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and with it his most valuable treasures. My gem has escaped all these perils, and arrived like the lost sheep. You cannot imagine how the Caligula, and the Bianca Capello, and Benvenuto's coffer, and the Castiglione, and all your presents, embraced and hugged it, and inquired after you. The new comer is lodged in a glass-case in my iribune, over against Caligula.

As I wrote to you but two days ago-nay, my letter would leave London but to-night,-I have no news to add: however, I may have; for this will not go hence till Tuesday morning, to be ready for that night's mail. But I was so impatient to tell you the cameo is safe, and that your munificence is not thrown away entirely, that I could not help beginning my letter now, though the rest of my paper must depend on the charity of accident and events: and, if they will not assist it, I do not care,-go it shall; I will not owe you a moment's gratitude that I can pay. Nay, I will heap coals of fire on my own head; for all your gifts shall be entered in the printed catalogue of my collection as your presents, and then who ever reads it will cry, "Why, had he no shame ?"-Oh, yes, a vast deal; and this is one of his ways of doing penance.

my

Oct. 9th.

Since I wrote the above, I have heard from Paris of the death of dear old friend Madame du Deffand, whom I went so often thither to see. It was not quite unexpected, and was softened by her great age,-eighty-four,-which forbad distant hopes; and, by what I dreaded more than her death, her increasing deafness, which had it become, like her blindness, total, would have been living after death. Her memory only began to impair; her amazing sense and quickness, not at all. I have written to her once a-week for these last fifteen years, as correspondence and conversation could be her only pleasure.* You see that I am the most faithful letter-writer in the world-and, alas! never see those I am so constant to! One is forbidden common-place reflections on these misfortunes, because they are common-place; but is not that, because they are natural? But your never having known that dear old woman is a better reason for not making you the butt of my concern.

Lord George Gordon has just got a neighbour-I believe, not a companion; for state prisoners are not allowed to be very sociable.

* Madame du Deffand died on the 24th of September, at Paris, and was buried, pursuant to her own directions, in the plainest manner, in her parish church of S. Sulpice. The whole of her manuscripts, papers, letters, and books, she left to Horace Walpole; her favourite dog, Tonton, was also sent over to him, at her especial desire. In her last letter to him, which is dated the 22nd of August, only five weeks before her death, she thus strikingly describes her condition:-"Je suis d'une faiblesse et d'un abattement excessifs: ma voix est éteinte; je ne puis me soutenir sur mes jambes; je ne puis me donner aucun mouvement; j'ai le cœur enveloppé : j'ai de la peine à croire que cet état ne m'annonce une fin prochaine. Je n'ai pas la force d'en être effrayée; et ne vous devant revoir de ma vie, je n'ai rien à regretter."-ED.

Laurens, lately President of the Congress, has been taken by a natural son of the last Lord Albemarle, and brought to England, to London, to the Tower. He was going Ambassador to Holland, and his papers are captured too. I should think they would tell us but what we learnt a fortnight ago; and (which is more wonderful, what we would not believe till a fortnight ago) that there is an end of our American dream! Perhaps they will give us back a cranny in exchange for their negotiator.

I go again to-morrow to see General Conway, and hope to find him out of bed; and I finish my letter, that I may not run into meditations on what is uppermost in my mind,-mortality and its accidents!

At night.

I have just heard some news that you will like to hear, and which will make you hold up your head again a little vis-a-vis de M. de Barbantane. An express arrived to-day from Lord Cornwallis, who with two thousand men has attacked General Gates in Carolina at the head of seven thousand, and entirely defeated him, killed nine hundred, and taken one thousand prisoners; and there has since been a little codicil, of all which you will see the particulars in the to-morrow's Gazette. But it is very late, and this must go to town early in the morning. I allow you to triumph, though Gates is my godson, and your namesake.

LETTER CCCXXXVIII.

Berkeley Square, Nov. 2, 1780. If the word New Parliament did not impose a sort of duty on me, -at least, if you would not expect it, I think I should scarce write to you yet, for I have nothing to tell you but that il ne valoit pas la peine de changer. There are several new members, but no novelty in style or totality of votes. The Court may have what number it

The following is from a letter written by Admiral Keppel, on the 11th, to the Marquis of Rockingham:-"Just before bed-time, Captain George Keppel surprised me with his appearance. I learnt from him that he had come home express from his admiral; that he had taken a packet-boat conveying Mr. Laurens, once President of the Congress in America, to Holland. The captain told me that he had taken out of the water (which had failed of sinking) a very large bag of papers, which he had brought home for the King's Ministers. He had been very civil to his prisoner, who, after his bad luck in being taken, found out that he had fallen into the hands of a moderate young man, and had no difficulty in talking with him. He told Captain Keppel that he should not answer any questions put to him by Ministers. The unfortunate gentleman is confined in the Tower." The capture of Mr. Laurens, or rather the recovery of the papers which had been thrown overboard, led to the discovery of a commercial treaty about to be entered into between Amsterdam and the American colonies. This induced our Government to remonstrate, and finally, on the 20th of December, to declare war against Holland. See Life, vol. ii. p. 293.-Ed.

chooses to buy. It has nominated a new Speaker, Mr. Cornwall.* Sir Fletcher, who never haggles with shame, published his own disgrace, and declared he had been laid aside without notice. Courts do not always punish their own profligates so justly.

There is no new public event at home or from abroad. The Spanish negotiation does not seem to advance at all. Prince Frederic, the Bishop, is going to Germany; and then the Prince of Wales is to have something of a family.

Our old acquaintance Lord Pomfret, whose madness has lain dormant for some time, is broken out again; I mean, his madness is. He went down to Euston last week, and challenged the Duke of Grafton for an affront offered to him, he said, when the Duke was Ministeryou know what an age ago that was. The Duke declared his innocence, and advised him to consider on it. He did for two days; then said he was now cool, yet insisted on satisfaction. The Duke gave both letters to a magistrate, and then swore the peace against him; the only rational thing to be done. The Earl some years ago had many of these flippancies, and used to call out gentlemen in the playhouse, who he pretended had made faces at him. As madmen are generally cunning and malicious, it was generally such as looked unlikely to resent, whom he picked out. Once he unluckily selected General Moyston, and drawing his curtains early in the morning, bade him rise and follow him into Hyde Park, for having laughed at him at court. Moyston denied having even seen him there."Oh, then, it is very well," said my lord. "No, by God, is not it," replied the general; "you have disturbed me when I had been in bed but three hours, and now you shall give me satisfaction:" but the Earl begged to be excused. There was a Mr. Palmes Robinson, who used to say publicly that he had often got Lord Pomfret as far as Hyde Park Corner, but never could get him any farther.

Mr. Windham I have seen. He is wonderfully recovered, and looks robust again. He said ten thousand fine things in your praise. Oh! thought I but said nothing. Mr. Morrice I have not yet seen: he is confined in the country by the gout and I hear looks dreadfully.

I have seen lately in the Abbé Richard's Voyage d'Italie, written in 1762, that in the Palais Pitti were preserved two large volumes of the travels of Cosimo III., with views of the houses he had been at; and he names England amongst them, where he certainly was.†

Could you find out if there is such a thing, and get a sight of it?

* Mr. Cornwall was proposed by Lord George Germain, and Sir Fletcher Norton by Mr. Dunning. On a division the numbers were, for the former 203, for the latter 134. Mr. Wilberforce, who had been returned at the general election for Hull, gave his first vote in Parliament against the re-election of Sir Fletcher to the Chair of the House. In his Conversational Memoranda there is this entry :-" When they were all talking of Sir Fletcher's health requiring his retirement, Rigby came into the House, and said with his ordinary bluntness, Don't tell me about health, he has flown in the King's face, and we won't have him.'"-ED.

A translation of the travels of Cosmo the third, Grand-Duke of Tuscany, was published in a quarto volume in 1820.-ED.

VOL. II.-15

I should be very curious to know what English seats are there. Old English mansions are great objects with me-but do not give yourself much trouble about this request.

3rd.

You perceive that I am not likely to have great Parliamentary news to tell you. This week they are only being sworn in. The first debate in the Commons was to be next Monday, but probably will not, for last night Lord North was very ill of a fever. They can no more go on without their treasurer, than without their pensions. Sir Horace the second, I take for granted, will tell you of the common debates. I do not mean to relax myself, but seldom know much of their details, which I think of little consequence; and rather reserve myself for confirming or contradicting reports of considerable events.

LETTER CCCXXXIX.

Berkeley Square, Nov. 20, 1780. As I apprised you that the new Parliament did not promise to be very active, you will account for my having told you none of its proceedings. It has been more confined to personalities than divisions. The latter have proved much in favour of the Court: but then some of the chiefs of the Opposition have in a manner seceded, not from their party, but from action; and less from change than from disagreement. Lord Pomfret,after a week's imprisonment in the Tower, made his submission, has been reprimanded, and released on giving his honour (a madman's honour!) not to repeat his offence. The grand jury have found the bill of high treason against his fellow-prisoner Lord George Gordon, who, however, will not be tried till after Christmas. I do not know why.-So much for Parliament.

The newspapers have told you as much as I know of Arnold's treachery, which has already cost the life of a much better man, Major Andrée-precipitated probably by Lord Cornwallis's cruelty. You hear on the continent, but too much of our barbarity; the only way in which we have yet shown our power! Rodney found Rhode Island so strongly fortified that he returned to the West Indies; and yet we still presume on recovering America!

Do you wonder that, witness to so much delusion and disgrace, it should grow irksome to me to be the annalist of our follies and march to ruin? I cannot, like our newspapers, falsify every event, and coin

* This unfortunate gentleman, having been employed by Sir Henry Clinton to carry on a negotiation with the noted American general Arnold, about to betray the trust reposed in him by his countrymen, was, in the performance of his hazardous duty, taken prisoner by the Americans, and, owing to his disguise and the nature of his mission, was tried by a court-martial and executed as a spy. A monument, by order of the king, was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.—ED.

prophecies out of bad omens. My friendship for you makes me persist in our correspondence; but tenderness for my country makes me abhor detailing its errors, and regard to truth will not allow me to assert what I do not believe. I wait for events, that I may send you something; and yet my accounts are dry and brief, because I confine myself to avowed facts, without comments or credulity. My society is grown very narrow, and it is natural at sixty-three not to concern myself in the private history of those that might be my grandchildren. Even their sallies become less splendid as opulence is vanished; and, though national follies forerun and contribute to the decline of a great country, they stop with it, not from repentance, but impotence. 'Tis insolent power that tramples on laws and morals. Poverty is only vicious by imitation, or refractory from oppression. Robbery, indeed, continues at high-water mark, though the army and navy have drawn off such hosts of outlaws and vagrants. That they have successors, proves the increase of want.

22nd. There was an odd interlude in the House of Commons. Some of the Opposition proposed to thank the late Speaker, Sir Fletcher. Lord North had promised not to gainsay it. Neither side could admire such a worthless fellow: those he has left, less than those that have adopted him; and yet the vote of thanks passed by a majority of 40-and so one may be thanked for being a rogue on all sides! * If thanks grow cheaper, they will at least be more striking when bestowed on the worthy; for every one will say, "Such a one does deserve praise."

It looks a little as if we should quarrel downright with the Dutch. I do not wonder that we mind so little an enemy more or less; for, numerous as our foes are, they certainly are very awkward. We hurt ourselves a thousand times more than they do. We have done nothing that signifies a straw; but they have done less.

LETTER CCCXL.

Berkeley Square, Dec. 12th, 1780. YOUR Florence, no doubt, is much occupied by the death of the Empress-Queen.† It turns all eyes on the Emperor, and sets thou

* The motion was proposed by Mr. Thomas Townshend, and supported generally by the Opposition, but warmly resisted on the Court side, although the Ministers themselves took no direct part. It was, however, carried on a division, by a majority of 136 to 96.-ED.

Maria-Theresa, Empress of Germany, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and hereditary Archduchess of Austria. This great Princess, mother of the GrandDuke of Tuscany, died at Vienna on the 29th of November, in her sixty-third year. -ED.

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