754. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 10, 1761. PRAY, Sir, how does virtue sell in Ireland now? I think for a province they have now and then given large prices. Have you a mind to know what the biggest virtue in the world is worth? If Cicero had been a Drawcansir instead of a coward, and had carried the glory of Rome to as lofty a height as he did their eloquence, for how much do you think he would have sold all that reputation? Oh! sold it! you will cry, vanity was his predominant passion; he would have trampled on sesterces like dirt, and provided the tribes did but erect statues enough for him, he was content with a bit of Sabine mutton; he would have preferred his little Tusculan villa, or the flattery of Caius Atticus at Baiæ, to the wealth of Croesus, or to the luxurious banquets of Lucullus. Take care, there is not a Tory gentleman, if there is one left, who would not have laid the same wager twenty years ago on the disinterestedness of my Lord Bath. Come, you tremble, you are so incorrupt yourself you would give the world Mr. Pitt was so too. You adore him for what he has done for us; you bless him for placing England at the head of Europe, and you don't hate him for infusing as much spirit into us, as if a Montague, Earl of Salisbury, was still at the head of our enemies. Nothing could be more just. We owe the recovery of our affairs to him, the splendour of our country, the conquest of Canada, Louisbourg, Guadaloupe, Africa, and the East. Nothing is too much for such services; accordingly, I hope you will not think the barony of Chatham,' and three thousand pounds a-year for three lives too much for my Lady Hester. She has this pittance: good night!

P.S. I told you falsely in my last that Lady Mary Wortley was arrived—I cannot help it if my Lady Denbigh cannot read English in all these years, but mistakes Wrottesley for Wortley.

The city and the people are outrageous about Lady Cheat'em, as they call her, and her husband's pension.-Rigby to Duke of Bedford, Oct. 12, 1761.—CUNNINGHAM.

755. TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 10, 1761.

I DON'T know what business I had, Madam, to be an economist: it was out of character. I wished for a thousand more drawings in that sale at Amsterdam, but concluded they would be very dear; and not having seen them, I thought it too rash to trouble your ladyship with a large commission.

I wish I could give you as good an account of your commission; but it is absolutely impracticable. I employed one of the most sensible and experienced men in the Custom-House; and all the result was, he could only recommend me to Mr. Amyand as the newest, and consequently the most polite of the commissioners-but the Duchess of Richmond had tried him before-to no purpose. There is no way of recovering any of your goods, but purchasing them again at the sale.

What am I doing, to be talking to you of drawings and chintzes, when the world is all turned topsy turvy? Peace, as the poets would say, is not only returned to heaven, but has carried her sister Virtue along with her!-Oh! no, Peace will keep no such company -Virtue is an errant strumpet, and loves diamonds as well as my Lady Harrington, and is as fond of a coronet as my Lord Melcombe. Worse! worse! She will set men to cutting throats, and pick their pockets at the same time. I am in such a passion, I cannot tell you what I am angry about-why, about Virtue and Mr. Pitt; two errant cheats, gipsies! I believe he was a comrade of Elizabeth Canning, when he lived at Enfield-wash.' In short, the council were for making peace;

But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,
Evades them with a bombast circumstance,
Horribly stuff'd with epithets of war,

And in conclusion-nonsuits my mediators.

He insisted on a war with Spain, was resisted, and last Monday resigned. The City breathed vengeance on his opposers, the Council quaked, and the Lord knows what would have happened; but yesterday, which was only Friday, as this giant was stalking to seize

'Mr. Pitt lived for several years in Enfield-Chase near Enfield-wash, the land of Elizabeth Canning.-CUNNINGHAM.

the Tower of London, he stumbled over a silver penny, picked it up, carried it home to Lady Hester, and they are now as quiet, good sort of people, as my Lord and Lady Bath who lived in the vinegarbottle. In fact, Madam, this immaculate man has accepted the Barony of Chatham for his wife, with a pension of three thousand pounds a-year for three lives; and though he has not quitted the House of Commons, I think my Lord Anson would now be as formidable there. The pension he has left us, is a war for three thousand lives! perhaps, for twenty times three thousand lives!— But

Does this become a soldier? this become
Whom armies follow'd, and a people loved?

What! to sneak out of the scrape, prevent peace, and avoid the war! blast one's character, and all for the comfort of a paltry annuity, a long-necked peeress, and a couple of Grenvilles! The City looks mighty foolish, I believe, and possibly even Beckford may blush. Lord Temple resigned yesterday: I suppose his virtue pants for a dukedom. Lord Egremont has the seals; Lord Hardwicke, I fancy, the Privy Seal; and George Grenville, no longer Speaker, is to be the cabinet minister in the House of Commons. Oh! Madam, I am glad you are inconstant to Mr. Conway, though it is only with a Barbette ! If you piqued yourself on your virtue, I should expect you would sell it to the master of a Trechscoot.

I told you a lie about the King's going to Ranelagh-No matter; there is no such thing as truth. Garrick exhibits the Coronation, and, opening the end of the stage, discovers a real bonfire and real mob: the houses in Drury-lane let their windows at threepence a head. Rich is going to produce a finer Coronation, nay, than the real one; for there is to be a dinner for the Knights of the Bath and the Barons of the Cinque-ports, which Lord Talbot refused them.

I put your Caufields and Stauntons into the hands of one of the first heralds upon earth, and who has the entire pedigree of the Careys; but he cannot find a drop of Howard or Seymour blood in the least artery about them. Good night, Madam!

756. TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Arlington Street, Oct. 12, 1761.

It is very lucky that you did not succeed in the expedition to Rochfort. Perhaps you might have been made a peer; and as Chatham is a naval title, it might have fallen to your share. But it was reserved to crown greater glory and lest it should not be substantial pay enough, three thousand pounds a-year for three lives go along with it. Not to Mr. Pitt-you can't suppose it. Why truly, not the title, but the annuity does, and Lady Hester is the baroness; that, if he should please, he may earn an earldom himself. Don't believe me, if you have not a mind. I know I did not believe those who told me. But ask the Gazette that swears it-ask the King, who has kissed Lady Hester—ask the City of London, who are ready to tear Mr. Pitt to pieces-ask forty people I can name, who are overjoyed at it—and then ask me again, who am mortified, and who have been the dupe of his disinterestedness. Oh, my dear Harry! I beg you on my knees, keep your virtue: do let me think there is still one man upon earth who despises money. I wrote you an account last week of his resignation. Could you have believed that in four days he would have tumbled from the conquest of Spain to receiving a quarter's pension from Mr. West ?' To-day he has advertised his seven coach-horses to be sold-Three thousand a-year for three lives, and fifty thousand pounds of his own, will not keep a coach and six. I protest I believe he is mad, and Lord Temple thinks so too; for he resigned the same morning that Pitt accepted the pension. George Grenville is Minister in the House of Commons. I don't know who will be Speaker. They talk of Prowse, Hussey, Bacon, and even of old Sir John Rushout. Delaval has said an admirable thing he blames Pitt-not as you and I do; but calls him fool; and says, if he had gone into the City, told them he had a poor wife and children unprovided for, and had opened a subscription, he would have got five hundred thousand pounds, instead of three thousand pounds a-year. In the mean time the good man has

:

2

1 Secretary to the Treasury.-WALPOLE.

* Your Grace will perceive in to-day's Public Advertiser that his [Mr. Pitt's] coschhorses are to be sold; his house in St. James's Square is also to be let: he will have no house in town, and live altogether at Hayes.-Rigby to Duke of Bedford, Oct. 12, 1761.-CUNNINGHAM.

saddled us with a war which we can neither carry on nor carry off. "Tis pitiful! 'tis wondrous pitiful! Is the communication stopped, that we never hear from you? I own 'tis an Irish question. I am out of humour: my visions are dispelled, and you are still abroad. As I cannot put Mr. Pitt to death, at least I have buried him: here is his epitaph:

Admire his eloquence-it mounted higher
Than Attic purity or Roman fire:
Adore his services-our lions view
Ranging, where Roman eagles never flew :
Copy his soul supreme o'er Lucre's sphere;

-But oh! beware three thousand pounds a-year !! 1

2

Jemmy Grenville resigned yesterday. Lord Temple is all hostility; and goes to the drawing-room to tell everybody how angry he is with the court-but what is Sir Joseph Wittol, when Nol Bluff is pacific? They talk of erecting a tavern in the City, called The Salutation: the sign to represent Lord Bath and Mr. Pitt embracing. These are shameful times. Adieu !'

757. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, October 24, 1761.

I HAVE got two letters from you, and am sensibly pleased with your satisfaction. I love your cousin for his behaviour to you; he will never place his friendship better. His parts and dignity, I did not doubt, would bear him out. I fear nothing but your spirits and the frank openness of your heart; keep them within bounds, and you

1 Gray also appears to have been greatly offended at this acceptance of the title and pension: "Oh!" he exclaims, "that foolishest of great men, that sold his inestimable diamond for a paltry peerage and pension! The very night it happened was I swearing it was a d-d lie, and never could be: but it was for want of reading Thomas à Kempis, who knew mankind so much better than I."-Works by Mitford, vol. iii. p. 265. Mr. Burke took a very different view of Mr. Pitt's conduct on this occasion. "With regard to the pension and title, it is a shame,” he says, "that any defence should be necessary. What eye cannot distinguish, at the first glance, between this and the exceptionable case of titles and pensions? What Briton, with the smallest sense of honour and gratitude, but must blush for his country, if such a man retired unrewarded from the public service, let the motives for that retirement be what they would? It was not possible that his sovereign could let his eminent services pass unrequited: the sum that was given was inadequate to his merits; and the quantum was rather regulated by the moderation of the great mind that received it, than by the liberality of that which bestowed it."-WRIGHT.

2 The Right Honourable James Grenville, brother to Earl Temple. He resigned the office of Cofferer to his Majesty-40007. a-year.--CUNNINGHAM,

3 Query Lord Bute.-CUNNINGHAM.