taste and knowledge. To be sure, I am warranted to insert this certificate among the testimonia authorum, before my next edition of the Painters. Now, I assure you, I am much more just-I have sent the gentleman word what a perfect ignoramus I am, and did not treat my vanity with a moment's respite. Your brother has laughed at me, or rather at the poor man who has so mistaken me, as much as ever I did at his absence and flinging down everything at breakfast. Tom, your brother's man, told him to-day, that Mister Helvoetsluys had been to wait on him — now you are guessing, -did find out this was Helvetius? you

It is piteous late, and I must go to bed, only telling you a bon-mot of Lady Bell Finch.1 Lord Bath owed her half a crown; he sent it next day, with a wish that he could give her a crown. She replied, that though he could not give her a crown, he could give her a coronet, and she was very ready to accept it. I congratulate you on your new house; and am your very sleepy humble servant.

1

Lady Isabella Finch, daughter of Daniel, sixth Earl of Winchelsea. She was lady of the bedchamber to Princess Amelia, and died unmarried in 1771.-C.

2 It seems that Lord Bath's coronet, and perhaps still more his great wealth, for which, after his son's death, he had no direct heir, subjected his lordship to views of the nature alluded to in Lady Bell's bon-mot. In the Suffolk Letters, lately published, is a proposition to this effect from Mrs. Anne Pitt, made with all appearance of seriousness.-C. [The following is the passage alluded to. It is contained in a letter from Mrs. Anne Pitt to Lady Suffolk, dated November 10, 1758.—“ I hear my Lord Bath is here very lively, but I have not seen him, which I am very sorry for, because I want to offer myself to him. I am quite in earnest, and have set my heart upon it; so I beg seriously you will carry it in your mind, and think if you could find any way to help me. Do not you think Lady Betty Germain and Lord and Lady Vere would be ready to help me, if they knew how willing I am? But I leave all this to your discretion, and repeat seriously, that I am quite in earnest. He can want nothing but a companion that would like his company; and in my situation I should not desire to make the bargain without that circumstance. And though all I have been saying puts me in mind of some advertisements I have seen in the newspapers from gentlewomen in distress, I will not take that method; but I want to recollect whether you did not once tell me, as I think you did many years ago, that he once spoke so well of me, that he got anger for it at home, where I never was a favourite. I perceive that by thinking aloud, as I am apt to do with you, this letter is grown very improper for the post, so I design to send it with a tea-box my sister left and does not want, directed to your house."-E]

DEAR SIR,

TO CHARLES CHURCHILL, ESQ.1

Arlington Street, March 27, 1764.

I HAD just sent away a half-scolding letter to my sister, for not telling me of Robert's arrival, and to acquaint you both with the loss of poor Lord Malpas, when I received your very entertaining letter of the 19th. I had not then got the draught of the Conqueror's kitchen, and the tiles you were so good as to send me; and grew horribly afraid lest old Dr. Ducarel, who is an ostrich of an antiquary, and can digest superannuated brickbats, should have gobbled them up. At my return from Strawberry Hill yesterday, I found the whole cargo safe, and am really much obliged to you. I weep over the ruined kitchen, but enjoy the tiles. They are exactly like a few which I obtained from the cathedral of Gloucester, when it was new paved; they are inlaid in the floor of my china-room. I would have got enough to pave it entirely;

Now first collected. The above letter was privately printed, in 1833, by the Rev. Robert Walpole, with the following introduction :— "The incomparable letters' of Horace Walpole, as they have been justly styled by Lord Byron, have long placed the writer in the highest rank of those who have distinguished themselves in this line of composition. The playful wit and humour with which they abound; the liveliness of his descriptions; the animation of his style; the shrewd and acute observations on the different topics which form the subjects of those letters, are not surpassed by anything to be found in the most perfect models of epistolary writing, either in England or in France. His correspondence extends over a period of more than fifty years; and no subject of general interest seems to have escaped his attention and curiosity. He not only gives a faithful portraiture of the manners of the times, particularly of the higher circles of society in which he lived; but he presents us with many striking sketches of various events and occurrences, illustrating the political history of this country during the latter part of the last century. If any proof were required of the truth of this statement, in addition to what may be afforded by an attentive examination of Mr. Walpole's Correspondence already published, it may be found in the three volumes of Letters addressed to Sir Horace Mann, and recently given to the world under the superintendence of Lord Dovor. The letter (now printed for the first time with the consent of the possessor of the original) was addressed to Charles Churchill, Esq. who married Lady Mary, daughter of Sir Robert, and sister of Mr. Walpole; and was written at the time when he was engaged in completing the interior decorations of his villa, Strawberry Hill."

2 Robert and Horace, both mentioned in this letter, were sons of Mr. Churchill.-E.

but the canons, who were flinging them away, had so much devotion left, that they enjoined me not to pave a pagoda with them, nor put them to any profane use. As scruples increase in a ratio to their decrease, I did not know but a china-room might casuistically be interpreted a pagoda, and sued for no more. My cloister is finished and consecrated; but as I intend to convert the old blue and white hall next to the china-room into a Gothic columbarium, I should seriously be glad to finish the floor with Norman tiles. However, as I shall certainly make you a visit in about two months, I will wait till then, and bring the dimensions with me.

Depend upon it, I will pay some of your debts to M. de Lislebonne; that is, I will make as great entertainments for him as any one can, who almost always dines alone in his dressing-room; I will show him everything all the morning, as much as any one can, who lies abed till noon, and never gets dressed till two o'clock; and I will endeavour to amuse him with variety of diversions every evening as much as any one can, who does nothing but play at loo till midnight, or sit behind Lady Mary Coke in a corner of a box at the Opera. Seriously, though, I will try to show him that I think distinctions paid to you and my sister favours to me, and will make a point of adding the few civilities which his name, rank, and alliance with the Guerchy's can leave necessary. M. de Guerchy is adored here, and will find so, particularly at this juncture, when he has been most cruelly and publicly insulted by a mad, but villainous fellow, one D'Eon, left here by the Duc de Nivernois, who in effect is still worse treated. This creature, who has been made minister plenipotentiary, which turned his brain, as you have already heard, had stolen Nivernois's private letters, and has published them, and a thousand scandals on M. de Guerchy, in a very thick quarto. The affair is much too long for a letter, makes great noise, and gives as great offence. The council have met to-day to consider how to avenge Guerchy and punish D'Eon. I hope a legal remedy is in their power.

I will say little on the subject of Robert; you know my opinion of his capacity, and I dare say think as I do. He is worth taking pains with. I heartily wish those pains may

have success. The cure performed by James's powder charms me more than surprises me. I have long thought it could cure everything but physicians.

Politics are all becalmed. Lord Bute's reappearance on the scene, though his name is in no play-bill, may chance to revive the hurly-burly.

My Lord Townshend has not named Charles in his will, who is as much disappointed as he has often disappointed others. We had last night a magnificent ball at my Lady Cardigan's.

Those fiddles play'd that never play'd before,

And we have danced, where we shall dance no more.

-

We, that is, the totum pro parte, you do not suspect me, I hope, of any youthfullities; - d'autant moins of dancing; that I have rumours of gout flying about me, and would fain coax them into my foot. I have almost tried to make them drunk, and inveigle them thither in their cups; but as they are not at all familiar chez moi, they formalize at wine, as much as a middle-aged woman who is just beginning to drink in private.

Adieu, my dear Sir! my best love to all of you. As Horace is evidently descended from the Conqueror, I will desire him to pluck up the pavement by the roots, when I want to transport it hither.

TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD.

Arlington Street, April 5, 1764.

YOUR idea, my dear lord, of the abusive paragraph on you being conceived at Paris,1 and transmitted hither, tallies exactly with mine. I guessed that a satire on your whole establishment must come from thence: I said so immediately to two or three persons; but, I did not tell you I thought so, because I did not choose to fill you with suggestions for which I had no ground, but in my own reasoning. Your arguments

1 See antè, p. 391. Lord Hertford suspected this paragraph to have been written by Mr. Wilkes; which certainly would have been ungrateful, as Lord Hertford showed Mr. Wilkes more attention than most people thought proper to be shown by the King's ambassador to a person in Mr. Wilkes's circumstances.-C.

convince me I was in the right. Yet, were you master of proofs, the wisest thing you can do, is to act as if you had no suspicion; that is, to act as you have done, civilly, but coolly. There are men whom one would, I think, no more acknowledge for enemies than friends. One's resentment distinguishes them, and the only gratitude they can pay for that distinction is, to double the abuse. Wilkes's mind, you see, is sufficiently volatile, when he can already forget Lord Sandwich and the Scotch, and can employ himself on you. He will soon flit to other prey, when you disregard him. It is my way: I never publish a sheet, but buzz! out fly a swarm of hornets, insects that never settle upon you, if you don't strike at them; and whose venom is diverted to the next object that presents itself.

We have divine weather. The Bishop of Carlisle has been with me two days at Strawberry, where we saw the eclipse 1 to perfection-not that there was much sight in it. The air was very chill at the time, and the light singular; but there was not a blackbird that left off singing for it. In the evening, the Duke of Devonshire came with the Straffords from t'other end of Twickenham, and drank tea with us. They had none of them seen the gallery since it was finished; even the chapel was new to the Duke, and he was so struck with it that he desired to offer at the shrine an incense-pot of silver philigrain.

The election at Cambridge has ended, for the present, in strange confusion.3 The proctors, who were of different sides, assumed each a majority; the votes, however, appear to have been equal. The learned in university decisions say, an equality is a negative: if so, Lord Hardwicke is excluded.

A considerable eclipse of the sun, which took place on the 1st of April. It was annular at Boulogne, in France, and of course nearly so at Paris and London.-C.

2 Commonly called fillagree.-C.

The contest was between Lords Hardwicke and Sandwich; but, according to university forms, the poll was taken on the first name; there appeared among the Black hoods for Lord Hardwicke, placet 103; non-placet 101: among the Whitehoods, the proctors' accounts differed; one made placet 108, non-placet 107; the other made placet 107, nonplacet 101: on this a scrutiny was demanded, and refused, and a great confusion ensuing, the Vice-Chancellor adjourned the senate sine die.-C. 2 D

VOL. IV.