wanting the solemnity becoming a Gothic edifice: I must not have a Round Tower dressed in a pet-en-l'air. I would as soon put rouge and patches on a statue of St. Ethelburgh. You must not wonder at my remembering Rinuncini's hangings at the distance of nineteen or twenty years: my memory is exceedingly retentive of trifles. There is no hurry: I can wait till you send me patterns, and an account of that triple-coloured contexture, for which, in gratitude to my memory, I still have a hankering. Three years ago I had the ceiling of my China-Room painted, from one I had observed in the little Borghese villa. I was hoarding ideas for a future Strawberry even in those days of giddiness, when I seemed to attend to nothing. The altar of the Eagle is three feet two inches and a half high, by one foot eight inches wide. If that for the Vespasian should be a trifle larger, especially a little higher, it would carry so large a bust better; but I imagine the race of altar-tombs are pretty much of the same dimensions.

So much for myself-surely it is time to come to you. Mr. Mackenzie, by the King's own order and thought, was immediately named Plenipotentiary. I fear you have not exactly the same pretensions; however, as I think, services will be pretensions in this reign, the precedent I hope will not hurt you. The Peace seems the proper period for asking it.

I have delivered to your brother the famous pamphlet ;' two sets of the 'Royal and Noble Authors' for yourself and Lady Mary Wortley; a Lucan, printed at Strawberry, which, I trust, you will think a handsome edition; and six of the newest-fashioned and prettiest fans I could find-they are really genteel, though one or two have caprices that will turn a Florentine head. They were so dear, that I shall never tell you the price; I was glad to begin to pay some of the debts I owe you in commissions. All these will depart by the first opportunity; but the set for Lady Mary will, I suppose, arrive too late, as her husband is dead, and she now will probably return to England. I pity Lady Bute: her mother will sell to whoever does not know her, all kinds of promises and reversions, bestow lies gratis and wholesale, and make so much mischief, that they will be forced to discard her in three months, and that will go to my Lady Bute's heart, who is one of the best and most sensible women in the world; and who, educated by such a mother, or rather with no

By Israel Mauduit; see p. 367.-CUNNINGHAM.

? Mary Countess of Bute, only daughter of Lady Mary Wortley.-WALPOLE.

education, has never made a false step. Old Avidien,' the father, is dead, worth half a million. To his son,' on whom six hundred a-year was settled, the reversion of which he has sold, he gives 10007. a-year for life, but not to descend to any children he may have by any of his many wives. To Lady Mary, in lieu of dower, but which to be sure she will not accept, instead of the thirds of such a fortune, 12007. a-year; and after her to their son for life; and then the 12007. and the 10007. to Lady Bute and to her second son; with 20007. to each of her younger children; all the rest, in present, to Lady Bute, then to her second son, taking the name of Wortley, and in succession to all the rest of her children, which are numerous; and after them to Lord Sandwich, to whom, in present, he leaves about 40007. The son, you perceive, is not so well treated by his own father as his companion Taaffe' is by the French Court, where he lives, and is received on the best footing; so near is Fort l'Evesque to Versailles. Admiral Forbes told me yesterday, that in one of Lady Mary's jaunts to or from Genoa, she begged a passage of Commodore Barnard. A storm threatening, he prepared her for it, but assured her there was no danger. She said she was not afraid, and, going into a part of the gallery not much adapted to heroism, she wrote these lines on the side:

Mistaken seaman, mark my dauntless mind,

Who, wrecked on shore, am fearless of the wind.

On landing, this magnanimous dame desired the commander to accept a ring: he wore it as a fine emerald, but being overpersuaded to have it unset before his face, it proved a bit of glass.

News we have of no sort-Ireland seems to be preparing the first we shall receive. The good Primate has conjured up a storm, in which, I believe, he will not employ the archiepiscopal gift of exorcism. Adieu!

1 Edward Wortley Montagu, husband of Lady Mary. Both were remarkably avaricious, and are satirised by Pope in one of his Imitations of Horace, under the names of Avidien and his Wife.-WALPOLE.

* Edward Wortley Montagu, jun., their only son, whose adventures deserve better to be known than his own writings.-WALPOLE.

3 Theobald Taaffe, an Irish adventurer, was, with his associate, Wortley Montagu, imprisoned in Fort l'Evêque at Paris, for cheating and robbing a person with whom they had gamed.-WALPOLE.

4 * Dr. Stone, Archbishop of Armagh.-WALPOLE.

706. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, Feb. 7, 1761.

I HAVE not written to you lately, expecting your arrival. As you are not come yet, you need not come these ten days, if you please, for I go next week into Norfolk, that my subjects of Lynn may at least once in their lives see me. "Tis a horrible thing to dine with a mayor! I shall profane King John's cup,' and taste nothing but water out of it, as if it were St. John Baptist's.

Prepare yourself for crowds, multitudes. In this reign all the world lives in one room; the capital is as vulgar as a country town in the season of horse-races. There were no fewer than four of these throngs on Tuesday last, at the Duke of Cumberland's, Princess Emily's, the Opera, and Lady Northumberland's; for even operas, Tuesday's operas, are crowded now. There is nothing else new. Last week there was a magnificent ball at Carlton-house: the two royal Dukes and Princess Emily were there. He of York danced: the other and his sister had each their table at loo. I played at hers, and am grown a favourite; nay, have been at her private party, and was asked again last Wednesday, but took the liberty to excuse myself, and am yet again summoned for Tuesday. It is triste enough: nobody sits till the game begins, and then she and the company are all on stools. At Norfolk-house were two arm-chairs placed for her and the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of York being supposed a dancer, but they would not use them. Lord Huntingdon arrived in a frock, pretending he was just come out of the country; unluckily, he had been at Court, full-dressed, in the morning. No foreigners were there but the son and daughter-in-law of Monsieur de Fuentes: the Duchess told the Duchess of Bedford, that she had not invited the ambassadress, because her rank is disputed here. You remember the Bedford took place of Madame de Mirepoix; but Madame de Mora danced first, the Duchess of Norfolk saying she supposed that was of no consequence.

Have you heard what immense riches old Wortley has left? One million three hundred and fifty thousand pounds. It is all to

1 The beautifully shaped and enamelled cup of early fifteenth century work, known as the Lynn Cup. It is called King John's, but is of a later period than the reign of John.-CUNNINGHAM.

"You see old Wortley Montagu is dead at last, at eighty-three. It was not mere

centre in my Lady Bute; her husband is one of Fortune's prodigies. They talk of a print, in which her mistress is reprimanding Miss Chudleigh; the latter curtsies, and replies, "Madame, chacun a son but."

Have you seen a scandalous letter in print, from Miss Ford' to Lord Jersey, with the history of a boar's head? George Selwyn calls him Meleager. Adieu! this is positively my last.

707. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Monday, five o'clock, Feb. 1761.

I AM a little peevish with you-I told you on Thursday night that I had a mind to go to Strawberry on Friday without staying for the Qualification-bill. You said it did not signify-No! What if you intended to speak on it? Am I indifferent to hearing you? More -Am I indifferent about acting with you? Would not I follow you in anything in the world ?-This is saying no profligate thing. Is there anything I might not follow you in? You even did not tell me yesterday that you had spoken. Yet I will tell you all I have heard; though if there was a point in the world in which I could not wish you to succeed where you wish yourself, perhaps it would be in having you employed. I cannot be cool about your danger; yet I cannot know anything that concerns you, and keep it from you. Charles Townshend called here just after I came to town to-day. Among other discourse he told me of your speaking on Friday, and that your speech was reckoned hostile to the Duke of Newcastle. Then, talking of regiments going abroad, he said,

With regard to your reserve to me, I can easily believe that your natural modesty made you unwilling to talk of yourself to me. I don't suspect you of any reserve to me: I only mention it now for

avarice and its companion, abstinence, that kept him alive so long. He every day drank, I think it was, half-a-pint of tokay, which he imported himself from Hungary in greater quantity than he could use, and sold the overplus for any price he chose to set upon it. He has left better than half a million of money." Gray, Works, by Mitford, vol. iii. p. 272.-WRIGHT.

Miss A. Ford. See the Letter and Lord Jersey's Reply in the Gentleman's Magazine' for 1761. "Lord Holdernesse is arrived, and, though he has not seen Miss Ford, is perfectly convinced from my representations of her, that she is the wife in the world for Mason. She is excellent in music, loves solitude, and has unmeasurable affectations; we think of proposing her to him." W. Whitehead (Lord Jersey's friend) to Lord Harcourt, Bath, Dec. 16th, 1758, MS.-CUNNINGHAM.

an occasion of telling you, that I don't like to have anybody think that I would not do whatever you do. I am of no consequence: but at least it would give me some, to act invariably with you; and that I shall most certainly be ever ready to do. Adieu!

708. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Arlington Street, March 3, 1761.

WELL, are not you peevish that the new reign leaves our correspondence more languid than the old? In all February not an event worth packing up and sending to you! Neither changes, nor honours, nor squabbles yet. Lord Bute obliges everybody he can, and people seem extremely willing to be obliged. Mr. Pitt is laid up with a dreadful gout in all his limbs; he did not sleep for fourteen nights, till one of his eyes grew as bad as his hands or feet. He begins to mend.

Whatever mysteries or clouds there are, will probably develope themselves as soon as the elections are over, and the Parliament fixed, which now engrosses all conversation and all purses; for the expense is incredible. West Indians, conquerors, nabobs, and admirals, attack every borough; there are no fewer than nine candidates at Andover. The change in a Parliament used to be computed at between sixty and seventy; now it is believed there will be an hundred and fifty new members. Corruption now stands upon its own legs-no money is issued from the Treasury; there are no parties, no pretence of grievances, and yet venality is grosser than ever! The borough of Sudbury has gone so far as to advertise for a chapman! We have been as victorious as the Romans, and are as corrupt: I don't know how soon the Prætorian militia will set the empire to sale. Sir Nathaniel Curzon has struck a very novel stroke; advertising that the King intended to make him a peer; and, therefore, recommending his brother to the county of Derby for the same independent principles with himself. He takes a Peerage to prove his independence, and recommends his brother to the Opposition to prove his gratitude!

Ireland is settled for the present; the Duke of Bedford relinquishes it, with some emoluments, to his court. Lord Kildare's neutrality is rewarded with a Marquisate-he has been prevailed upon to retain the oldest title in Europe, instead of Leinster, which