Minister pleasantly, " if all my cuckolds desert, I shall be beaten indeed."

Tuesday night, late.

At my niece, Lady Cadogan's, this evening, I met Mr. Langley, Lord Stormont's secretary; who gave me great pleasure, by telling me that you are made Minister Plenipotentiary. I am glad you are a little richer, when you must be at extraordinary expense; but I am much more delighted that your own merits and zeal have obtained this recompense, and that they are rewarded so speedily. It does honour to the Government too; yet I doubt you will not have the fuller satisfaction of seeing your labours terminated by the success you wish. I feel for those brave unrescued men !*

Poor Mr. Morrice is not come to town, nor can he come, though he has had an urgent call. Old Lady Brown, who was formerly at Venice, is dead, and has left him for his life an estate of 1500l. a-year. I told you how little prospect Cavalier Mozzi has of obtaining assistance from him. It is plain this delay is welcome to my Lord; for I have not heard a syllable from his lawyers. I was, indeed, surprised the other day by a letter from his Lordship. It was to desire the favour of me to go and see a large picture that Cipriani has painted for him for the salon at Houghton-a most engaging sight to me, to be sure! Though such a re

* Besieged in Fort St. Philip at Minorca.

+ Margaret Cecil, widow of Sir Robert Brown, formerly a merchant at Venice.

quest provoked me, I really believe it was madness and folly dictated it, rather than insult; though the latter is not impossible. I would not trust a pen in my own hand, lest it should be warm; and so have made no manner of answer. He has now bespoken another piece, frantic enough; for the subject is both indecent and shocking. Perhaps you have forgotten the story it is that of Theodore and Honoria, from Dryden's Fables, where the naked ghost of a scornful mistress is pursued by demons and worried by bloodhounds. The subject, were it endurable, could only be executed by Salvator or Spagnolet. Imagine it attempted by modern artists, who are too feeble to paint anything but fan-mounts!

I believe I never told you, that, since his Lordship sold his collection of pictures, he has taken to design

* Of Dryden's story of the spectre huntsman and his blood-hounds, and of the scene of it, the pine-forest of Ravenna, Lord Byron makes beautiful mention in the third canto of Don Juan

"Sweet hour of twilight !—in the solitude

Of the pine-forest, and the silent shore,

Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood

Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er,

To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood,
Evergreen forest! which Boccacio's lore
And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me,
How have I lov'd the twilight hour and thee!

"The shrill cicalas, people of the pine,

Making their summer lives one countless song,
Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine,

And vesper bell's, that rose the boughs along ;
The spectre huntsman of Oresti's line,

His hell-dogs and their chase, and the fair throng,
Which learn'd from this example not to fly

From a true lover,-shadow'd my mind's eye."-ED.

himself, and his scratches are pinned up about the stripped apartments. But I am foolish to repeat instances of his deliriums; though, indeed, the nation is so lunatic, that my nephew is no phenomenon. I saw your nephew last night at Gloucester-house, and wonder he did not mention your new appointments; but, indeed, it was but for a moment: nor, in truth, though he is very obliging to me, and though I often see him at our little Court, have I had any conversation with him for a long time. The play there begins late, for everything begins late, everybody arrives late everywhere, and I retire early; for I avoid all public places, and go to no other. A court-life was never my object, nor would have been my choice for this end of my course, any more than it was for the commencement, though fate has connected both periods with such an attachment; yet trust I have acquired as little of the esprit des cours as if I had never been within one. How strange are the accidents of life! At ten years old I had set my heart on seeing George the First, and, being a favourite child, my mother asked leave for me to be presented to him; which to the First Minister's wife was granted, and I was carried by the late Lady Chesterfield to kiss his hand as he went to supper in the Duchess of Kendal's apartment. This was the night but one before he left England the last time; and now, fifty years afterwards, one of his great-grandsons and one of his great-granddaughters are my great-nephew and niece! Yet how little had the first part to do with

bringing about the second! When one considers these events abstractedly, as I do, the reflection is amusing; it makes the politician's arts trifling and ridiculous: no plan, no foresight, no industry, could have ranged or accomplished what mere chance has effected. It would not be less entertaining, if a politician would talk as frankly on the projects he had planned and been disappointed of effecting; but a politician would not look on the dénouement with the same indiffer

ence.

LETTER CCCLXX.

Berkeley Square, March 1, 1782.

You know I deem myself a bad political prophet. I certainly did not expect that the Opposition (no longer the minority) would have such rapid success as to have gained a complete victory already. I wrote to you on Tuesday, that on the Friday preceding they had been beaten but by one. On Wednesday last, General Conway renewed his motion for an address of pacification with America, and carried the question by a majority of nineteen.* His speech was full of

*The result of the late division was considered by the Opposition so satisfactory, that it was resolved to bring the question again before the House. Accordingly, on the 27th of February, General Conway moved, "That it is the opinion of the House, that the further prosecution of offensive war on the continent of North America, for the purpose of reducing the rebel colonies to obedience by force, will be the means of weakening the efforts of this country against her European enemies; tends, under the present circumstances, dangerously to increase the mutual enmity, so fatal to the interests both of Great Britain and America; and,

wit, spirit, and severity; and after the debate Mr. Fox complimented him publicly on this second triumph, he also having been the mover of the repeal of the Stamp-act. In short, he stands in the highest light, and all his fame is unsullied by the slightest suspicion of interested or factious motives in his conduct.*

It would be idle in me, who profess want of penetration or intuition into futurity, to tell you what I think will happen; in truth, I could not tell you, if I would, what I foresee. The public certainly expects some sudden change. I neither do, nor wish it. At present,

by preventing a happy reconciliation with that country, to frustrate the earnest desire graciously expressed by his Majesty to restore the blessings of public tranquillity." The arguments urged in support of the motion were nearly the same as those employed on the former occasion: Lord North said, it would be his duty, if the House should withdraw their confidence from him, to deliver up to his Sovereign the seal of his office, and say to him, “I have served your Majesty with diligence, zeal, and fidelity; but your Parliament have withdrawn from me their confidence; let me therefore resign those employments, which I ought to keep only as long as I can be serviceable to your Majesty and to the country." Mr. Wallace, the Attorney-General, acknowledged that nothing but peace with America could restore the country to its former state of splendour, and said that, considering a truce with America the best means of obtaining that object, he intended to move for leave to bring in a bill to enable Ministers to treat upon that ground, and would therefore move that the debate be adjourned till that day fortnight. Mr. Pitt, in a brilliant speech, censured the idea of a truce, and stigmatized the motion of adjournment as a manoeuvre to gain a few votes. At half-past one the House divided on the motion of adjournment, which was negatived by a majority of 234 to 215. The Government, being thus left in a minority of nineteen, suffered General Conway's motion to pass without a division. The General then moved an address to the King nearly in the words of the motion; which was presented to his Majesty by the whole House.-ED.

"The day after the motion passed," says Sir Samuel Romilly, "there were rejoicings in several places; the bells were rung and a great