have been crammed! Some will remain inexplicable. This jaunt of the Russian squadron will be one of the enigmas.

LETTER CCCXXXV.

Berkeley Square, Sept. 19, 1780.

As I think you do not suspect me of neglect when I have any thing worth telling you, you will perceive that there are periods when it takes a good deal of time to form events-a whole campaign may not produce two. At other seasons the market is overstocked; or, after a glut there is a scarcity. The dissolution of the Parliament could not surprise you, it had been so announced. Your nephew, I see by the papers, is re-elected. I have no other intelligence; and, of all articles of news, those on elections are the last I seek. I know as little what the fleets are doing; or where they are, doing nothing. One thing I do discern, that the approaching recovery of America is about as near as the Millennium. Prophecy will sink as low as fortune-telling: no gipsy is less to be credited than our predicting politicians, who, for these last five or six years, have been cruelly brought to shame on the conquests they have announced. By their bubbles the nation are almost stripped of their last shilling, like the dupes who hunt after the philosopher's stone. America is now like the Holy land; none but bigots and madmen will think of subduing it: nor does the tone of resumption much become us, who are not in the ascending scale.

Admiral Keppel has been thrown out at Windsor, and, it is pretended, by the personal veto of the first inhabitant of the Castle: the consequence already has been that the counties of Surrey and Suffolk solicited the honour of electing the Admiral, who has accepted the offer from the former.*

Seven new barons are made: Earl Talbot, that the peerage may descend to his daughter'st children; Sir William De Grey, late Chief Justice; Lord Gage, turned into an English peer; General Fitzroy; Mr. Brudenel; Mr. Herbert ; and Sir William Bagot. There have

* On the dissolution of Parliament, Admiral Keppel, who had represented Windsor for nearly twenty years, repaired to the electors to solicit a renewal of their suffrages: but since he had last appeared before them, he had become such an ob ject of dislike to the Court and the Government, that their joint influence was ex erted against his return, In his speech from the hustings, the Admiral after alluding to the report that the King had personally taken a part in the proceedings against him, said, "This cannot be true. It ought not to be believed. It must not be believed." Life, vol. ii. p. 285. Mr. Erskine, in a pamphlet which he wrote at the time, affirmed, that "the highest power of the Government, not contented with having deprived the nation of Keppel's abilities in his profession, had made itself a party to rob it likewise of his zeal and honesty in the senate."-ED.

+ Lady Cecil Rice, wife of George Rice; on her father's death she became Baroness of Dinevor.

Sir W. De Grey was created Lord Walsingham, General Fitzroy Lord South

been some shiftings of places of the second rate, and some promotions, but none of consequence.

This is literally the sum total of my knowledge; as I have such a fair field of paper lying before me, you may be sure I would embroider it if I had wherewithal. However, I have less scruple in sending such a scrap, as I must write to you again soon, for I hear Mr. Morrice is arrived in England. Where he is, I cannot tell, but I trust I shall see or hear from him soon; and then I am as certain of having cause to thank you-which, by the way, I do d'avance: but, though my gratitude will always last, you are to remember that it is never to receive any additional fund.

LETTER CCCXXXVI.

Berkeley Square, Oct. 4, 1780.

I HAVE received your packet by Mr. Sutherland, and am delighted with its contents. Your news would be much the best part, but I doubt is not so far advanced as to expect sudden effect. The History of the House of Medici will be welcome indeed. I see one has but to form wishes early, and live long enough, and they will all be fulfilled. The Famiglia estinta made me smile. If that condition brings one acquainted with their true story, it would not make one very zealous for successors in some foreign royal families; for instance, I should not pray for issue to the Great Duke of Russia. I beg you will subscribe for three sets for me and two of my friends. I should like to have carta cerulea; not because it is dearest, but because I do not know what it is, and therefore conclude like the vulgar, that it is something mighty fine. I hope no soul that has interest to stop it, will get an inkling of the work.

Your ring I have not yet received, though Mr. Morrice is arrived.

ampton, and Mr. Herbert Lord Portchester. James Brudenel, made Lord Brudenel was next brother of George Duke of Montagu, and Earl of Cardigan.

* It was written by Galluzzi, from authentic papers furnished by the Austrian Grand-Duke Leopold; who said that, as the House of Medici was extinct, there was no reason for not writing their true story. This History was published in 1781, after the death of the Empress-Queen; whose prejudices would probably have prevented it, had she known of her son's intention; as it is not at all favourable to the Court of Rome. [Galluzzi's work is entitled "Istoria del Gran Ducato di Toscano sotto il Governo della cassa Medici," and was published in five volumes quarto. Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, who visited Florence in 1779, says of sir Horace Mann, that he had long outlived the extinction of the House of Medici, for which race of princes he seemed to preserve the same predilection, which Brantome always manifests for the family of Valois above the line of Bourbon. He adds, that Sir Horace personally knew the last Grand-Duke of the Medicean line, John Gaston, who died in 1737; in consequence of whose decease without issue, those beautiful portions of Italy, constituting his dominions were finally transferred to a Prince of Lorraine.-ED.]

Indeed, displeased as I was at your superabundant kindness in sending it, I am now afraid I shall never possess it. All my disinterestedness could not resist dunning Mr. Morrice; and, behold, he has sent me word that by some mal-entendu it was packed up in his heavy baggage, which by another, is still at Margate! Oh! how can one flatter one's self that a ring in a bottle of heavy baggage will ever be found! or, rather, will not be found and stolen by some custom-house officer! Mr. Morrice was a fine person to trust a gem to! I suppose he would have stuffed a lady's picture for her lover into a jackboot!

General Dalrymple is arrived from Sir Henry Clinton with heavy baggage indeed, full of bad news! The Gazette has produced only samples, strewed over with fine sugar, to make it as palatable and little bitter as possible; but the sum total is, that adieu to America! All the visions that mounted in fumes into our heads from the capture of Charlestown are turned to smoke; and it were well if it would rest there. To be cured of that dream would be no calamity; but I wish we may have no collateral losses! I fear we ache in some islands, and are not quite without twitches on the continent of America. Well! as I was right in foreseeing some miserable issue from the American war, I have a mind to try my skill in foretelling peace. 'Tis sure I wish it most fervently.

Last week I was alarmed with a calamity nearer to my heart than politics. General Conway broke his arm by a fall. But I have been with him, and he is in the most favourable way possible, and has not had the smallest degree of fever.

You must reckon this short letter the second part of my last, which was short too; or as the beginning of my next, for if ever I get my ring, I shall certainly write again to thank you, though I should have nothing else to say. I could have made this longer, but I do not like to entertain every foreign post-office with what they would not dislike.

LETTER CCCXXXVII.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 7, 1780.

PART the second behold already-for I have received the gem, which from ignorance I called a ring, and beg its pardon: it is much too large for so little an appellation, and is most beautiful too, and of exquisite sculpture. All this makes matters worse, for, the finer it is, the more I am ashamed; and therefore cannot thank you half so much as it deserves. Yet I will be very grateful, upon condition of its never having a successor. You must tell me what the connoisseurs have baptized it. Is it an Apollo or an Amazon? A handsome young god and a heroine approach so much to the boundaries of the sexes, that they are not easily discriminated in so small an area. Mr. Morrice has fairly excused his delay. After he had put to sea, they ap prehended a privateer; on which he sent back his baggage to Ostend,

and with it his most valuable treasures. My gem has escaped all these perils, and arrived like the lost sheep. You cannot imagine how the Caligula, and the Bianca Capello, and Benvenuto's coffer, and the Castiglione, and all your presents, embraced and hugged it, and inquired after you. The new comer is lodged in a glass-case in my tribune, over against Caligula.

As I wrote to you but two days ago-nay, my letter would leave London but to-night, I have no news to add: however, I may have; for this will not go hence till Tuesday morning, to be ready for that night's mail.-But I was so impatient to tell you the cameo is safe, and that your munificence is not thrown away entirely, that I could not help beginning my letter now, though the rest of my paper must depend on the charity of accident and events: and, if they will not assist it, I do not care,-go it shall; I will not owe you a moment's gratitude that I can pay. Nay, I will heap coals of fire on my own head; for all your gifts shall be entered in the printed catalogue of my collection as your presents, and then who ever reads it will cry, Why, had he no shame ?"-Oh, yes, a vast deal; and this is one of his ways of doing penance.

Oct. 9th.

Since I wrote the above, I have heard from Paris of the death of my dear old friend Madame du Deffand, whom I went so often thi ther to see. It was not quite unexpected, and was softened by her great age,-eighty-four,-which forbad distant hopes; and, by what I dreaded more than her death, her increasing deafness, which had it become, like her blindness, total, would have been living after death. Her memory only began to impair; her amazing sense and quickness, not at all. I have written to her once a-week for these last fifteen years, as correspondence and conversation could be her only pleasure.* You see that I am the most faithful letter-writer in the world—and, alas! never see those I am so constant to! One is forbidden common-place reflections on these misfortunes, because they are common-place; but is not that, because they are natural? But your never having known that dear old woman is a better reason for not making you the butt of my concern.

Lord George Gordon has just got a neighbour-I believe, not a companion; for state prisoners are not allowed to be very sociable.

* Madame du Deffand died on the 24th of September, at Paris, and was buried, pursuant to her own directions, in the plainest manner, in her parish church of S. Sulpice. The whole of her manuscripts, papers, letters, and books, she left to Horace Walpole; her favourite dog, Tonton, was also sent over to him, at her especial desire. In her last letter to him, which is dated the 22nd of August, only five weeks before her death, she thus strikingly describes her condition:-"Je suis d'une fai blesse et d'un abattement excessifs: ma voix est éteinte; je ne puis me soutenir sur mes jambes; je ne puis me donner aucun mouvement; j'ai le cœur enveloppé : j'ai de la peine à croire que cet état ne m'annonce une fin prochaine. Je n'ai pas la force d'en être effrayée; et ne vous devant révoir de ma vie, je n'ai rien à regretter."-ED.

Laurens, lately President of the Congress, has been taken by a natural son of the last Lord Albemarle, and brought to England, to London, to the Tower. He was going Ambassador to Holland, and his papers are captured too. I should think they would tell us but what we learnt a fortnight ago; and (which is more wonderful, what we would not believe till a fortnight ago) that there is an end of our American dream! Perhaps they will give us back a cranny in exchange for their negotiator.

I go again to-morrow to see General Conway, and hope to find him out of bed; and I finish my letter, that I may not run into meditations on what is uppermost in my mind,-mortality and its accidents!

At night.

I have just heard some news that you will like to hear, and which will make you hold up your head again a little vis-a-vis de M. de Barbantane. An express arrived to-day from Lord Cornwallis, who with two thousand men has attacked General Gates in Carolina at the head of seven thousand, and entirely defeated him, killed nine hundred, and taken one thousand prisoners; and there has since been a little codi cil, of all which you will see the particulars in the to-morrow's Gazette. But it is very late, and this must go to town early in the morning. I allow you to triumph, though Gates is my godson, and your namesake.

LETTER CCCXXXVIII.

Berkeley Square, Nov. 2, 1780. Ir the word New Parliament did not impose a sort of duty on me, -at least, if you would not expect it,-I think I should scarce write to you yet, for I have nothing to tell you but that il ne valoit pas la peine de changer. There are several new members, but no novelty in style or totality of votes. The Court may have what number it

*The following is from a letter written by Admiral Keppel, on the 11th, to the Marquis of Rockingham :-"Just before bed-time, Captain George Keppel surprised me with his appearance. I learnt from him that he had come home express from his admiral; that he had taken a packet-boat conveying Mr. Laurens, once President of the Congress in America, to Holland. The captain told me that he had taken out of the water (which had failed of sinking) a very large bag of papers, which he had brought home for the King's Ministers. He had been very civil to his prisoner, who, after his bad luck in being taken, found out that he had fallen into the hands of a moderate young man, and had no difficulty in talking with him. He told Captain Keppel that he should not answer any questions put to him by Minis The unfortunate gentleman is confined in the Tower." The capture of Mr. Laurens, or rather the recovery of the papers which had been thrown overboard, led to the discovery of a commercial treaty about to be entered into between Amsterdam and the American colonies. This induced our Government to remonstrate, and finally, on the 20th of December, to declare war against Holland. See Life, vol. ii. p. 293.-Ed.

ters.