Not a word more of the King of Prussia: did you ever know a victory mind the wind so?

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, Monday, Nov. 24, 1760.

UNLESS I were to send you journals, lists, catalogues, computations of the bodies, tides, swarms of people that go to court to present addresses, or to be presented, I can tell you nothing new. The day the King went to the House, I was three-quarters of an hour getting through Whitehall: there were subjects enough to set up half-a-dozen petty kings: the Pretender would be proud to reign over the footmen only; and, indeed, unless he acquires some of them, he will have no subjects left; all their masters flock to St. James's. The palace is so thronged, that I will stay till some people are discontented. The first night the King went to the play, which was civilly on a Friday, not on the opera-night, as he used to do, the whole audience sung God save the King in chorus. For the first act, the press was so great at the door, that no ladies could go to the boxes, and only the servants appeared there, who kept places: at the end of the second act, the whole mob broke in, and seated themselves; yet all this zeal is not likely to last, though he so well deserves it. Seditious papers are again stuck up: one t'other day in Westminster Hall declared against a Saxe-Gothan Princess. The Archbishop, who is never out of the drawing-room, has great hopes from the King's goodness, that he shall make something of him, that is something bad of him. On the Address, Pitt and his zany Beckford quarrelled, on the latter's calling the campaign languid. What is become of our magnanimous ally and his victory, I know not. In eleven days, no courier has arrived from him; but I have been these two days perfectly indifferent about his magnanimity. I am come to put my Anecdotes of Painting into the press. You are one of the few that I expect will be entertained with it. It has warmed Gray's coldness so much, that he is violent

VOL. IV.

I

about it; in truth, there is an infinite quantity of new and curious things about it; but as it is quite foreign from all popular topics, I don't suppose it will be much attended to. There is not a word of Methodism in it, it says nothing of the disturbances in Ireland, it does not propose to keep all Canada, it neither flattered the King of Prussia nor Prince Ferdinand, it does not say that the city of London are the wisest men in the world, it is silent about George Townshend, and does not abuse my Lord George Sackville; how should it please? I want you to help me in a little affair, that regards it. I have found in a MS. that in the church of Beckley, or Becksley, in Sussex, there are portraits on glass, in a window, of Henry the Third and his Queen. I have looked in the map, and find the first name between Bodiham and Rye, but I am not sure it is the place. I will be much obliged to you if you will write directly to your Sir Whistler, and beg him to inform himself very exactly if there is any such thing in such a church near Bodiham. Pray state it minutely; because if there is, I will have them drawn for the frontispiece to my work.

Did I tell you that the Archbishop tried to hinder the "Minor" from being played at Drury Lane? for once the Duke of Devonshire was firm, and would only let him correct some passages, and even of those the Duke has restored One that the prelate effaced was, "You snub-nosed son of a bitch." Foote says, he will take out a licence to preach Tam. Cant, against Tom. Cant.1

some.

The first volume of Voltaire's Peter the Great is arrived. I weep over it. It is as languid as the campaign; he is grown old. He boasts of the materials communicated to

1 The following anecdote is related in the Biographia Dramatica:"Our English Aristophanes sent a copy of The Minor to the Archbishop of Canterbury, requesting that, if his grace should see anything objectionable in it, he would exercise the free use of his pen, either in the way of erasure or correction. The Archbishop returned it untouched; observing to a confidential friend, that he was sure the wit had only laid a trap for him, and that if he had put his pen to the manuscript, by way of correction or objection, Foote would have had the assurance to have advertised the play as 'corrected and prepared for the press by his grace the Archbishop of Canterbury."-—E.

him by the Czarina's order-but, alas! he need not be proud of them. They only serve to show how much worse he writes history with materials than without. Besides, it is evident how much that authority has cramped his genius. I had heard before, that when he sent the work to Petersburgh for imperial approbation, it was returned with orders. to increase the panegyric. I wish he had acted like a very inferior author. Knyphausen once hinted to me, that I might have some authentic papers, if I was disposed to write the life of his master; but I did not care for what would lay me under such restrictions. It is not fair to use weapons against the persons that lend them; and I do not admire his master enough to commend anything in him, but his military actions. Adieu!

TO THE REV. HENRY ZOUCH.

Arlington Street, Nov. 27, 1760.

You are extremely kind, Sir, in remembering the little commission I troubled you with. As I am in great want of some more painted glass to finish a window in my round tower, I should be glad, though it may not be a Pope, to have the piece you mentioned, if it can be purchased reasonably.

My Lucan is finished, but will not be published till after Christmas, when I hope you will do me the favour of accepting one, and let me know how I shall convey it. The Anecdotes of Painting have succeeded to the press: I have finished two volumes, but as there will at least be a third, I am not determined whether I shall not wait to publish the whole together. You will be surprised, I think, to see what a quantity of materials the industry of one man (Vertue) could amass! and how much he retrieved at this late period. I hear of nothing new likely to appear; all the world is taken up in penning addresses, or in presenting them;1 and the

1 On the then recent accession of George III.-E.

approaching elections will occupy the thoughts of men so much that an author could not appear at a worse era.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, Dec. 11, 1760.

I THANK you for the inquiries about the painted glass, and shall be glad if I prove to be in the right.

There is not much of news to tell you; and yet there is much dissatisfaction. The Duke of Newcastle has threatened to resign on the appointment of Lord Oxford and Lord Bruce without his knowledge. His court rave about Tories, which you know comes with a singular grace from them, as the Duke never preferred any. Murray, Lord Gower, Sir John Cotton, Jack Pitt, &c. &c. &c. were all firm Whigs. But it is unpardonable to put an end to all faction, when it is not for factious purposes. Lord Fitzmaurice,1 made aid-de-camp to the King, has disgusted the army. The Duke of Richmond, whose brother has no more been put over others than the Duke of Newcastle has preferred Tories, has presented a warm memorial in a warm manner, and has resigned the bedchamber, not his regiment — another propriety.

Propriety is so much in fashion, that Miss Chudleigh has called for the council books of the subscription concert, and has struck off the name of Mrs. Naylor. I have some thoughts of remonstrating, that General Waldegrave is too lean for to be a groom of the bed-chamber. Mr. Chute has sold his house to Miss Speed for three thousand pounds, and has taken one for a year in Berkeley Square.

This is a very brief letter; I fear this reign will soon furnish longer. When the last King could be beloved, a young man with a good heart has little chance of being so. Moreover, I have a maxim, that "the extinction of party is the origin of faction." Good night!

Afterwards Earl of Shelburne, and in 1784 created Marquis of Lansdowne.-E. 2 A noted procuress.-E.

SIR,

TO THE REV. HENRY ZOUCH.

Arlington Street, Jan. 3, 1761.

I STAYED till I had the Lucan ready to send you, before I thanked you for your letter, and for the pane of glass, about which you have given yourself so much kind trouble, and which I have received; I think it is clearly Heraclitus weeping over a globe.

Illuminated MSS., unless they have portraits of particular persons, I do not deal in; the extent of my collecting is already full as great as I can afford. I am not the less obliged to you, Sir, for thinking of me. Were my fortune larger, I should go deeper into printing, and having engraved curious MSS. and drawings; as I cannot, I comfort myself with reflecting on the mortifications I avoid, by the little regard shown by the world to those sort of things. The sums laid out on books one should, at first sight, think an indication of encouragement to letters; but booksellers only are encouraged, not books. Bodies of sciences, that is, compilations and mangled abstracts, are the only saleable commodities. Would you believe, what I know is fact, that Dr. Hill' earned fifteen guineas a-week by working for wholesale dealers: he was at once employed on six voluminous works of Botany, Husbandry, &c. published weekly. I am sorry to say, this journeyman is one of the first men preferred in the new reign: he is made gardener of Kensington, a place worth two thousand pounds a year. The King and Lord Bute have certainly both of them great propensity to the arts; but Dr. Hill, though undoubtedly not deficient in parts, has as little claim to favour in this reign, as Gideon, the stock-jobber, in the last; both engrossers without merit.

1 Dr. Hill's were among the first works in which scientific knowledge was put in a popular shape, by the system of number publishing. The Doctor's performances in this way are not discreditable, and are still useful as works of reference.-C.

2 This was an exaggeration of the emoluments of a place, which, after all, was not improperly bestowed on a person of Hill's pursuits and merits.-C.