If the Spaniards land in Ireland, shall you make the campaign? No, no, come back to England; you and I will not be patriots, till the Gauls are in the city, and we must take our great chairs and our fasces, and be knocked on the head with decorum in St. James's market. Good night! Yours ever.

P.S. I am told that they bind in vellum better at Dublin than any where; pray bring me one book of their binding, as well as it can be done, and I will not mind the price. If Mr. Bourk's history appears before your return, let it be that.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, Jan. 26, 1762.

We have had as many mails due from Ireland as you had from us. I have at last received a line from you; it tells me you are well, which I am always glad to hear; I cannot say you tell me much more. My health is so little subject to alteration, and so preserved by temperance, that it is not worth repetition; thank God you may conclude it is good, if I do not say the contrary.

Here is nothing new but preparations for conquest, and approaches to bankruptcy; and the worst is, the former will advance the latter at least as much as impede it. You say the Irish will live and die with your cousin: I am glad they are so well disposed. I have lived long enough to doubt whether all, who like to live with one, would be so ready to die with one I know it is not pleasant to have the time arrived when one looks about to see whether they would or not; but you are in a country of more sanguine complexion, and where I believe the clergy do not deny the laity the cup.

The queen's brother1 arrived yesterday; your brother, prince John, has been here about a week; I am to dine with him today at lord Dacre's with the Chute. Our burlettas are gone out of fashion; do the Amicis come hither next year, or go to Guadaloupe, as is said?

1 The prince of Mecklenburg Strelitz. [Ed.]

2

I have been told that a lady Kingsland at Dublin has a picture of madame Grammont by Petitot; I don't know who lady Kingsland is, whether rich or poor, but I know there is nothing I would not give for such a picture. I wish you would hunt it; and, if the dame is above temptation, do try if you could obtain a copy in water-colours, if there is any body at Dublin could execute it.

The duchess of Portland has lately enriched me exceedingly; nine portraits of the court of Louis Quatorze! Lord Portland brought them over; they hung in the nursery at Bulstrode; the children amused themselves with shooting at them. I have got them, but I will tell you no more, you don't deserve it; you write to me as if I were your godfather: "Honoured sir, I am brave and well, my cousin George is well, we drink your health every night, and beg your blessing." This is the sum total of all your letters. I thought in a new country, and with your spirits and humour, you could have found something to tell me. I shall only ask you now when you return; but I declare I will not correspond with you: I don't write letters to divert myself, but in expectation of returns; in short, you are extremely in disgrace with me; I have measured my letters for some time, and for the future will answer you paragraph for paragraph. You yourself don't seem to find letter-writing so amusing as to pay itself. Adieu !

Yours ever.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, Feb. 2, 1762.

I SCOLDED you in my last, but I shall forgive you if you return soon to England, as you talk of doing; for though you are

2 Nicholas Barnewall, third viscount Kingsland, married Mary, daughter of Frances Jennings, sister to the celebrated duchess of Marlborough, by George count Hamilton-" by which marriage," says Walpole elsewhere, "the pictures I saw at Tarvey, lord Kingsland's house, came to him. I particularly recollect the portraits of count Hamilton and his brother Anthony, and two of madame Grammont, one taken in her youth, the other in advanced age." [Ed.]

an abominable correspondent, and only write to beg letters, you are good company, and I have a notion I shall still be glad to see you.

Lady Mary Wortley is arrived; I have seen her; I think her avarice, her dirt, and her vivacity are all increased. Her dress, like her languages, is a galimatias of several countries; the ground-work rags, and the embroidery nastiness. She needs no cap, no handkerchief, no gown, no petticoat, no shoes. An old black-laced hood represents the first; the fur of a horseman's coat, which replaces the third serves for the second; a dimity petticoat is deputy, and officiates for the fourth, and slippers act the part of the last. When I was at Florence, and she was expected there, we were drawing Sortes Virgilianas for her; we literally drew

Insanam vatem aspicies.

It would have been a stronger prophecy now, even than it was then.

You told me not a word of Mr. Macnaughton," and I have a great mind to be as coolly indolent about our famous ghost in Cock-lane. Why should one steal half an hour from one's

1 The celebrated lady Mary Pierrepoint, daughter of Evelyn, duke of Kingston, married to Edward Wortley Montagu, esq., the eldest son of the hon. Sidney Montagu, second son of Edward first earl of Sandwich, who married Anne, daughter and heir of sir Francis Wortley, bart., of a very ancient family, seated at Wortley, county York, from the Conquest, who was obliged, according to the settlement of the Wortley estate, to take the name of Wortley.

Mr. Wortley died in 1761; lady Mary, 21st August in the following year. They had one son, Edward, who was disinherited; and one daughter, Mary, on whom the Wortley property devolved. She married, 24th August 1736, John, third earl of Bute, and was created baroness Mount Stuart, with remainder to her issue male by the earl. [Ed.]

2 John Macnaughton, esq., executed in December, 1761, for the murder of Miss Knox, daughter of Andrew Knox, esq., of Prehen, M.P. for Donegal. Macnaughton, who had ruined himself by gambling, sought to replenish his fortune by marriage with this young lady, who had considerable expectations; but as her friends would not consent to their union, and he failed both in inveigling her into a secret marriage, and in compelling her by the suits which he commenced in the ecclesiastical courts to ratify an alleged promise of marriage, he revenged himself by shooting her while riding in a carriage with her father. [Ed.]

3 The affair of the Cock-lane ghost, a piece of imposture, arising as

amusements to tell a story to a friend in another island? I could send you volumes on the ghost, and I believe if I were to stay a little, I might send its life, dedicated to my lord Dartmouth, by the ordinary of Newgate, its two great patrons. A drunken parish clerk set it on foot out of revenge, the methodists have adopted it, and the whole town of London think of nothing else. Elizabeth Canning and the Rabbit-woman were modest impostors in comparison of this, which goes on without saving the least appearances. The archbishop, who would not suffer the Minor to be acted in ridicule of the methodists, permits this farce to be played every night, and I shall not be surprised if they perform in the great hall at Lambeth. I went to hear it, for it is not an apparition, but an audition. We set out from the opera, changed our clothes at Northumberland-house, the duke of York, lady Northumberland, lady Mary Coke, lord Hertford, and I, all in one hackney-coach, and drove to the spot; it rained torrents; yet the lane was full of mob, and the house so full we could not get in; at last, they discovered it was the duke of York, and the company squeezed themselves into one another's pockets to make room for us. The house, which is borrowed, and to which the ghost has adjourned, is wretchedly small and miserable; when we opened the chamber, in which were fifty people, with no light but one tallow candle at the end, we tumbled over the bed of the child, to whom the ghost comes, and whom they are murdering by inches in such insufferable heat and stench. At the top of the room are ropes to dry clothes. I asked, if we were to have rope-dancing between the acts? We had nothing; they told us, as they would at a puppet-show, that it would not come that night till seven in the morning, that is, when there are only 'prentices and old women. We staid however till half-an-hour after one. The methodists have promised them contributions; provisions are sent in like forage, and all the taverns and ale-houses ir the neighbourhood make fortunes. The most diverting part is to hear people wondering when it will be found out—as if there

much from malice as mischief, was carried on for a considerable time. It excited, as may be supposed, a great deal of attention, as the Stockwell ghost and the Stamford ghost have done since. Those readers who are curious in such matters may consult the Gents. Magazine, 1761, for full particulars, or some of the many pamphlets published on the occasion. [Ed.]

was any thing to find out as if the actors would make their noises when they can be discovered. However, as this pantomime cannot last much longer, I hope lady Fanny Shirley will set up a ghost of her own at Twickenham, and then you shall hear one. The methodists, as lord Aylesford assured Mr. Chute two nights ago at lord Dacre's, have attempted ghosts three times in Warwickshire. There, how good I am!

Yours ever.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, Feb. 6, 1762.

You must have thought me very negligent of your commissions; not only in buying your ruffles, but in never mentioning them; but my justification is most ample and verifiable. Your letters of Jan. second arrived but yesterday with the papers of Dec. twenty-nine. These are the mails that have so long been missing, and were shipwrecked or something on the Isle of Man. Now, you see it was impossible for me to buy you a pair of ruffles for the eighteenth of January, when I did not receive the orders till the fifth of February.

You don't tell me a word (but that is not new to you) of Mr. Hamilton's wonderful eloquence, which converted a whole House of Commons on the five regiments. We have no such miracles here; five regiments might work such prodigies, but I never knew mere rhetoric gain above one or two proselytes at a time in all my practice.

We have a prince Charles here, the queen's brother; he is like her, but more like the Hows; low, but well made, good eyes and teeth. Princess Emily is very ill, has been

blistered, and been blooded four times.

My books appear on Monday se'nnight: if I can find any quick conveyance for them, you shall have them; if not, as you are returning soon, I may as well keep them for you. Adieu! I grudge every word I write to you.

Yours ever.