may have proof. My legs are as big as your cousin Guilford's, and they don't use to be quite so large. I was seized yesterday seʼnnight; have had little pain in the day, but most uncomfortable nights; however, I move about again a little with a stick. If either my father or mother had had it, I should not dislike it so much. I am herald enough to approve it if descended genealogically; but it is an absolute upstart in me, and what is more provoking, I had trusted to my great abstinence for keeping me from it: but thus it is, if I had any gentleman-like virtue, as patriotism or loyalty, I might have got something by them; I had nothing but that beggarly virtue temperance, and she had not interest enough to keep me from a fit of the gout. Another plague is, that everybody that ever knew anybody that had it, is so good as to come with advice, and direct me how to manage it; that is, how to contrive to have it for a great many years. I am very refractory; I say to the gout, as great personages do to the executioners, "Friend, do your work as quick as you can." They tell me of wine to keep it out of my stomach; but I will starve temperance itself; I will be virtuous indeed-that is, I will stick to virtue, though I find it is not its own reward.

This confinement has kept me from Yorkshire; I hope, however, to be at Ragley by the 20th, from whence I shall still go to Lord Strafford's, and by this delay you may possibly be at Greatworth by

1 Foote's comedy of 'The Minor' came out at the Haymarket theatre, and, though performed by a young and unpractised company, brought full houses for many nights. In the characters of Mrs. Cole and Mr. Smirk, the author represented those of the notorious Mother Douglas, and Mr. Langford, the auctioneer. In the epilogue, spoken by Shift, which the author himself performed, together with the other two characters, he took off, to a degree of exactness, the manner and person of the celebrated George Whitfield.-WRIGHT. For an admirable paper on Foote by Mr. John Forster, see the Quarterly Review' for September, 1854.-CUNNINGHAM.

1760.]

TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY.
OUNTES

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my return, which will be about the beginning of September. Write me a line as soon as you receive this; direct it to Arlington Street, it will be sent after me.

Adieu.

P. S. My tower erects its battlements bravely; my Anecdotes of Painting thrive exceedingly thanks to the gout, that has pinned me to my chair: think of Ariel the sprite in a slit shoe!

679. TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY.

Whichnovre [near Lichfield], August 23, 1760.

WELL, Madam, if I had known whither I was coming, I would not have come alone! Mr. Conway and your ladyship should have come too. Do you know, this is the individual manor-house,' where married ladies may have a flitch of bacon upon the easiest terms in the world? I should have expected that the owners would be ruined in satisfying the conditions of the obligation, and that the park would be stocked with hogs instead of deer. On the contrary, it is thirty years since the flitch was claimed, and Mr. Offley was never so near losing one as when you and Mr. Conway were at Ragley.

He so little expects the demand, that the flitch is only hung in effigie over the hall chimney, carved in wood. Are not you ashamed, Madam, never to have put in your claim? It is above a year and a day that you have been married, and I never once heard either of you mention a journey to Whichnovre. If you quarrelled at Loo every night, you could not quit your pretensions with more indifference. I had a great mind to take my oath, as one of your witnesses, that you neither of you would, if you were at liberty, prefer anybody else, ne fairer ne fouler, and I could easily get twenty persons to swear the same. Therefore, unless you will let the world be convinced, that all your apparent harmony is counterfeit, you must set out immediately for Mr. Offley's, or at least send me a letter of

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1 Of Whichnovre, near Lichfield. Sir Philip de Somerville, in the 10th of Edward III., held the manor of Whichnovre, &c. of the Earls of Lancaster, lords of the honour of Tutbury, upon two small fees, but also upon condition of his keeping ready 'arrayed, all times of the year but Lent, one bacon-flyke hanging in his hall at Whichnovre, to be given to every man or woman who demanded it a year and a day after marriage, upon their swearing that they would not have changed for none other, fairer nor fouler, richer nor poorer, nor for no other descended of great lineage, sleeping nor waking at no time," &c.-WRIGHT. A like custom prevails at Dunmow, in Essex.-CUNNINGHAM.