get over her not objecting to the passage remaining? She must have known, by knowing Boswell, and by having a similar intention herself, that his anecdotes would certainly be published;-in short, the ridiculous woman will be strangely disappointed. As she must have heard that the whole first impression of her book was sold the first day, no doubt she expects, on her landing, to be received like the Governor of Gibraltar, and to find the road strewed with branches of palm. She, and Boswell, and their Hero, are the joke of the public. A Dr. Woolcot, soi-disant Peter Pindar, has published a burlesque eclogue, in which Boswell and the Signora are the interlocutors, and all the absurdest passages in the works of both are ridiculed. The print-shops teem with satiric prints on them: one, in which Boswell, as a monkey, is riding on Johnson, the bear, has this witty inscription, "My Friend delineavit,"-But enough of these mountebanks !

The Duchess of Gloucester tells me that Lord Cowper is at Milan, on his way to England: yet, I shall not wonder if he still turns back. I remember Lady Orford came even to Calais, and returned sur ses pas.

May 4th.

I must send my letter to the office to-night, for I go to Strawberry to-morrow for two or three days-not that we have spring or summer yet! I believe both seasons have perceived that nobody goes out of town till July, and that therefore it is not worth while to come over so early as they used to do. The Sun might save himself the same trouble, and has no occasion to rise before ten at night; for all Nature ought, no doubt, to take the ton from people of fashion, unless Nature is willing to indulge them in the opportunity of contradicting her! Indeed, at present, our fine ladies seem to copy her, at least the ancient symbols of her; for, though they do not exhibit a profusion of naked bubbies down to their shoe-buckles, yet they protrude a prominence of gauze that would cover all the dugs of Alma Mater. Don't, however, imagine that I am disposed to be a censor of modes, as most old folks are, who seem to think that they came into the world at the critical moment when every thing was in perfection, and ought to suffer no farther innovation. On the contrary, I always maintain that the ordinances of the young are right. Who ought to invent fashions? Surely not the ancient. I tell my veteran contemporaries that, if they will have patience for three months, the reigning evil, whatever it is, will be cured; whereas, if they fret till things are just as they should be, they may vex themselves to the day of doom. I carry this way of thinking still farther, and extend it to almost all reformations. Could one cure the world of being foolish, it were something: but to cure it of any one folly is only making room for some other, which, one is sure, will succeed to the vacant place.

Mr. Hastings used two days in his defence; which was not thought a very modest one, and rested rather on Machiavel's code than on

that of rigid moralists. The House is now hearing evidence; and as his counsel, Mr. Machiavel, will not challenge many of the jury, I suppose Mr. Hastings will be honourably acquitted. In fact, who but Machiavel can pretend that we have a shadow of title to a foot of land in India; unless, as our law deems that what is done extraparochially is deemed to have happened in the parish of St. Martin's in the Fields, India must in course belong to the crown of Great Britain. Alexander distrained the goods and chattels of Popes upon a similar plea; and the Popes thought all the world belonged to them, as heirs. at-law to one who had not an acre upon earth. We condemned and attainted the Popes without trial, which was not in fashion in the reign of Henry the Eighth, and, by the law of forfeiture, confiscated all their injustice to our own use; and thus, till we shall be ejected, have we a right to exercise all the tyranny and rapine that ever was practised by any of our predecessors any where, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

LETTER CCCCXLVIII.

Berkeley Square, May 29, 1786.

I HAVE been very unhappy at your debility, that expressed itself in your last letter-I do not say, that you complained of; for a murmur cannot possibly escape from one who never feels impatience, and whose temper infuses that philosophy which even your good sense could not alone confer. I was made easier last night by Lord Cowper, who had just received a very comfortable letter from you; and, now that my alarm is dissipated, my reason can recover its tone, and tells me that weakness is not danger-and might not my own experience have told me so? A puff of wind could blow me away; and yet here I am still, and have stood many a rough blast. I depend on the sun of Florence, and on the cool pure air of its nights, for rehabilitating your nerves; and I am impatient for Mrs. Damer's return from Rome, because I flatter myself that she will send a good account of your convalescence.

Well! you find I have seen your principal Earl.* Curiosity carried me to a great concert at Mrs. Conway's t'other night-not to hear Rubinelli, who sung one song at the extravagant price of ten guineas, and whom for as many shillings I have heard sing half a dozen at the Opera House: no, but I was curious to see an English Earl who had passed thirty years at Florence, and is more proud of a pinchbeck Principality and a paltry Order from Wirtemberg, than he was of being a Peer of Great Britain, when Great Britain was something. Had

* Earl Cowper.

I staid till it is not, I would have remained where I was. I merely meant to amuse my eyes; but Mr. Dutens brought the personage to me, and presented us to each other. He answered very well to my idea, for I should have taken his Highness for a Doge of Genoa: he has the awkward dignity of a temporary representative of nominal power. Peace be with him and his leaf-gold!

I believe that, after having often told you that I plead my age and relics of gout to dispense with doing what I don't like, you will conclude I am grown in my dotage as fond of Highnesses as Earl Cowper or Lady Mary Coke. Most certainly it was not the plan of any part of my life to end my career with Princes and Princesses, though I began with them, and was carried to Leicester House in my childhood to play with the late Duke of Cumberland and Princess Mary. Fate has again in my latter days thrown me amongst royalties; and (what is not common,) though I have quitted the world, I seem to have retired into drawing-rooms. Ever since the late King's death, I have made Princess Amelie's parties once or twice a week: then, bien malgré moi, I was plunged into Gloucester House and now by Princess Amelie I have been presented to the Prince of Wales at her house; and by my niece Lady Horatia's marriage with Captain Conway, who is a principal favourite of his Royal Highness, I have dined with the Prince at Lord Hertford's, and since at his own palace, where he was pleased to give a dinner to the two families, who in fact were one family* before.

This parenthesis being passed, I am going to my quiet little hill, after having been in public to-day more than I purposed ever to be again. I attended Princess Amelie to the rehearsal of Handel's Jubilee in Westminster Abbey, which I had been far from meditating; but, as she had the Bishop of Rochester's gallery, it was quite easy, and I had no crowd to limp through. The sight was really very fine, and the performance magnificent; but the chorus and kettledrums for four hours were so thunderful, that they gave me the headach, to which I am not at all subject. Rubinelli's voice sounded divinely sweet, and more distinctly than at the Opera. The Mara's not so well, nor is she so much the fashion. I have been but once at the Opera, and twice at the play, this year. When the gout confines me to my room, it is a grievance: I do not complain of it for curtailing my diversions, for which I have no more taste than for courts; nor shall death surprise me in a theatre or in a drawing

room.

There has been no event of any consequence. I expect every day to hear of the marriage of your nephew and niece; and then I conclude the father will make you another visit, as he told me he should as soon as he had settled his daughter. I love to have him with you; not only for your comfort, but to save you the trouble of doing ho

* Captain Conway's grandmother and Lady Horatia's grandmother were sisters.

nours, which I dread for you since our Peeresses have taken to travelling as much as their eldest sons.

I was pleased to-day by reflecting, that though there were sixteen hundred persons present, who went in and out as they pleased, the extremest order and decency were observed, and not a guard was to be seen? Duchesses were mixed with the crowd, and not a bayonet was necessary-what a satire on Governments, that sow them thick where fifty persons are assembled! How dares a short-lived mortal tell his own fellow-creatures that he is afraid to leave them at liberty at their own diversions?

LETTER CCCCXLIX.

June 22, 1786.

I HAVE not yet received your letter by Mrs. Damer, my dear sir; but I have that of June 3rd, which announces it. I lament the trouble your cough gives you, though I am quite persuaded that it is medicinal, and diverts the gout from critical parts. I have felt so much, and consequently have observed so much, of chronical disorders, that I don't think I deceive myself. Should you tell me your complaint is not gouty, I should reply, that all chronical distempers are or ought to be gout; and, when they do not appear in their proper form, are only deviations. Coughs in old persons clear the lungs; and, as I have told you, I know two elderly persons who are never so well as when they have a cough.

I love Mrs. Damer for her attention to you; but I shall scold her, instead of you, for letting you send me the cameo. To you I will not say a cross word, when you are weak; but why will you not let me love you without being obliged to it by gratitude? You make me appear in my own eyes interested; a dirty quality, of which I flattered myself I was totally free. Gratitude may be a virtue; but what is a man who consents to have fifty obligations to be so virtuous? I have always professed hating presents must not I appear a hypocrite, when I have accepted so many from you? Well! as I have registered them all in the printed catalogue of my collection, I hope I shall be called a mercenary wretch. I deserve it.

Nothing you tell me of the Episcopal Count surprises me-he is horrible! His nephew Fitzgerald, whom his Holiness, though knowing his infernal character, had destined to put into orders and present with a rich living, had it fallen vacant, is hanged for a most atrocious murder, which has brought out others still blacker; but the story is too shocking for your good-natured feeble nerves. The great culprit Hasting's fate is not decided; but, to his and mankind's surprise, the House of Commons last week voted him on one of the articles deserving to be impeached, and Mr. Pitt declared on that article

against him so, Burke has proved to have been in the right in his prosecution.

The French prisoners have come off better than I expected. I said early, I was sure I should never understand the story: I am very sure now that I do not. Never did I like capital punishments; but, when they are committed, how comes so prodigious a robbery to escape? The Cardinal, supposing him merely a dupe, is not sufficiently punished. A Prince may be duped by a low wretch; a low man may be bubbled by a Prince: but it is not excusable in a man who has kept both the best and the worst company to be made such a tool. I would at least have sequestered his revenues, till the jewellers were paid; for I do not see why the Cardinal's family should suffer for his roguery or folly: and then I would have deprived him of his employments, as incapable. For that rascal, Cagliostro, he should be punished for joining in the mummery, and shut up for his other impositions. For his legend, it is more preposterous, absurd, and incredible than any thing in the Arabian Nights. He is come hither-and why should one think but he may be popular here too! But enough of criminals and adventurers: though perhaps it is not much changing the theme to tell you that I have received a letter from Constantinople, as I had one from Petersburgh, before that from Venice, after the heroine had left Florence. She is now gone to the Greek Isles, and bids me next direct to Vienna. I have answered none; I had a mind to direct to the Fiancée du Roi de Garbe. I shall at least stay till I hear that she is not a prize to some Corsair. Your nephew and niece, I hear, are married. The father, I hope, will now soon make you another visit; I love to have him with you. I talked of gratitude, but recollect that I have not even thanked you for your cameo. I hope this looks like not being delighted with it: -how can I say such a brutal thing? I am charmed with your kindness, though I wished for no more proofs of it. In short, I don't know how to steer between my inclination for expressing my full sense of your friendship, and my pride, that is not fond of being obliged-and so very often obliged-by those I love most. Oh! but I have a much worse vice than pride (which, begging the clergy's pardon, I don't think a very heinous one, as it is a counter-poison to meanness)-I am monstrously ungrateful; I have received a thousand valuable presents from you, and yet never made you one! I shall begin to think I am avaricious too. In short, my dear sir, your cameo is a mirror in which I discover a thousand faults, of which I did not suspect myself, besides all those which I did know: no, no, I will not lecture Mrs. Damer, but myself. I absolve you, and am determined to think myself a prodigy of rapacity! I see there is no merit in not loving money, if one loves playthings. I have often declaimed against collectors, who will do any thing mean to obtain a rarity they want: pray, is that so bad as accepting curiosities, and never making a return? Oh! I am the most ungrateful of all virtu