justifies the Grecian Highlander; I have even advised Mr. Macpherson (to prevent confusion) to have the names prefixed to the speeches, as in a play. It is too obscure without some such aid. My doubts of the genuineness are all vanished.

I fear, Sir, from Dodsley's carelessness, you have not received the Lucan. A gentleman in Yorkshire, for whom I consigned another copy at the same time with yours, has got his but within this fortnight. I have the pleasure to find, that the notes are allowed the best of Dr. Bentley's remarks on poetic authors. Lucan was muscular enough to bear his rough hand.

Next winter I hope to be able to send you Vertue's History of the Arts, as I have put it together from his collections. Two volumes are finished, the first almost printed and the third begun. There will be a fourth, I believe, relating solely to engravers. You will be surprised, Sir, how the industry of one man could at this late period amass so near a complete history of our artists. I have no share in it, but in arranging his materials. Adieu!

TO THE COUNTESS OF SUFFOLK.1

Friday night, April 1761.

WE are more successful, Madam, than I could flatter myself we should be. Mr. Conway - and I need say no more has negotiated so well, that the Duke of Grafton is disposed to bring Mr. Beauclerk in for Thetford. It

women, and many children.' He, at this time, did not know that Dr. Blair had just published a dissertation, not only defending their authenticity, but seriously ranking them with the poems of Homer and Virgil; and when he was afterwards informed of this circumstance, he expressed some displeasure at Dr. Fordyce's having suggested the topic, and said, I am not sorry that they got thus much for their pains: Sir, it was like leading one to talk of a book, when the author is concealed behind the door.""-E.

1 Now first collected.

2 The Hon. Aubrey Beauclerk, son of Lord Vere; afterwards Duke of St. Albans.

will be expected, I believe, that Lord Vere should resign. Windsor in a handsome manner to the Duke of Cumberland. It must be your ladyship's part to prepare this; which I hope will be the means of putting an end to these unhappy differences. My only fear now is, lest the Duke should have promised the Lodge. Mr. Conway writes to Lord Albemarle, who is yet at Windsor, to prevent this, if not already done, till the rest is ready to be notified to the Duke of Cumberland. Your ladyship's good sense and good heart make it unnecessary for me to say more.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, April 16, 1761.

You are a very mule; one offers you a handsome stall and manger in Berkeley Square, and you will not accept it. I have chosen your coat, a claret colour, to suit the complexion of the country you are going to visit; but I have fixed nothing about the lace. Barrett had none of gauze, but what were as broad as the Irish Channel. Your tailor found a very reputable one at another place, but I would not determine rashly; it will be two or three-and-twenty shillings the yard; you might have a very substantial real lace, which would wear like your buffet, for twenty. The second order of gauzes are frippery, none above twelve shillings, and those tarnished, for the species is out of fashion. You will have time to sit in judgment upon these important points; for Hamilton' your secretary told me at the Opera two nights ago, that he had taken a house near Bushy, and hoped to be in my neighbourhood for four months.

I was last night at your plump Countess's, who is so shrunk, that she does not seem to be composed of above a dozen

I William Gerard Hamilton, commonly called Single-speech Hamilton, was, on the appointment of Lord Halifax to the viceroyalty of Ireland, selected as his secretary, and was accompanied thither by the celebrated Edmund Burke, partly as a friend and partly as his private secretary.-E.

hassocs. Lord Guildford rejoiced mightily over your preferment. The Duchess of Argyle was playing there, not knowing that the great Pam was just dead, to wit, her brother-in-law. He was abroad in the morning, was seized with a palpitation after dinner, and was dead before the surgeon could arrive. There's the crown of Scotland too fallen upon my Lord Bute's head! Poor Lord Edgecumbe is still alive, and may be so for some days; the physicians, who no longer ago than Friday se'nnight persisted that he had no dropsy, in order to prevent his having Ward,1 on Monday last proposed that Ward should be called in, and at length they owned they thought the mortification begun. It is not clear it is yet; at times he is in his senses, and entirely so, composed, clear, and most rational; talks of his death, and but yesterday, after such a conversation with his brother, asked for a pencil to amuse himself with drawing. What parts, genius, and agreeableness thrown away at a hazard table, and not permitted the chance of being saved by the villany of physicians !

You will be pleased with the Anacreontic, written by Lord Middlesex upon Sir Harry Bellendine: I have not seen anything so antique for ages; it has all the fire, poetry, and simplicity of Horace.

Ye sons of Bacchus, come and join
In solemn dirge, while tapers shine
Around the grape-embossed shrine
Of honest Harry Bellendine.

Pour the rich juice of Bourdeaux's wine,
Mix'd with your falling tears of brine,
In full libation o'er the shrine

Of honest Harry Bellendine.

The celebrated empiric, see antè, p. 18. His drops were first introduced in 1732, by Sir Thomas Robinson; upon which occasion, Sir C. H. Williams addressed to him his poem, commencing,

"Say, knight, for learning most renown'd,
What is this wondrous drop?"—E.

Your brows let ivy chaplets twine,

While you push round the sparkling wine,

And let your table be the shrine

Of honest Harry Bellendine.

He died in his vocation, of a high fever, after the celebration of some orgies. Though but six hours in his senses, he gave a proof of his usual good humour, making it his last request to the sister Tuftons to be reconciled; which they are. His pretty villa, in my neighbourhood, I fancy he has left to the new Lord Lorn. I must tell you an admirable bon-mot of George Selwyn, though not a new one; when there was a malicious report that the eldest Tufton was to marry Dr. Duncan, Selwyn said, "How often will she repeat that line of Shakspeare,

'Wake Duncan with this knocking—would thou couldst !'”

I enclose the receipt from your lawyer. Adieu!

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Arlington Street, April 28, 1761.

I AM glad you will relish June for Strawberry; by that time I hope the weather will have recovered its temper. At present it is horridly cross and uncomfortable; I fear we shall have a cold season; we cannot eat our summer and have our summer.

There has been a terrible fire in the little traverse street, at the upper end of Sackville Street. Last Friday night, between eleven and twelve, I was sitting with Lord Digby in the coffee-room at Arthur's; they told us there was a great fire somewhere about Burlington Gardens. I, who am as constant at a fire as George Selwyn at an execution, proposed to Lord Digby to go and see where it was. We found it within two doors of that pretty house of Fairfax, now General Waldegrave's. I sent for the latter, who was at Arthur's; and for the guard, from St. James's. Four houses were in flames before they could find a drop of water; eight

were burnt. I went to my Lady Suffolk, in Saville Row, and passed the whole night, till three in the morning, between her little hot bed-chamber and the spot, up to my ancles in water, without catching cold. As the wind, which had sat towards Swallow Street, changed in the middle of the conflagration, I concluded the greatest part of Saville Row would be consumed. I persuaded her to prepare to transport her most valuable effects-"portantur avari Pygmalionis opes miseræ." She behaved with great composure, and observed to me herself how much worse her deafness grew with the alarm. Half the people of fashion in town were in the streets all night, as it happened in such a quarter of distinction. In the crowd, looking on with great tranquillity, I saw a Mr. Jackson, an Irish gentleman, with whom I had dined this winter at Lord Hertford's. He seemed rather grave; I said, "Sir, I hope you do not live hereabouts.". "Yes, Sir," said he, "I lodged in that house that is just burnt."

Last night there was a mighty ball at Bedford-house; the royal Dukes and Princess Emily were there; your lordlieutenant, the great lawyer, lords, and old Newcastle, whose teeth are tumbled out, and his mouth tumbled in; hazard very deep; loo, beauties, and the Wilton Bridge in sugar, almost as big as the life. I am glad all these joys are near going out of town. The Graftons go abroad for the Duchess's health; another climate may mend that — I will not answer for more. Adieu! Yours ever.

1 This accident was owing to a coachman carrying a lighted candle into the stable, and, agreeably to Dean Swift's Advice to Servants, sticking it against the rack; the straw being set in a flame in his absence, by the candle falling. Eight or nine horses perished, and fourteen houses were burnt to the ground. Walpole was, most probably, not an idle spectator; for the newspapers relate, that "the gentlemen in the neighbourhood, together with their servants, formed a ring, kept off the mob, and handed the goods and moveables from one another, till they secured them in a place of safety; a noble instance of neighbourly respect and kindness."-E.