a pang; and though I never gave into it, I endeavour by every gentle method to prevent her making her situation still worse; and, above all things, I try never to inflame. It is all I can do where I have no ascendant, which, with a good deal of spirit of my own, I cannot expect however, as I perfectly understand both my parties and myself, I manage pretty well. I know when to stoop, and when to stop; and when I will stoop or will not. I should not be so pliant, if they were where they ought to be.

That heroine of Doctors' Commons, about whom you inquire, the Duchess of Kingston, has at last made her folly, which I have long known, as public as her shame, by entering the lists with a merry Andrew, but who is no fool. Foote was bringing her on the stage Lord Hertford+ prohibited his piece. Drunk with triumph, she would give the mortal blow with her own hand

"Pallas te hoc vulnere Pallas immolat ;"

but, as the instrument she chose was a goose-quill, the stroke recoiled on herself. She wrote a letter in the " Evening Post," which, not the lowest of her class, who tramp in pattens, would have set her mark to. Billinsgate from a ducal coronet was inviting however, Foote, with all the delicacy she ought to have used, replied only with wit, irony, and con

founded satire. The Pope will not be able to wash out the spots with all the holy water in the Tiber.

*Lord Chamberlain.

I imagine she will escape a trial; but Foote has given coup de grace.

her the

Lord Chatham, when I left England, was in a very low, languishing way: his constitution, I believe, too much exhausted to throw out the gout; and then it falls on his spirits. The last letters speak of his case as not desperate. He might, if allowed, and it was practicable, do much good still. Who else can, I know not.

The Opposition is weak every way. They have better hearts than the Ministers, fewer good heads: not that I am in admiration of the latter. Times may produce men. We must trust to the book of events, if we will flatter ourselves. Make no answer to this; only say you received my letter from Paris, and direct to England. I may stay here a month longer; but it is uncertain.

P. S. 11th.

I had made up my letter; but those I received from England last night bring such important intelligence, I must add a paragraph. That miracle of gratitude, the Czarina, has consented to lend England twenty thousand Russians, to be transported to America. The Parliament is to meet on the 20th of next month, and vote twenty-six thousand seamen! What a paragraph of blood is there! With what torrents must liberty be preserved in America! In England what can save it? Oh! mad, mad England! What frenzy, to throw away its treasures, lay waste its empire of wealth, and sacrifice its freedom, that its prince may be the arbitrary lord of boundless deserts in America, and of an

impoverished, depopulated, and thence insignificant, island in Europe! and what prospect of comfort has a true Englishman? Why, that Philip the Second miscarried against the boors of Holland, and that Louis the Fourteenth could not replace James the Second on the throne!

LETTER CCXXXIX.

Paris, Oct. 10, 1775.

I AM still here; though on the wing. Your answer to mine from hence was sent back to me from England; as I have loitered here beyond my intention: in truth, from an indisposition of mind. I am not impatient to be in a frantic country, that is stabbing itself in every vein. The delirium still lasts; though, I believe, kept up by the quacks that caused it. Is it credible that five or six of the great trading towns have presented addresses against the Americans? I have no doubt but those addresses are procured by those boobies the country gentlemen, their members, and bought of the Alderman; but, is it not amazing that the merchants and manufacturers do not duck such tools in a horse-pond? When the storm will recoil I do not know, but it will be terrible in all probability, though too late. Never shall we be again what we have been! Other powers, who sit still, and wisely suffer us to plunge over head and ears, will perhaps be alarmed at what they write from England,