Thank you much for your kindness about Mr. T.WalpoleI have not had a moment's time to see him, but will do full justice to your goodness. Yours ever, H. W.

Pray remember the dates of my letters-you will be strangely puzzled for a clue, if one of them has miscarried. Sir Charles Bunbury is not to be secretary for Ireland, but Thurlow the lawyer: they are to stay five years without returning. Lord Lorn has declined, and Lord Frederic Campbell is to be lord privy seal for Scotland. Lord Waldegrave, they say, chamberlain to the Queen.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, May 26, 1765.

If one of the one hundred events, and one hundredth part of the one hundred thousand reports that have passed, and been spread in this last month, have reached your solitary hill, you must be surprised at not a single word from me during that period. The number of events is my excuse. Though mine is the pen of a pretty ready writer, I could not keep pace with the revolutions of each day, each hour. I had

1 This was a mistake.-E.

? This is the last of the series of letters written by Walpole to Lord Hertford to the publication is subjoined the following postscript :"The state of the administration, as described in the foregoing letters, could evidently not last; and after the failure of several attempts to induce Mr. Pitt to take the government on terms which the King could grant, the Duke of Cumberland, at his Majesty's desire, succeeded in forming the Rockingham administration, in which General Conway was secretary of state and leader of the House of Commons, and Lord Hertford, lord lieutenant of Ireland. There can be little doubt, that during these transactions, Mr. Walpole (although he had in the interval a severe fit of the gout) wrote to Lord Hertford, but no other letter of this series has been discovered; which is the more to be regretted, as the state of parties was at that moment particularly interesting. The refusal of Mr. Pitt raised the ministers to a pitch of confidence, (perhaps we might say, arrogance,) which, as Mr. Walpole foresaw, accelerated their fall. So blind were they to their true situation, that Mr. Rigby, who was as deep as any man in the ministerial councils, writes to a private friend I never thought, to tell you the truth, that we were in any danger from this last political cloud. The Duke of Cumberland's political system, grafted upon the Earl of Bute's stock, seems, of all others, the least capable of succeeding.' This letter was written on the 7th of July, and on the 10th the new ministry was formed."-C.

not time to begin the narrative, much less to finish it: no, I must keep the whole to tell you at once, or to read it to you, for I think I shall write the history, which, let me tell you, Buckinger himself could not have crowded into a nutshell.

For your part, you will be content though the house of Montagu has not made an advantageous figure in this political warfare; yet it is crowned with victory, and laurels you know compensate for every scar. You went out of town frightened out of your senses at the giant prerogative: alack! he is grown so tame, that, as you said of our earthquake, you may stroke him.1 The Regency-bill, not quite calculated with that intent, has produced four regents, king Bedford, king Grenville, king Halifax, and king Twitcher. Lord Holland is turned out, and Stuart Mackenzie. Charles Townshend is paymaster, and Lord Bute annihilated; and all done without the help of the Whigs. You love to guess what one is going to say; now you may guess what I am not going to say. Your newspapers perhaps have given you a long roll of opposition names, who were coming into place, and so all the world thought; but the wind turned quite round, and left them on the strand, and just where they were, except in opposition, which is declared to be at an end. Enigma as all this may sound, the key would open it all to you in the twinkling of an administration. In the mean time, we have family reconciliations without end. The King and the Duke of Cumberland have been shut up together day and night; Lord Temple and George Grenville are sworn brothers: well, but Mr. Pitt, where is he? In the clouds, for aught I know; in one of which he may descend like the kings of Bantam, and take quiet possession of the throne again.

As a thorough-bass to these squabbles, we have had an insurrection and a siege. Bedford-house, though garrisoned by horse and foot guards, was on the point of being taken. The besieged are in their turn triumphant; and, if anybody now

See vol. iv. p. 480.-E.

2 Wilkes, in the North Briton, had applied to the Earl of Sandwich the sobriquet of Jemmy Twitcher.-E.

1

I do not think the House of
Indeed the regents may do

was to publish" Droit le Duc," Lords would censure his book. what they please, and turn out whom they will; I see nothing to resist them. Lord Bute will not easily be tempted to rebel when the last struggle has cost him so dear.

I am sorry for some of my friends, to whom I wished more fortune. For myself, I am but just where I should have been had they succeeded. It is satisfaction enough to me to be delivered from politics; which you know I have long detested. When I was tranquil enough to write Castles of Otranto in the midst of grave nonsense and foolish councils of war, I am not likely to disturb myself with the diversions of the court where I am not connected with a soul. As it has proved to be the interest of the present ministers, however contrary to their former views, to lower the crown, they will scarce be in a hurry to aggrandize it again. That will satisfy you; and I, you know, am satisfied if I have anything to laugh at — 'tis a lucky age for a man who is so easily contented.

The poor Chute has had another relapse, but is out of bed again. I am thinking of my journey to France; but, as Mr. Conway has a mind I should wait for him, I don't know whether it will take place before the autumn. I will by no means release you from your promise of making me a visit here before I go.

Poor Mr. Bentley, I doubt, is under the greatest difficulties of anybody. His poem, which he modestly delivered over to immortality, must be cut and turned; for Lord Halifax and Lord Bute cannot sit in the same canto together; then the horns and hoofs that he had bestowed on Lord Temple must be pared away, and beams of glory distributed over his whole. person. 'Tis a dangerous thing to write political panegyrics or satires; it draws the unhappy bard into a thousand scrapes and contradictions. The edifices and inscriptions at Stowe should be a lesson not to erect monuments to the living. I will not place an ossuarium in my garden for my cat, before her bones are ready to be placed in it. I hold contradictions

See vol. iv. p. 381.-E.

to be as essential to the definition of a political man, as any visible or featherless quality can be to man in general. Good night!

28th.

I shall send this by the coach; so whatever comes with it. is only to make bundle. Here are some lines that came into my head yesterday in the post-chaise, as I was reading in the Annual Register an account of a fountain-tree in one of the Canary Islands, which never dies, and supplies the inhabitants with water. I don't warrant the longevity; though the hypostatic union of a fountain may eternize the tree.

In climes adust, where rivers never flow,
Where constant suns repel approaching snow,
How Nature's various and inventive hand
Can pour unheard-of moisture o'er the land!
Immortal plants she bids on rocks arise,

And from the dropping branches streams supplies,
The thirsty native sucks the falling shower,
Nor asks for juicy fruit or blooming flower;
But haply doubts, when travellers maintain,
That Europe's forests melt not into rain.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Strawberry Hill, June 10, 1765.
Eleven at night.

I AM just come out of the garden in the most oriental of all evenings, and from breathing odours beyond those of Araby. The acacias, which the Arabians have the sense to worship, are covered with blossoms, the honeysuckles dangle from every tree in festoons, the seringas are thickets of sweets, and the new-cut hay in the field tempers the balmy gales with simple freshness; while a thousand sky-rockets launched into the air at Ranelagh or Marybone illuminate the scene, and give it an air of Haroun Alraschid's paradise. I was not quite so content by daylight; some foreigners dined here, and, though they admired our verdure, it mortified me by its brownness we have not had a drop of rain this month to

cool the tip of our daisies. My company was Lady Lyttleton, Lady Schaub, a Madame de Juliac from the Pyreneans, very handsome, not a girl, and of Lady Schaub's mould; the Comte de Caraman, nephew of Madame de Mirepoix, a Monsieur de Clausonnette, and General Schouallow, the favourite of the late Czarina; absolute favourite for a dozen years, without making an enemy. In truth, he is very amiable, humble, and modest. Had he been ambitious, he might have mounted the throne: as he was not, you may imagine they have plucked his plumes a good deal. There is a little air of melancholy about him, and, if I am not mistaken, some secret wishes for the fall of the present Empress; which, if it were civil to suppose, I could heartily join with him in hoping for. As we have still liberty enough left to dazzle a Russian, he seems charmed with England, and perhaps liked even this place the more as belonging to the son of one that, like himself, had been prime minister. If he has no more ambition left than I have, he must taste the felicity of being a private man. What has Lord Bute gained, but the knowledge of how many ungrateful sycophants favour and power can create?

If you have received the parcel that I consigned to Richard Brown for you, you will have found an explanation of my long silence. Thank you for being alarmed for my health.

The day after to-morrow I go to Park-place for four or five days, and soon after to Goodwood. My French journey is still in suspense; Lord Hertford talks of coming over for a fortnight; perhaps I may go back with him; but I have determined nothing yet, till I see farther into the present chase, that somehow or other I may take my leave of politics for ever; for can anything be so wearisome as politics on the account of others? Good night! shall I not see you here? Yours ever.

The Comte de Schouwaloff. See antè, p. 10. Walpole says, in a note to Madame du Deffand's letter to him of the 19th of April 1766, "Il fut le favori, l'on croit le mari, de la Czarine Elizabeth de Russie, et pendant douze ans de faveur il ne se fit point un ennemi.”—E.