rustic of a father was at the King's levée; the King asked where his son was; he replied, "Sire, he is coming to town, and then your Majesty will have another vote." If you like these franknesses, I can tell you another. The Chancellor1 is chosen a governor of St. Bartholomew's Hospital: a smart gentleman, who was sent with the staff, carried it in the evening, when the Chancellor happened to be drunk. "Well, Mr. Bartlemy," said his lordship, snuffling, "what have you to say?" The man, who had prepared a formal harangue, was transported to have so fair opportunity given him of uttering it, and with much dapper gesticulation congratulated his lordship on his health, and the nation on enjoying such great abilities. The Chancellor stopped him short, crying, "By God, it is a lie! I have neither health nor abilities; my bad health has destroyed my abilities." The late Chancellor is much better. The last time the King was at Drury-lane, the play given out for next night was "All in the Wrong:" the galleries clapped, and then cried out, "Let us be all in the right! Wilkes and Liberty!" When the King comes to a theatre, or goes out, or goes to the House, there is not a single applause; to the Queen there is a little: in short, Louis le bienaimé is not French at present for King George. The town, you may be sure, is very empty; the greatest party is at Woburn, whither the Comte de Guerchy and the Duc de Pecquigny are going. I have been three days at Strawberry, and had George Selwyn, Williams, and Lord Ashburnham;3 but the weather was intolerably bad. We have scarce had a moment's drought since you went, no more than for so many months before. The towns and the roads are beyond measure dirty, and everything else under water. I was not well neither, nor am yet, with pains in my stomach: however, if I ever used one, I could afford to pay a physician. T'other day, coming from my Lady Towns Lord Henley; afterwards Earl of Northington. 2 Lord Hardwicke. 3 John, second Earl of Ashburnham; one of the lords of the bedchamber, and keeper of the parks.-E. hend's, it came into my head to stop at one of the lottery offices, to inquire after a single ticket I had, expecting to find it a blank, but it was five hundred pounds - Thank you! I know you wish me joy. It will buy twenty pretty things when I come to Paris. I read, last night, your new French play, Le Comte de Warwic,1 which we hear has succeeded much. I must say, it does but confirm the cheap idea I have of you French: not to mention the preposterous perversion of history in so known a story, the Queen's ridiculous preference of old Warwick to a young King; the omission of the only thing she ever said or did in her whole life worth recording, which was thinking herself too low for his wife, and too high for his mistress; the romantic honour bestowed on two such savages as Edward and Warwick: besides these, and forty such glaring absurdities, there is but one scene that has any merit, that between Edward and Warwick in the third act. Indeed, indeed, I don't honour the modern French: it is making your son but a slender compliment, with his knowledge, for them to say it is extraordinary. The best proof I think they give of their taste, is liking you all three. I rejoice that your little boy is recovered. Your brother has been at Park-place this week, and stays a week longer: his hill is too high to be drowned. Thank you for your kindness to Mr. Selwyn: if he had too much impatience, I am sure it proceeded only from his great esteem for you. I will endeavour to learn what you desire; and will answer, in another letter, that and some other passages in your last. Dr. Hunter is very good, and calls on me sometimes. You may guess whether we talk you over or not. Adieu ! P.S. There has not been a death, but Sir William Maynard's, who is come to life again; or a marriage, but Admiral Knollys's, who has married his divorced wife again. By La Harpe. This play, written when the author was only twentythree years old, raised him into great celebrity; and is, in the opinion of the French critics, his first work in merit as well as date.-C. 2 This phrase has been also attributed to Mademoiselle de Montmorency, afterwards Princess de Condé, in reply to the solicitations of Henry IV; and is told also of Mademoiselle de Rohan, afterwards Duchess of Deux Ponts.-C. TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ. Arlington Street, Jan. 11, 1764. IT is an age, I own, since I wrote to you; but except politics, what was there to send you? and for politics, the present are too contemptible to be recorded by anybody but journalists, gazetteers, and such historians! The ordinary of Newgate, or Mr. * * * *, who write for their monthly halfcrown, and who are indifferent whether Lord Bute, Lord Melcombe, or Maclean is their hero, may swear they find diamonds on dunghills; but you will excuse me, if I let our correspondence lie dormant rather than deal in such trash. I am forced to send Lord Hertford and Sir Horace Mann such garbage, because they are out of England, and the sea softens and makes palatable any potion, as it does claret; but unless I can divert you, I had rather wait till we can laugh together; the best employment for friends, who do not mean to pick one another's pocket, nor make a property of either's frankInstead of politics, therefore, I shall amuse you to-day with a fairy tale. ness. I was desired to be at my Lady Suffolk's on New-year's morn, where I found Lady Temple and others. On the toilet Miss Hotham spied a small round box. She seized it with all the eagerness and curiosity of eleven years. In it was wrapped up a heart-diamond ring, and a paper in which, in a hand as small as Buckinger's, who used to write the Lord's Prayer in the compass of a silver penny, were the following lines: Sent by a sylph, unheard, unseen, A new-year's gift from Mab our queen: But tell it not, for if you do, You will be pinch'd all black and blue. To show abroad your mottled face: You will easily guess that Lady Temple1 was the poetess, and that we were delighted with the genteelness of the thought and execution. The child, you may imagine, was less transported with the poetry than the present. Her attention, however, was hurried backwards and forwards from the ring to a new coat, that she had been trying on when sent for down; impatient to revisit her coat, and to show the ring to her maid, she whisked up stairs; when she came down again, she found a letter sealed, and lying on the floor-new exclamations! Lady Suffolk bade her open it: here it is: Your tongue, too nimble for your sense, Hath introduced unkind debate, She kick'd her crown, and beat her page: 1 Anne, one of the daughters and coheirs of Thomas Chambers, of Hanworth, in the county of Middlesex, Esq. wife of Earl Temple. This lady was a woman of genius: it will hereafter be seen, that a small volume of her poems was printed at the Strawberry Hill press.-E. |