MADAM, TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY.1 Strawberry Hill, March 5, 1762. ONE of your slaves, a fine young officer, brought me two days ago a very pretty medal from your ladyship. Amidst all your triumphs you do not, I see, forget your English friends, and it makes me extremely happy. He pleased me still more, by assuring me that you return to England when the campaign opens. I can pay this news by none so good as by telling you that we talk of nothing but peace. We are equally ready to give law to the world, or peace. Martinico has not made us intractable. We and the new Czar are the best sort of people upon earth: I am sure, Madam, you must adore him; he is willing to resign all his conquests, that you and Mr. Conway may be settled again at Park-place. My Lord Chesterfield, with the despondence of an old man and the wit of a young one, thinks the French and Spaniards must make some attempt upon these islands, and is frightened lest we should not be so well prepared to repel invasions as to make them: he says, "What will it avail us if we gain the whole world, and lose our own soul!" I am here alone, Madam, and know nothing to tell you. I came from town on Saturday for the worst cold I ever had in my life, and, what I care less to own even to myself, a cough. I hope Lord Chesterfield will not speak more truth in what I have quoted, than in his assertion, that one need not cough if one did not please. It has pulled me extremely, and you may believe I do not look very plump, when I am more emaciated than usual. However, I have taken James's powder for four nights, and have found great benefit from it; and if Miss Conway does not come back with soixante et douze quartiers, and the hauteur of a landgravine, I think I shall still be able to run down the precipices at Park-place with her - This is to be understood, supposing that we have any summer. Yesterday was the 216 first moment that did not feel like Thule: not a glimpse of spring or green, except a miserable almond-tree, half opening one bud, like my Lord Powerscourt's eye. It will be warmer, I hope, by the King's birthday, or the old ladies will catch their deaths. There is a court dress to be instituted (to thin the drawing-rooms)-stiffbodied gowns and bare shoulders. What dreadful discoveries will be made both on fat and lean! I recommend to you the idea of Mrs. Cavendish, when half-stark; and I might fill the rest of my paper with such images, but your imagination will supply them; and you shall excuse me, though I leave this a short letter: but I wrote merely to thank your ladyship for the medal, and, as you perceive, have very little to say, besides that known and lasting truth, how much I am Mr. Conway's and your ladyship's faithful humble servant. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, March 9, 1762. I AM glad you have received my books safe, and are content with them. I have little idea of Mr. Bentley's; though his imagination is sufficiently Pindaric, nay obscure, his numbers are not apt to be so tuneful as to excuse his flights. He should always give his wit, both in verse and prose, to somebody else to make up. If any of his things are printed at Dublin, let me have them; I have no quarrel with his talents. Your cousin's behaviour has been handsome, and so was his speech, which is printed in our papers. Advice is arrived to-day, that our troops have made good their landing at Martinico: I don't know any of the incidents yet. You ask me for John Lord Cut wars. He died : alludes to this 1 Salamander, on i Lord Cutts;1 I scratched rdy bravery in King William's ft's epigram on a Salamander the Duke of Marlborough the eing in the thickest of the fire. cises, written upon several Occa first moment that did not feel like Thule: not a glimpse of spring or green, except a miserable almond-tree, half opening one bud, like my Lord Powerscourt's eye. It will be warmer, I hope, by the King's birthday, or the old ladies will catch their deaths. There is a court dress to be instituted (to thin the drawing-rooms) - stiffbodied gowns and bare shoulders. What dreadful discoveries will be made both on fat and lean! I recommend to you the idea of Mrs. Cavendish, when half-stark; and I might fill the rest of my paper with such images, but your imagination will supply them; and you shall excuse me, though I leave this a short letter: but I wrote merely to thank your ladyship for the medal, and, as you perceive, have very little to say, besides that known and lasting truth, how much I am Mr. Conway's and your ladyship's faithful humble servant. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, March 9, 1762. I AM glad you have received my books safe, and are content with them. I have little idea of Mr. Bentley's; though his imagination is sufficiently Pindaric, nay obscure, his numbers are not apt to be so tuneful as to excuse his flights. He should always give his wit, both in verse and prose, to somebody else to make up. If any of his things are printed at Dublin, let me have them; I have no quarrel with his talents. Your cousin's behaviour has been handsome, and so was his speech, which is printed in our papers. Advice is arrived to-day, that our troops have made good their landing at Martinico; I don't know any of the incidents yet. You ask me for an epitaph for Lord Cutts;1 I scratched 1 John Lord Cutts, a soldier of most hardy bravery in King William's wars. He died at Dublin in 1707. Swift's epigram on a Salamander alludes to this lord; who was called by the Duke of Marlborough the Salamander, on account of his always being in the thickest of the fire. He published, in 1687, "Poetical Exercises, written upon several Occasions."- E. out the following lines last night as I was going to bed; if they are not good enough, pray don't take them: they were written in a minute, and you are under no obligation to like them. Late does the muse approach to Cutts's grave, But ne'er the grateful muse forgets the brave; They never die who conquer'd at the Boyne. The last line intends to be popular in Ireland; but you must take care to be certain that he was at the battle of the Boyne; I conclude so; and it should be specified the year, when you erect the monument. The latter lines mean to own his having been but a moderate poet, and to cover that mediocrity under his valour; all which is true. Make the sculptor observe the stops. I have not been at Strawberry above a month, nor ever was so long absent; but the weather has been cruelly cold and disagreeable. We have not had a single dry week since the beginning of September; a great variety of weather, all bad. Adieu! TO THE REV. HENRY ZOUCH. Arlington Street, March 20, 1762. I AM glad you are pleased, Sir, with my "Anecdotes of Painting;" but I doubt you praise me too much: it was an easy task when I had the materials collected, and I would not have the labours of forty years, which was Vertue's case, depreciated in compliment to the work of four months, which is almost my whole merit. Style is become, in a manner, a mechanical affair, and if to much ancient lore our antiquaries |