though I did not quite open the fourth letter, yet it stuck so to the outer seal, that I could not help tearing it a little. Adieu!

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, May 25, 1766.

WHEN the weather will please to be in a little better temper, I will call upon you to perform your promise; but I cannot in conscience invite you to a fire-side. The Guerchys and French dined here last Monday, and it rained so that we could no more walk in the garden than Noah could. I came again to-day, but shall return to town to-morrow, as I hate to have no sun in May, but what I can make with a peck of coals.

I know no news, but that the Duke of Richmond is secretary of state,1 and that your cousin North has refused the vice-treasurer of Ireland. It cost him bitter pangs, not to preserve his virtue, but his vicious connections. He goggled his eyes, and groped in his money-pocket; more than half consented; nay, so much more, that when he got home he wrote an excuse to Lord Rockingham, which made it plain that he thought he had accepted. As nobody was dipped deeper in the warrants and prosecution of Wilkes, there is no condoling with the ministers on missing so foul a bargain. They are only to be pitied, that they can purchase nothing but damaged goods.

So, my Lord Grandison is dead! Does the General inherit much? Have you heard the great loss the church of England has had? It is not avowed; but hear the evidence and judge. On Sunday last, George Selwyn was strolling home to dinner at half an hour after four. He saw my Lady

1 When the Duke of Grafton quitted the seals, they were offered first to Lord Egmont, then to Lord Hardwicke, who both declined them; "but, after their going a-begging for some time," says Lord Chesterfield, "the Duke of Richmond begged them, and has them, faute de mieux."-E.

* John Villiers, fifth Viscount Grandison. He had been elevated to the earldom in 1721; which title became extinct, and the viscounty devolved upon William third Earl of Jersey.-E.

Townshend's coach stop at Caraccioli's chapel. He watched, saw her go in; her footman laughed; he followed. She went up to the altar, a woman brought her a cushion; she knelt, crossed herself, and prayed. He stole up, and knelt by her. Conceive her face, if you can, when she turned and found his close to her. In his demure voice, he said, "Pray, Madam, how long has your ladyship left the pale of our church?" She looked furies, and made no answer. Next day he went to her, and she turned it off upon curiosity; but is anything more natural? No, she certainly means to go armed with every viaticum, the church of England in one hand, Methodism in the other, and the Host in her mouth.

Have you ranged your forest, and seen your lodge yourself? I could almost wish it may not answer, and that you may cast an eye towards our neighbourhood. My Lady Shelburne has taken a house here, and it has produced a bon-mot from Mrs. Clive. You know my Lady Suffolk is deaf, and I have talked much of a charming old passion I have at Paris, who is blind; "Well," said the Clive, "if the new Countess is but lame, I shall have no chance of ever seeing you." Good night!

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, June 20, 1766.

I DON'T know when I shall see you, but therefore must not I write to you? yet I have as little to say as may be. I could cry through a whole page over the bad weather. I have but a lock of hay, you know; and I cannot get it dry, unless I bring it to the fire. I would give half-a-crown for a pennyworth of sun. It is abominable to be ruined in coals in the middle of June.

The Marquis de Carraccioli, ambassador from the court of Naples. -E.

2 Mary Countess of Shelburne, widow of the Hon. John Fitzmaurice, first Earl of Shelburne. She was likewise his first cousin, being the daughter of the Hon. William Fitzmaurice, of Gallane, in the county of Kerry.-E.

What pleasure have you to come! there is a new thing published, that will make you split your cheeks with laughing. It is called the New Bath Guide. It stole into the world, and for a fortnight no soul looked into it, concluding its name was its true name. No such thing. It is a set of letters in verse, in all kind of verses, describing the life at Bath, and incidentally everything else; but so much wit, so much humour, fun, and poetry, so much originality, never met together before. Then the man has a better ear than Dryden or Handel. Apropos to Dryden, he has burlesqued his St. Cecilia, that you will never read it again without laughing. There is a description of a milliner's box in all the terms of landscape, painted lawns and chequered shades, a Moravian ode, and a Methodist ditty, that are incomparable, and the best names that ever were composed. I can say it by heart, though a quarto, and if I had time would write it you down; for it is not yet reprinted, and not one to be had.

There are two volumes, too, of Swift's Correspondence, that will not amuse you less in another way, though abominable, for there are letters of twenty persons now alive; fifty of Lady Betty Germain, one that does her great honour, in which she defends her friend my Lady Suffolk, with all the spirit in the world, against that brute, who hated everybody

1

By Christopher Anstey. This production became highly popular for its pointed and original humour, and led to numerous imitations. Gray, in a letter to Dr. Wharton, says—“ Have you read the New Bath Guide? It is the only thing in fashion, and is a new and original kind of humour. Miss Prue's conversation I doubt you will paste down, as Sir W. St. Quintyn did before he carried it to his daughter; yet I remember you all read Crazy Tales without pasting." Works, vol. iv. p. 84.-E.

2 The letter in question is dated Feb. 8, 1732-3, and the following is the passage to which Walpole refers :-" Those out of power and place always see the faults of those in, with dreadful large spectacles. The strongest in my memory is Sir Robert Walpole, being first pulled to pieces in the year 1720, because the South Sea did not rise high enough; and since that, he has been to the full as well banged about, because it did rise too high. I am determined never wholly to believe any side or party against the other; so my house receives them altogether, and those people meet here that have, and would fight in any other place. Those of them that have great and good qualities and virtues, I love and admire; in which number is Lady Suffolk, because I know her to be a wise, discreet, honest, and sincere courtier."-E.

His own

that he hoped would get him a mitre, and did not. Journal sent to Stella during the four last years of the Queen, is a fund of entertainment. You will see his insolence in full colours, and, at the same time, how daily vain he was of being noticed by the ministers he affected to treat arrogantly. His panic at the Mohocks is comical; but what strikes one, is bringing before one's eyes the incidents of a curious period. He goes to the rehearsal of Cato, and says the drab that acted Cato's daughter could not say her part. This was only Mrs. Oldfield. I was saying before George Selwyn, that this journal put me in mind of the present time, there was the same indecision, irresolution, and want of system; but I added, "There is nothing new under the sun." "No," said Selwyn, "nor under the grandson."

My Lord Chesterfield has done me much honour: he told Mrs. Anne Pitt that he would subscribe to any politics I should lay down. When she repeated this to me, I said, "Pray tell him I have laid down politics."

I am got into puns, and will tell you an excellent one of the King of France, though it does not spell any better than Selwyn's. You must have heard of Count Lauragais, and his horse-race, and his quacking his horse till he killed it. At his return the King asked him what he had been doing in England? "Sire, j'ai appris à penser"-" Des chevaux?" replied the King. Good night! I am tired, and going to bed. Yours ever.

TO THE RIGHT HON. LADY HERVEY.

Strawberry Hill, June 28, 1766.

Ir is consonant to your ladyship's long experienced goodness, to remove my error as soon as you could. In fact, the same post that brought Madame d'Aiguillon's letter to you, brought me a confession from Madame du Deffand of her guilt. I am not the less obliged to your ladyship for inform

1 See antè, p. 21.-E.

2 Madame du Deffand had sent Mr. Walpole a snuff-box, on the lid

ing against the true criminal. It is well for me, however, that I hesitated, and did not, as Monsieur de Guerchy pressed me to do, constitute myself prisoner. What a ridiculous vainglorious figure I should have made at Versailles, with a laboured letter and my present! I still shudder when I think of it, and have scolded' Madame du Deffand black and blue. However, I feel very comfortable; and though it will be imputed to my own vanity, that I showed the box as Madame de Choiseul's present, I resign the glory, and submit to the shame with great satisfaction. I have no pain in receiving

of which was a portrait of Madame de Sévigné, accompanied by a letter written in her name from the Elysian Fields, and addressed to Mr. Walpole; who did not at first suspect Madame du Deffand as the author, but thought both the present and letter had come from the Duchess of Choiseul. [“ One of the principal features, and it must be called, when carried to such excess, one of the principal weaknesses of Mr. Walpole's character, was a fear of ridicule-a fear which, like most others, often leads to greater danger than that which it seeks to avoid. At the commencement of his acquaintance with Madame du Deffand he was near fifty, and she above seventy years of age, and entirely blind. She had already long passed the first epoch in the life of a Frenchwoman, that of gallantry, and had as long been established as a bel esprit ; and it is to be remembered, that in the ante-revolutionary world of Paris these epochas in life were as determined, and as strictly observed, as the changes of dress on a particular day of the different seasons; and that a woman endeavouring to attract lovers after she had ceased to be galante, would have been not less ridiculous than her wearing velvet when all the rest of the world were in demi-saisons. Madame du Deffand, therefore, old and blind, had no more idea of attracting Mr. Walpole to her as a lover than she had of the possibility of any one suspecting her of such an intention; and indulged her lively feelings, and the violent fancy she had taken for his conversation and character, in every expression of admiration and attachment which she really felt, and which she never supposed capable of misinterpretation. By himself they were not misinterpreted; but he seems to have had ever before his eyes a very unnecessary dread of their being so by others a fear lest Madame du Deffand's extreme partiality and high opinion should expose him to suspicions of entertaining the same opinion of himself, or of its leading her to some extravagant mark of attachment; and all this, he persuaded himself, was to be exposed in their letters to all the clerks of the postoffice at Paris and all the idlers at Versailles. This accounts for the ungracious language in which he often replied to the importunities of her anxious affection; a language so foreign to his heart, and so contrary to his own habits in friendship: this too accounts for his constantly repressing on her part all effusions of sentiment, all disquisitions on the human heart, and all communications of its vexations, weaknesses, and pains." Preface to "Letters of Madame du Deffand to Mr. Walpole.” -E.] Vous avez si bien fait," replied Madame du Deffand, par vos leçons, vos préceptes, vos gronderies, et, le pis de tous, par vos ironies, que vous êtes presque parvenu à me rendre fausse, ou, pour le moins, fort dissimulée."-E.