navigation, appear to me as childish as the flying kites of schoolboys. I have not stirred a step to see one; consequently, have not paid a guinea for gazing at one, which I might have seen by only looking up into the air. An Italian, one Lunardi, is the first airgonaut that has mounted into the clouds in this country. So far from respecting him as a Jason, I was very angry with him : he had full right to venture his own neck, but none to risk the poor cat, who, not having proved a martyr, is at least better entitled to be a confessor than her master Dædalus. I was even disappointed after his expedition had been prosperous; you must know, I have no ideas of space: when I heard how wonderfully he had soared, I concluded he had arrived within a stone's throw of the moon-alas! he had not ascended above a mile and a-half-so pitiful an ascension degraded him totally in my conceit. As there are mountains twice as high, what signifies flying, if you do not rise above the top of the earth? any one on foot may walk higher than this man-eagle! Well! now you know all that I know-and was it worth telling?

There does seem to be a storm still brewing in Ireland, though a favourable turn has happened. The people of property have found out there is no joke in putting votes into the hands of the Catholics.† They were Irish heads that did not make that discovery a little sooner. Can there be a greater absurdity than Papists voting for Members of Parliament? It will be well for those who invited them to that parti cipation, if they can satisfy them without granting it! How often I reflect on my father's Quieta non movere! It seems to me, from all I have seen of late years, to be the soundest maxim in politics ever pronounced. Think of a reformation of Parliament by admitting Roman Catholics to vote at elections! and that that preposterous idea should have been adopted by Presbyterians! That it was sanctified by a Protestant Bishop is not strange; he would call Mussulmen to poll, were there any within the diocess of Derry.

Your Lord Paramount seems to be taking large strides towards Holland ; but of that you probably know more than I do,—at least, you cannot know less. The old gentlewomen in my neighbourhood, the only company I have, study no map but that of Tendre in Clelia ; but they relate the adventures of that country in a different style from Mademoiselle Scudery; they put as many couple together, but not quite with such honourable intentions as she did. In short, you may perceive that I can send you no intelligence but folly and lies from

**This aerial voyage was performed in London, September 15th, 1784, by Vin cent Lunardi, whoa scended from the Artillery-Ground, taking with him a dog, a cat, and a pigeon; he descended in a meadow near Ware, in Hertfordshire.-ED.

The admission of Romanists to the elective franchise in Ireland gave great dissatisfaction to the Protestants of the middle and lower class, who had previously the preference as tenants on account of their exclusive right of voting.—ED. Dr. Frederic Hervey, Earl of Bristol and Bishop of Derry.

The Emperor Joseph II. quarrelled with the Dutch for the navigation of the Scheldt.

A writer of French romances in the 17th century, remarkable chiefly for the extravagant length and exaggerated style of her productions.-ED.

newspapers, or scandal from beldams; I do not listen to the latter, nor mind the former. I pay you my monthly quit-rent, though in truth it is not worth a pepper-corn.

Sir William Hamilton, just before he set out, gave me a small printed account of the Reale Galleria di Firenze accresciuta, &c. By it I' perceive, that, though the Great-Duke has dispersed the group of the Niobe like our riot-act, and left them staring in strange attitudes like the mob on such an occasion, he has assembled all the outlying parts of the Medicean collection,* and made great purchases himself and new-arranged the whole. This is praiseworthy, but seems a little contradicted by selling so much of the Guarda-roba; not that I blame * him I am sure, who, thanks to you, have profited by it. The little book promises an ampler account. Should such appear, I should be glad to have it, on strict condition of paying for it; otherwise, you know you exclude me from troubling you with any commission: my house is full of your spoils already, and by your munificence is a Galleria Reale itself.

I shall now be expecting your nephew soon, and, I trust, with a perfectly good account of you. The next time he visits you, I may be able to send you a description of my Galleria,-I have long been preparing it, and it is almost finished,-with some prints, which, however, I doubt, will convey no very adequate idea of it. In the first place, they are but moderately executed: I could not afford to pay our principal engravers, whose prices are equal to, nay, far above, those of former capital painters. In the next, as there is a solemnity in the house, of which the cuts will give you an idea, they cannot add the gay variety of the scene without, which is very different from every side, and almost from every chamber, and makes a most agreeable contrast; the house being placed almost in an elbow of the Thames, which surrounds half, and consequently beautifies three of the aspects. Then my little hill, and diminutive enough it is, gazes up to royal Richmond; and Twickenham on the left, and Kingstonwick on the right, are seen across bends of the river, which on each hand appears like a Lilliputian seaport. Swans, cows, sheep, coaches, post-chaises, carts, horsemen, and foot-passengers, are continually in view. The fourth scene is a large common-field, a constant prospect of harvest and its stages, traversed under my windows by the great road to Hampton Court; in short, an animated view of the country. These moving pictures compensate the conventual gloom of the inside; which, however, when the sun shines, is gorgeous, as he appears all crimson and gold and azure through the painted glass. Now, to be quite fair, you must turn the perspective, and look at this vision through the diminishing end of the telescope; for nothing is so small as the whole, and even Mount Richmond would not reach up to Fiesole's shoe-buckle. If your nephew is still with you, he will confirm the truth of all the pomp, and all the humility, of my description. I grieve that you would ne

* Particularly from the Villa Medici at Rome.

ver come and cast an eye on it!-But are even our visions pure from alloy? Does not some drawback always hang over them? and, being visions, how rapidly must not they fleet away? Yes, yes; our smiles and our tears are almost as transient as the lustre of the morning and the shadows of the evening, and almost as frequently interchanged. Our passions form airy balloons-we know not how to direct them; and the very inflammable matter that transports them, often makes the bubble burst. Adieu!

LETTER CCCCXXVII.

Strawberry Hill, Nov. 1, 1784.

You are one of the last men in the world to be comforted by a lega cy for the loss of a friend; nor can one see it in any agreeable light, but as a testimony of real affection. An old friend is a double loss when one's self is not young. However, it is the frequent untying of such strings that accustoms one to one's own departure. The patriarchs might preserve a relish for life, even when five hundred years old; because their children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, were all upon as lasting an establishment; and, I suppose, the affec tions of the ancestry were as vivacious as themselves. But, in the post-diluvian system, long-lived parents are often more unfortunate than we old bachelors, and survive their children. For my part, who have outlived some friends and most of my contemporaries, I am attached to being but by few threads. I see little difference between living in Otaheite, and with new generations. Small advantage has one in the latter intercourse, but in not having an unknown language to learn; nay, one has part of a new tongue to practise when there is a distance of fifty years between the two vocabularies. My dear old friend, Madame du Deffand, often said, she did not understand modern French. Swift was out of humour with many words coined in his own time;-a common foible with elderly men, who seem to think that every thing was in perfection when they entered the world, and could not be altered but for the worse.

Thank you for the account of the arrival of the Duchess of Albany. It is one of the last chapters of the House of Stuart; whose historytarry but a little-may be written, like that of the Medici. The episode of the Princess of Stolberg* is more proper for an Atalantis.f

*The Pretender's wife, daughter of the Prince of Stolberg, and great-granddaughter of the outlawed Earl of Ailesbury, who died at Brussels. The Countess of Albany was separated from her husband on account of his ill-usage, and was supposed to like Count Alfieri (the poet,) a Piedmontese gentleman, who had been in England, where he fought a duel with the second Lord Ligonier, on having an intrigue with his wife, who was daughter of Lord Rivers, and who was soon after divorced.

In a letter to Walpole, dated Florence, October 8th, Sir Horace Mann had told

Such anecdotes, however, come within my compass, who live too much out of the world to know what bigger monarchs are doing. Newspapers tell me your Lord Paramount is going to annihilate that fictitious state, Holland. I shall not be surprised if he, France, and Prussia, divide it, like Poland, in order to settle the Republic! perhaps, may create a kingdom for the Prince of Orange out of the Hague and five miles round.

Your nephew, though arrived, I have not yet seen; he is in Kent with his daughters. The new Signora Mozzi I should think not enchanted with her husband's passing eldest on the wedding-night. She will take care not to choose a philosopher for her second.

This scrap, which in reality is but a reply to some paragraphs in yours, gives itself the denomination of a letter, to keep up the decorum of regularity, which idle veterans have no excuse for neglecting, and often practise mechanically. I began it last night, "because I had nothing else to do, and quitted it because I had nothing more to say;" which was the whole of a letter from a French lady to her husband, and in which there was humour, as she was more indifferent to him

him that "The arrival of Lady Charlotte Stuart, Duchess of Albany, has occasioned some little bustle in the town. A French lady, who for thirty years had been totally neglected, but on a sudden transformed into a Duchess, was an object that excited the curiosity of both sexes-the men, to see her figure; the ladies, scrupulously to examine that, and the new modes she has brought from Paris: the result of all which is, that she is allowed to be a good figure, tall and wellmade, but that the features of her face resemble too much those of her father to be handsome. She is gay, lively, and very affable, and has the behaviour of a wellbred Frenchwoman, without assuming the least distinction among our ladies on account of her new dignity. They flock to her door to leave their cards, which she is to return; though the Countess, her step-mother, did not, and therefore, or perhaps for another reason, lived alone with Count Alfieri, who, as a writer of tragedies, formed the plot of her elopement, on which the acknowledgment of this natural daughter, all the honours she has received, and the future advantage she will have by being heiress to all her father can leave her, depend. Perhaps neither the Countess nor her lover foresaw all this, and it is very probable that she will repent of it, and consequently detest her adviser. The Countess renounced every thing to obtain her liberty, gave up her pin-money, which was 3000 crowns a year, and could not obtain any thing for a separate maintenance; so that she does not receive a shilling from the Stuart family, and is only to enjoy a jointure of 6000 crowns after her husband's death-a poor equivalent for what she has lost. However, she obtained a pension from the Court of France soon after her separation, where her complaints were listened to with compassion, and 20,000 petits écus, which she now lives upon. The new Duchess has appeared at the theatres, which were crowded on her account, with all her father's jewels, which are very fine. He asked leave of the Duke to put a baldachino or dais over her boxes in each theatre, and a velvet carpet to hang before it, which was refused; but had permission to line the boxes as he pleased. That in the great theatre is hung with crimson damask: the cushion is velvet, with gold lace. In the other theatre, it is yellow damask. The Count is much pleased with this distinction. The Duchess brought with her, as a dame de campagnie, a Frenchwoman, who married an Irish officer named O'Donnel: and an écuyer named Nairn, a Scotchman, whom they call my Lord. We have heard that the King of France has legitimated her so far as to inherit what her father possesses in France."-From an unpublished Letter. -ED.

than I am to you. Now I do resume it, I find it not so convenient; for my hand shakes, being very nervous in a morning. It might shake for another reason, which I should not disguise if the true one; for nothing is so foolish as concealing one's age, since one cannot deceive the only person who can care whether one is a year or two older or younger one's self. That secrecy convinces me, amongst other reasons, that nothing is falser than the common maxim, that no one knows himself. Whom the deuce should one know, if not the person one sees the oftenest and observes the most, and who has not a thought but one knows? Elderly women, who repair their faces, prove they discover the decay; and yet flatter themselves that others will not discover the alteration which even repairs make. I should think that a daily looking-glass and conscience would leave neither women nor men ignorant of themselves. We are silly animals! even our wisdom but consists in remarks on the follies of others, if not on our own; and, as we are of the same species, we are sure of not being exempt: for myself, I am clear that I was born, and shall die, with no exclusive patent!

LETTER CCCCXXVIII.

Berkeley Square, Nov. 8, 1784.

As I wrote to you but a week ago, don't imagine from another so soon that I have any thing fresh to tell you. On the contrary, I only write to answer a letter of very antique date from you, which I received from your nephew yesterday, with the parcel of mine. I questioned him strictly, as usual; and his account of you is very good. He says, you are sometimes languid in a morning; but was not you so in the century when we were together? If he described me as justly to you, you must think me the Old Man of the Mountain. But what signify languors or wrinkles, if one does not suffer pain, nor has a mind that wishes to be younger than its body? that is, if one is neither miserable nor ridiculous, it is no matter what the register says. Your nephew seems much benefited by his journey; and I encourage him to renew them frequently, for both your sakes.

You tell me but it was on the 11th of September when you told me so that Cavalier Mozzi had not received the general acquittance from Mr. Hoare. If still not received, he should write to Mr. Hoare or Sharpe. I have taken my leave, and cannot recommence.

You surprise me with the notice that old Ramsay had a hand in that trumpery. I do not mean that I wonder at his being a bad poet-I did not know he was one at all, though a very good scribbler; but an old dotard! to be sporting and playing at leap-frog with brats.

I came to town yesterday to bespeak some winter clothes, and hear

* The Arno Miscellany.