letter; except telling you, that if you think of conveying them through Moreland, he has gone a soldiering. All the world is going the same road, except Mr. Müntz, who had rather be knocked on the head for fame, than paint for it. He goes to-morrow to Kingston, to see the great drum pass by to Cobham, as women go to take a last look of their captains. The Duke of Marlborough and his grandfather's triumphal car' are to close the procession. What would his grandame, if she were alive, say to this pageant? If the war lasts, I think well enough of him to believe he will earn a sprig; but I have no passion for trying on a crown of laurel, before I had acquired it. The French are said to be embarked at Dunkirk-lest I should seem to know more than any minister, I will not pretend to guess whither they are bound. I have been but one night in town, and my head sung ballads about Admiral Byng all night, as one is apt to dream of the masquerade minuet: the streets swarm so with lampoons, that I began to fancy myself a minister's son again. I am going to-morrow to Park-place; and the first week in August into Yorkshire. If I hear that you are at Greatworth, that is, if you will disclose your motions to me for the first fortnight of that month, I will try if I cannot make it in my road either going or coming. I know nothing of roads, but Lord Strafford is to send me a route, and I should be glad to ask you how you do for one night-but don't expect me, don't be disappointed about me, and of all things don't let so uncertain a scheme derange the least thing in the world that you have to do. There are going to be as many camps and little armies, as when England was a Heptarchy. Adieu! 475. TO SIR HORACE MANN. Strawberry Hill, July 24, 1756. BECAUSE you desire it, I begin a letter to-day, but I don't think I shall be able to fill to the bottom of this side. It is in answer to your long one of the 3rd.-In answer ?-no; you must have patience. till next session before your queries can be resolved, and then I believe you will not be very communicative of the solutions. In short, all your questions of, Why not Byng sent sooner? Why not with more ships? Why was Minorca not supported earlier? All 1 For the story of the Duchess of Marlborough and the Duke's triumphal car, see Walpole's Reminiscences, vol. i. p. cxliii.-CUNNINGHAM, these are questions which all the world is asking as well as you, and to which all the world does not make such civil answers as you must, and to which I shall make none, as I really know none.' The clamour is extreme, and I believe how to reply in Parliament will be the chief business that will employ our Ministry for the rest of the summer-perhaps some such home and personal considerations were occupying their thoughts in the winter, when they ought to have been thinking of the Mediterranean. We are still in the dark; we have nothing but the French accounts of the surrender of St. Philip's: we are humbled, disgraced, angry. We know as little of Byng, but hear that he sailed with the reinforcement before his successor reached Gibraltar. If shame, despair, or any human considerations can give courage, he will surely contrive to achieve some great action, or to be knocked on the head-a cannon-ball must be a pleasant quietus, compared to being torn to pieces by an English mob or a House of Commons. I know no other alternative, but withdrawing to the Queen of Hungary, who would fare little better if she were obliged to come hither-we are extremely disposed to massacre somebody or other, to show we have any courage left. You will be pleased with a cool sensible speech of Lord Granville to Coloredo, the Austrian minister, who went to make a visit of excuses. My Lord Granville interrupted him, and said, "Sir, this is not necessary; I understand that the treaty is only of neutrality; but what grieves me is, that our people will not understand it so: and the prejudice will be so great, that when it shall become necessary again, as it will do, for us to support your mistress, nobody will then dare to be a Lord Granville." I think all our present hopes lie in Admiral Boscawen's intercepting the great Martinico fleet of a hundred and fifty sail, convoyed by five men-of-war; Boscawen has twenty. I see our old friend Prince Beauvau behaved well at Mahon. Our old diversion, the Countess,' has exhibited herself lately to the public exactly in a style 1 "However the case may be with regard to Byng," writes Mr. George Grenville to Mr. Pitt, on the first intelligence of the disaster," what can be the excuse for sending a force, which at the utmost is scarcely equal to the enemy, upon so important and decisive an expedition? Though, in the venality of this hour, it may be deemed sufficient to throw the whole blame upon Byng, yet I will venture to say, the other is a question that, in the judgment of every impartial man, now and hereafter, will require a better answer, I am afraid, than can be given. I believe he was not reckoned backward in point of personal courage, which makes this affair the more extraordinary, and induces me to wait for his own account of it, before I form an opinion of it." Chatham Correspondence, vol. i. p. 168.-WRIGHT. Of Pomfret.-WALPOLE. you would guess. Having purchased and given her Lord's collection of statues to the University of Oxford, she has been there at the public act to receive adoration. A box was built for her near the Vice-Chancellor, where she sat three days together for four hours at a time to hear verses and speeches, to hear herself called Minerva; nay, the public orator had prepared an encomium on her beauty, but being struck with her appearance, had enough presence of mind to whisk his compliments to the beauties of her mind. Do but figure her; her dress had all the tawdry poverty and frippery with which you remember her, and I dare swear her tympany, scarce covered with ticking, produced itself through the slit of her scowered damask robe. It is amazing that she did not mash a few words of Latin, as she used to fricasee French and Italian! or that she did not torture some learned simile, like her comparing the tour of Sicily, the surrounding the triangle, to squaring the circle; or as when she said it was as difficult to get into an Italian coach, as for Cæsar to take Attica, which she meant for Utica. Adieu! I trust by his and other accounts that your brother mends. P. S. The letters I mentioned to you, pretended to be Bower's, are published, together with a most virulent pamphlet, but containing affidavits, and such strong assertions of facts, as have staggered a great many people. His escape and account of himself in Italy is strongly questioned. I own I am very impatient for the answer he has promised. I admire his book so much, and see such malice in his accusers, that I am strongly disposed to wish and think him a good man. Do, for my private satisfaction, inquire and pick up all the anecdotes you can relating to him, and what is said and thought of him in Italy. One accusation I am sure is false, his being a plagiary; there is no author from whom he could steal that ever wrote a quarter so well. 476. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, August 28, 1756. As you were so kind as to interest yourself about the issue of my journey, I can tell you that I did get to Strawberry on Wednesday night, but it was half an hour past ten first-besides floods the whole day, I had twenty accidents with my chaise, and once saw one of the postilions with the wheel upon his body; he came off |