I am not surprised, my dear Madam, that the notice of my illness should have stimulated your predominant quality, your sensibility. 1 cannot do less in return than relieve it immediately, by assuring you that I am in a manner recovered; and should have gone out before this time, if my mind were as much at ease as my poor limbs. I have passed, five months most uncomfortably; the two last most unhappily. In June and September I had two bad falls by my own lameness and weakness, and was much bruised; while I was witness to the danger, and then to the death, of my invaluable niece, Lady Dysart. She was angelic, and has left no children. The unexpected death of Lord Waldegrave(683) one of the most amiable of men, has not only deprived me of him, but has opened a dreadful scene of calamities! he and my niece were the happiest and most domestic of couples.

Your kind inquiries after me have drawn these details from me, for which I make no excuse; good-nature never grudges its pity. I, who love to force your gravity to smile, am seriously better pleased to indulge your benevolence with a subject of esteem, which, though moving your compassion, will be accompanied by no compunction. I will now answer your letter. Your plea, that not composition, but business, has occasioned your silence, is no satisfaction to me. In my present anxious solitude I have again read Bonner and Florio, and the Bas Bleu; and do you think I am much pleased to learn that you have not been writing? Who is it says something like this line?—

Hannah will not write, and Lactilla will.

They who think her Earl Goodwin will outgo Shakspeare, might be in the right, if they specified in what way. I believe she may write worse than he sometimes did, though that is not easy; but to excel him—oh! I have not words adequate to my contempt for those who can suppose such a possibility!

I am sorry, very sorry, for what you tell me of poor Barrett's fate. Though he did write worse than Shakspeare, it is great pity he was told so, as it killed him; and I rejoice that I did not publish a word in contradiction of the letters which he said Chatterton sent to me, as I was advised to do. I might have laughed at the poor man's folly, and then I should have been miserable to have added a grain to the poor man's mortification.(684)

you rejoice me, not my vanity, by telling me my idea of a mechanic succedaneum to the labour of negroes is not visionary, but thought practicable. Oh! how I wish I understood sugar ploughs, and could marry them! Alas! I understand nothing useful. My head is as un-mechanic as it is un-arithmetic, un-geometric, un-metaphysic, uncommercial; but will not some one of those superior heads to whom you have talked on my indigested hint reduce it to practicability'! How a feasible scheme would stun those who call humanity romantic, and show, from the books of the Custom-house, that murder is a great improvement of the revenue! Even the present situation of France is favourable. Could not Mr. Wilberforce obtain to have the enfranchisement of the negroes started there? The Jews are claiming their natural rights there; and blacks are certainly not so great defaulters as the Hebrews, though they too have undergone ample persecutions. Methinks, as Lord George Gordon is in correspondence with the `Etats, he has been a little remiss in not signing the petition of those of his new communion.

The `Etats are detestable and despicable; and, in fact, guilty of the outrages of the Parisian and provincial mobs. The mob of twelve hundred, not legislators, but dissolvers of all law, unchained the mastiffs that had been tied up, and were sure to worry all who fell in their way. To annihilate all laws, however bad, and to have none ready to replace them, was proclaiming anarchy. What should one think of a mad-doctor, who should let loose a lunatic, suffer him to burn Bedlam, chop off the heads of the keepers, and then consult with some students in physic on the gentlest mode of treating delirium? By a late vote I see that the twelve hundred praters are reduced to five hundred: Vive la reine Billingsgate! the Thalestris who has succeeded Louis Quatorze! A committee of those Amazons stopped the Duke of Orleans, who, to use their style, I believe is not a barrel the better herring.

Your reflections on Vertot's passion for revolutions are admirable,(685) and yet it is natural for an historian to like to describe times of action. Halcyon days do not furnish matter for talents; they are like the virtuous couple in a comedy, a little insipid. Mr. Manly and Lady Grace, Mellefont and Cynthia, do not interest one much. Indeed, in a tragedy where they are unhappy, they give the audience full satisfaction, and no envy. The newspapers, no doubt, thought Dr. Priestley could not do better than to espouse you.(686) He certainly would be very judicious, could he obtain your consent; but, alas! you would squabble about Socinianism, or some of those isms. To tell you the truth, I hate all those Constantinopolitan jargons, that set people together by the ears about pedantic terms. When you apply scholastic phrases as happily and genteelly as you do in your Bas Bleu, they are delightful; but don't muddify your charming simplicity with controversial distinctions, that will sour your sweet piety. Sects are the bane of charity, and have deluged the world with blood.

I do not mean, by what I am going to say, to extort another
letter from you before I have the pleasure of seeing you at
Hampton; but I really shall be much obliged to you for a single
line soon, only to tell me if Miss Williams is at Stoke with the
Duchess of Beaufort. To a short note, cannot you add a short P.
S. on the fate of Earl Goodwin?(687) Lac mihi novum non frigore
desit.
Adieu! my amiable friend! Yours most sincerely.

(683) George fourth Earl of Waldegrave born in 1751; married, in 1782, his cousin Lady Elizabeth Laura Waldegrave, daughter of James, the second Earl. He died on the 22d of October.-E.

(684) Mr. Barrett was the person who first encouraged Chatterton to publish the poems which he attributed to Rowley. He was a respectable surgeon at Bristol.-E.

(685) Miss More, in her last letter, had said—"What a pity it is that Vertot is not alive that man's element was a state convulsion; he hopped over peaceful intervals, as periods of no value, and only seemed to enjoy himself when all the rest of the world was sad. Storm and tempest were his halcyon days."-E.

(686) In her letter to Walpole Miss More had said,—"I comforted myself., that your two fair wives were within reach of your elbow-chair, and that their pleasant society would somewhat mitigate the sufferings of your confinement. Apropos of two wives—when the newspapers the other day were pleased to marry me to Dr. Priestley, I am surprised they did not rather choose to bestow me on Mr. Madan, as his wife is probably better broken in to these eastern usages, than Mrs. Priestley may be. I never saw the Doctor but once in my life, and he had then been married above twenty years." Memoirs, vol. ii. P. 188.-E.

(687) Ann Yearsley's tragedy, which had just been represented, with little success, at the Bath and Bristol theatres. In reply to Walpole's query, Miss More says, "There are, I dare say, some Pretty Passages in it, but all seem to bring it in guilty of the crime of dullness; which I take to be the greatest fault in dramatic composition."-E.

Letter 348 To Miss Hannah More.
Berkeley Square, Feb. 20, 1790. (PAGE 446)

It is very provoking that people must always be hanging or drowning themselves, or going mad, that you forsooth, Mistress, may have the diversion of exercising your pity and good-nature, and charity, and intercession, and all that bead-roll of virtues that make you so troublesome and amiable, when you might be ten times more agreeable by things that would not cost one above half-a-crown at a time.(688) YOU are an absolutely walking hospital, and travel about into lone and bye places, with your doors open to house stray casualties! I wish at least that you would have some children yourself, that you might not be plaguing one for all the Pretty brats that are starving and friendless. I suppose it was some such goody two or three thousand years ago that suggested the idea of an alna-mater, suckling the three hundred and sixty-five bantlings of the Countess of Hainault. Well, as your newly-adopted pensioners have two babes, I insist on your accepting two guineas for them instead of one at present (that is, when you shall be present). i If you cannot circumscribe your own charities, you shall not stint mine, Madam, who can afford it much better, and who must be dunned for alms, and do not scramble over hedges and ditches in searching for opportunities of flinging away my money on good works. I employ mine better at auctions, and in buying pictures and baubles, and hoarding curiosities, that in truth I cannot keep long but that will last for ever in my catalogue, and make me immortal! Alas! will they cover a multitude of sins? Adieu! I cannot jest after that sentence. Yours sincerely.

(688) Miss More was at this time raising a subscription for the benefit of the family of a poor man who had been cut down after he had nearly hung himself.-E.

Letter 349 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.(689)
Strawberry Hill, June 25, 1790. (PAGE 447)

I am glad at least that you was not fetched to town on last Tuesday, which was as hot as if Phaeton had once more gotten into his papa's curricle and driven it along the lower road; but the old king has resumed the reins again, and does not allow us a handful more of beams than come to our northern share. I am glad, too, that I was not summoned also to the Fitzroyal arrangement: it was better to be singed here, than exposed between two such fiery furnaces as Lady Southampton and my niece Keppel. I pity Charles Fox to be kept on the Westminster gridiron.(690) Before I came out of town, I was diverted by a story from the hustings: one of the mob called out to Fox, "Well, Charley, are not you sick of your coalition?" "Poor gentleman!" cried an old woman in the crowd, "why should not he like a collation?"

I am very sorry Mrs. Damer is so tormented, but I hope the new inflammation will relieve her. As I was writing that sentence this morning, Mesdames de Boufflers came to see me from Richmond, and brought a Comte de Moranville to see my house. The puerile pedants of their `Etats are going to pull down the statues of Louis Quatorze, like their silly ancestors, who proposed to demolish the tomb of John Duke of Bedford. The Vicomte de Mirabeau is arrested somewhere for something, perhaps for one of his least crimes; in short, I M angry that the cause of liberty is profaned by such rascals. If the two German Kings make peace, as you hear and as I expected, the Brabanters, who seem not to have known much better what to do with their revolution, will be the first sacrifice on the altar of peace.

I stick fast at the beginning of the first volume of Bruce,(691) though I am told it is the most entertaining; but I am sick of his vanity, and (I believe) of his want of veracity; but I am sure of his want of method and of his obscurity. I hope my wives were not at Park-place in your absence: the loss of them is irreparable to me, and I tremble to think how much more I shall feel it in three months, when I am to part with them for—who can tell how long? Adieu!

(689) Now first printed.

(690) At the close of the election, on the 2d of July, the numbers were, for Mr. Fox 3516, Lord Hood 3217, and Mr. Horne Took 1697.-E.

(691) Bruce's "Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile" had just appeared, in five large quarto volumes. It was dedicated to George the Third, who, while society in general raised a cry of incredulity against it, stood up warmly in its' favour, and contended that it was a great work.-E.

Letter 350 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, June 26, 1790. (page 448)

I do not forget your lordship's commands, though I do recollect my own inability to divert you. Every year at my advanced time of life would make more reasonable my plea of knowing nothing worth repeating, especially at this season. The general topic of elections is the last subject to which I could listen: there is not one about which I care a straw; and I believe your lordship quite as indifferent. I am not much more au fait of war. or peace; I hope for the latter, nay and expect it, because it is not yet war. Pride and anger do not deliberate to the middle of the campaign; and I believe even the great incendiaries are more intent on making a good bargain than on saving their honour. If they save lives, I care not who is the better politician; and, as I am not to be their judge, I do not inquire what false weights they fling into the scales. Two-thirds of France, who are not so humble as I, seem to think they can entirely new-model the world with metaphysical compasses; and hold that no injustice, no barbarity, need to be counted in making the experiment. Such legislators are sublime empirics, and in their universal benevolence have very little individual sensibility. In short, the result of my reflections on what has passed in Europe for these latter centuries is, that tyrants have no consciences, and reformers no feeling; and the world suffers both by the plague and by the cure. What oceans of blood were Luther and Calvin the authors of being spilt! The late French government was detestable; yet I still doubt whether a civil war will not be the consequence of the revolution, and then what may be the upshot? Brabant was grievously provoked; is it sure that it will be emancipated? For how short a time do people who set out on the most just principles, advert to their first springs of motion, and retain consistency? Nay, how long can promoters of revolutions be sure of maintaining their own ascendant? They are like projectors, who are commonly ruined; while others make fortunes on the foundation laid by the inventors.

Letter 351 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, Wednesday night, July 1, 1790. (page 448)

It is certainly not from having any thing to tell you, that I reply so soon, but as the most agreeable thing I can do in my confinement. The gout came into my heel the night before last, perhaps from the deluge and damp. I increased it yesterday by limping about the house with a party I had to breakfast. To-day I am lying on the settee, unable to walk alone, or even to put on a slipper. However, as I am much easier this evening, I trust it will go off.

I do not love disputes, and shall not argue with you about Bruce; but, if you like him, you shall not choose an author for me. It is the most absurd, obscure, and tiresome book I know. I shall admire if you have a clear conception about most of the persons and matters in his work; but, in fact, I do not believe you have. Pray, can you distinguish between his cock and hen Heghes, and between A Yasouses and Ozoros? and do you firmly believe that an old man and his son were sent for and put to death, because the King had run into a thornbush, and was forced to leave his clothes behind him? Is it your faith, that one of their Abyssinian Majesties pleaded not being able to contribute towards sending for a new Abuna, because he had spent all his money at Venice in looking-glasses? And do you really think that Peter Paez was a Jack-of-all-trades, and built palaces and convents without assistance, and furnished them with his own hands? You, who are a little apt to contest most assertions, must have strangely let out your credulity!(692) I could put forty questions to you as wonderful; and, for my part, could as soon credit * * * *.

I am tired of railing at French barbarity and folly. They are more puerile now serious, than -when in the long paroxysm of gay levity. Legislators, a senate, to neglect laws, in order to annihilate coats of arms and liveries! to pull down a King, and set up an Emperor! They are hastening to establish the tribunal of the praetorian guards; for the sovereignty, it seems, is not to be hereditary. One view of their F`ete of the 14th,(693) I suppose, is to draw money to Paris; and the consequence will be, that the deputies will return to the provinces drunk with independence and self-importance, and will commit fifty times more excesses, massacres, and devastations, than last year. George Selwyn says, that Monsieur, the King's brother, is the only man of rank from whom they cannot take a title.(694)

How franticly have the French acted, and how rationally the Americans! But Franklin and Washington were great men. None have appeared yet in France; and Necker has only returned to make a wretched figure! He is become as insignificant as his King; his name is never mentioned, but now and then as disapproving something that is done. Why then does he stay? Does he wait to strike some great stroke, when every thing is demolished? His glory, which consisted in being minister though a Protestant, is vanished by the destruction of popery; the honour of which, I suppose, he will scarce assume to himself. I have vented my budget, and now good night! I feel almost as if I could walk up to bed.

(692 Though Bruce's work was attacked at the time by the critics with much virulence, his statements have been more or less confirmed by Salt, Burckhardt, Wit-an, Clarke, Belzoni, and other distinguished travellers. Bruce never replied to any of his opponents; but sometimes said to his daughter, that he hoped she would live to see the time when the truth of what he had written would be established. He lost his life in April 1794, in consequence of an accidental slip of his foot, while handing a lady down stairs to her carriage. A second edition of his Travels was published in 1805, by Dr. Alexander Murray, from a copy which the traveller had himself prepared for the press.-E.

(693) The grand federation in the Champ de Mar, on the anniversary of the taking of the Bastille, thus described by M. Thiers:—"A magnificent amphitheatre, formed at the further extremity, was destined for the national authorities. The King and the president sat beside one another on similar seats. Behind the King was an elevated balcony for the Queen and the court. The ministers were at some distance before from the King, and the deputies ranged on either side. Four hundred thousand spectators occupied the lateral amphitheatres. Sixty thousand armed federalists performed their evolutions in the intermediate space; and in the centre, upon a base twenty-five feet high, stood the altar of the country. Three hundred priests, in white surplices and tricoloured scarfs, covered the steps, and were to officiate. The Bishop of Anton" [afterwards Prince Talleyrand] began the mass. Divine service over, La Fayette received the orders of the King, who handed to him the form of the oath. La Fayette carried it to the altar. At this moment all the banners waved, every sabre glistened. The general the army, the president, the deputies cried 'I swear it.' The King, standing, with his hand outstretched towards the altar, said 'I King of the French, swear,' etc. At this moment., the Queen, moved by the general emotion, clasped in her arms the august child, the heir to the throne, and, from the balcony, showed him to the assembled nation. At this moment shouts of joy, attachment 'enthusiasm, were addressed to the mother and the child, and all hearts were hers." History of the Revolution, vol. i. p. 155.-E.

(694) On the 20th of Julio, a decree, that the titles of duke, count, marquis, viscount, baron, and chevalier should be suppressed, had been carried in the National Assembly by a large majority.-E.

Letter 352 To Miss Berry.
Strawberry Hill, Saturday night, July 3, 1790. (page 450)

How kind to write the very moment you arrived! but pray do not think that, welcome as your letters are, I would purchase them at the price of any fatigue to you-a proviso I put in already against moments when you may be more weary than by a journey to Lymington. You make me happy by the good accounts of Miss Agnes; and I should be completely so, if the air of the sea could be so beneficial to you both, as to make your farther journey unnecessary to your healths, at least for some time; for—and I protest solemnly that not a personal thought enters into the consideration—I shall be excessively alarmed at your going to the Continent. when such a frenzy has seized it. You see by the papers, that the flame has burst out at Florence: can Pisa then be secure? Flanders can be no safe road; and is any part of France so? I told you in my last of the horrors at Avignon. At Madrid the people are riotous against the war with us, and prosecuted I am persuaded it will not be; but the demon of Gaul is busy every where. The Etats, who are as foolish as atrocious, have printed lists of the surnames which the late noblesse are to assume or resume; as if people did not know their own names. I like a speech I have heard of the Queen. She went with the King to see the manufacture of glass, and, as they passed the Halles, the poissardes huzzaed them; "Upon my word," said the Queen, "these folks are civiler when you visit them, than when they visit you." This marked both spirit and good -humour. For my part, I am so shocked at French barbarity, that I begin to think that our hatred of them is not national prejudice, but natural instinct; as tame animals are born with an antipathy to beasts of prey.

Mrs. Damer tells me in a letter to-day, that Lady Ailesbury was charmed with you both (which did not surprise either of us); and she never saw two persons have so much taste for the country, who have no place of their Own. It may be so; but begging her ladyship's pardon and yours, I think that people who have a place of their own, are mighty apt not to like any other.

I feel all the kindness at your determination of coming to Twickenham in August, and shall certainly say no more against it, though I am certain that I shall count every day that passes; and when they are passed, they will leave a melancholy impression on Strawberry, that I had rather have affixed to London. The two last summers were infinitely the pleasantest I ever passed here, for I never before had an agreeable neighbourhood. Still I loved the place, and had no comparisons to draw. Now, the neighbourhood will remain, and will appear ten times worse; with the aggravation of remembering two months that may have some transient roses, but I am sure, lasting thorns. You tell me I do not write with my usual spirits: at least I will suppress, as much as I can, the want of them, though I am a bad dissembler.(695)

You do not mention the cathedral at Winchester, which I have twice seen and admired; nor do you say any thing of Bevismount and Netley—charming Netley! At Lyndhurst you passed the palatial hovel of my royal nephew; who I have reason to wish had never been so, and did all I could to prevent his being.

The week before last I met the Marlboroughs at Lady Di's. The Duchess(696) desired to come and see Strawberry again, as it had rained the whole time she was here last. I proposed the next morning: no, she could not: she expected company to dinner; she believed their brother, Lord Robert(697) would dine with them: I thought that a little odd, as they had Just turned him out for Oxfordshire; and I thought a dinner no cause at the distance of four miles. In her grace's dawdling way, she could fix no time: and so on Friday, at half an hour after seven, as I was going to Lady North's, they arrived; and the sun being setting, and the moon not risen, You may judge how much they could see through all the painted glass by twilight.

(695) In a letter written in this month to Walpole, Miss More asks, "Where and how are the Berrys? I hope they are within reach of your great chair, if you are confined, and of your airings, if you go abroad. I hate their going to Yorkshire: as Hotspur Says, 'What do they do in the north, when they ought to be in the south?", Memoirs, vol.ii. p. 235.-E.

(696) Lady Caroline Russell; married, in 1762, to the Duke of Marlborough.

(697) Lord Robert Spencer, brother of the Duke of Marlborough.

Letter 353 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.
Strawberry Hill, August 9, at night, 1790. (page 452)

MR. NICHOLLS has offered to be postman to you; whereof, though I have nothing, or as little as nothing, to say, I thought as how, it would look kinder to send nothing in writing than by word of mouth.

Nothing the first. So the peace is made, and the stocks drank its health in a bumper; but when they waked the next morning, they found they had reckoned without their host, and that their majesties the King of big Britain and the King of little Spain have agreed to make peace some time or other, if they can agree upon it; and so the stocks drew in their horns: but, having great trust in some time or other, they only fell two pegs lower. I, who never believed there would be war, keep my prophetic stocks up to par, and my consolation still higher; for when Spanish pride truckles, and English pride has had the honour of bullying, I dare to say we shall be content with the ostensible triumph, as Spain will be with some secret article that will leave her much where she was before. Vide Falkland's Island.

Nothing the second. Miss Gunning's match with Lord Blandford. You asserted it so peremptorily, that, though I doubted it, I quoted you. Lo! it took its rise solely in poor old Bedford's dotage, that still harps on conjunctions copulative, but now disavows it, as they say, on a remonstrance from her daughter.

Nothing the third. Nothing will come of nothing, says King Lear, and your humble servant.

Letter 354 To The Earl Of Strafford.
Strawberry Hill, August 12, 1790. (page 452)

I must not pretend any longer, my dear lord, that this region is void of news and diversions. Oh! we can innovate as well as neighbouring nations. If an Earl Stanhope, though he cannot be a tribune, is ambitious of being a plebeian, he may without law be as vulgar as heart can wish; and, though we have not a national assembly to lay the axe to the root of nobility, the peerage have got a precedent for laying themselves in the kennel. Last night the Earl of Barrymore was so humble as to perform a buffoon-dance and act Scaramouch in a pantomime at Richmond for the benefit of Edwin, Jun. the comedian:(698) and I, like an old fool, but calling myself a philosopher that loves to study human nature in all its disguises, went to see the performance.

Mr. Gray thinks that some Milton or some Cromwell may be lost to the world under the garb of a ploughman. Others may suppose that some excellent jack-pudding may lie hidden under red velvet and ermine. I cannot say that by the experiment of last night the latter hypothesis has been demonstrated, any more than the inverse proposition in France, where, though there seem to be many as bloody-minded rascals as Cromwell, I can discover none of his abilities.(699) They have settled nothing like a constitution; on the contrary, they seem to protract every thing but violence, as much as they can, in order to keep their Louie a day, which is more than two-thirds of the Asset they perhaps ever saw in a month. I do not love legislators that pay themselves so amply! They might have had as good a constitution as twenty-four millions of people could comport. As they have voted an army of an hundred and fifty thousand men, I know what their constitution will be, after passing through a civil war. In short, I detest them: they have done irreparable injury to liberty, for no monarch will ever summon `etats again; and all the real service that will result from their fury will be, that every King in Europe, for these twenty, or perhaps thirty years to come, will be content with the prerogative he has. without venturing to augment it.

The Empress of Russia has thrashed the King of Sweden; and the King of Sweden has thrashed the Empress of Russia. I am more glad that both are beaten than that either is victorious ; for I do not, like our newspapers, and such admirers, fall in love with heroes and heroines who make war without a glimpse of provocation. I do like our makincy peace, whether we had provocation or not. I am forced to deal in European news, my dear lord, for I have no homespun. I don't think my whole inkhorn could invent another paragraph; and therefore I will take my leave, with (your lordship knows) every kind wish for your health and happiness.(700)

(698) In the following month "The Follies of a Day" was performed at Lord Barrymore's private theatre, at Wergrave. "His lordship, in the character of the gardener," according to the newspapers, "was highly comic, and his humour was not overstrained: the whole concluded with a dance, in which was introduced a favourite pas Russe, by Lord Barrymore and Mr. Delpini, which kept the theatre in a roar."-E.

(699) Gibbon, in a letter written a few months before from Lausanne to Lord Sheffield, makes the following reflections:— "The French nation had a glorious opportunity, but they have abused and may lose their advantages. If they had been content with a liberal translation of our system, if they had respected the prerogatives of the crown and the privileges of the nobles, they might have raised a solid fabric on the only true foundation, the natural aristocracy of a great country. How different is the prospect! Their King brought a captive to Paris, after his palace had been stained with the blood of his guards; the nobles in exile; the clergy plundered in a way which strikes at the root of all property; the capital an independent republic; the union of the provinces dissolved; the flames of discord kindled by the worst of men, and the honestest of the Assembly a set of wild visionaries. As yet there is no symptom of a great man, a Richelieu or a Cromwell, arising either to restore the monarchy, or to lead the commonwealth."-E.

(700) This appears to have been the last letter addressed by Walpole to the Earl of Strafford. His lordship died at Wentworth Castle, on the 10th of March following, in his seventy-ninth year.-E.

Letter 355 To Sir David Dalrymple.(701)
Strawberry Hill, Sept. 21, 1790. (page 454)

So many years, Sir, have elapsed since I saw Burleigh, that I cannot in general pretend to recollect the pictures Well. I do remember that there was a surfeit of pieces by Luca Jordano, and Carlo Dolce, no capital masters, and posterior to the excellent. The Earl of Exeter, who resided long at Rome in the time of those two painters, seemed to have employed them entirely during his sojourn there. I was not struck more than you, Sir, with the celebrated Death of Seneca, though one of the best works of Jordano. Perhaps Prior's verses lifted it to part of its fame, though even those verses are inferior to many of that charming poet's compositions. Upon the whole, Burleigh is a noble palace, contains many fine things, and the inside court struck me with admiration and reverence. The Shakspeare Gallery is truly most inadequate to its prototypes but how should it be worthy of them! If we could recall the brightest luminaries of painting, could they do justice to Shakspeare? Was Raphael himself as great a genius in his art as the author of Macbeth? and who could draw Falstaffe, but the writer of Falstaffe? I am entirely of your opinion, Sir, that two of Northcote's pictures, from King John and Richard the Third, are at the head of the collection. In Macklin's Gallery of Poets and Scripture, there are much better pictures than at Boydell's. Opie's Jephthah's Vow is a truly fine performance, and would be so in any assemblage of paintings; as Sir Joshua's Death of Beaufort is worthy of none: the Imp is burlesque, and the Cardinal seems terrified at him as before him, when the Imp is behind him. In Sir Thomas Hanmer's edition there is a print that gives the fact simply, pathetically, and with dignity, and just as you wish it told.

My sentiments on French politics concur as much with yours as they do on subjects above. The National Assembly set out too absurdly and extravagantly, not to throw their country into the last confusion; which is not the way of correcting a government, but more probably of producing a worse, bad as the old was, and thence they will have given a lasting wound to liberty: for what king will ever call `Etats again, if he can possibly help it! The new legislators were pedants, not politicians, when they announced the equality of all men. We are all born so, no doubt, abstractedly; and physically capable of being kept so, were it possible to establish a perfect government, and give the same education to all men. But are they so in the present constitution of society, under a bad government, where most have had no education at all, but have been debased, brutified, by a long train and mixture of superstition and oppression, and witnesses to the luxury and vices of their superiors, which they could only envy and not enjoy? It was turning tigers loose; and the degradation of the nobility pointed out the prey. Could it be expected that savages so hallooed on to outrage and void of any notions of reciprocal"duties and obligations, would fall into a regular system of' acting as citizens under the government of reason and justice? It was tearing all the bonds of society, which the experience of mankind had taught them were necessary to the mutual convenience of all; and no provision, no security, was made for those who were levelled, and who, though they enjoyed what they had by the old constitution, were treated, or were exposed to be treated, as criminals. They have been treated so: several have been butchered; and the National Assembly dare not avenge them, as they should lose the favour of the intoxicated populace. That conduct was senseless, or worse. With no less folly did they seek to expect that a vast body of men, more enlightened, at least, than the gross multitude, would sit down in patience under persecution and deprivation of all they valued; I mean the nobility and clergy, who might be stunned, but Were sure of reviving and of burning with vengeance. The insult was the greater, as the subsequent conduct of the National Assembly has proved more shamefully dishonest, in their paying themselves daily more than two-thirds of them ever saw perhaps in a month; and that flagitious self-bestowed stipend, as it is void of all patriotic integrity, will destroy their power too; for, if constitution-making is so lucrative a trade, others will wish to share in the plunder of their country too; and, even without a civil war, I am persuaded the present Assembly will neither be septennial, nor even triennial.

(701) Now first collected.

Letter 356 To The Miss Berrys.
Sunday, Oct. 10, 1790, The day of your departure. (page 455)

Is it possible to write to my beloved friends, and refrain from speaking of my grief for losing you; though it is but the continuation of what I have felt ever since I was stunned by your intention Of going abroad this autumn? Still I will not tire YOU With it Often. In happy days I smiled, and called you my dear wives—now I can only think on you as darling children of whom I am bereaved! As such I have loved and do love You; and, charming as you both are, I have had no Occasion to remind myself that I am Past seventy-three. Your hearts, your understandings, your virtues, and the cruel injustice of your fate,(702) have interested me in every thing that concerns you; and so far from having occasion to blush for any unbecoming weakness, I am proud of my affection for you, and very proud of your condescending to pass so many hours with a very old man, when every body admires you, and the most insensible allow that your good sense and information (I speak of both) have formed you to Converse with the most intelligent of our sex as well as your own; and neither can tax you with airs of pretension or affectation. Your simplicity and natural ease set off all your other merits-all these graces are lost to me, alas! when I have no time to lose.

Sensible as I am to my loss, it will occupy but part of my thoughts, till I know you are safely landed, and arrived safely at Turin. Not till you are there, and I learn so, will my anxiety subside, and settle into steady, selfish sorrow. I looked at every weathercock as I came along the road to-day, and was happy to see every one point northeast. May they do so to-morrow!

I found here the frame for Wolsey, and to-morrow morning Kirgate will place him in it; and then I shall begin pulling the little parlour to pieces, that it may be hung anew to receive him. I have also obeyed Miss Agnes, though with regret; for, on trying it, I found her Arcadia(703) would fit the place of the picture she condemns, which shall therefore be hung in its room; though the latter should give Way to nothing else, nor shall be laid aside, but shall hang where I shall see it almost as often. I long to hear that its dear paintress is well; I thought her not at all so last night. You will tell me the truth, though she in her own case, and in that alone, allows herself mental reservation.

Forgive me for writing nothing to-night but about you two and myself. Of what can I have thought else? I have not spoken to a single person but my own servants since we parted last night.

I found a message here from Miss Howe(704) to invite me for this evening—do you think I have not preferred staying at home to write to you, as this Must go to London to-morrow morning by the coach to be ready for Tuesday's post! My future letters shall talk of other things, whenever I know any thing worth repeating; or perhaps any trifle, for I am determined to forbid myself lamentations that would weary you; and the frequency of my letters will prove there is no forgetfulness. If I live to see you again, you will then judge whether I am changed; but a friendship so rational and so pure as mine is, and so equal for both, is not likely to have any of the fickleness of youth, when it has none of its other ingredients. It was a sweet consolation to the short time that I may have left, to fall into such a society; no wonder then that I am unhappy at that consolation being abridged. I pique myself on no philosophy but what a long use and knowledge of the world had given me-the philosophy of indifference to most persons and events. I do pique myself on not being ridiculous at this very late period of my life; but when there is not a grain of passion in my affection for you two, and when you both have the good sense not to be displeased at my telling you so, (though I hope you would have despised me for the contrary,) I am not ashamed to say that your loss is heavy to me; and that I am only reconciled to it by hoping that a winter in Italy, and the journeys and sea air, will be very beneficial to two constitutions so delicate as yours. Adieu! my dearest friends it would be tautology to subscribe a name to a letter, every line of which would suit no other man in the world but the writer.

(702) This alludes to Miss Berry's father having been disinherited by an uncle, to whom he was heir at law, and a large property left to his younger brother.-M.B.

(703) A drawing by Miss Agnes Berry.

(704) Julia Howe, an unmarried sister of Admiral Earl Howe, who lived at Richmond.

Letter 357 To The Miss Berrys.
Sunday, Oct. 31, 1790. (page 457)

Perhaps I am unreasonably impatient, and expect letters before they can come. I expected a letter from Lyons three days ago, though Mrs. Damer told me I should not have one till to-morrow. I have got one to-day; but alas! from Pougues only, eleven and a half posts short of Lyons! Oh! may Mrs. Damer prove in the right to-morrow! Well! I must be happy for the past; and that you had such delightful weather, and but one little accident to your carriage. We have had equal summer till Wednesday last, when it blew a hurricane. I said to it, "Blow, blow, thou winter wind, I don't mind you now!" but I have not forgotten Tuesday the 12th; and now I hope it will be as calm as it is to-day on Wednesday next, when Mrs. Damer is to sail.(705) I was in town on Thursday and Friday, and so were her parents, to take our leaves; as we did on Friday night, supping all at Richmond-house. She set out yesterday morning, and I returned hither. I am glad you had the amusement of seeing the National Assembly. Did Mr. Berry find it quite so august as he intended it should be? Burke's pamphlet is to appear to-morrow, and Calonne has published a thumping one of four hundred and forty pages.(706) I have but begun it, for there is such a quantity of calculations, and one is forced to bait so often to boil milliards of livres down to a rob of pounds sterling, that my head is only filled with figures instead of arguments, and I understand arithmetic less than logic.

Our war still hangs by a hair, they say; and that this approaching week must terminate its fluctuations. Brabant, I am told, is to be pacified by negotiations at the Hague. Though I talk like a newspaper, I do not assume their airs, nor give my intelligence of any sort for authentic, unless when the Gazette endorses the articles. Thus, Lord Louvain is made Earl of Beverley, and Lord Earl of Digby; but in no Gazette, though still in the Songs of Sion, do I find that Miss Gunning is a marchioness. It is not that I suppose you care who gains a step in the aristocracy; but I tell you these trifles to keep you au courant, and that at your return you may not make only a baronial curtsey, when it should be lower by two rows of ermine to some new-hatched countess. This is all the, news-market furnishes. Your description of the National Assembly and of the Champ de Mars were both admirable; but the altar of boards and canvass seems a type of their perishable constitution, as their air-balloons were before. French visions are generally full of vapour, and terminate accordingly. I have been at Mrs. Grenville's(707) this evening, who had a small party for the Duchess of Gloucester: there were many inquiries after my wives.

(705) Mrs. Damer was going to pass the winter at Lisbon, on account of her health.

(706) This was his "Lettre sur l'`Etat de la France, pr`esent et `a venir;" of which a translation appeared in the following year.-E.

(707) Margaret Banks, widow Of the Hon. Henry Grenville, who died in 1784. Their only daughter was married, in 1781, to Viscount Mahon, afterwards Earl Stanhope.

Letter 358 To The Miss Berrys
Park-place, Nov. 8, 1790. (page 458)

No letter since Pougues! I think you can guess how uneasy I am! It is not the fault of the wind; which has blown from every quarter. To-day I cannot hear, for no post comes in on Mondays. What can have occasioned my receiving no letters from Lyons, when, on the 18th of last month, you were within twelve posts of it? I am now sorry I came hither, lest by change of place a letter may have shuttlecocked about, and not have known where to find me; and yet I left orders with Kirgate to send it after me, if one came to Strawberry on Saturday. I return thither to-morrow, but not till after the post is come in here. I am writing to you now, while the company are walked out, to divert my impatience; which, however, is but a bad recipe, and not exactly the way to put YOU Out Of my head.

The first and great piece of news is the pacification with Spain. The courier arrived on Thursday morning with a most acquiescent answer to our ultimatum: what that was I do not know, nor much care. Peace contents me, and for my part I shall not haggle about the terms. I have a good general digestion, and it is not a small matter that will lie at my stomach when I have no hand in dressing the ingredients.

The pacification of Brabant is likely to be volume the second. The Emperor, and their majesties of Great Britain and Prussia, and his Serene Highness the Republic of Holland have sent a card to his turbulent Lowness of Brabant, and* they allow him but three weeks to submit to his old sovereign: on promise of a general pardon -or the choice of threescore thousand men ready to march without a pardon.

The third volume, expected, but not yet in the press, is a counterrevolution in France. Of that I know nothing but rumour; yet it certainly is not the most incredible event that rumour ever foretold. In this country the stock of the National Assembly IS fallen down to bankruptcy. Their only renegade, aristocrat Earl Stanhope, has, with D. W. Russel, scratched his name out of the Revolution Club; but the fatal blow has been at last given by Mr. Burke. His pamphlet(708) came out this day se'nnight, and is far superior to what was expected, even by his warmest admirers. I have read it twice; and though of three hundred and fifty pages, I wish I could repeat every page by heart. It is sublime, profound, and gay. The wit and satire are equally brilliant; and the whole is wise, though in some points he goes too far: yet in general there is far less want of judgment than could be expected from him. If it could be translated,—which, from the wit and metaphors and allusions, is almost impossible,—I should think it would be a classic book in all countries, except in present France.(709) To their tribunes it speaks daggers though, unlike them, it uses none. Seven thousand copies have been taken off by the booksellers already, and a new edition is preparing. I hope you will see it soon. There ends my gazette.

There is nobody here at present but Mrs. Hervey, Mrs. E. Hervey, and Mrs. Cotton: but what did I find on Saturday? Why, the Prince of Furstemberg,(710) his son, and son's governor! I was ready to turn about and go back: but they really proved not at all unpleasant. The ambassador has not the least German stiffness or hauteur; is extremely civil, and so domestic a man, that he talked comfortably of his wife and eight children, and of his fondness for them. He understands English, though he does not speak it. The son, a good-humoured lad of fifteen, seems well-informed: the governor, a middle-aged officer, speaks English so perfectly, that even by his accent I should not have discovered him for a foreigner. They stayed all night, and went to Oxford next morning before I rose.

November 9th, at night.

This morning, before I left Park-place, I had the relief and joy of receiving your letter of October 24, from Lyons. It would have been still more welcome, if dated from Turin; but, as you have met with no impediments so far, I trust you got out of France as well as through it. I do hope, too, that Miss Agnes is better, as you say; but when one is very anxious about a person, credulity does not take long strides in proportion. I am not surprised at your finding voiturins, or any body, or any thing, dearer: where all credit and all control are swept away, every man will be a tyrant in proportion to his necessities and his strength. Societies were invented to temperate force: but it seems force was liberty, and much good may it do the French with being delivered from every thing but violence!—which I believe they will soon taste pro and con.! You may make me smile by desiring me to continue my affection. Have I so much time left for inconstancy? For threescore years and ten I have not been very fickle in my friendship: in all these years I never found such a pair as you and your sister. Should I meet with a superior pair,-but they must not be deficient in any one of the qualities which I find in you two,-why, Perhaps, I may change; but, with that double mortgage on my affections, I do not think you are in much danger of losing them. You shall have timely notice if a second couple drops out of the clouds and falls in my way.

(708) The far-famed "Reflections on the Revolution in France;" of which about thirty thousand copies were sold in a comparatively short space of time.-E.

(709) A French translation, by M. Dupont, shortly after made its appearance, and spread the reputation of the work over all Europe. The Emperor of Germany, Catherine of Russia, and the French Princes transmitted to Mr. Burke their warm approbation of it, and the unfortunate Stanislaus of Poland sent him his likeness on a gold medal.-E.

(710) The Landgrave of Furstemberg had been sent from the Emperor Leopold to notify his being elected King of the Romans, and his subsequent coronation as Emperor of Germany.-E.

Letter 359 To Miss Berry.
November 11, 1790. (page 460)

I had a letter from Mrs. Damer at Falmouth. She suffered much by cold and fatigue, and probably sailed on Saturday evening last, and may be at Lisbon by this time, as you, I trust, are in Italy. Mr. Burke's pamphlet has quite turned Dr. Price's head. He got upon a table at their club, toasted to our Parliament becoming a National Assembly, and to admitting no more peers of their assembly, having lost the only one they had. They themselves are very like the French `Etats: two more members got on the table (their pulpit), and broke it down: so be it!

The Marquisate(711) is just where it was—to be and not to be. The Duchess of Argyll is said to be worse. Della Crusca(712) has published a poem, called "The Laurel of Liberty," which, like the Enrag`es, has confounded and overturned all ideas. There are gossamery tears and silky oceans—the first time, to be sure, that any body ever cried cobwebs, or that the sea was made of paduasoy.(713) There is, besides, a violent tirade against a considerable personage, who, it is supposed, the author was jealous of, as too much favoured a few years ago by a certain Countess. You may guess why I am not more explicit: for the same reason I beg YOU not to mention it at all; it would be exceedingly improper. As the Parliament will meet in a fortnight, and the town be plumper, my letters may grow more amusing; though, unless the weather grows worse, I shall not contribute my leanness to its embonpoint. Adieu!

(711) Meaning the reported marriage of Miss Gunning to the Marquis of Blandford.-B.

(712) Robert Merry, Esq. who, at this time, wrote in the newspapers under this signature, and thereby became the object of the caustic satire of the author of the Baviad and Maviad—

"Lo, Della Crusca in his closet pent,
He toils to give the crude conception vent
Abortive thoughts, that right and wrong confound,
Truth sacrific'd to letters, sense to sound;
False glare, incongruous images combine,
And noise and nonsense chatter through the line."-E.

(713) Besides the above, Mr. Gifford instances, from the same poem, "moody monarchs, radiant rivers, cooling cataracts, lazy Loires, gay Garonnes, glossy glass, mingling murder, dauntless day, lettered lightnings, delicious dilatings, sinking sorrows, real reasoning, meliorating mercies, dewy vapours damp that sweep the silent swamps, etc. etc."-E.

Letter 360 To The Miss Berrys.
Strawberry Hill, Thursday, Nov. 18, 1790. (page 461)

On Tuesday morning, after my letter was gone to the post, I received yours of the 2d (as I have all the rest) from Turin, and it gave me very little of the joy I had so much meditated to receive from a letter thence. And why did not it?-because I had got one on Saturday, which anticipated and augmented all the satisfaction I had allotted for Turin. You will find my Tuesday's letter, if ever you receive it, intoxicated with Chamberry; for which, and all your kind punctuality, I give you a million of thanks. But how cruel to find that you found none of my letters at Turin! There ought to have been two at least, of October the 16th and 19th. I have since directed one thither of the 25th; but alas! from ignorance, there was par Paris on none of them; and the Lord knows at how many little German courts they may have been baiting! I shall put par Paris on this; but beg you will tell me, as soon as you can, which route is the shortest and the safest; that is, by which you are most likely to receive them. You do me justice in concluding there has been no negligence of mine in the case; indeed, I have been ashamed of the multiplicity of my letters, when I had scarce any thing to tell you but my own anxiety to hear of your being quietly settled at Florence, out of the reach of all commotions. And how could I but dread your being molested by some accident, in the present state of France! and how could your healths mend in bad inns, and till you can repose somewhere? Repose you will have at Florence, but I shall fear the winter for you there: I suffered more by cold there, than by any place in my life; and never came home at night without a pain in my breast, which I never felt elsewhere, yet then I was very young and in perfect health. If either of you suffer there in any shape, I hope you will retire to Pisa.

My inquietude, that presented so many alarms to me before you set out, has, I find, and am grieved for it, not been quite in the Wrong. Some inconveniences I am persuaded you have sunk: yet the difficulty of landing at Dieppe, and the ransack of your poor harmless trunks at Bourgoin, and the wretched lodgings with which you were forced to take up at Turin, count deeply with me: and I had much rather have lost all credit as a prophet, since I could not prevent your journey. May it answer for your healths! I doubt it will not in any other respect, as you have already found by the voiturins. In point of pleasure, is it possible to divest myself so radically of all self-love as to wish you may find Italy as agreeable as you di formerly? In all other lights, I do most fervently hope there will he no drawbacks on your plan. Should you be disappointed in any way, you know what a warm heart is open to receive you back; and so will your own Cliveden(714) be too.

I am glad you met the Bishop of Arras,(715) and am much pleased that he remembers me. I saw him very frequently at my dear old friend's,.(716) and liked him the best of all Frenchmen I ever knew. He is extremely sensible, easy, lively, and void of prejudices. Should he fall in your way again, I beg you will tell him how sincere a regard I have for him. He lived in the strictest union with his brother, the Archbishop of Tours, whom I was much less acquainted with, nor know if he be living.

I have heard nothing since my Tuesday's letter. As I still hope its predecessors will reach you, I will not repeat the trifling scraps of news I have sent you in them. In fact, this is only a trial whether par Paris is a better passport than a direction without it; but I am grievously sorry to find difficulty of correspondence superadded to the vexation of losing you. Writing to you was grown my chief occupation. I wish. Europe and its broils were in the East Indies, if they embarrass us quiet folks, who have nothing to do with their squabbles. The Duchess of Gloucester, who called on me yesterday, charged me to give her compliments to you both. Miss Foldson(717) has not yet sent me your pictures: I was in town on Monday, and sent to reproach her with having twice broken her promise; her mother told my servant that Miss was at Windsor, drawing the Queen and Princesses. That is not the work of a Moment. I am glad all the Princes are not on the spot.

I think of continuing here till the weather grows very bad; which it has not been at all yet, though not equal to what I am rejoiced you have found. I have no Somerset or Audley-street to receive me: Mrs. Damer is gone too. The Conways remain at Park-place till after Christmas; It is entirely out of fashion for women to grow old and stay at home in an evening. They invite you, indeed, now and then, but do not expect to see you till near midnight; which is rather too late to begin the day, unless one was born but twenty years ago. I do not condemn any fashions, which the young ought to set, for the old certainly ought not; but an oak that has been going on in its old way for an hundred years, cannot shoot into a May-pole in three years, because it is the mode to plant Lombardy poplars.

What I should have suffered, if your letters, like mine, had wandered through Germany! I, you was sure, had written, and was in no danger. Dr. Price, who had whetted his ancient talons last year to no purpose, has had them all drawn by Burke, and the Revolution Club is as much exploded as the Cock-lane Ghost; but you, in order to pass a quiet winter in Italy, would pass through a fiery furnace. Fortunately, you have not been singed, and the letter from Chamberry has composed all my panics, but has by no means convinced me that I was not perfectly in the right to endeavour to keep you at home. One does not put one's hand in the fire to burn off a hangnail; and, though health is delightful, neither of you were out of order enough to make a rash experiment. I Would not be so absurd as to revert to old arguments, that happily proved no prophecies, if my great anxiety about you did not wish, in time, to persuade you to return through Switzerland and Flanders, if the latter is pacified and France is not; of which I see no likelihood.

Pray forgive me, if parts of my letters are sometimes tiresome; but can I appear only always cheerful when you two are absent, and have another long journey to make, ay, and the sea to cross again? My fears cannot go to sleep like a paroli at faro till there is a new deal, in which even then I should not be sure of winning. If I see you again, I will think I have gained another milleleva, as I literally once did; with this exception, that I was vehemently against risking a doit at the game of travelling. Adieu!

(714) Little Strawberry Hill, which he had then thus named.

(715) M. de Conzies. This amiable prelate declined, in 1801, the Parisian archiepiscopacy, proffered him by Buonaparte, and died in London, in December 1804, in the arms of Monsieur, afterwards Charles the Tenth.-E.

(716) Madame du Deffand.

)717 Afterwards Mrs. Mee.

Letter 361 To The Miss Berrys.
Strawberry Hill, Friday night, Nov. 27, 1790. (page 463)

I am waiting for a letter from Florence, not with perfect patience, though I could barely have one, even if you did arrive, as you intended, on the 12th; but twenty temptations might have occurred to detain you in that land of eye and ear sight; my chief eagerness is to learn that you have received at least some of my letters. I wish too to know, though I cannot yet, whether you would have me direct Par Paris, or as I did before. In this state of uncertainty I did not prepare this to depart this morning; nor, though the Parliament met yesterday, have I a syllable of news for you, as there will be no debate till all the members have been sworn, which takes two or three days. Moreover, I am still here: the weather, though very rainy, is quite warm; and I have much more agreeable society at Richmond, with small companies and better hours, than in town, and shall have till after Christmas, unless great cold drives me thither. Lady Di, Selwyn, the Penns, the Onslows, Douglases, Mackinsys, Keenes, Lady Mount-Edgcumbe, all stay, and Some of them meet every evening. The Boufflers too are constantly invited, and the Comtesse Emilie sometimes carries her harp, on which they say she plays better than Orpheus; but as I never heard him on earth, nor chez Proserpine, I do not pretend to decide. Lord Fitzwilliam(718) has been here too; but was in the utmost danger of being lost on Saturday night, in a violent storm between Calais and Dover, as the captain confessed to him when they were landed. Do you think I did not ache at the recollection of a certain Tuesday when you were sailing to Dieppe?

(718) Richard, seventh and last Viscount Fitzwilliam, the munificent benefactor to the University of Cambridge. He died in 1816.-E.

Letter 362 To Miss Agnes Berry.
Strawberry Hill, Sunday, Nov. 29, 1790. (page 464)

Though I write to both at once, and reckon your letters to come equally from both, yet I delight in seeing your hand with a pen as well as with a pencil, and you express yourself as well with the one as with the other. Your part in that which I have been so happy as to receive this moment, has singularly obliged me, by your having saved me the terror of knowing you had a torrent to cross after heavy rain. No cat is so afraid of water for herself, as I am grown to be for you. That panic, which will last for many months, adds to my fervent desire of your returning early in the autumn, that you may have neither fresh water nor the "silky" ocean to cross in winter. Precious as our insular situation is, I am ready to wish with the Frenchman, that you could somehow or other get to it by land,— Oui, c'est une isle toujours, je le sais bien; mais, par exemple, en allant d'alentour, n'y auroit-il pas moyen d'y arriver par terre?"

Correggio never pleased me in proportion to his fame; his grace touches upon grimace; the mouth of the beautiful Angel at Parma curls up almost into a half-moon. Still I prefer Corregio to the lourd want of grace in Guereino, who is to me a German edition of Guido. I am sorry the bookseller would not let you have an Otranto. Edwards told me, above two months ago, that he every day expected the whole impression; and he has never mentioned it waiting for my corrections. I will make Kirgate write to him, for I have told you that I am still here. We have had much rain, but no flood; and yesterday and to-day have exhibited Florentine skies.

>From town I know nothing; but that on Friday, after the King's speech, Earl Stanhope made a most frantic speech on the National Assembly and against Calonne's book, which he wanted to have taken up for high treason.(719) He was every minute interrupted by loud bursts of laughter; which was all the answer he received or deserved. His suffragan Price has published a short, sneaking equivocal answer to Burke, in which he pretends his triumph over the King of France alluded to July, not to October, though his sermon was preached in November. Gredat—but not Judaeus Apella, as Mr. Burke so wittily says of the assignats.(720) Mr. Grenville, the secretary of state, is made a peer, they say to assist the Chancellor in the House of Lords: yet the papers pretend the Chancellor is out of humour, and will resign the first may be true, the latter probably not.(721)

Richmond, my metropolis, flourishes exceedingly. The Duke of Clarence arrived at his palace there last night, between eleven and twelve, as I came from Lady Douglas. His eldest brother and Mrs. Fitzherbert dine there to-day with the Duke Of Queensbury, as his grace, who called here this morning, told me, on the very spot where lived Charles the First, and where are the portraits of his principal courtiers from Cornbury. Queensbury has taken to that palace at last, and has frequently company and music there in an evening. I intend to go.

I suppose none of my Florentine acquaintance are still upon earth. The handsomest woman there, of my days, was a Madame Grifoni, my fair Geraldine: she would now be a Methusalemess, and much more like a frightful picture I have of her by a one-eyed German painter. I lived then with Sir Horace Mann, in Casa Mannetti in Via de' Santi Apostoli, by the Ponte di Trinit`a. Pray, worship the works of Masaccio, if any remain; though I think the best have been burnt in a church. Raphael himself borrowed from him. Fra Bartolomeo, too, is one of my standards for great ideas; and Benvenuto Cellini's Perseus a rival of the antique, though Mrs. Damer will not allow it. Over against the Perseus is a beautiful small front of a house, with only three windows, designed by Raphael; and another, I think, near the Porta San Gallo, and I believe called Casa Panciatici or Pandolfini.

(719) in the report of Lord Stanbope's speech, as it is given in the Parliamentary History, there is no expression of a wish that M. Calonne should be ,taken up for high treason." What the noble Earl said was, that the assertion that a civil war would meet with the support of all the crowned heads in Europe was a scandalous libel on the King of England, and might endanger the lives of many natives of Scotland and Ireland then residing in France.-E.

(720) "The Assembly made in their speeches a sort of swaggering declaration, something, I rather think, above legislative competence; that is, that there is no difference in value between metallic money and their assignats. This was a good, stout proof article of faith, pronounced under an anathema, by the venerable fathers of this philosophic synod. Gredat who will certainly not

Judaeus Apella."-E.

(721) In Mr. Wilberforce's Diary for this year there appears the following entry:-"Nov- 22. Dined with Mr. Pitt. He told me of Grenville's peerage and the true reasons—distrust of Lord Thurlow. Saw Thurlow's answer to the news. Gave Pitt a serious word or two." See Life, vol. i. p. 284.-E.

Letter 363 To The Miss Berrys.
Strawberry Hill, Dec. 20, 1790; very late at night. (page 465)

The French packet that was said to be lost on Tuesday last, and which did hang out signals of distress, was saved, but did not bring any letters; but three Flemish mails that were due are arrived, and did bring letters, and, to my inexpressible joy, two from you of the 22d and 29th of the last month, telling Me that you have received as far as No. 4 and 5 of mine. Thank all the stars in Herschell's telescope, or beyond its reach, that our correspondence is out of the reach of France and all its ravages! Thank you a million of times for all your details about yourselves When even the apprehension of any danger disquiets me so much, judge whether I do not interest myself in every particular of your pleasures and amusements! Florence was my delight, as it is yours but, I don't know how, I wish you did not like it quite so much and, after the gallery. how will any silver-penny of a gallery look? Indeed, for your Boboli, which I thought horrible even fifty years ago, before shepherds had seen the star of taste in the west, and glad tidings were proclaimed to their flocks, I do think there is not an acre on the banks of the Thames that should vail the bonnet to it.

Of Mr. Burke's book, if I have not yet told you my opinion, I do now: that it is one of the finest compositions in print. There is reason, logic, wit, truth. eloquence, and enthusiasm in the brightest colours. That it has given a mortal stab to sedition, I believe and hope; because the fury of the Brabanters,-whom, however, as having been aggrieved, I pitied and distinguish totally from the savage Gauls, -and the unmitigated and execrable injustices of the latter, have made almost any state preferable to such anarchy and desolation, that increases every day. Admiring thus, as I do, I am very far from subscribing to the extent of almost all Mr. Burke's principles. The work, I have no doubt, will hereafter be applied to support very high doctrines; and to you I will say, that I think it an Apocrypha, that, in many a council of Bishops, will be added to the Old Testament. Still, such an Almanzor was wanting at this crisis; and his foes show how deeply they are wounded, by their abusive pamphlets. Their Amazonian allies, headed by Kate Macaulay(722) and the virago Barbauld, whom Mr. Burke calls our poissardes, spit their rage at eighteenpence a head, and will return to Fleet-ditch, more fortunate in being forgotten than their predecessors, immortalized in the Dunciad. I must now bid you good-night; and night it is, to the tune of morning. Adieu, all three!

(722) A pamphlet, entitled "Observations on the Reflections of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke on the Revolution in France; in a Letter to Earl Stanhope," was attributed to Mrs. Macaulay.-E.

Letter 364 To Miss Berry.
Berkeley Square, Saturday, Jan. 22, 1791. (page 466)

I have been most unwillingly forced to send you such bad accounts of myself by my two last letters; but, as I could not conceal all, it was best to tell you the whole truth. Though I do not know that there was any real danger, I could not be so blind to my own age and weakness as not to think that, with so much gout an fever, the conclusion might very probably be fatal: and therefore it was better you should be prepared for what might happen. The danger appears to be entirely over: there seems to be no more gout to come. I have no fever, have a very good appetite, and sleep well. Mr. Watson,(723) who is all tenderness and attention, is persuaded to-day that I shall recover the use of my left hand ; of which I despaired much more than of the right, as having been seized three weeks earlier. Emaciated and altered I am incredibly, as you would find were you ever to see me again. But this illness has dispelled all visions ; and, as I have little prospect of passing another happy autumn, I Must wean myself from whatever would embitter my remaining time by disappointments.

Your No. 15 came two days ago, and gives me the pleasure of knowing that you both are the better for riding, which I hope you will continue. I am glad, too, that you are pleased with your Duchess of Fleury and your Latin professor: but I own, except your climate and the six hundred camels, you seem to me to have met with no treasure which you might not have found here without going twenty miles: and even the camels, according to Soame Jenyns' spelling, were to be had from Carrick and other places.

I doubt you apply Tully de Amicitia too favourably: at least, I fear there is no paragraph that countenances 73 and 27.

Monday, the 24th.

I think I shall give you pleasure by telling you that I am very sure now of recovering from the present fit. It has almost always happened to me, in my considerable fits of the gout, to have one critical night that celebrates its departure: at the end of two different fits I each time slept eleven hours. Morpheus is not quite so young nor so generous now ; but, with the interruption of a few minutes, he presented me with eight hours last night: and thence I shall date my recovery. I shall now begin to let in a little company; and, as the Parliament will meet in a week, my letters will probably not be so dull as they have been; nor shall I have occasion, nor be obliged, to talk so much of myself, of which I am sure others must be tired, when I am so much tired myself.

Tuesday, the 25th.

Old Mrs. French(724) is dead at last, and I am on the point of losing, or have lost, my oldest acquaintance and friend, George Selwyn, who was yesterday at the extremity. These misfortunes, though they can be so but for a short time, are very sensible to the old; but him I really loved, not only for his infinite wit, but for a thousand good qualities. Lady Cecilia Johnstone was here yesterday. I said much for you, and she as much to you. The Gunnings are still playing the fool, and perhaps somebody with them; but I cannot tell you the particulars now. Adieu!

(723) His surgeon.

(724) An Irish lady, who, during the latter part of her life, had a country house at Hampton Court.

Letter 365 To The Miss Berrys.
Saturday, Jan. 29, 1791. (page 468)

Voici de ma propre `ecriture! the best proof that I am recovering, though not rapidly, which is not the march of my time of life. For n these last six days I have mended more than I expected. My left hand, the first seized, is the most dilatory, and of which I have least hopes. The rheumatism, that I thought so clear and predominant, is so entirely gone, that I now rather think it was hussar-gout attacking in flying squadrons the outposts. No matter which, very ill I was ; and you might see what I thought of myself: nor can I stand many such victories. My countenance was so totally altered, that I could not trace it myself. Its outlines have returned to their posts, though with deep gaps. This is a true picture, and too long an one of self; and too hideous for a bracelet. Apropos, your sweet Miss Foldson, I believe, is painting portraits of all our Princesses, to be sent to all the Princes upon earth ; for, though I have sent her several written duns, she has not deigned even to answer one in writing. I don't know whether Mrs. Buller is not appointed Royal Academician too; for, though I desired the "Charming-man," who was to dine with her that day, to tell her, above a week ago, that I should be glad to see her, she has not taken the least notice of it. Mr. Batt, ditto; who was at Cambridge's when I was at the worst, and knew so, has not once inquired after me, in town or country. So you see you have carried off your friends from me as well as yourselves: and it is not them I regret; or rather, in fact, I outlive all my friends! Poor Selwyn is gone, to my sorrow; and no wonder Ucalegon feels it!(725) He has left about thirty thousand pounds to Mademoiselle Fagniani;(726) twenty of which, if she has no children, to go to those of Lord Carlisle ; the Duke of Queensberry residuary legatee. Old French has died as foolishly as she lived, and left six thousand pounds to you don't know whom ; but to be raised out of her judicious collection of trumpery pictures, etc.

Pray, delight in the following story: Caroline Vernon, fille d'honneur, lost t'other night two hundred pounds at faro, and babe Martindale mark it up. He said he had rather have a draft on her banker. "oh! willingly;" and she gave him one. Next morning he hurried to Drummond's, lest all her money should be drawn out. said the clerk, "would you receive the contents immediately?" "Assuredly." "why, Sir, have you read the note?" Martindale took it; it was, "Pay to the bearer two hundred blows, well applied." The nymph tells the story herself; and yet I think the clerk had the more humour of the two.