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ligious the moment she becomes a disagreeable object; though she chooses to forget that Charity is preferable to Faith and Hope, or interprets Charity to mean nothing but giving alms. They have more occasion to carry a pocket-glass than a handsome woman-to put them in mind of their own Death's heads.

I said at the beginning of my letter, that I rejoiced to see your handwriting; yet I beg you not to give me that treat often. A line from your nephew, if it tells me you mend, will content me. I have frequently written to you by proxy; and, in truth, my letters require nor deserve answers. I have so much abandoned a world that is too ju. venile for me, and have so few connexions with it left, that my correspondence can have neither novelty nor spirit in it; and therefore, except to you, I scarce write a letter of ten lines in a month, and seldom but on business, of which too I have very little. A few antiquaries and virtuosos now and then consult me, because my oracle from its ancientry, is become respected; but my devotees ask me simple questions, and in my response I generally plead ignorance, and often with truth. My reading or writing has seldom had any object but my own amusement; and, having given over the trade, I had rather my customers went to another shop. The profession of author is trifling; but, when any charlatanerie is superadded, it is a contemptible one. To puff one's self is to be a mountebank, and swallowing wind as well as vending it.

I do not answer your nephew's letter in form; for formal it would be when you see I have so little to say, except to thank him for it, and for his most amiable tenderness and care of you. Nay, writing to one is writing to both: one loves two Sir Horaces as one: your hearts are as much the same as your names, and to write to you separately would be making a distinction in your unity. I am glad the cousins are to be one too. Adieu! I long to hear that you do not lie in bed but at night.

LETTER CCCCXXXVI.

Berkeley Square, June 24, 1785. THOUGH I beg not to urge you to repeat those proofs too often, I must feel great satisfaction from every letter I receive from you under your own hand, when I know your health is not yet quite re-established. I should be content, rationally content, that is, enjoining myself to be content, with hearing of you from your nephew; but your own characters must be more comfortable. However, the more you mend, write the less I am no longer in fear about you, and consequently my patience will allow of longer intervals now I know you are recovering, which we cannot do with the impetuosity of youth. But then Italian summers are a good succedaneum, and, I hope, will be

more efficacious than our north-easterly winds. Even with these, I am arrived at being as well as I was before my last fit, and I beg you will pledge me.

Thank you for your Gazette, and accounts of spectacles.* Florence is a charming theatre for such festivals: those Italy is giving to the Neapolitan Majesties put one in mind of the times when the Medici, the Farneses, Gonzagas, &c., banqueted each other's Highness reciprocally. I am glad the holy Roman Emperor is at leisure to visit principini, palazzi, and giardini, instead of besieging fortezze,. like a wicked overgrown principone. I am glad too, that the wicked holy Roman Fathert is disappointed of his iniquitous plunder. Rome is come to its dregs again when the Pontifex Maximus is sunk into an heredipeta-one of the vile vocations that marked the fæces Romuli.

Our Senate is still sitting, and likely to sit, on the Irish propositions, which gravel both countries. Mr. Grattan, the phenomenon of the other side of the Channel, has set his face against Mr. Pitt's altered plan. This is all I know of the matter. I am very little in town now, and Twickenham is one of the most unpolitical villages in the island.

You will find by our and the French Gazettes, that air-navagtion has received a great blow; the first airgonaut, poor Pilatrier, and his companion, having broken their necks. He had the Croix de St. Louis. in his pocket, and was to have put it on the moment he should have crossed the Channel and landed in England. I have long thought that France has conceived hopes of annihilating our Pyrenees by these flying squadrons. Here they have been turned into a mere job for getting money from gaping fools. One of our adventurers, named Sadler, has been missing, and is supposed lost in the German Ocean.

Prince William, the King's third son, has been in England, and is sailed for the Mediterranean, I think; so, I suppose, will visit Leghorn. It is pity he will arrive too late for your shows, which would be proper for his age.

On reading over your Florentine Gazette, I observed that the Great-Duke has a manufacture of porcelain. If any of it is sold, I should be glad if your nephew would bring me a single bit-a cup, or other trifle, as a sample. I remember that, ages ago, there was a manufacture at Florence belonging to Marquis Ginori, of which I wished for a piece, but could not procure one: the Grand-Ducal may be more attainable. I have a closet furnished with specimens of porcelain of various countries, besides a good deal of Fayence or Rapheal ware, and some pieces with the arms of Medici-but am not I an old simpleton to be wanting play-things still?-and how like is one's last cradle to one's first! Adieu!

* Relations of the entertainments made for the King and Queen of Naples. + Pope Pius VI. had wheedled a rich old Abbé to make him heir; but the family; contested the will and set it aside.

P.S. 28th. Notwithstanding Pilatrier's miscarriage, Balloonation holds up its head. Colonel Fitzpatrick, Lord Ossory's brother, has ascended in one from Oxford, and was alone. Sadler, whom I thought lost, is come to light again, and was to have been of the voyage; but the vessel not being potent enough for two, the Colonel went alone, had a brush with a high hill in his descent, but landed safe about fifteen miles from the University. How Posterity will laugh at us, one way or other! If half a dozen break their necks, and Balloonism is exploded, we shall be called fools for having imagined it could be brought to use if it should be turned to account, we shall be ridiculed for having doubted.

LETTER CCCCXXXVII.

Berkeley Square, July 25, 1785. BEFORE I reply to the other parts of your letter of the 5th, which I have just received, I must tell you how rejoiced I am to hear of your having the gout in your knees and feet. Let me intreat you to encourage and keep it there; indulge them in yards of flannel, and lie much in bed; never rise when they have any perspiration; they will cure your cough, and you cannot be too grateful to them. This effort shows the strength and excellence of your constitution, and will preserve you long: for my part I had rather lie in bed than attend regal puppet-shows; and I always make the most of my gout, when it is to excuse my doing any thing I don't like.

I love your nephew better than ever for his attention to you. Mr. Croft has given me a most excellent character of Mr. James,* who, I hope, will repay to your nephew his affection and care of you.

I have not the honour of being acquainted with Lady Hampdent Mrs. Trevor I do know, who is gentle and pleasing. Lady Hamp den's mother, whom I see often at the Duchess of Montrose's, is very amiable and a favourite of mine.

Though three millions sterling§ from the plunder of convents is a plump bellyfull, I dont believe the Austrian Eagle will stop there, nor be satisfied with private property. No; I told you I believe, when I read the new History of the Medici, that Cæsar had set that work on foot as a preparative to his urging his claim to what the Church of Rome had formerly usurped from his predecessors. He has shown that he thinks nothing holy but the holy Roman empire. It is the

* Mr. James Mann, mentioned in a preceding letter.

+Daughter of General Græme, and wife of the second viscount Hampden. Wife of the second son of the first Viscount: Mr. Trevor was envoy to Turin. Sir H. Mann had told Mr. Walpole that the Emperor had acquired three mil lions by the suppression of convents.

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nature of the Church and the Sceptre to league against the rest of mankind, and abet each other until they have engrossed every thing: then they quarrel; and the mightier strips the weaker, as our Henry the Eighth did. One can care little about the upshot of such squabbles. Were I to form a wish, it would be in favour of the Pontiff rather than of the Emperor; as Churchmen make conquests by sense and art, not by force and bloodshed, like Princes.

As I have not often been in London for this month till last night, I am utterly unqualified to send you news, if there are any. The Parliament is still sitting on the Irish propositions, which, I believe, are almost settled on this side of the Channel. Then they are to be sent to Dublin; and, if accepted there, the English Parliament is to meet again in October to ratify them. In the mean time politicians will do nothing but kill partridges.

The Balloonomania is, I think, a little chilled, not extinguished, by Rozier's catastrophe. That it should still blaze in my nephew* is not surprising; not that he has mounted himself,-he did threaten it: but real madmen are not heroes, though heroes are real madmen. He did encourage another man, who, seeing a storm coming on, would have desisted but my Lord cried, "Oh! you had better ascend before the storm arrives," and instantly cut the strings; and away went the airgonaut, and did not break his neck!

The Duchess Dowager of Portlandt is dead; by which the Duke, her son, gets twelve thousand pounds a year. The greatest part of her great collection will be sold..

This is all I have to tell you or your nephew; and little as it is, I send it away to express my satisfaction on your having the gout in your limbs, rather than wait for more matter, which probably I should not have soon. I repeat my earnest desire to you to keep your limbs warm. You will tell me perhaps that the season of the year makes that counsel unnecessary. I mean, that you should be very careful not to check perspiration. I am perfectly recovered from my last fit; and am persuaded you will be so too, if you let the gout take its full career. It comes exactly to offer you health; and, as your feet swell, I presume, upon easy terms. I have so good an opinion of the gout, that, when I am told of an infallible cure, I laugh the proposal to scorn, and declare I do not desire to be cured. I am serious; and, though I do not believe there is any cure for that distemper, I should say the same if there were one, and for this reason: I believe the gout a remedy, not a disease; and, being so, no wonder

* George, Earl of Orford.

Lady Henry Cavendish Holles Harley,, widow of the second, and mother of the third Duke of Portland. She was only child of Robert, second Earl of Oxford, by the sole daughter and heiress of the last Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, from whom she inherited that great estate. She had made a vast collection of natural history and various other curiosities, the greater part of which was sold by auction in the year following.

there is no medicine for it-nor do I desire to be cured of a remedy. Adieu !

LETTER CCCCXXXVIII.

Strawberry Hill, Aug. 26, 1785.

THOUGH I am delighted to see your hand writing, I beg you will indulge me no more with it. It fatigues you, and that gives me more pain than your letters can give me satisfaction. Dictate a few words on your health to your secretary; it will suffice. I don't care a straw about the King and Queen of Naples, nor whether they visit your little Great Duke and Duchess. I am glad when Monarchs are playing with one another, instead of scratching: it is better they should be idle than mischievous. As I desire you not to write, I cannot be alarmed at a strange hand.

Your philosophic account of yourself is worthy of you. Still, I am convinced you are better than you seem to think. A cough is vexatious, but in old persons is a great preservative. It is one of the forms in which the gout appears, and exercises and clears the lungs. I know actually two persons, no chickens, who are always very ill if they have no annual cough. You may imagine that I have made observations in plenty on the gout: yes, yes, I know its ways and its jesuitic evasions. I beg its pardon, it is a better soul than it appears to be; it is we that misuse it: if it does not appear with all its credentials, we take it for something else, and attempt to cure it. Being a remedy, and not a disease, it will not be cured; and it is better to let it have its way. If it is content to act the personage of a cough, pray humour it it will prolong your life, if you do not contradict it and fling it somewhere else.

The Administration has received a total defeat in Ireland, which has probably saved us another civil war. Don't wonder that I am continually recollecting my father's Quieta non movere. I have never seen that maxim violated with impunity. They say, that in town a change of the Ministry is expected. I am not of that opinion; but, indeed, nobody can be more ignorant than I. I see nobody here but people attached to the Court, and who, however, know more than I do; and if I did see any of the other side, they would not be able to give me better information; nor am I curious.

A stranger event than a revolution in politics has happened at Paris. The Cardinal de Rohan is committed to the Bastile for forging the Queen's hand to obtain a collar of diamonds; I know no more of the story: but as he is very gallant, it is guessed (here, I mean) that it was for a present to some woman. These circumstances are little Apostolic, and will not prop the falling Church of Rome. They used to forge donations and decretials. This is a new manœuvre. Nor were Cardinals wont to be treated so Cavalierly for peccadilloes..

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