of instating the same clause in our address. Mr. Pitt went angry to Court, protesting that he would not take the seals, if any such motion passed it was sunk. Next day he accepted—and the day after, Mr. Fox, extremely disgusted with the Duke of Devonshire for preferences shown to Mr. Pitt, retired into the country. The Parliament is adjourned for the re-elections; and Mr. Pitt, who has pleased in the closet, is again laid up with the gout. We meet on Monday, when one shall be able to judge a little better of the temper of the winter. The Duke of Bedford is to be Lord Lieutenant of Ireland—no measure of peace! Not to mention his natural warmth, everybody is sensible that he is only placed there to traverse Pitt.

Your brother and I are uneasy about your situation when we are treated insolently at Leghorn, to what are we sunk! Can Mr. Pitt or the King of Prussia find a panacea for all our disgraces? Have you seen Voltaire's epigram?

"Rivaux du Vainqueur de l'Euphrate,

L'Oncle et le Neveu ;1

L'un fait la guerre en pirate,

L'autre en partie bleue."

It is very insipid! It seems to me as if Uncle and Nephew could furnish a better epigram; unless their reconciliation deadens wit. Besides, I don't believe that the Uncle of these lines means at all to be like Alexander, who never was introduced more pompously for the pitiful end of supplying a rhyme.

Is it true what we see in the Gazettes, that the Pantheon is tumbled down? Am not I a very Goth, who always thought it a dismal clumsy performance, and could never discover any beauty in a strange mass of light poured perpendicularly into a circle of obscurity? Adieu! I wish you may hope more with your elder brother, than tremble with me!

ment without consulting him: and, having finished his oration, went out of the House with a thorough conviction that such weighty reasons must be quite unanswerable." Waldegrave, p. 89.-WRIGHT. "In all the journals of Parliament, there never was any instance of a Cabinet Counsellor having opposed any part of the address in return to the King's speech at the opening of a session, unless he was understood to be just going out... The King's speech was drawn by Mr. Pitt. It is an high style ad populum, and seems to promise great things." Lord Wilton to his brother.CUNNINGHAM.

1 George II. and the King of Prussia.-WALPOLE.

2 Mr. Walpole had a great quarrel with his uncle Horatio.-WALPOLE.

490. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Dec. 16, 1756.

It will be easier for you, I fear, to guess, than for me to describe what I have felt for these last six days! Your dear brother is still alive; it is scarce possible he should be so when you receive this. I wrote to you this day se'nnight, the day after I saw him last. On that day and Friday I received favourable messages. I went myself on Saturday, as I had promised him-how shocked I was at seeing your brother Ned and a lawyer come to the chaise: the former told me that Poor Gal. had desired the lawyer to settle his affairs, which were then in agitation: you may imagine I did not choose to add the tender sensations of seeing me, to what he was then feeling! I saw our doom too plainly, though your brother Ned still had hopes. Every day confirmed my fears: however, I could not bear my anxiety, and went to Richmond to-day, with as much horror as persons must go to execution, yet determined to see Gal. if I found that he had expressed the least desire of it.-Alas! he has scarce had moments of sense since Sunday morning-how can I bring myself to say of so dreadful a situation, that it is my greatest consolation! But I could not support the thought of his remaining sensible of death with all those anxious attentions about him which have composed his whole life! Oh! my dear child, what rash wretches are heroes, compared to this brother of yours! Nothing ever equalled his cool solicitude for his family and friends. What an instance am I going to repeat to you! His most unhappy life was poisoned by the dread of leaving his children and fortune to be torn to pieces by his frantic wife, whose settlements entitled her to thirds. On Friday, perceiving her alarmed by his danger, he had the amazing presence of mind and fortitude to seize that only moment of tenderness, and prevailed on her to accept a jointure. He instantly dispatched your brother Ned to London for his lawyer, and by five o'clock on Saturday, after repeated struggles of passion on her side, the whole was finished.-Dear Gal. he could not speak, but he lifted up his hands in thanks! While he had any sense, it was employed in repeated kindnesses, particularly to your brother James-he had ordered a codicil, but they have not found a sufficient interval to get it signed!

My dearest Sir, what an afflicting letter am I forced to write to

you! but I flatter myself, you will bear it better from me, than from any other person and affectionate as I know you, could I deprive you or myself of the melancholy pleasure of relating such virtues? My poorest, yet best consolation is, that, though I think his obstinacy in not going abroad, and ill management, may have hurried his end, yet nothing could have saved him; his lungs are entirely gone. But how will you be amazed at what I am going to tell you! His wretched wife is gone mad—at least your brother Ned and the physician are persuaded so-I cannot think so well of her. I see her in so diabolic a light, that I cannot help throwing falsehood into the account-but let us never mention her more. What little more I would say, for I spare your grief rather than indulge my own, is, that I beseech you to consider me as more and more your friend; I adored Gal. and will heap affection on that I already have for you. I feel your situation, and beg of you to manage me with no delicacy, but confide all your fears and wishes and wants to me-if I could be capable of neglecting you, write to Gal.'s image that will for ever live in a memory most grateful to him.

You will be little disposed or curious to hear politics; yet it must import you always to know the situation of your country, and it never was less settled. Mr. Pitt is not yet able to attend the House, therefore no inquiries are yet commenced. The only thing like business has been the affair of preparing quarters for the Hessians, who are soon to depart; but the Tories have shown such attachment to Mr. Pitt on this occasion, that it is almost become a Whig point to detain them. The breach is so much widened between Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox, and the latter is so warm, that we must expect great violences. The Duke of Newcastle's party lies quiet; one of the others must join it. The new Ministers have so little weight, that they seem determined at least not to part with their popularity: the new Secretary of State [Pitt] is to attack the other (Lord Holdernesse) on a famous letter of his sent to the mayor of Maidstone, for releasing a Hanoverian soldier committed for theft. You may judge what harmony there is!

Adieu, my dear Sir! How much I pity you, and how much you ought to pity me! Imitate your brother's firmness of mind, and bear his loss as well as you can. You have too much merit not to be sensible of his, and then it will be impossible for you to be soon comforted.

491. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Dec. 23, 1756.

I KNOW I can no more add to your concern than to my own, by giving you the last account of your dear brother, who put a period to our anxious suspense in the night between the 20th and 21st. For the last five days he had little glimmerings of amendment, that gave hopes to some of his friends, terror to me, who dreaded his sensibility coming to itself! When I had given up his life, I could not bear the return of his tenderness! Sure he had felt enough for his friends-yet he would have been anxious for them if he had recovered his senses. He has left your brothers Edward, James, and Foote,' his executors; to his daughters 75007. a-piece, and the entail of his estate in succession-to a name [his wife] I beg we may never mention, 7007. a-year, 4000l. and his furniture, &c. Your brother James, a very worthy man, though you never can have two Gals. desired me to give you this account-how sad a return for the two letters I have received from you this week! Be assured, my dear Sir, that nothing could have saved his life. For your sake and my own I hurry from this dreadful subject-not for the amusement of either, or that I have anything to tell you: my letter shall be very short, for I am stabbing you with a dagger used on myself!

Mr. Pitt has not been able to return to Parliament for the gout, which has prevented our having one long day; we adjourn to-morrow for a fortnight; yet scarce to meet then for business, as a call of the House is not appointed till the 20th of January; very late indeed, were any inquiries probable: this advantage I hope will be gained, that our new Ministers will have a month's time to think of their country.

Adieu! my dear Sir, this letter was necessary for me to writeI find it as necessary to finish it.

1 Mr. Foote married the second sister of Mr. Mann; as his brother, a clergyman, afterwards did the third.-WALPOLE.

492. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Jan. 6, 1757.

I LIVE in dread of receiving your unhappy letters! I am sensible how many, many reasons you have to lament your dear brother; yet your long absence will prevent the loss of him from leaving so sharp a sting as it would have done had you seen as much of him as I have of late years! When I wrote to you, I did not know his last instance of love to you;' may you never have occasion to use it!

3

2

I wish I could tell you any politics to abstract your thoughts from your concern; but just at present all political conversation centres in such a magazine of abuse, as was scarce ever paralleled. Two papers, called the "Test" and "Contest," appear every Saturday, the former against Mr. Pitt, the latter against Mr. Fox, which make me recollect "Fogs" and Craftsmen" as harmless libels. The authors are not known; Dodington is believed to have the chief hand in the "Test," which is much the best, unless virulence is to bestow the laurel. He has been turned out by the opposite faction, and has a new opportunity of revenge, being just become a widower." The best part of his fortune is entailed on Lord Temple if he has no son; but I suppose he would rather marry a female hawker than not propagate children and lampoons. There is another paper, called "The Monitor," written by one Dr. Shebbeare, who made a pious resolution of writing himself into a place or the pillory, but having miscarried in both views, is wreaking his resentment on the late Chancellor [Hardwicke], who might have gratified him in either of his objects. The Parliament meets to-morrow, but as Mr. Pitt cannot yet walk, we are not likely soon to have any business.

5

1 Mr. Galfridus Mann left an annuity to his brother Sir Horace, in case he were recalled from Florence.-WALPOLE.

2 This report was not confirmed.-WALPOLE.

3 "The Test" was written principally by Arthur Murphy. It forms a thin folio volume.-WRIGHT.

4 By the death of Mrs. Beghan, see vol. i. p. 216; vol. ii. 450; and Richard Grenville to George Grenville, Nov. 22, 1742.-CUNNINGHAM.

5 "The Monitor" was commenced in August 1755, and terminated in July 1759. It is said to have been planned by Alderman Beckford.-WRIGHT.

6 He did write himself into a pillory before the conclusion of that reign, and into a pension at the beginning of the next, for one and the same kind of merit,-writing against King William and the Revolution.-WALPOLE. Dr. Johnson and Dr. Shebbeare were pensioned much about the same time. A good saying was then current, that the King had pensioned a He Bear and a She Bear.-CUNNINGHAM.