natural effusions of the heart, how will you be surprised to find a narrative of the most improbable and absurd adventures! How will you be amazed to hear that a country of whose good sense you have an opinion should have applauded so wild a tale! But you must remember, sir, that whatever good sense we have, we are not yet in any light chained down to precepts and inviolable laws. All that Aristotle, or his superior commentators, your authors, have taught us, has not yet subdued us to regularity: we still prefer the extravagant beauties of Shakspeare and Milton to the cold and well-disciplined merit of Addison, and even to the sober and correct march of Pope. Nay, it was but t'other day that we were transported to hear Churchill rave in numbers less chastised than Dryden's, but still in numbers like Dryden's. You will not, I hope, think I apply these mighty names to my own case with any vanity, when it is only their enormities that I quote, and that in defence, not of myself, but of my countrymen, who have had good-humour enough to approve the visionary scenes and actors in the Castle of OtrantoTo tell you the truth, it was not so much my intention to recal the exploded marvels of ancient romance, as to blend the wonderful of old stories with the natural of modern novels. The world is apt to wear out any plan whatever; and, if the marquis de Roselle had not appeared, I should have been inclined to say, that that species had been exhausted. Madame de Beaumont must forgive me if I add that Richardson had, to me at least, made that kind of writing insupportable. I thought the nodus was become dignus vindice, and that a god, at least a ghost, was absolutely necessary to frighten us out of too much senses. When I had so wicked a design, no wonder if the execution was answerable. If I make you laugh, for I cannot flatter myself that I shall make you cry, I shall be content; at least I shall be satisfied, till I have the pleasure of seeing you, with putting you in mind of, sir, Your most devoted humble servant. P. S. The passage I alluded to in the beginning of my letter is where Matilda owns her passion to Hippolita.-I mention it as I fear so unequal a similitude would not strike madame de Beau mont. To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq. Arlington-street, April 5, 1765. I SENT you two letters t'other day from your kin, and might as well have written then as now, for I have nothing to tell you. Mr. Chute has quitted his bed to-day the first time for above five weeks, but is still swathed like a mummy. He was near relapsing; for old Mildmay, whose lungs, and memory, and tongue, will never wear out, talked to him t'other night from eight till half-an-hour after ten, on the Poor-bill; but he has been more comfortable with lord Dacre and me this evening. I have read the Siege of Calais,' and dislike it extremely, though there are fine lines, but the conduct is woful. The outrageous applause it has received at Paris was certainly political, and intended to stir up their spirit and animosity against us, their good, merciful, and forgiving allies. They will have no occasion for this ardour; they may smite one cheek, and we shall turn t'other. Though I have little to say, it is worth while to write, only to tell you two bon-mots of Quin, to that turn-coat hypocrite infidel, bishop Warburton. That saucy priest was haranguing at Bath in behalf of prerogative: Quin said, “Pray, my lord, spare me, you are not acquainted with my principles, I am a republican; and perhaps I even think that the execution of Charles the first might be justified."-" Aye!" said Warburton, "by what law?" Quin replied, "By all the laws he had left them.” The bishop would have got off upon judgments, and bade the player remember that all the regicides came to violent ends; a lie, but no matter. I would not advise your lordship,” said Quin, "to make use of that inference, for if I am not mistaken, that was the case of the twelve apostles." There was great wit ad hominem in the latter reply, but I think the former equal to any thing I ever heard. It is the sum of the whole controversy 1 A tragedy called the Siege of Calais,' translated from the French, and published with historical notes. [Ed.] 2 William Warburton bishop of Gloucester, eminent as a theological writer, critic, and controversialist; born at Newark-upon-Trent, 1691; died 1779. His most celebrated work is "The Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated," &c. [Ed.] couched in eight monosyllables, and comprehends at once the king's guilt and the justice of punishing it. The more one examines it, the finer it proves. One can say nothing after it, so good night. Yours ever. 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 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 nut-shell. 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. 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 I am not going to say. Your newspapers perhaps have given you a long role 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 what 1 Calcraft the Army agent, christened by Wilkes, in the North Briton, Jemmy Twitcher." [Ed.] 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 garriosned by horse and foot guards, was on the point of being taken. The besieged are in their turn triumphant; and, if any body now was to publish Droit le Duc, I do not think the House of Lords would censure his book. Indeed the regents may do 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 any thing to laugh at—'tis a lucky age for a man who is so easily contented. 2 On the 14th May 1765, the Spitalfields weavers, to the number of 8,000, marched from Moorfields to St. James's, with a black flag flying before them, with a view of presenting to his majesty a petition shewing the distress entailed upon them by the importation of foreign silks. The king being at Richmond, they returned without presenting it; but, on his majesty's going to the House of Peers on the following day, he was followed by a large concourse of them. These disturbances continued on the 16th and 17th of the month. On the last day they presented themselves before the duke of Bedford's house in Bloomsbury-square, and threatened considerable damage, but were eventually dispersed by the soldiery. [Ed.] 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 any body. 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 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! Yours ever. 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, |