up the stairs, and heard them go down, exactly in the time I was finishing no longer a paragraph. It were happy for me had nobody more curiosity than a Frenchman; who is never struck with any thing but what he has seen every day at Paris. I am tormented all day and every day by people that come to see my house, and have no enjoy. ment of it in summer. It would be even in vain to say that the plague is here. I remember such a report in London when I was a child, and my uncle, Lord Townshend, then Secretary of State, was forced to send guards to keep off the crowd from the house in which the plague was said to be; they would go and see the plague! Had I been the master of the house, I should have said, as I would to kings who pretend to cure the King's evil," You cure the evil!-you are the evil!" "You see the plague !-you are the plague!"

Since I began my letter, Mrs. Noel has told me who is your nephew's daughter's innamorato. I now pity him even more than I did. There is madness in the lover's family-how ean a parent consent to such a union? I am very tender-hearted on love-cases, especially to women, whose happiness does really depend, for some time at least, on the accomplishment of their wishes; they cannot conceive that another swain might be just as charming. I am not so indulgent to men, who do know that one romance is as good as another, and that the binding is of little consequence. But must not the blood of a father recoil, when his child would unite with phrenzy, and for grandchildren would bring him lunatics? Oh! I approve your poor nephew's repugnance. I have seen the lover's mother in her moods, and know but too well the peril of such alliances! That, and the royal malady I named in my last paragraph, are not enough guarded against. Both sometimes lie dormant for a generation, but rarely are eradicated. On the want of fortune I should be much less restive; and for the profession, if a girl is in love, how can she secure such a prospect of felicity as by marrying a clergyman? I am a little indelicate; but I know why Providence gave us passions; and therefore, however we may dress up and dignify the idea, the most romantic maiden upon earth, whether aware of it or not, is in love with the gender, though its more visible accompaniments may have made the impression. Your Orianas therefore find their account better in a Levite than in an Amadis. I have often wondered dowager Orianas do not always replace Amadis with a cassock. It is almost the only chance they have of not being disappointed. If the bell-wether strays after other ewes, the noise he makes betrays him, and the old crone is sure of reclaiming him. I beg pardon of goddesses for so ungallant a comment; but, however heretical it may sound to ears of twenty, it would be solid advice if dropped in those of forty. Adieu!

LETTER CCCCVI.

Aug. 27, 1783.

It is time to resume my veteran punctuality, and think of writing to you; but alas! correspondence, like matrimonial duty, is but ill performed when only prompted by periodic recollection of a debt to be paid. However, I am so far different from a husband, that my inclination is not decreased: want of matter alone makes me sluggish. The war is at an end; which, like domestic quarrels, animated our intercourse, and, like them, concludes with kissing, and is followed by dulness and inaction. The Definitive Treaty, they say, is signed the French and we are exceedingly fond. Presents pass weekly between the Duchesses of Polignac and Devonshire; and so many French arrive, that they overflow even upon me, and visit Strawberry as one of our sights. The Marquise de la Jamaique, sister of your Countess of Albany,† has been here this month, and

* Amongst the numerous distinguished individuals who had availed themselves of the recess to visit the Continent, was Mr. Pitt. "In the beginning of September," says the Bishop of Winchester, "accompanied by his brother-in-law, Mr. Eliot, and Mr. Wilberforce, he went to France, where he remained till the beginning of October, residing principally at Rheims and Paris. His name and character were well known in France; and he was every where received with great marks of distinction. This short visit was the only one he ever made to the Continent." Life, vol. i. p. 176.-As any incidents in the private life, at this youthful period, of the illustrious man, who, in the short period of a month, was appointed First Lord of the Treasury, will be interesting, we give the following passage from the Life and Journals of his attached friend and companion on the tour:

66

Although no master of the French vocabulary, his ear, quick for every sound but music, caught readily the intonations of the language; and he soon spoke it with considerable accuracy. He enquired carefully into the political institutions of the French, and the Abbé De Lageard has stored up his concluding sentence: 'Monsieur, vous n'avez point de liberté politique, mais pour la liberté civile, vous en avez plus que vous ne croyez." As he expressed in the strongest terms his admiration for the system which prevailed at home, the Abbé was led to ask him, since all human things were perishable, in what part the British Constitution might be first expected to decay? Pitt, a Parliamentary reformer, and speaking within three years of the time when the House of Commons had agreed to Mr. Dunning's motion, that the influence of the Crown had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished, after musing for a moment, answered: The part of our Constitution which will first perish, is the prerogative of the King, and the authority of the House of Peers.'-'I am greatly surprised,' said the Abbé, that a country so moral as England can submit to be governed by a man so wanting in private character as Fox; it seems to show you to be less moral than you appear. C'est que vous n'avez pas été sous la baguette du magicien,' was Pitt's reply; but the remark,' he continued, is just.' At Paris it was hinted to him through the intervention of Horace Walpole, that he would be an acceptable suiter for the daughter of the celebrated Neckar. Neckar is said to have offered to endow her with a fortune of 14,000l. per annum; but Mr. Pitt replied, 'I am already married to my country."-Life of Wilberforce, vol. i. p. 38.

6

Wife of the son of the Duke of Berwick and Liria, and daughter of the Prince of Stolberg. Her sister was married to the Pretender, who called himself Prince of Albany, and then resided at Florence.

stays above another. But, are not such articles below even the ingredients of a letter; especially between you and me, who have dealt in the fates of kingdoms? If I would talk politics, I must have recourse to the long-depending topic, whether there will be a war between the Turks and Russians: of which, in good truth, I know as little as of any thing else.

Sir William Hamilton is arrived, but I have not yet seen him. He will not be quite out of his element; for we have had pigmy earthquakes, much havoc by lightning, and some very respectable meteors.

I have not heard a syllable of Sharpe and Lucas. As it is vacation, I suppose even private justice cannot be administered out of term time. Pray, has Lord Orford ever paid you for his mother's tomb? I promised you to dun him if he did not; therefore empower me if he has neglected it.

I have not wherewithal to compose another paragraph, so this exordium must prove that I have not been negligent; but it must lie in my writing-box till I can collect something to fill up the remainder of the page-if I aimed at a third, I should not perhaps send it away before the Parliament meets.

Sept. 1st.

I shall finish this letter, brief as it is; for I go to-morrow to Park Place* and Nuneham† for ten days. Mr. Fox has notified to the City, that the Definitive Treaties are to be signed the day after tomorrow by all partics but Holland: whether the latter is abandoned and pouts, or is reserved by France as a nest-egg for hatching a new war, I know not. Lord Shelburne, I suppose, will rave against the Ministers for having definished his treaties, since he cannot abuse them for not having terminated them; but I trust he will be little heeded.

They say there has been a dreadful hurricane and inundation at Surat. All the elements seem to be willing to make a figure in their turn. In our humble northern way, we have had much damage by lightning. The summer has been wonderfully hot, and of late very unhealthy. Our globe really seems to be disordered. I have had my share in a rheumatic fever, which is not gone; but I hope change of air will cure it. In truth, I have no great faith in cures at my age for chronic complaints; but I try remedies, like people who go into lotteries, because they would not be out of fortune's way.

*Seat of General Conway, near Henley.

Seat of the Earl of Harcourt, in Oxfordshire. ["At Nuneham," says Walpole, "I was much pleased with the improvements both within doors and without. Mr. Mason was there; and, as he shines in every art, was assisting Mrs. Harcourt with his new discoveries in painting, by which he will unite miniature and oil. Indeed, she is a very apt and extraordinary scholar. Since our professors seem to have lost the art of colouring, I am glad, at least, that they have undergraduated assessors." Collective Edition, vol. vi. p. 200.—ED.].

LETTER CCCCVII.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 10. [This was only a note in the cover of a letter to be transmitted to Mr. Morice.]

MR. MORICE has written to me from Lausanne, which he was to leave at the beginning of this month for Naples, desiring to find a letter from me at Florence, with a state of the affairs of Cavalier Mozzi. I fear this will arrive too late. Should he be gone, you will be so good as to convey it to him wherever he is, or keep it for him should he not be arrived.

I do not know a tittle of news, but that the Peace arrived signed last Saturday. I have just seen Sir William Hamilton at General Conway's, and heard with great pleasure a most satisfactory account of you and your good looks and health. It is midnight, and this must go to town early to-morrow morning; and I am tired with writing to Mr. Morice, for I have the rheumatism in my right arm.

LETTER CCCCVIII.

Strawberry Hill, Sept. 27, 1783. THOUGH I enclosed a letter to you for Mr. Morice about three weeks ago, I cannot pretend to have written to you since the 1st of September. The cause of my silence lasts still,-a total want of matter; and though my punctual conscience enjoins me to begin a letter to you, it will have a hard task to make me finish it. The Peace has closed the chapter of important news, which was all our correspondence lived on. My age makes me almost as ignorant of common occurrences as your endless absence has made you. I cannot concern myself in what people, who might be my grandchildren, do. The fatal American war has so lowered my country, that I wish to think of it as little as I do of the youth of the times. My common-sense tells me that I cannot belong to a new age; and my memory, that I did belong to a better than the present. Thus I interest myself in nothing; and whoever is indifferent, is ill qualified for a correspondent. You must make allowance for my present insipidity, in consideration of my past service. I have been your faithful intelligencer for two and forty years. I do not take my leave; but, in a dearth of events such as you would wish to know, do not wonder if my letters are less frequent. It would be tiresome to both to repeat that I have nothing to say. Would you give a straw to have me copy the Gazette, which you see as well as I, only to tell you there are nine new Irish lords and ladies, of whom I never saw the persons of three?

I have complained to Mr. Duane of the indecent inaction of Sharpe

and Lucas he thinks it as extraordinary as I do, and has promised to reprove them.

Not being worth another paragraph in the world, I shall postpone my letter till next week, and carry it with me to town on Monday. Not that I expect to learn any thing there or then. London is a desert the moment the shooting season begins, and continues so to the middle of November at least. In my younger days I have been very barren in autumn in time of peace.

Monday, 30th.

I have lately been putting together into a large volume a collection of portrait-prints of all the persons mentioned in the letters of Madame de Sévigné; of whom for many years I have been amassing engravings, and of whom I have got a great number. I wish, therefore, you would send me a single print, if you can procure a separate one, of the Great-Duchess, wife of Cosmo the Third, and daughter of Gaston, Duke of Orleans, that absurd woman, of whom so much is said in the new History of the Medici. I have her amongst the other heads of the Medici, but do not care to mangle the set. You probably can obtain one from the engraver; but do not give yourself any trouble, nor pay a straw more than it is worth. If you obtain one, send it by any traveller coming to England. I trust you will have no occasion to send a courier. Let us rejoice, my dear sir, that you have no such occasion, and that I have so little to say. I hope we shall neither blunder into new matter, nor that our foregoing errors may be attended by new events? Never was my father's Quieta non movere established into a maxim that ought to be a lesson to politicians, so much as by the American war. It has already cost us our colonies and doubled our debt.

Learning nothing in town, I send this away to prove to you that I have no disposition to relax our correspondence; but, as it is foolish to give only negative proofs, be assured, if my intervals are longer, that like a good husband long married, my constancy is not impaired, though I may not be so regular in my demonstrations as formerly.

P.S. I have heard nothing of the Fatti Farnesiani.

LETTER CCCCIX.

Berkeley Square, Nov. 12, 1783.

I HAVE been longer than usual without writing to you, my dear sir; but so I told you in my last it was possible I should be. Had I written sooner, I could only have made excuses for having nothing to say. I have now the satisfaction of telling you that the political horizon is much cleared, and discovers a more serene prospect.

The