from authority, for it was but yesterday at noon that the notice arrived; and secondly, because I have heard various accounts; and lastly, because I have been so steeled against sudden belief by lies from all quarters for these five years, that I do not trust my eyes, ears, or reason, and still less those instruments of anybody else.

There are two uncomely features in the countenance of this business. The first is, disappointment. Though the captured stores are counterband, they consist only of hemp and iron, not of masts and timber, as we expected, and which are what the French want. Whether the magazines of those materials have escaped, or have not sailed, we-that is, I-do not know; but, when all the Ratisbons in Europe are to discuss our enterprize, it is not pleasant to have trespassed on punctilios,—if we, and not the Dutch, were the aggressors, and not to have been crowned with success.

Thus we have involved ourselves fruitlessly in the second inconvenience, of having, perhaps, tapped a new war, without previous indemnification. You diplomatics must canvass all this; and I hope it will be left to such quiet disputants, and not be referred to redcoats and trowsers. I have given you your cue, till you receive better instructions. I am sorry to open the fortieth year of our correspondence by opening another of Janus's temples; better, however, in Holland than in Ireland, where we have got a strong friendly army instead of a rebellion.

The weakness of my hand should not serve me for

an excuse, had I more to tell you. This right hand is the only limb not recovered; yet, dreading another relapse, I have not yet ventured to take the air. Perhaps age, and weariness of such frequent returns, rebate my spirit. Illness, that must be repeated, takes off the edge from the enjoyment of health; and, though I seem to have patience, it is rather a state of discomfort. No matter what, I am wearing out; yet take great care of myself, more from dread of decrepitude than from desire of life, in which I can have few joys. I have no affected indifference; for nothing, not even indifference if affected, is becoming in the decline of life. Adieu, my good friend of above forty years! Sure, Orestes and Pylades, if they were inseparable, could not pretend to compare with us, who have not set eyes on one another for nine-and-thirty years!

LETTER CCCXXI.

Berkeley Square, Jan. 13, 1780.

IN consequence of my last, it is right to make you easy, and tell you that I think we shall not have a Dutch war; at least, nobody seems to expect it. What excuses we have made, I do not know; but I imagine the Hollanders are glad to gain by both sides, and glad not to be forced to quarrel with either.

What might have been expected much sooner, appears at last, a good deal of discontent; but chiefly where it was not much expected. The country gentle

As

men, after encouraging the Court to war with America, now, not very decently, are angry at the expense. they have long seen the profusion, it would have been happy had they murmured sooner. Very serious Associations are forming in many counties; and orders, under the title of petitions, coming to Parliament for correcting abuses.* They talk of the waste of money; are silent on the thousands of lives that have been sacrificed-but when are human lives counted by any side?

The French, who may measure with us in folly, and have exceeded us in ridiculous boasts, have been extravagant in their reception of D'Estaing, who has shown nothing but madness and incapacity. How the northern monarchs, who have at least exhibited talents for war and politics, must despise the last campaign of England and France?

I am once more got abroad, but more pleased to be able to do so, than charmed with anything I have to do. Having outlived the glory and felicity of my country, I carry that reflection with me wherever I go. Last night, at Strawberry Hill, I took up, to divert my

*The business of the Associations for the redress of grievances was commenced during the Christmas recess; and the adoption of this mode of procuring a reform in the executive departments of the State not only becoming general, but the minds of the people being warmed by these meetings, the views of many, and those persons of no mean weight and consequence, were extended still farther; and they gradually began to consider that nothing less than a reform in the constitution of Parliament itself, by shortening its duration, and obtaining a more equal representation of the people, could effectually prevent a return of similar evils. The great county of York led the way, and set the example to the rest of the kingdom.-ED.

thoughts, a volume of letters to Swift from Bolingbroke, Bathurst, and Gay; and what was there but lamentations on the ruin of England, in that æra of its prosperity and peace, from wretches who thought their own want of power a proof that their country was undone! Oh, my father! twenty years of peace, and credit, and happiness, and liberty, were punishments to rascals who weighed everything in the scales of self? It was to the honour of Pope, that, though leagued with such a crew, and though an idolater of their archfiend Bolingbroke and in awe of the malignant Swift, he never gave into their venomous railings;* railings against a man who, in twenty years, never attempted a stretch of power, did nothing but the common business of administration, and by that temperance and steady virtue, and unalterable good-humour and superior wisdom, baffled all the efforts of faction, and annihilated the falsely boasted abilities of Bolingbroke,

* The amiable character of Sir Robert Walpole in private life is thus admirably touched by Pope, in his Epilogue to the Satires―

"Seen him I have, but in his happier hour
Of social pleasure, ill exchanged for power;
Seen him, uncumbered by the venal tribe,

Smile without art, and win without a bribe."

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's portrait of this eminent statesman, in his character as a private man, gives also a most pleasing idea of him:

"Such were the lively eyes and rosy hue
Of Robin's face, when Robin first I knew,
The gay companion and the favourite guest ;
Lov'd without awe, and without fear caress'd,
His cheerful smile, and open honest look,
Added new graces to the truths he spoke."-ED.

which now appear as moderate as his character was in every light detestable. But, alas! that retrospect doubled my chagrin instead of diverting it. I soon forgot an impotent cabal of mock-patriots; but the scene they vainly sought to disturb rushed on my mind, and, like Hamlet on the sight of Yorick's skull, I recollected the prosperity of Denmark when my father ruled, and compared it with the present moment! I look about for a Sir Robert Walpole; but where is he to be found?

This is not a letter, but a codicil to my last. You will soon probably have news enough yet appearances are not always pregnancies. When there are more follies in a nation than principles and system, they counteract one another, and sometimes, as has just happened in Ireland, are composed pulveris exigui jactu. I sum up my wishes in that for peace: but we are not satisfied with persecuting America, though the mischief has recoiled on ourselves; nor France with wounding us, though with little other cause for exultation, and with signal mischief to her own trade, and with heavy loss of seamen; not to mention how her armies are shrunk to raise her marine, a sacrifice she will one day rue, when the disciplined hosts of Goths and Huns begin to cast an eye southward.

But I seem to chuse

to read futurity, because I am not likely to see it indeed I am most rational when I say to myself, What is all this to me? My thread is almost spun; almost all my business here is to bear pain with patience, and to be thankful for intervals of ease. Though Emperors and