but cannot verify it, as they are at Strawberry and I am in town. That of mine which you received so long after the term, I conclude, was neglected at the office; for why should they detain it? My letters certainly contain nothing of consequence. I am in no secrets of any party, and certainly should not trust them to the post if I knew any, still less to all posts, English, Austrian, Dutch, and Italian. I have lived too long, besides being a Prime Minister's son, not to know that letters are opened; and, consequently what I write any body is welcome to see, if they have such curiosity. You, I believe, find that I seldom tell you any thing but what you have seen before in some public newspaper. The almost sole merit of my letters. is that I mean to ascertain your belief, that, when I repeat what you have read in the papers, you may be sure that it is true, or that I at least believe it. My sentiments are pretty well known, and, were they of any importance, it is not now that they are to be learnt.

I can tell you little of the combined fleets but contradictions. Our papers say, they are returned to Brest. Others say, they are still cruizing to the west, in expectation of our mercantile fleets. As variously I hear of Darby: the printed authorities make him returned to Torbay; the verbal, at sea. All I prove is, that I don't know which accounts are true. Minorca I have given up; though we read daily of a Russian fleet in the Mediterranean, to whom we are supposed to have ceded it,-a little late to be sure: I question whether the Czarina would accept a present encumbered with a lawsuit.

One good event I do know: Lord George Gordon has given up his pretensions of being member for London. It is still better, that he dropped his pursuit on finding that the City did not choose to be burnt once a-year for his amusement.

Though I knew your nephew talked of making you a visit this autumn, you surprise me by thinking him set out: nay, I do not affirm that he is not, yet I should think he would have let me know. Moreover, Mrs. Noel, a near relation of Lady Lucy, and in constant correspondence with Lord Gainsborough's family, and whom I see three or four times a-week at the Duchess of Montrose's at Twickenham Park, knows not a word of his being gone: we talk of him frequently. Yet my equal ignorance of Galluzzi's History staggers

I can only suppose that it lies at your nephew's house in town, and that he has not been in London for some time. I am impatient, yet I shall not lay violent hands on it without his knowledge. I do wish you to have the comfort of seeing him; it will make me amends for waiting for the House of Medici. You will have the pleasure of seeing Mrs. Damer, whom I announced in my last.

There is a perfect dearth of all private news, as usual at this season, when the campaign is opened against poor partridges and pheasants, and which is as hot as if we had no other occasion for gunpowder! It is well, however, to have all England good marksmen. I forgot to say that there is talk of an armistice with Holland.

May it be true! though I fear peace is not so catching as war: yet, as the demon of blood has breakfasted, dined, and supped so plentifully, I should hope he had gotten a surfeit; nay, he must let the calves grow up and be fat, when he has devoured hecatombs of oxen, if he means to gormandize on. Adieu!

LETTER CCCLX.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 3, 1781.

THERE may be wars over half the globe, and yet they may not furnish a paragraph to the newspapers every day, nor matter for a letter once a fortnight. Besides, polished nations act more out of spite than anger, and had rather civilly murder one another by a consumption, than by knocking out each other's brains. You and I remember, a few years ago, that a King of Prussia could gallop from Bohemia to Dantzick, whisk back to Silesia, bounce like an apparition into Saxony, pick up a victory here and a defeat there, and put news-writers out of breath with following or hunting him. France and Spain are other-guess enemies. They undermine our funds, inveigle us into taxes, and never offer us a battle, but with such superiority that we dare not accept it. I own we are so simple as to humour them in this unfair warfare! It costs us millions to play a losing game, without a soul betting on our side. We verily believe the combined fleets are gone to their several homes; in the interim we are viceroys of the Channel again during their pleasure; thanks to our only ally the Equinox! The fleet from the Leeward Islands is arrived safely. You must send us news of Minorca. Our Mediterranean post-office is a little out of repair.

Thus, having no immediate object of your curiosity to satisfy, I shall not hurry my gazettes. I am tired of writing to say I have nothing to write.

Lord Rochford is dead. The other Nassau, your Prince Cowper, the papers say, is arrived in England; as great a stranger as any outlandish Prince, as the vulgar call it, could be.

Wednesday night.

Well; I find Lord Cowper is not come; which is not extraordinary, as his arrival would be after twenty years of absence. Mr. Beauclerk, whom you have seen of late, I conclude, with Lady

* William-Henry Zulenstein de Nassau, fourth Earl of Rochford. In 1763, his Lordship was appointed Ambassador to the court of Spain; and from 1768 to 1775, filled the office of one of the principal Secretaries of State, and in 1778 was elected a Knight of the Garter.-ED.

† Aubrey Beauclerk, second Lord Vere, married, in 1763, Lady Catharine Pon-. sonby, eldest daughter of the Earl of Besborough. The first Lord Vere was a

Catharine, is now a peer: his father, Lord Vere, is just dead, at eighty-one.

LETTER CCCLXI.

Berkeley Square, Oct. 18, 1781.

HAPPENING to come to town to-day, I found the two sets of the History of the Medici. Ihasten to tell you so, that your nephew may not be unquiet about their remaining chez lui. I do not thank you but for your trouble; for I insist on your telling your nephew the price, that I may pay him at his return. You know I have made a law against presents, and it would be curious if I broke my own ordinance in a still more flagrant instance of asking for them. This was a commission, and do not imagine that I would not only beg a present, but a double one.

Though I came to town on business, my impatience was so great that I could not help dipping; and, as you may guess, turned to the story of Bianca Capello.* It is a little palliated, yet I think was clearly an empoisonnement. I find, too, more freedom than I expected, though promised. I did apprehend that the characters of Princes, drawn under the eye of a Prince, would be softened and softened, till scarce a speck would remain ; but, by that of Duke Francis, I perceive that the Great-Duke has surmounted many royal prejudices. The style seems simple and natural, and does not aspire to dignity or beauty of diction. One term, often repeated, sounds very vulgar. The author talks of the impudenza of Bianca's arts and conduct. This is a very gross word, in spite of the Italian liquids in the termination. In England and France we are too refined to use so coarse a phrase. Mr. Gibbon would not use it on a Pope or a Father of the Church, and to employ it on a lady, and a sovereign lady! mercy on us! What would Galluzzi say of the legislatress Catharine of Russia? Of that idol of modern philosophers? Whose ascent Volyounger son of the first Duke of St. Alban's. In 1787, by the death of his cousin George, grandson of Lord William Beauclerk, he became fifth Duke of St. Alban's. *The story of Bianca Capello has been variously related. The following is Walpole's version, written in a cartouche on the frame of a painting of Bianca, bought out of the Vitelli palace at Florence by Sir Horace Mann, and sent to Strawberry Hill: "Bianca Capello, a Venetian lady,, who, having disobliged her family by marrying a Florentine banker, was reduced to maintain him by washing linen. Francis, the Great-Duke, saw, fell in love with, and made her his mistress, and her hushand his minister; but the latter after numberless tyrannies, for which she obtained his pardon, and after repeated ill-usage of her, for which she pardoned him, having murdered a man, and being again protected by her, the Great-Duke told her, that, though he would remit her husband's punishment, he would pardon whoever should kill him. The relations of the deceased murdered the assassin, and Francis married his widow Bianca, who was poisoned with him at a banquet by Cardinal Ferdinand, afterwards called the Great, brother and successor of Duke Francis."ED.

taire called, only a family squabble, with which he would not meddle. This is the way in which the good-breeding of the present age mentions atrocious deeds;

Just hints a crime, and hesitates dislike.

The torpor of the times has been a little roused this week by some packets of events. The admirals Graves and Hood have attacked a superior French fleet at the mouth of the Chesapeak, and have not beaten it. It is the business of the French, not ours, to say who did beat. I doubt we did not gain a naval crown, and have lost a seventy-four gun ship. In return, Commodore Johnstone has taken four rich Dutchmen, and our India fleet is arrived-which Johnstone is not. However, he is the hero of the day, as Admiral Rodney has a little over-gilt his own statue, and Lord Cornwallis is trying to scramble to New York, without having quite conquered AmeLord Hawket is dead and does not seem to have bequeathed

his mantle to any body.

I do not find the least curiosity stirring about Minorca. If it is lost, the public will be content, should it produce a court-martial, which is found to be an excellent soporific on all our disasters.-We have wherewithal to pass the winter very agreeably. Adieu!

* By the plunder of St. Eustatia. [The conduct of Admiral Rodney and General Vaughan, in seizing and confiscating all the property at St. Eustatia, had, shortly before the close of the session, been brought before the House of Commons by Mr. Burke. As the motion, though it was only for papers necessary for an inquiry into that transaction, led to a censure upon the Ministry, if the orders of confiscation were sent from hence, and if not, to a censure upon Rodney and Vaughan, it was rejected upon a division, by 160 to 86.-ED.

A capital naval hero in the war of 1759. [Of the glorious victory obtained in 1759, by Admiral Hawke, over the French squadron off Quiberon Bay, Walpole, in his Memoirs of George II., has given a spirited description: "On the first notice," he says, "that the French fleet had escaped out of Brest, that prudent and active officer, Sir Edward Hawke, sailed in quest of it. He had twenty-three ships; they twenty-one. He came up with them on their own coast; and, before half his fleet had joined him, began the attack. Conflans at first made a show of fighting, but soon took the part of endeavouring to shelter himself among the rocks, of which that coast was full. It was the 20th of November, and the shortness of the day prevented the total destruction of the enemy; but neither darkness nor a dreadful temptest that ensued could call off Sir Edward from pursuing his blow. The roaring of the elements was redoubled by the thunder from our ships; and both concurred, in that scene of horror, to put a period to the navy and hopes of France. Seven ships of the line got into the river Vilaine, eight more escaped to different ports. Conflans's own ship and another were run on shore and burnt. One we took. Two of ours were lost in the storm, but the crews saved. Lord Howe, who attacked the Formidable, bore down on her with such violence, that her prow forced in his lower tier of guns. Captain Digby, in the Dunkirk, received the fire of twelve of the enemy's ships, and lost not a man. Keppel's was full of water, and he thought it sinking: a sudden squall emptied his ship, but he was informed all his powder was wet; Then,' said he, 'I am sorry I am safe. They came and told him, a small quantity was undamaged: Very well,' said he, then attack again. Not above eight of our ships were engaged in obtaining that decisive victory." From 1765 to 1771, Hawke was the First Lord of the Admiralty. He was created a baron in 1776. His monument at Stoneham records, that "a Prince, unsolicited, conferred on him dignities he disdained to ask.-ED.

LETTER CCCLXII.

Strawberry Hill, Oct. 29, 1781. I HAVE received a letter to-night from the younger Sir Horace, and answer it to both or either, for this reason: the courier may be detained here, like the last, for several days; in which case, nay, without that, the nephew will probably have left Florence before the courier gets back, as Mrs. Noel says the junior Sir is to be here by the meeting of Parliament. To him, if not set out, I must say, that nothing could be more unnecessary than an apology to me for not advertising me of this journey; and, having been so constantly kind to me, I was not in the least suspicious of his wanting any of his usual goodness for me. I must again quote Mrs. Noel, who, not having heard of his setting out till some time after he was gone, concluded, from its being so late in the season, that he would not go at all. Had I had any thing particular to send, I should certainly have informed myself more carefully. In good truth, I never am diffident of my friends, nor ever saw the smallest ground in Sir Horace for being so.

Now, my old correspondent, to you. I am charmed with the good account your nephew gives me of you. He says you have no complaint but a little trembling of your hand. I, who am so nervous, that the sudden clapping of a door makes me shudder all over, call that nothing. I have lost the use of several joints of my fingers, and often fear I shall lose entirely the service of my right hand. Such alarms, amongst other reflections, reconcile one to the parting with one's whole self;-but what every body that has common sense must feel, it is idle to detail.

I must own, I do expect the loss of Minorca. It is true, nothing can be more bungling than our enemies. I have often thought, and, I believe, said to you, that Russia, Prussia, and Austria must look with infinite contempt on our western warfare. They divided a kingdom in fewer months than we have been years in fighting drawn battles. They give us room to make a kind of figure by letting us make head at all against France, Spain, Holland, and America. Yet I am not so sanguine as your nephew. I think it would be phrenzy for our fleet to pass the Straits at this time of year for the relief of Minorca. Separated they are, I believe, the combined fleets; but when we did not venture to encounter them at the mouth of our own channel-that was! would it be wise to invite them to reassemble and empound us in the Mediterranean, or reduce us to fight our way against their superiority at the door of it? Clumsy as they are, I doubt they are not dull to that degree. Nay, I fear they do know that, even in this dilatory way, they will ruin us by the expense we are at. I should have thought they might have done their business sooner, unless they look on our exhausting ourselves as more permanent destruction. Little as they have done for America, which