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"and came to receive it." He left a good card yesterday at lady Petersham; a very young lord to wait on lady Petersham, to make her ladyship the first offer of himself. I believe she will be content with the exchequer: Mrs. Grey has a pension of eight hundred pounds a-year.

Mrs. Clive is at her villa for Passion-week; I have written to her for the box, but I don't doubt of its being gone; but, considering her alliance, why does not Miss Price bespeak the play and have the stage box.

I shall smile if Mr. Bentley, and Müntz, and their two Hannahs meet at St. James's; so as I see neither of them, I care not where they are.

Lady Hinchinbrook and lady Mansel are at the point of death; lord Hardwicke is to be poet-laureate; and, according to modern usuage, I suppose it will be made a cabinet-counsellor's place. Good night!

Yours ever.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, March 19, 1761.

All

I CAN now tell you, with great pleasure, that your cousin' is certainly named lord-lieutenant. I wish you joy. You will not be sorry, too, to hear that your lord North is much talked of for succeeding him at the board of trade. I tell you this with great composure, though to-day has been a day of amazement. the world is staring, whispering, and questioning. Lord Holderness has resigned the seals, and they are given to lord Bute. Which of the two secretaries of state is first minister? the latter or Mr. Pitt? Lord Holderness received the command but yesterday, at two o'clock, till that moment thinking himself extremely well at court; but it seems the king said he was tired of having two secretaries, of which one would do nothing, and t'other could do nothing; he would have a secretary who both could act and would. Pitt had as short notice of this resolution as the sufferer, and was little better pleased. He is something

The earl of Halifax. [Or.]

↑ His lordship was sworn in on the 25th March, 1761. [Ed.]

softened for the present by the offer of cofferer for Jemmy Grenville, which is to be ceded by the duke of Leeds, who returns to his old post of justice in Eyre, from whence lord Sandys1 is to be removed, some say to the head of the board of trade. Newcastle, who enjoys this fall of Holderness's, who had deserted him for Pitt, laments over the former, but seems to have made his terms with the new favourite : if the Bedfords have done so, too, will it surprise you? It will me, if Pitt submits to this humiliation; if he does not, I take for granted the duke of Bedford will have the other seals. The temper with which the new reign has hitherto proceeded seems a little impeached by this sudden act, and the earl now stands in the direct light of a minister, if the house of commons should cavil at him. Lord Delawar kissed hands to-day for his earldom, the other new peers are to follow on Monday.

There are horrid disturbances about the militia in Northumberland, where the mob have killed an officer and three of the Yorkshire militia, who, in return, fired, and shot twenty-one.5 Adieu! I shall be impatient to hear some consequence of my first paragraph.

Yours ever.

P.S. Saturday. I forgot to tell you that lord Hardwicke has written some verses to lord Lyttelton, upon those the latter

? The right hon. James Grenville, brother of Richard, second earl Temple, brother to the first marquis, and uncle of the present duke of Buckingham. [Ed.]

4 Samuel Sandys, was made chancellor of the Exchequer in the room of sir Robert Walpole, in 1742.

"Let Sands unenvied hug the Exchequer seal," say sir C. H. Williams. He was created lord Sandys, baron of Ombersley, in 1743. [Ed.]

5 On the 9th March, 1761, at Hexham, on the deputy lieutenant's meeting to ballot for the militia, a number of pit-men attacked a party of the Yorkshire militia, of which an ensign and two privates were killed. The men were obliged to fire, and forty-two of the mob were killed, or afterwards died of their wounds, and forty-eight were wounded. [Ed.]

6 The following are the lines alluded to," addition extempore to the verses on lady Egremont.

"Fame heard with pleasure-straight replied,

First on my roll stands Wyndham's bride,
My trumpet oft I've raised to sound

Her modest praise the world around;

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made on lady Egremont.7

If I had been told that he had put

8

on a bag, and was gone off with Kitty Fisher, I should not have been more astonished.

Poor lady Gower is dead this morning of a fever in her lying-in. I believe the Bedfords are very sorry, for there is a

new opera this evening.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

March 21, 1761.

Or the enclosed, as you perceive, I tore off the seal, but it has not been opened.

I grieve at the loss of your suit, and for the injustice done you; but what can one expect but injury, when forced to have recourse to law? Lord Abercorn asked me this evening if it was true that you are going to Ireland? I gave a vague answer, and did not resolve him how much I knew of it. I am impatient for the reply to your compliment.

There is not a word of newer news than what I sent you last. The speaker has taken leave, and received the highest compliments, and substantial ones, too; he did not over-act, and it was really a handsome scene. I go to my election on Tuesday, and, if I do not tumble out of the chair and break my neck, you

But notes were wanting-canst thou find
A muse to sing her face, her mind?
Believe me, I can name but one,

A friend of yours-'tis Lyttleton."

We don't know whether our readers will agree with lord Lyttleton, who declared in his answer, "If you can write such witty extempore, it is well for other poets that you chose to be a lord Chancellor rather than a laureat.” Lord Lyttleton's original verses, and those he addressed to lord Hardwicke in reply, may be seen in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1761. [Ed.] 7 Alicia Maria, daughter of George lord Carpenter, and wife of Charles Wyndham earl of Egremont, who, on the death of his uncle, Algernon duke of Somerset, without issue male, succeeded him as earl of Egremont and baron Cockermouth, in the county of Cumberland. [Ed.]

8 A well-known courtesan of the day: she is introduced in the comedy of The Belle's Stratagem.' [Ed.]

9 Daughter of Scroope, duke of Bridgewater. [Or.]

shall hear from me at my return. I got the box for Miss Rice; lady Hinchinbrook is dead.

Yours ever.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Houghton, March 25, 1761.

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HERE I am at Houghton! and alone! in this spot, where (except two hours last month) I have not been in sixteen years! Think, what a crowd of reflections! No, Gray, and forty church-yards, could not furnish so many; nay, I know one must feel them with greater indifference than I possess, to have patience to put them into verse. Here I am, probably for the last time of my life, though not for the last time: every clock that strikes tells me I am an hour nearer to yonder church—that church, into which I have not yet had courage to enter, where lies that mother on whom I doated, and who doated on me! There are the two rival mistresses of Houghton, neither of whom ever wished to enjoy it! There, too, lies he, who founded its greatness, to contribute to whose fall Europe was embroiled; there he sleeps in quiet and dignity, while his friend and his foe, rather his false ally and real enemy, Newcastle and Bath, are exhausting the dregs of their pitiful lives in squabbles and pamphlets.

The surprise the pictures gave me is again renewed; accustomed for many years to see nothing but wretched daubs and varnished copies at auctions, I look at these as enchantment. My own description of them seems poor; but shall I tell you truly, the majesty of Italian ideas almost sinks before the warm nature of Flemish colouring. Alas! don't I grow old? My

1 The magnificent seat erected by sir Robert Walpole, whose prayer, recorded on the foundation stone-viz: "that after its master, to a mature old age, had long enjoyed it in perfection, his latest descendants may safely possess it to the end of time," was not destined to be fulfilled. [Ed.]

2 This magnificent collection of pictures was sold to the Empress of Russia, and some curious particulars on the subjects of the sale will be found in Beloe's Anecdotes of Literature, &c. A series of engravings was likewise made from them, which was published in 1788, under the title of "The Houghton Gallery: a collection of prints, from the best pictures in the possession of the earl of Orford." [Ed.]

young imagination was fired with Guido's ideas; must they be plump and prominent as Abishag to warm me now? Doth great youth feel with poetic limbs, as well as see with poetic eyes? In one respect, I am very young, I cannot satiate myself with looking: an incident contributed to make me feel this more strongly. A party arrived, just as I did, to see the house, a man and three women in riding dresses, and they rode post through the apartments. I could not hurry before them fast enough; they were not so long in seeing for the first time, as I could have been in one room, to examine what I knew by heart. I remember formerly being often diverted with this kind of seers; they come, ask what such a room is called, in which sir Robert lay, write it down, admire a lobster or a cabbage in a marketpiece, dispute whether the last room was green or purple, and then hurry to the inn for fear the fish should be over-dressed. How different my sensations! not a picture here but recalls a history; not one, but I remember in Downing-street or Chelsea, where queens and crowds admired them, though seeing them as little as these travellers!

When I had drank tea, I strolled into the garden; they told me it was now called the pleasure-ground. What a dissonant idea of pleasure! those groves, those allées, where I have passed so many charming moments, are now stripped up or overgrown -many fond paths I could not unravel, though with a very exact clew in my memory: I met two gamekeepers, and a thousand hares! In the days when all my soul was tuned to pleasure and vivacity (and you will think, perhaps, it is far from being out of tune yet), I hated Houghton and its solitude; yet I loved this garden, as now, with many regrets, I love Houghton; Houghton, I know not what to call it, a monument of grandeur or ruin! How I have wished this evening for lord Bute! how I could preach to him! For myself, I do not want to be preached to; I have long considered how every Balbec must wait for the chance of a Mr. Wood. The servants wanted to lay me in the great apartment-what, to make me pass my night as I have done my evening! It were like proposing to Margaret Roper1

3 Margaret Roper, wife of William Roper, esq., and the eldest and favourite daughter of the great sir Thomas More; she bought the head of her ill-fated parent, when it was about to be thrown into the Thames, after having been affixed to London Bridge; and on being questioned by the

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