that exults more than I do, upon any good news, since you 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!

738. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, July 28, 1761.

No, I shall never cease being a dupe, till I have been undeceived round by everything that calls itself a virtue. I came to town yesterday, through clouds of dust, to [Drury Lane Theatre] 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 [Halifax] 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 were 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 knew 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

1 The piece was coldly received by the town. Cumberland says that, “when the

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 his conduct, Cumberland two days ago published a pamphlet to abuse him. It was given out for to-night with more claps than hisses, but I think will not do unless they reduce it to three acts.

The place I

I am sorry you will not come to the Coronation. offered I am not sure I can get for anybody 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 Adieu!

sure.

739. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Strawberry Hill.

THIS is the 5th of August, and I just receive your letter of the 17th of last month by Fitzroy.' I heard he had 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 anybody. 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 fruitshop? whether the pecresses are to wear long or short tresses at the Coronation? how many jewels Lady Harrington borrows of actresses? All this is your light summer wear for conversation;

last of the three Wishes produced the ridiculous catastrophe of the hanging of Harlequin in full view of the audience. my uncle, the author, then sitting by me, whispered in my ear, If they don't damn this, they deserve to be damned themselves;' and whilst he was yet speaking the roar began, and The Wishes were irrevocably damned." -WRIGHT. It was acted five times.-CUNNINGHAM.

1 George Fitzroy, afterwards created Lord Southampton.

2

See vol ii. p. 213, and vol. iii. p. 245.-CUNNINGHAM.

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 coronation-petticoat. 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 anything to say or not. I am writing, I am building-both 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 of the finest and most ancient monuments in the Abbey should be removed, and begging, if it was removed, that he would bestow it on me, who would erect and preserve it here. After a fortnight's deliberation, the bishop sent me an answer, civil indeed, and commending my zeal for antiquity! but avowing the story under his own hand. He said, that at first they had taken Pembroke's tomb for a knight templar's. Observe, that not only the man who shows the tombs names it every day, but that there is a draught of it at large in Dart's Westminster;

that upon discovering whose it was, he had been very unwilling to consent to the removal, and at last had obliged Wilton to engage to set it up within ten feet of where it stands at present. His lordship concluded with congratulating me on publishing learned authors at my press. I don't wonder that a man who thinks Lucan a learned author, should mistake a tomb in his own cathedral. If I had a mind to be angry, I could complain with reason; as, having paid forty pounds for ground for my mother's tomb, that the Chapter of Westminster sell their church over and over again; the ancient monuments tumble upon one's head through their neglect, as one of them did, and killed a man at Lady Elizabeth Percy's funeral; and they erect new waxen dolls of Queen Elizabeth, &c. to draw visits and money from the mob. I hope all this history is applicable to some part or other of my letter; but letters you will have, and so I send you one, very like your own stories that you tell your daughter: There was a King, and he had three daughters, and they all went to see the tombs; and the youngest, who was in love with Aylmer de Valence, &c.

Thank you for your account of the battle; thank Prince Ferdinand for giving you a very honourable post, which, in spite of his teeth and yours, proved a very safe one; and above all, thank Prince Soubise, whom I love better than all the German Princes in the universe. Peace, I think, we must have at last, if you beat the French, or at least hinder them from beating you, and afterwards starve them. Bussy's last last courier is expected; but as he may have a last last last courier, I trust no more to this than to all the others. He was complaining t'other day to Mr. Pitt of our haughtiness, and said it would drive the French to some desperate effort; "Thirty thousand men," continued he, "would embarrass you a little, I believe!" "Yes, truly," replied Pitt, "for I am so embarrassed with those we have already, I don't know what to do with them."

Adieu! Don't fancy that the more you scold, the more I will write it has answered three times, but the next cross word you give me shall put an end to our correspondence. Sir Horace Mann's father used to say, "talk, Horace, you have been abroad: "You cry, "Write, Horace, you are at home." No, Sir, you can beat an hundred and twenty thousand French, but you cannot get the better of me. I will not write such foolish letters as this every day, when I have nothing to say. Yours as you behave.

740. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, August 17, 1761.

I AM come to town to-day to prepare my wedding garments. The new Queen may be here by this day se'nnight, but scarce will Defore the 28th, and if the winds are not in hymeneal humour, it may be the Lord knows how long. There will be as great magnificence as people can put upon their backs-nothing more; no shows, no ceremonies. Six drawing-rooms and one ball—that is all; and then the honey-moon in private till the Coronation. They told me the painting of the Charlotte yacht would certainly turn the Queen's stomach. I said if her head is not turned, she may compound for anything else. Think of the Crown of England and a handsome young King dropping out of the clouds into Strelitz! The crowds, the multitudes, the millions, that are to stare at her; the swarms to kiss her hand, the pomp of the Coronation. She need be but seventeen to bear it.

In the meantime, adieu peace! France has refused to submit to our terms. They own themselves undone, but depend on the continuation of the war for revenging them-not by arms, but by exhausting us. I can tell you our terms pretty exactly. All Canada, but letting them fish on Newfoundland; Goree and Senegal, but with a promise of helping them somehow or other in their black trade; the neutral islands to be divided; Hesse and Hanover restored, and Minorca: Guadaloupe and Belleisle to return to them. The East Indies postponed to the Congress; Dunkirk to be demolished, à la Utrecht; at least, à l'Aix-la-Chapelle. The last article is particularly offered to glory. If they have no fleet, Dunkirk will not hurt us; when they have, twenty other places will do the business, especially if they have Nieuport and Ostend, on which, notwithstanding all reports, I hear we have been silent. Our terms are lofty; yet, could they expect that we would undo them and ourselves for nothing? We shall be like the late Duke of Marlborough, have a vast landed estate, and want a guinea.

The great Prince of the coalpits, Sir James Lowther, marries the eldest infanta of the adjoining coalpits, Lord Bute's daughter. You will allow this earl is a fortunate man; the late King, old Wortley, and the Duke of Argyle,' all dying in a year, and his daughter

1 By whose death Lord Bute obtained the chief power in Scotland.—WALPOLE.