are certainly the speculations of an idle man, and the more trifling when one considers the moment. But alas! what would my most grave speculations avail ? From the hour that fatal egg, the Stamp Act, was laid, I disliked it, and all the vipers hatched from it. I now hear many curse it, who fed the vermin with poisonous weeds. Yet the guilty and the innocent rue it equally hitherto! I would not answer for what is to come! Seven years of miscarriages may sour the sweetest tempers, and the most sweetened. Oh! where is the Dove with the olive-branch? Long ago I told you that you and I might not live to see an end of the American war. It is very near its end indeed now-its consequences are far from a conclusion. In some respects, they are commencing a new date, which will reach far beyond us. I desire not to pry into that book of futurity. Could I finish my course in peace-but one must take the chequered scenes of life as they come. What signifies whether the elements are serene or turbulent, when a private old man slips away? ? What has he and the world's concerns to do with one another? He may sigh for his country, and babble about it; but he might as well sit quiet and read or tell old stories; the past is as important to him as the future.

Dec. 3rd.

I had not sealed my letter, as it cannot set out till to-morrow; and since I wrote it I have received yours, of the 20th of November, by your courier.

I congratulate you on the success of your attempts,

and admire the heroic refusal of the General.* I shall certainly obey you, and not mention it. Indeed, it would not easily be believed here, where as many pence are irresistible.

Your nephew told me that Mrs. Damer was hasting to Rome. I am glad that, as far as you could in so short a time, you did not find that I had exaggerated; but I know her shyness too well not to be sure that you could not discover a thousandth part of her understanding.

Your Mr. Terney was an ostentatious fool, of whom there is no more to be said. Formerly, when such simpletons did not know what to do with their wealth, they bequeathed it to the Church; and then, perhaps,

* General Murray, Governor of Minorca, which was besieged by the Spaniards, was offered a vast bribe by the Duc de Crillon, the Spanish commander, to give up Fort St. Philip, but spurned at the offer. [“ The eagerness of Spain to gain possession of this island was," says the Annual Register, "so excessive, that the Court seems to have departed in some degree from that dignity of character which should ever be inseparably united with royalty, by an insidious endeavour, through the medium of an immense bribe, to corrupt the fidelity of the Governor. Nor did the Duc de Crillon seem entirely to pay a proper attention to his own rank and reputation, nor to preserve a due recollection of the honour and distinction entailed upon his family by the peculiar virtue of an illustrious ancestor, when he descended to become the instrument in such a business. General Murray treated the insult with a mixture of that haughty disdain incident to the consciousness of an ancient line and illustrious ancestry, and with the generous indignation and stern resentment of a veteran soldier, who feels himself wounded in the tenderest part, by an insidious attempt upon, and consequently suspicion of, that honour which he had set up as the great object and idol of his life." General the Honourable James Murray was the brother of John, third Duke of Atholl. He represented the county of Perth in five parliaments; and at his death, in 1794, was a Major-General in the army, and Governor of Fort William in Scotland.—ED.]

one got a good picture for an altar, or a painted window.

Don't trouble yourself about the third set of Galuzzi. They are to be had here now, and those for whom I intended them can buy them. I have not made so much progress as I intended, and have not yet quite finished the second volume. I detest Cosmo the Great. I am sorry, either that he was so able a man, or so successful a man. When tyrants are great men, they should miscarry; if they are fools, they will miscarry of course. Pray, is there any picture of Camilla Martelli, Cosmo's last wife? I had never heard of her. The dolt, his son, I find, used her ill, and then did the same thing. Our friend, Bianca Capello, it seems, was a worthless creature. I don't expect much entertainment but from the life of Ferdinand the Great. It is true, I have dipped into the others, particularly into the story of Cosmo the Third's wife, of whom I had read much in French Mémoires, and into that of John Gaston, which was so fresh when I was at Florence; but as the author, in spite of the Great-Duke's injunctions, has tried to palliate some of the worst imputations on Cosmo and his son Ferdinand, so he has been mighty modest about the Caprean amours of John Gaston and his elder brother.* Adieu! I have

* Prince Ferdinand, who died in 1713, in the lifetime of his father, Cosmo the Third. Sir Horace Mann, who personally knew John Gaston, the last Grand-Duke of the Medicean line, is stated by Sir Nathaniel Wraxall to have related to him at Florence, in the year 1779, the following particulars : "John Gaston was one of the most superior and

been writing a volume here myself. Pray, remember to answer me about Camilla Martelli.

P.S. Is there any china left in the Great-Duke's collection, made by Duke Francis the First himself? Perhaps it was lately sold with what was called the refuse of the wardrobe; whence I hear some charming

accomplished men the present century has witnessed, if his immoderate pursuit of pleasures had not enervated his mind and debilitated his frame. He became, long before his death, incapable of continuing his family; but that inability did not occasion its extinction. A sort of fatality seemed to hang over the House of Medicis, and to render ineffectual all the measures adopted for its prolongation. When the fact was ascertained, that John Gaston could not perpetuate his line, the Cardinal Hippolito de Medicis, his uncle, was selected for that purpose; a dispensation from his ecclesiastical vows being previously obtained from the Papal See. The only and the indispensable object of the marriage being the attainment of heirs male to the Grand Duchy, in order to prevent its seizure by foreign violence, or its incorporation with the Austrian, French, or Spanish monarchies, all Italy was searched in order to find a young and handsome Princess from whom might be expected a numerous family. A Princess of Mirandola, on whom the selection fell, seemed to unite every requisite qualification. The nuptials were solemnized; and the bridegroom being of a feeble constitution, as well as advanced in life, it was plainly insinuated to the lady, that, for reasons of state necessity, she must produce an heir. The most amiable youths and pages about the Court were purposely thrown in her way, and every facility was furnished that might conduce to the accomplishment of the object; but so sacredly did she observe her marriage vow, that no seductions could make an impression on her, and she remained without issue. Her husband died, and was followed by John Gaston. France having acquired Lorraine, and Don Carlos being made sovereign of Naples, Tuscany was delivered over by the great Continental powers as a conquered or forfeited country to Francis, Duke of Lorraine; but, no sooner had these events taken place, than Hippolito's widow, who had surmounted every temptation to inconstancy during his life, gave the reins to her inclinations, and brought into the world two or three children within a few years. It was thus that Florence, the repository of so many invaluable monuments of Greek and Roman sculpture, collected during successive centuries, together with the territories dependent upon it, passed into the Austrian family." Hist. Mem. vol. i. p. 281.-ED.

things were purchased, particularly the Medallions* of the Medici by Benvenuto Cellini. That sale and the History are enough to make the old Electress+ shudder in her coffin.

LETTER CCCLXV.

Berkeley Square, Dec. 21, 1781.

THERE have been no events, except Parliamentary debates, since my last, till last Monday; when news came of Sir Eyre Coote's having defeated Hyder Ally in India, and when we were flattered with promising hopes of Admiral Kempenfelt's demolishing and disappointing the French expedition from Brest to the West Indies. Our Admiral had fallen into the thick of their transports, of which nineteen had struck. Commodore Elliot was engaged with the French Admiral, and had dismasted him; and, when the express came away, Kempenfelt was bearing down with the wind to attack the squadron, which he had been told did not out-number his own fourteen. You may judge how our hopes and impatience rose and increased. I

* They were only small models in wax, and were purchased by Sir William Hamilton.

+ The Electress Palatine Dowager, sister of John Gaston the last Great-Duke of the House of Medici, whom she survived, returned to Florence on her husband's death, and died there.

On the 1st of July, Sir Eyre Coote gained a signal victory over Hyder Ally at Porto Novo; his own forces consisting of only ten thousand men, while those of Hyder amounted to one hundred and fifty thousand.-ED.