I am glad the English see that there is no nation so contemptibly servile as our own. Europe, that has hated our fierté, is reaping revenge fast. Our Western sun is setting, and dark clouds hang over our East. France and Spain have spoken pretty intelligibly. The former offered us for themselves, and for the latter, a naval disarmament. We jumped at it; and France coldly answered, that Spain would not come into it. So a war is sure, whenever they think us enough undone to be totally ruined. I believe a younger minister than Monsieur de Maupras would think so at present.

I rejoice that you got your nephew again, and Lady Lucy, and that she is so much better than you expected. I trust Lord Orford's agreement with his grandfather's creditors, which he had just signed, is good. The law will probably think so. In my private opinion, he has been mad these twenty years and more. On his coming of age, I obtained a fortune of one hundred and fifty-two thousand pounds for him: he would not look at her. Had I remained charged with his affairs six

mild and parental government, which continued twenty-five years, Tuscany is acknowledged to have enjoyed a great degree of felicity, as well as prosperity. His political conduct was distinguished by his simplification of the laws, remission of oppressive taxes, some regulations for the comfort of strangers in his dominion, and a readiness of access to his own subjects of all ranks. In 1790, he succeeded his brother, Joseph II., as Emperor of Germany, and died in 1792.-ED.

* One of the first measures of Louis XVI., on his accession to the throne in 1774, was the recall of the Count de Maurepas to Court; whence he had been banished twenty-three years. He had formerly been Minister of Marine; the superintendency of which he now declined, but accepted a seat in the Privy Council, and was considered the chief mover in all public affairs. Walpole, in a letter to General Conway, describes him as by far the ablest and most agreeable man he knew at Paris. M. de Maurepas was at this time in his seventy-seventh year. He died in 1781. His "Mémoires," in four volumes octavo, were published in 1790-1792, by his secretary, M. Sallé.-ED.

Walpole here alludes to the effort made by him in 1751 to procure a suitable match for his nephew. The nature of that effort, and the causes of its failure, are thus stated in a letter to Sir Horace Mann, of the 30th of May in that year:-" If I could be mortified anew, I should be with a new disappointment. The immense and uncommon friendship of Mr. Chute had found a method of saving both my family and yours. In short, in the height of his affliction for Whithed, whom he still laments immoderately, he undertook to get Miss Nicholl, a fortune of above 150,000Z. whom Whithed was to have had, for Lord Orford. He actually persuaded her to run away from her guardians, who used her inhumanly, and are her next heirs. How clearly he is justified, you will see, when I tell you that the man, who had eleven hundred a-year for her maintenance, with which he stopped the demands of his own creditors, instead of employing it for her maintenance and education, is since gone into the Fleet. After such fair success, Lord Orford has refused to marry her; why, nobody can guess. Thus had I placed him in a greater situation than even his grandfather hoped to bequeath to him, had retrieved all the oversights of my family, had saved Houghton and all our glory! Now, all must go!-and what shocks me infinitely more, Mr. Chute, by excess of treachery, is embroiled with his own brother."-Collective Edition, vol. ii. p. 338. "I have been forced," he says, in another letter, "to write an account of the whole transaction, and have been kept with difficulty from publishing it." The original manuscript of this curious document, now in the possession of Mr. Bently, is entitled "A Narrative of the Proceedings on the intended Marriage between Lord Orford and Miss Nicholl; in a Letter addressed to Mrs. Harris, my Lord's grandmother." Miss Nicholl was the daughter VOL. II.-4

months longer on his last illness, he would have been five thousand a-year richer than the day he fell ill. My reward was, not to see him for three years. But I see I cannot help talking of this. I had twice expunged all thoughts of Houghton and my family from my memory. They are forced on me again when I can do no good. Well, it was not my plan of old age to pass my time with princes or madmen! Mine has been a chequered life of very various scenes! But it has taught me some temper, which I was not born with; and the best of all lessons, to do right, because others do wrong. It is not enough to be indignant, if one does not mend one's self. I had much to mend, and corrections made in age have very little grace. One seldom conquers one's passions till time has delivered them up bound hand and foot. Therefore I have very little esteem for my own philosophy. It is at most but solicitude to make a decent exit, and applying to one's character what Pope makes an expiring beauty say of her face

"One would not sure be frightful when one's dead!"

Alas! we are ridiculous animals. Folly and gravity equally hunt shadows. The deepest politician toils but for a momentary rattle. There is nothing worth wishing for but the smile of conscious innocence; and that consciousness would make the smile of age more beautiful than even the lovely infant's simplicity. I possess no such jewel; but one may admire a diamond, though one cannot obtain it. You see how my nephew throws my mind into a moral train, which is naturally more gay; and my wisdom commonly prefers accepting the vision life as a something, to analyzing it. But one is the creature of the hour, and this happens to be a serious one. Adieu !

May 15.

I have received your long letter, and thank you for it most particularly; especially for one part, which you may guess by my not mentioning. But you were so pleased with the Duchess's manner, that you forgot her beauty; which I thought would strike you. The little Princess * is a dear soul, and I do not intend to be inconstant and prefer her Brother; nor do I think the Duke will.

and sole heiress of John Nicholl, of Southgate in Middlesex, Esq. In March 1753 she married James, Marquis of Caernarvon, afterwards third and last Duke of Chandos, and died in 1768 without issue. That Walpole's choice was in every respect a judicious one, would appear from the following character of the lady, drawn by Sir Egerton Brydges:-"Her great abilities, amiable temper, and agreeable person qualified her to have made a most shining figure in public life amongst those of her own high rank; but her natural disposition, joined to a tender and delicate constitution, induced her rather to cultivate the virtues of a more retired life. Her benevolence extended to all mankind; her charity to many; her intimacy only to a few."-ED.

*The Princess Sophia Matilda, born at Gloucester House, May 29, 1773.-Ed.

Prince William Frederick of Gloucester, born at the Theodole Palace, in the City of Rome, January 15th, 1776. On the death of his father, in 1805, he became

We have no news. France has imprisoned the crew of a privateer that took one of our pacquet-boats,* and carried it into Dunkirk. She is determined to draw us on farther on the hook, and we dare not seem to suspect that hook. I believe America gone past hope, unless we can recover it with half the number that was not sufficient last year. Adieu! I shall be impatient to hear you are recovered. Your new Prince of Nassaut is perfectly ridiculous-a real peer of England to tumble down to a tinsel titularity! Indeed, an English coronet will not be quite so weighty as it was!

LETTER CCLXIX.

Strawberry Hill, June 18, 1777. THE papers told you that Lord Chatham has again made his appearance. In his place, I think I should not have done so. I should prefer being forgotten, to putting the world in mind of me without effect. He should sleep on his laurels, and leave posterity to make the comparison between him and his successors; who certainly are not prolific of trophies. Lord Cornwallis his gained a puny advantage, and Governor Tryon has burnt a magazine, which is thought a great blow to the provincials; but the Howes are not in fashion. Lord Percy is come home disgusted by the younger; and the elder will be as much disgusted, at least his family declare so for him, at missing the Treasurer

Duke of Gloucester; and in 1816, married the Princess Mary fourth, daughter of George III.-Ed.

.* The Prince of Orange pacquet-boat, captured by an American privateer, on her way from Harwich to Helvoets. On reaching Dunkirk, she was immediately released.-ED.

† Earl Cowper had obtained a titular principality from the Emperor, imagining that he should take place of English Dukes; but finding his mistake, and that it would give him no precedence at all here, he dropped the title of Prince. ["An English lady, the Countess Cowper, became," says Wraxall, "at this time distinguished by the attachment of the Grand-Duke of Tuscany; and the exertion of his interest with his brother, Joseph II., procured her husband to be created a Prince of the German Empire; an honour which, I believe, had not been conferred on any British subject since the great Duke of Marlborough was raised to the dignity of Prince of Mildenheim."-Hist. Mem. vol. i. p. 283.—ED.]

On the 30th of May, the Earl of Chatham, though in a state of great weakness, had gone down to the House of Lords, and made a motion for the cessation of hostilities with America. It was rejected, after a long debate by ninety-nine against twenty-eight. His illustrious son, the future minister of the country, was present, and thus wrote, on the following day, to his mother:-"I cannot help expressing to you how happy, beyond description, I feel, in reflecting that my father was able to exert, in their full vigour, the sentiments and eloquence which have always distinguished him. His first speech took up half an hour, and was full of all his usual force and vivacity. He spoke a second time, in answer to Lord Weymouth, to explain the object of his motion, and his intention to follow it by one for the repeal of all the acts of parliament which form the system of chastisement. This he did in a flow of eloquence, and with a beauty of expression, animated and striking beyond conception."-ED.

ship of the Navy. The Duke of Marlborough's* avarice has been a theme of much abuse of late. I do not think this age has a right to cast a stone at the preceding. France to us sends most fair words; to America, stores and officers. Spain has seized an island from the Portuguese Queen ;† just as the powers of Europe treated the Empress-Queen on her father's death. I will not pity her Portuguese Majesty, lest some time or other she should accede to a partition of Poland. I will never more judge of princes at their coronations, but at their burials.

One effect the American war has not had, that it ought to have had; it has not brought us to our senses. Silly dissipation rather increases, and without an object. The present folly is late hours. Every body tries to be particular by being too late; and, as every body tries it nobody is so. It is the fashion now to go to Ranelagh two hours after it is over. You may not believe this, but it is literal. The music ends at ten; the company go at twelve. Lord Derby's cook lately gave him warning. The man owned he liked his place, but said he should be killed by dressing suppers at three in the morning. The Earl asked him coolly at how much he valued his life? That is, he would have paid him for killing him. You see we have brought the spirit of calculation to perfection! I do not regret being old, for I see nothing I envy. To live in a crowd, to arrive every where too late, and to sell annuities for forty times more than I can ever pay, are not such supreme joys as to make me wish myself young again: indeed, one might execute all these joys at four-score. I am glad the Emperor did not visit us. I hope he is gone home, thinking France the most trifling nation in Europe.

I am extremely glad that Lady Lucy is so much mended, and I trust she will live to reward your nephew's great merit towards her. I do believe, with your physicians, that warm weather will re-establish you. Patience I need not preach to you-it is part of you; but I will tell you what would expedite your recovery miraculously-the sea-air. Go to Leghorn, and drive on the shore; go out in a boat for a few hours: you will walk well in half-a-dozen. I have experienced this in as short a time as I prescribe. You will be angry, perhaps,-I mean, as much as you can be,—but I am not sorry you have a little gout; it will be a great preservative.

*The great General of Queen Anne.

The Spanish fleet, under the conduct of the Marquis of Casa Tilly, had, in February, taken possession, almost without opposition, of the isle of St. Catherine's, on the coast of Brazil,-ED.

Sir Horace Mann, the younger, had married, in April 1765, Lady Lucy, daughter of Baptist Noel, fourth Earl of Gainsborough,-En.

LETTER CCLXX.

Strawberry Hill, July 17, 1777. You are very kind, my dear sir, in your inquiries about the Duke of Gloucester. You will have heard, long before you receive this, how very ill his Royal Highness has been. I wish I could say I was yet quite easy about him. We are very impatient for to-morrow's letters. It is unfortunate that he did not pass the summer again at Castel Gondolfo. The heats and nauseous air of Venice immediately affected him deeply, and I fear his Royal Highness's mind was not in a situation to resist outward impressions. He fell away exceedingly, had a flux at Padua, and at Verona was so reduced, that he was persuaded to return to England. Before he could set out, he grew daily so much worse, that he was taken out of bed and put into a post-chaise, and made journeys for two days of twenty-six and thirty miles; at the end of which he slept eight hours, and mended a little. The Duchess, in the mean time, half distracted, sent a courier for Dr. Jebb and Adair; who, we hope, arrived last Saturday; for Dr. Jebb promised to post without pulling off his clothes. The Duke got to Trent, and found himself refreshed from the cool air of the mountains; but his dysentery returned with violent pains. He keeps his bed; but when the last letters came away, which was on the 4th of this month, his surgeonpage hoped the extremity of the danger was over. It is, indeed, impossible ever to be secure about so precarious a constitution; and, unless his Royal Highness's mind is set at peace about his family, I fear he has not strength to resist the anxiety that preys upon a state of health too obnoxious to every kind of attack. To add to the Duchess's misery, her little boy was in a bad way at the same moment.

You inquire about America, and what Lord Percy* says. I cannot give you information from any authority. I live here, and see nobody of either side that knows any thing. The Duchess's three daughters are, by his Royal Highness's goodness, lodged in Hampton Court Park; which is very near me, and take up most of my time. They are charming girls: I don't mean only their persons, but good, sweet-tempered, admirably brought up, and amiable in every respect. I try to amuse and improve them; though I have little to do on the latter head, and they are so reasonable and easily contented, even with the company of an old uncle, that the other is not difficult. But what is all this to America, except that it proves how little it occupies

Eldest son of Hugh, first Duke of Northumberland, His lordship had distinguished himself greatly in the important action of Lexington, and the reduction of Fort Wash ington, &c. On the death of his father, in 1786, he succeeded to the family honours. -ED.

The Ladies Laura, Maria, and Horatia Waldegrave, daughters of the Duchess of Gloucester by her first husband, James Earl of Waldegrave. [Lady Elizabeth Laura married in 1782 to Lord Chewton, afterwards fourth Earl Waldegrave; Lady Charlotte-Maria married in 1784 to the Earl of Euston; and Lady Anna-Horatia married in 1786 to Lord Hugh Seymour.-ED.]