DEAR SIR, TO THE REV. MR. COLE. Strawberry Hill, July 16, 1764. You must think me a brute to have been so long without taking any notice of your obliging offer of coming hither. The truth is, I have not been at all settled here for three days together: nay, nor do I know when I shall be. I go to-morrow into Sussex; in August into Yorkshire, and in September into France. If, in any interval of these jaunts, I can be sure of remaining here a week, which I literally have not been this whole summer, I will certainly let you know, and will claim your promise. Another reason for my writing now, is, I want to know how I may send you Lord Herbert's Life, which I have just printed. Did I remember the favour you did me of asking for my own print? if I did not, it shall accompany this book. SIR, TO THE REV. HENRY ZOUCH. Arlington Street, July 21, 1764. You will have heard of the severe attendance which we have had for this last week in the House of Commons. It will, I trust, have excused me to you for not having answered sooner your very kind letter. My books, I fear, have no merit over Mr. Harte's Gustavus, but by being much shorter. I read his work, and was sorry so much curious matter should be so ill and so tediously put together. His anecdotes are much more interesting than mine; luckily I was aware that mine were very trifling, and did not dwell upon them. To answer the demand, I am printing them with additions, but must wait a little for assistance and corrections to the two latter, as I have had for the former. You are exceedingly obliging, Sir, to offer me one of your Fergussons. I thank you for it, as I ought; but, in truth, I 433 have more pictures than room to place them; both my houses are full, and I have even been thinking of getting rid of some I have. That this is no declension of your civility, Sir, you will see, when I gladly accept either of your medals of King Charles. I shall be proud to keep it as a mark of your friendship; but then I will undoubtedly rob you of but one. I condole with you, Sir, for the loss of your friend and relation, as I heartily take my share in whatever concerns you. The great and unmerited kindness I have received from you will ever make me your most obliged, &c. DEAR SIR, TO THE REV. MR. COLE. Arlington Street, July 21, 1764. I MUST never send you trifles; for you always make me real presents in return. The beauty of the coin surprises me. Mr. White must be rich, when such are his duplicates. I am acquainted with him, and have often intended to visit his collection; but it is one of those things one never does, because one always may. I give you a thousand thanks in return, and what are not worth more, my own print, Lord Herbert's Life, (this is curious, though it cost me little,) and some orange flowers. I wish you had mentioned the latter sooner: I have had an amazing profusion this year, and given them away to the right and left by handfulls. These are all I could collect to-day, as I was coming to town; but you shall have more, if you want them. I consign these things as you ordered: I wish the print may arrive without being rumpled: it is difficult to convey mezzotintos; but if this is spoiled, you shall have another. If I make any stay in France, which I do not think I shall, above six weeks at most, you shall certainly hear from me:but I am a bad commissioner for searching you out a hermitage. It is too much against my interest: and I had much rather find you one in the neighbourhood of Strawberry. Adieu ! VOL. IV. TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD. Strawberry Hill, August 3, 1764. As my letters are seldom proper for the post now, I begin them at any time, and am forced to trust to chance for a conveyance. This difficulty renders my news very stale; but what can I do? There does not happen enough at this season of the year to fill a mere gazette. I should be more sorry to have you think me silent too long. You must be so good as to recollect, when there is a large interval between my letters, that I have certainly one ready in my writingbox, and only wait for a messenger. I hope to send this by Lord Coventry. For the next three weeks, indeed, I shall not be able to write, as I go in a few days with your brother to Chatsworth and Wentworth Castle. I am under more distress about my visit to you but I will tell you the truth. As I think the Parliament will not meet before Christmas, though they now talk of it for November, I would quit our politics for a few weeks; but the expense frightens me, which did not use to be one of my fears. I cannot but expect, knowing the enemies I have, that the treasury may distress me. I had laid by a little sum which I intended to bawble away at Paris; but I may have very serious occasion for it. The recent example of Lord Holderness, who has had every rag seized at the Customhouse, alarms my present prudence. I cannot afford to buy even clothes, which I may lose in six weeks. These considerations dispose me to wait till I see a little farther into this chaos. You know enough of the present actors in the political drama, to believe that the present system is not a permanent one, nor likely to roll on till Christmas without some change. The first moment that I can quit party with honour, I shall seize. It neither suits my inclination nor the 1 He had the lucrative office of usher of the exchequer, and a couple of other less considerable sinecures.-C. Robert, last Earl of Holderness, grandson of the great Duke Schomberg; he had been secretary of state at the accession.-C. years I have lived in the world; for, though I am not old, I have been in the world so long, and seen so much of those who figure in it, that I am heartily sick of its commerce. My attachment to your brother, and the apprehension that fear of my own interest would be thought the cause if I took no part for him, determined me to risk everything rather than abandon him. I have done it, and cannot repent, whatever distresses may follow. One's good name is of more consequence than all the rest, my dear lord. Do not think I say this with the least disrespect to you; it is only to convince you that I did not recommend anything to you that I would avoid myself; nor engaged myself, nor wished to engage you, in party from pique, resentment, caprice, or choice. I am dipped in it much against my inclination. I can suffer by it infinitely more than you could. But there are moments when one must take one's part like a man. This I speak solely with regard to myself. I allow fairly and honestly, that you was not circumstanced as I was. You had not voted with your brother as I did; the world knew your inclinations were different. All this certainly composed serious reasons for you not to follow him, if you did not choose it. My motives for thinking you had better have espoused his cause, were for your own sake: I detailed those motives to you in my last long letter: that opinion is as strong with me as ever. The affront to you, the malice that aimed that affront, the importance that it gives one, upon the long-run, to act steadily and uniformly with one's friends, the enemies you make in the opposition, composed of so many great families, and of your own principal allies,' and the little merit you gain with the ministry by the contrary conduct,-all these were, to me, unanswerable reasons, and remain so, for what I advised; yet, as I told you before, I think the season is passed, and that you must wait for an opportunity of disengaging yourself with credit. I am persuaded that occasion will be given you, from one or other of the causes I mentioned in my last; and if the fairest is, I entreat you by the good wishes which I am sure Lady Hertford was daughter of the late, and cousin of the existing Duke of Grafton, who was one of the leaders of the opposition.-C. - you know from my soul I hear you, to seize it. Excuse me : I know I go too far, but my heart is set on your making a great figure, and your letters are so kind, that they encourage me to speak with a friendship which I am sensible is not discreet; but you know you and your brother have ever been the objects of my warmest affection; and, however partial you may think me to him, I must labour to have the world think as highly of you, and to unite you firmly for your lives. If this was not my motive, you must be sure I should not be so earnest. It is not one vote in the House of Lords that imports us. Party is grown so serious, and will, I doubt, become every day more so, that one must make one's option; and it will go to my soul to see you embarked against all your friends, against the Whig principles you have ever professed, and with men, amongst whom you have not one well-wisher, and with whom you will not even be able to remain upon tolerable terms, unless you take a vigorous part against all you love and esteem. 1 In warm times lukewarmness is a crime with those on whose side you are ranged. Your good sense and experience will judge whether what I say is not strictly the case. It is not your brother or I that have occasioned these circumstances. Lord Bute has thrown this country into a confusion which will not easily be dissipated without serious hours. Changes may, and, as I said in the beginning of my letter, will probably happen; but the seeds that have been sown will not be rooted up by one or two revolutions in the cabinet. It had taken an hundred and fifty years to quiet the animo 2 The state of the public mind at this time is thus described by Gray -"Grumble, indeed, every one does; but, since Wilkes's affair, they fall off their metal, and seem to shrink under the brazen hand of Norton and his colleagues. I hear there will be no Parliament till after Christmas. If the French should be so unwise as to suffer the Spanish court to go on in their present measures (for they refuse to pay the ransom of Manilla, and have driven away our logwood cutters already), down go their friends in the ministry, and all the schemes of right divine and prerogative; and this is perhaps the best chance we have. Are you not struck with the great similarity there is between the first years of Charles the First and the present times? Who would have thought it possible five years ago?" Works, vol. iv. p. 34.—E. 2 It is not easy to say what hundred and fifty years he alludes to; the |