I have another nephew going to Florence-for I nave nephews enough to people the Promised Land. It is George Cholmondeley, son of Robert, consequently my great-nephew; for I have lived to count third and fourth generations. This George is a young man of sense and honourable principles, and among the best of my nepotism. He has claimed my recommendation to you, and I trust will deserve it better than some of my nephews have done: he has some humour, and some voice, and is musical; but he has not good health, nor always good spirits.

Berkeley Square, July 10.

I came to town yesterday on summons from Lucas, and this morning he and Sharpe and Mr. Duane were with me. Sharpe declared that he had advised Cavalier Mozzi to divide the ten thousand pounds with my Lord, but had received no answer. I said, I knew Cavalier Mozzi's disposition to agreement; but Mr. Duane and I could not act so summarily. In one word, I wish to save six or seven thousand pounds for Cavalier Mozzi, as I see how much pains Lucas has used to get more, whereas little have been employed on the other side. Sharpe said, too, that the Cavalier would have consented, if Lady Or ford's woman had not dissuaded him. I proposed, and Mr. Duane seconded me, that Sharpe and Lucas should state what claims, and to what amount, each reciprocally allows of the other; and then it would be easier for us referees to split the difference. This has brought matters to a point, and I hope one more meeting may terminate the

buisiness.

I have not yet heard again from your nephew, but conclude he has sent the letters to Strawberry, which my suddenly coming to town may have prevented my receiving.

Adieu! I am writing after midnight, and panting for breath; the weather is wonderfully sultry, and great mischief has been done by lightning in the counties. Were I not in town I should delight in such Florentine nights.

LETTER CCCCV.

Strawberry Hill, July 30, 1783.

I HAVE received yours of the 12th, and Cavalier Mozzi's from your nephew. To the latter's I can say nothing new at present. The last time we met, Mr. Duane and I desired Sharpe and Lucas to try how near they could come in adjusting the separate demands of Lady Orford and my Lord, after we had struck off the unfounded ones on either side. I have no doubt but the two lawyers could have agreed in an hour's time; that is, they would have agreed to give much ad

vantage to my Lord; but as they choose, I suppose to seem to deliberate, as physicians do who retire to consult in another room, and there talk news, Sharpe and Lucas have taken some weeks to consider. I hope Mr. Duane will see through their juggle shall be guided by him.

A thousand thanks to you for the Fatti Farnesiani; but you st tell me the prices, that I may pay your nephew. Do not imagine that I send to Italy for every thing I want at your expense; I cost you enough in trouble. It would truly be more kind of you if you said at once, "I paid so much, or so much." As you did not, I insist on your naming the price in your next.

I shall not believe that when the Czarina has whetted her talons she will go to roost without scratching any body. They say the plague has cried hola ! nay, that it is at Dantzick. Our gazette has rung out the bell. The summer is so sultry, that it would be formidable indeed!

I have not the honour of being acquainted with Lord and Lady Algernon Percy: both he and I go so little into public, that I never saw him above once in my life. She is generally commended.

Your nephew did not name his distress about his daughter, and therefore I certainly did not. I pity him; but what can his remonstrances do? passions are not to be allayed by words; love does not lie in the ear.

Thank you for dispensing with me about inoculation. It is most true that its virtues have not suffered in the smallest degree by the late accident; yet as there was no reason it should, I wonder it did not.

I have not a tittle of news for you, good or bad, public or private. It is better that correspondence should suffer, than be supplied by wars and calamities.

We have swarms of French daily; but they come as if they had laid wagers that there is no such place as England, and only wanted to verify its existence, or that they had a mind to dance a minuet on English ground; for they turn on their heel the moment after landing. Three came to see this house last week, and walked through it literally while I wrote eight lines of a letter; for I heard them go

* Walpole, in a letter to the Earl of Stafford of the 24th of June, thus accounts for the briefness of the visits made by our neighbours at this time: " For imports of French, I believe we shall have few more! They have not ruined us so totally by the war, much less enriched themselves so much by it, but that they who have been here complained so piteously of the expensiveness of England, that probably they will deter others from a similar jaunt; nor, such is their fickleness, are the French constant to any thing but admiration of themselves. Monsieur de Guignes and his daughters came to Strawberry Hill; but it was at eight o'clock at night, in the height of the deluge. You may be sure I was much flattered by such a visit! I was forced to light candles to show them any thing; and must have lighted the moon to show them the views. If this is their way of seeing England, they might as well look at it with an opera-glass from the shore of Calais." Collective Edition, vol. vi. p. 190.-Ed.

up the stairs, and heard them go down, exactly in the time I was finishing no longer a paragraph. It were happy for me had nobody more curiosity than a Frenchman; who is never struck with any thing but what he has seen every day at Paris. I am tormented all day and every day by people that come to see my house, and have no enjoyment of it in summer. It would be even in vain to say that the plague is here. I remember such a report in London when I was a child, and my uncle, Lord Townshend, then Secretary of State, was forced to send guards to keep off the crowd from the house in which the plague was said to be; they would go and see the plague! Had I been the master of the house, I should have said, as I would to kings who pretend to cure the King's evil," You cure the evil!—you are the evil!" "You see the plague !-you are the plague !"

Since I began my letter, Mrs. Noel has told me who is your ne phew's daughter's innamorato. I now pity him even more than I did. There is madness in the lover's family-how can a parent consent to such a union? I am very tender-hearted on love-cases, especially to women, whose happiness does really depend, for some time at least, on the accomplishment of their wishes; they cannot conceive that another swain might be just as charming. I am not so indulgent to men, who do know that one romance is as good as another, and that the binding is of little consequence. But must not the blood of a father recoil, when his child would unite with phrenzy, and for grandchildren would bring him lunatics? Oh! I approve your poor nephew's repugnance. I have seen the lover's mother in her moods, and know but too well the peril of such alliances! That, and the royal malady I named in my last paragraph, are not enough guarded against. Both sometimes lie dormant for a generation, but rarely are eradicated. On the want of fortune I should be much less restive; and for the profession, if a girl is in love, how can she secure such a prospect of felicity as by marrying a clergyman? I am a little indelicate; but I know why Providence gave us passions; and therefore, however we may dress up and dignify the idea, the most romantic maiden upon earth, whether aware of it or not, is in love with the gender, though its more visible accompaniments may have made the impression. Your Orianas therefore find their account better in a Levite than in an Amadis. I have often wondered dowager Orianas do not always replace Amadis with a cassock. It is almost the only chance they have of not being disappointed. If the bell-wether strays after other ewes, the noise he makes betrays him, and the old crone is sure of reclaiming him. I beg pardon of goddesses for so ungallant a comment; but, however heretical it may sound to ears of twenty, it would be solid advice if dropped in those of forty. Adieu!

LETTER CCCCVI.

Aug. 27, 1783.

It is time to resume my veteran punctuality, and think of writing to you; but alas! correspondence, like matrimonial duty, is but ill performed when only prompted by periodic recollection of a debt to be paid. However, I am so far different from a husband, that my inclination is not decreased: want of matter alone makes me sluggish. The war is at an end; which, like domestic quarrels, animated our intercourse, and, like them, concludes with kissing, and is followed by dulness and inaction. The Definitive Treaty, they say, is signed; the French and we are exceedingly fond. Presents pass weekly between the Duchesses of Polignac and Devonshire; and so many French arrive, that they overflow even upon me, and visit Strawberry as one of our sights. The Marquise de la Jamaique, sister of your Countess of Albany,† has been here this month, and

Amongst the numerous distinguished individuals who had availed themselves of the recess to visit the Continent, was Mr. Pitt. "In the beginning of September," says the Bishop of Winchester, "accompanied by his brother-in-law, Mr. Eliot, and Mr. Wilberforce, he went to France, where he remained till the beginning of October, residing principally at Rheims and Paris. His name and character were well known in France; and he was every where received with great marks of distinction. This short visit was the only one he ever made to the Continent." Life, vol. i. p. 176.-As any incidents in the private life, at this youthful period, of the illustrious man, who, in the short period of a month, was appointed First Lord of the Treasury, will be interesting, we give the following passage from the Life and Journals of his attached friend and companion on the tour:

"Although no master of the French vocabulary, his ear, quick for every sound but music, caught readily the intonations of the language; and he soon spoke it with considerable accuracy. He enquired carefully into the political institutions of the French, and the Abbé De Lageard has stored up his concluding sentence: Monsieur, vous n'avez point de liberté politique, mais pour la liberté civile, vous en avez plus que vous ne croyez." As he expressed in the strongest terms his admiration for the system which prevailed at home, the Abbé was led to ask him, since all human things were perishable, in what part the British Constitution might be first expected to decay? Pitt, a Parliamentary reformer, and speaking within three years of the time when the House of Commons had agreed to Mr. Dunning's motion, that the influence of the Crown had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished, after musing for a moment, answered: The part of our Constitution which will first perish, is the prerogative of the King, and the authority of the House of Peers.'I am greatly surprised,' said the Abbé, 'that a country so moral as England can submit to be governed by a man so wanting in private character as Fox; it seems to show you to be less moral than you appear. C'est que vous n'avez pas été sous la baguette du magicien,' was Pitt's reply; but the remark,' he continued, 'is just.' At Paris it was hinted to him through the intervention of Horace Walpole, that he would be an acceptable suiter for the daughter of the celebrated Neckar. Neckar is said to have offered to endow her with a fortune of 14,000l. per annum; but Mr. Pitt replied, 'I am already married to my country.'"-Life of Wilberforce, vol. i. p. 33.

Wife of the son of the Duke of Berwick and Liria, and daughter of the Prince of Stolberg. Her sister was married to the Pretender, who called himself Prince of Albany, and then resided at Florence.

stays above another. But, are not such articles below even the ingredients of a letter; especially between you and me, who have dealt in the fates of kingdoms? If I would talk politics, I must have recourse to the long-depending topic, whether there will be a war between the Turks and Russians: of which, in good truth, I know as little as of any thing else.

Sir William Hamilton is arrived, but I have not yet seen him. He will not be quite out of his element; for we have had pigmy earthquakes, much havoc by lightning, and some very respectable meteors.

I have not heard a syllable of Sharpe and Lucas. As it is vacation, I suppose even private justice cannot be administered out of term time. Pray, has Lord Orford ever paid you for his mother's tomb? I promised you to dun him if he did not; therefore empower me if he has neglected it.

I have not wherewithal to compose another paragraph, so this exordium must prove that I have not been negligent; but it must lie in my writing-box till I can collect something to fill up the remainder of the page-if I aimed at a third, I should not perhaps send it away before the Parliament meets.

Sept. 1st.

I shall finish this letter, brief as it is; for I go to-morrow to Park Place and Nuneham† for ten days. Mr. Fox has notified to the City, that the Definitive Treaties are to be signed the day after tomorrow by all parties but Holland: whether the latter is abandoned and pouts, or is reserved by France as a nest-egg for hatching a new war, I know not. Lord Shelburne, I suppose, will rave against the Ministers for having definished his treaties, since he cannot abuse them for not having terminated them; but I trust he will be little heeded.

They say there has been a dreadful hurricane and inundation at Surat. All the elements seem to be willing to make a figure in their turn. In our humble northern way, we have had much damage by lightning. The summer has been wonderfully hot, and of late very unhealthy. Our globe really seems to be disordered. I have had my share in a rheumatic fever, which is not gone; but I hope change of air will cure it. In truth, I have no great faith in cures at my age for chronic complaints; but I try remedies, like people who go into lotteries, because they would not be out of fortune's way.

* Seat of General Conway, near Henley.

Seat of the Earl of Harcourt, in Oxfordshire. ["At Nuneham," says Walpole, "I was much pleased with the improvements both within doors and without. Mr. Mason was there; and, as he shines in every art, was assisting Mrs. Harcourt with his new discoveries in painting, by which he will unite miniature and oil. Indeed, she is a very apt and extraordinary scholar. Since our professors seem to have lost the art of colouring, I am glad, at least, that they have undergraduated assessors." Collective Edition, vol. vi. p. 200.-ED.]