had already perceived that you would not come to Strawberry this year. Adieu !

582. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 24, 1758.

Ir is a very melancholy present I send you here, my dear Sir; yet, considering the misfortune that has befallen us, perhaps the most agreeable I could send you. You will not think it the bitterest tear you have shed when you drop one over this plan of an urn inscribed with the name of your dear brother, and with the testimonial of my eternal affection to him! This little monument is at last placed over the pew of your family at Linton [in Kent], and I doubt whether any tomb was ever erected that spoke so much truth of the departed, and flowed from so much sincere friendship in the living. The thought was my own, adopted from the antique columbaria, and applied to Gothic. The execution of the design was Mr. Bentley's, who alone, of all mankind, could unite the grace of Grecian architecture and the irregular lightness and solemnity of Gothic. Kent and many of our builders sought this, but have never found it. Mr. Chute, who has as much taste as Mr. Bentley, thinks this little sketch a perfect model. The soffite is more beautiful than anything of either style separate. There is a little error in the inscription; it should be Horatius Walpole posuit. The urn is of marble, richly polished; the rest of stone. On the whole, I think there is simplicity and decency, with a degree of ornament that destroys neither.

What do you say in Italy on the assassination of the King of Portugal ? Do you believe that Portuguese subjects lift their hand against a monarch for gallantry? Do you believe that when a slave murders an absolute prince, he goes a walking with his wife the next morning and murders her too? Do you believe the dead King is alive? and that the Jesuits are as wrongfully suspected of this assassination as they have been of many others they have committed? If you do believe this, and all this, you are not very near turning Protestants. It is scarce talked of here, and to save trouble, we admit just what the Portuguese Minister is ordered to publish. The King of Portugal murdered, throws us two hundred years back-the King of Prussia not murdered, carries us two hundred years forward again.

Another King, I know, has had a little blow: the Prince de

Soubise has beat some Isenbourgs and Obergs, and is going to be Elector of Hanover this winter. There has been a great sickness among our troops in the other German army; the Duke of Marlborough has been in great danger, and some officers are dead. Lord Frederick Cavendish is returned from France. He confirms and adds to the amiable accounts we had received of the Duc d'Aiguillon's behaviour to our prisoners. You yourself, the pattern of attentions and tenderness, could not refine on what he has done both in goodnature and good-breeding: he even forbad any ringing of bells or rejoicings wherever they passed-but how your representative blood will curdle when you hear of the absurdity of one of your countrymen : the night after the massacre at St. Cas, the Duc d'Aiguillon gave a magnificent supper of eighty covers to our prisoners-a Colonel Lambert got up at the bottom of the table, and asking for a bumper, called out to the Duc, "My Lord Duke, here's the Roy de Franse! " You must put all the English you can crowd into the accent. My Lord Duke was so confounded at this preposterous compliment, which it was impossible for him to return, that he absolutely sank back into his chair and could not utter a syllable: our own people did not seem to feel more.

You will read and hear that we have another expedition sailing, somewhither in the West Indies. Hobson, the commander, has in his whole life had but one stroke of a palsy, so possibly may retain half of his understanding at least. There is great tranquillity at home, but I should think not promising duration. The disgust in the army on the late frantic measures will furnish some warmth probably to Parliament-and if the French should think of returning our visits, should you wonder? There are even rumours of some stirring among your little neighbours at Albano-keep your eye on them-if you could discover anything in time, it would do you great credit. Apropos to them, I will send you an epigram that I made the other day on Mr. Chute's asking why Taylor the oculist called himself Chevalier P1

1 Ante, p. 181.-CUNNINGHAM.

can you

583. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, Nov. 26, 1758.

How make me formal excuses for sending me a few covers to frank? Have you so little right to any act of friendship from me, that you should apologize for making me do what is scarce any act at all? However, your man has not called for the covers, though they have been ready this fortnight.

I shall be very glad to see your brother in town, but I cannot quite take him in full of payment. I trust you will stay the longer for coming the later. There is not a syllable of news. The Parliament is met, but empty and totally oppositionless. Your great Cu moved in the Lords, but did not shine much. The great Cu of all Cues is out of order, not in danger, but certainly breaking.

My eyes are performing such a strict quarantine, that you must excuse my brevity. Adieu!

584. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, Nov. 27, 1758.

It seems strange that at this time of the year, with armies still in the field and Parliaments in town, I should have had nothing to tell you for above a month-yet so it was. The King caught cold on coming to town, and was very ill,' but the gout, which had never been at Court above twice in his reign, came, seized his foot a little, and has promised him at least five or six years more—that is, if he will take care of himself; but yesterday, the coldest day we have felt, he would go into the drawing-room, as if he was fond of showing the new stick he is forced to walk with.

The Parliament is all harmony, and thinks of nothing but giving away twelve more millions. Mr. Pitt made the most artful speech he ever made: provoked, called for, defied objections; promised enormous expense, demanded never to be judged by events. Universal

1 Lord Chesterfield, writing on the 21st to his son, says, "The King has been ill; but his illness has terminated in a good fit of the gout. It was generally thought he would have died, and for a very good reason; for the oldest lion in the Tower, much about the King's age, died a fortnight ago. This extravagancy, I can assure you, was believed by many above people. So wild and capricious is the human mind!"— WRIGHT.

silence left him arbiter of his own terms. In short, at present he is absolute master, and if he can coin twenty millions, may command them. He does everything, the Duke of Newcastle gives everything. As long as they can agree in this partition, they may do what they will.

We have been in great anxiety for twenty-four hours to learn the fate of Dresden, and of the King of resources, as Mr. Beckford called the King of Prussia the other day. We heard that while he was galloped to raise the siege of Neiss, Marshal Daun was advanced to Dresden; that Schmettau had sent to know if he meant to attack it, having orders to burn the Fauxbourgs and defend it street by street; that Daun not deigning a reply, the conflagration had been put in execution; that the King was posting back, and Dohna advancing to join him. We expected every minute to hear either of the demolition of the city, or of a bloody decision fought under the walls -an account is just arrived that Daun' is retired—thus probably the campaign is finished, and another year of massacre to come. One could not but be anxious at such a crisis-one felt for Dresden, and pitied the Prince Royal shut up in his own capital, a mere spectator of its destruction; one trembled for the decisive moment of the life of such a man as the King of Prussia. It is put off-yet perhaps he will scarce recover so favourable a moment. He had assembled his whole force, except a few thousands left to check the Swedes. Next year this force must be again parcelled out against Austrians, Russians, Swedes, and possibly French. He must be more than a King of resources if he can for ever weather such tempests!

2

Knyphausen diverted me yesterday with some anecdotes of the Empress's college of chastity-not the Russian Empress's. The King of Prussia asked some of his Austrian prisoners whether their mistress consulted her college of chastity on the letters she wrote (and he intercepted) to Madame Pompadour.

You have heard some time ago of the death of the Duke of Marlborough. The estate is forty-five thousand pounds a-yearnine of which are jointured out. He paid but eighteen thousand pounds a-year in joint lives. This Duke and the estate save greatly by his death, as the present wants a year of being of age, and would

1 The King of Prussia had just compelled Daun to raise the siege of Dresden, in spite of his (the King's) late most disastrous defeat by the same general at Hochkir. chen, which had taken place on the 14th of October 1758.-DOVER.

2 The Prussian minister.-WALPOLE.

Charles Spencer, second Duke of Marlborough: died October 28, 1758, at Munster, in Westphalia.-CUNNINGHAM.

certainly have accommodated his father in agreeing to sell and pay. Lord Edgcumbe is dead too, one of the honestest and most steady men in the world.

I was much diverted with your histories of our Princess [de Craon] and Madame de Woronzow. Such dignity as Madame de Craon's wants a little absolute power to support it! Adieu! my dear Sir.

SIR:

585. TO THE REV. HENRY ZOUCH.

Arlington Street, Dec. 9, 1758.

I HAVE desired Mr. Whiston to convey to you the second edition of my Catalogue, not so complete as it might have been, if great part had not been printed before I received your remarks, but yet more correct than the first sketch with which I troubled you. Indeed, a thing of this slight and idle nature does not deserve to have much more pains employed upon it.

I am just undertaking an edition of Lucan, my friend Mr. Bentley having in his possession his father's notes and emendations on the first seven books. Perhaps a partiality for the original author concurs a little with this circumstance of the notes, to make me fond of printing, at Strawberry Hill, the works of a man who, alone of all the classics, was thought to breathe too brave and honest a spirit for the perusal of the Dauphin and the French. I don't think that a good or bad taste in poetry is of so serious a nature, that I should be afraid of owning too, that, with that great judge Corneille, and with that, perhaps, no judge Heinsius, I prefer Lucan to Virgil. To speak fairly, I prefer great sense, to poetry with little sense. There are hemistichs in Lucan that go to one's soul and one's heart ;-for a mere epic poem, a fabulous tissue of uninteresting battles that don't teach one even to fight, I know nothing more tedious. The poetic images, the versification and language of the Æneid are delightful; but take the story by itself, and can anything be more silly and unaffecting? There are a few gods without power, heroes without character, heaven-directed wars without justice, inventions without probability, and a hero who betrays one woman with a kingdom that he might have had, to force himself upon another woman and another kingdom to which he had no pretensions, and all this to show his obedience to the gods! In short, I have always admired his numbers

'Richard, first Lord Edgcumbe; an intimate friend of Sir Robert Walpole.WALPOLE. See vol. i. p. 156.—Cunningham.

VOL. III.