ment. Saws and proverbs, formerly esteemed the quintessence of wisdom, are inverted; for instance, rats of old abandoned a sinking ship,-now they run into it. As we have chopped our old system to pieces and thrown it into the kettle to give it new life, be sure it will come out with fresh vigour and bloom; however, obstinate I wait for the echo. Let us see what is left, when we come to sue for, and do obtain peace. A map then, and a pen and ink, will decide who have been in the right.

I hope, and do not doubt, Madam, but your new Countess will be very happy. Lord Shelburne made an admirable husband to a wife, much less handsome, and apparently, for I did not know her, less agreeable. He I am sure will be out of luck if he is unfortunate, for I must do the Duchess of Bedford the justice to say, that a Spartan dame never launched more excellent wives than she has done.

This was only meant as an answer, and I will not swell it into more. I see one is to be kept upon the qui vive all the summer with reports and alarms true or false; but I have prepared myself by disbelieving every one till it has been contradicted backwards and forwards two or three times.

We have not arrived at a word of truth these four years, till by a new lie becoming necessary its predecessor is forgotten and suffered to appear stark naked.

1831. TO THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.

Strawberry Hill, July 24, 1779.

You will be tired of seeing my hand, Madam, yet it would be indecent neither to accept your kind invitation nor tell you why I do not. Yesterday I received notice from my attorney that the Master of the Rolls has, with epigrammatic despatch, heard my cause, and pronounced a decree in my favour. Surely the whip of the new driver, Lord Thurlow, has pervaded all the broad wheels of the law, and set them galloping. I must go to town on Monday, and get my money ready for payment,-not from impatience to enter on my premises, but though the French declare they are coming to burn London, bank-bills are still more combustible than houses, and should my banker's shop be reduced to ashes, I might have a mansion to pay for, and nothing to pay with. If both were consumed, at least I should not be in debt.

I will own fairly, too, that the moment is so huge, I do not care to stir. It is pretty certain that France, vociferous as her threats, and ready as her preparations, will await the decision of the empire of the sea. We have, I doubt, one prong less to our trident than she and Spain; yet I think the grapple will be tough. Were I Neptune or Æolus, or-I forget who was the classic God of sea-fights, or whether they ever deified any Twitcher after his reception into Olympus,—I should perhaps make a pretty impartial division of the damage, and lay it so heavy on both sides, that Madam the House of Bourbon should be glad to leave off playing with fire, and Madam Great Britain should learn to treat mediators with more civility. Every man John of the latter lady's boys are confidant of success, and when other arguments fail, cry, Providence has always saved us; which argument, I suppose, is built on this simple hypothesis, that God made Great Britain, and the Devil all the rest of the world. To be sure I heartily pray for victory; but I would not have it quite so sound as to turn our heads and encourage us to pawn our last fig-leaf. Obstinacy has brought us to the precipice; and after squandering America, we stake ourselves rather than own we have lost it; but I forget,-what is all this to my going next week or not to Ampthill? Why, this all, our all, is the reason I do not go. Public, private considerations fetter me. I am no hero, nor any of the fine things your Ladyship says of me, and yet I must stay and comfort those that are weaker than myself. Lady Aylesbury is impressed with a thousand terrors, and not without cause. I tremble myself lest Mr. Conway should have an opportunity of being romantic and defending a pebble,' because he has nothing else to defend; but dubit Deus his quoque finem. I have lived to see the rebels at Derby; and I am mighty apt to think that everything will end as I wish. I know no reason why I should be favoured with Fortune's smiles; but she takes fancies; and in gratitude and deference I have thrown myself entirely upon her. But two days ago, she delivered me from a deluge. There was a torrent of rain; all the pipes were stopped, and the inundation burst into six places of my house. The Gallery was overflowed, pictures and damask soaked, the Star-Chamber drowned, and the staircase was a cataract. I sent up all the servants, and in a quarter of an hour the waters ceased, and I dreamt that a rainbow rested on the battlements, and

1 Jersey-then menaced by the French, of which Conway was governor.CUNNINGHAM.

assured my castle should never be drowned again. Pray, Madam, learn my visions; they are very comfortable, and founded on gratitude, not presumption.

I have heard much of Mr. B.'s being a second Cosmo Gordon and a third Parson Bate. It is a worthy occupation for a man and a gentleman! but too contemptible to dwell on.

A card shall be left for Mr. Beresford, in Grosvenor Place, on Monday. My gout entered like love, but I assure you did not retreat like love, or at sixty-two I doubt the fit would have been longer.

1832. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Strawberry Hill, Aug. 4, 1779.

I EMPLOY a secretary, to spare one of my eyes, which is tormented with an inflammation. As it comes by fits, I impute it to my old enemy the gout; who, of all distempers, is the greatest harlequin. This charge is not made to avoid an unwillingness of owning that the breach may have been made by the general foe, old age; though its ally, the gout, may take advantage of the weak place.

I sent you a long letter by your nephew: it leaves me nothing to add but events, and of them there have been none, except the safe arrival of our great West Indian fleet, worth between two and three millions. I don't know why the fleets of Bourbon suffered it to pass quietly, unless to return the compliment of our not meddling with their Domingo fleet. We heard last week that Gibraltar was invested not more is confirmed than that great preparations are making in Spain for the siege. We, or at least I, do not know what numbers of the latter's ships have joined the French: they certainly out-number Sir Charles Hardy's squadron; yet so noble a navy as his we never set forth, and it will cost them destruction to master it. They threaten us mightily from Havre and St. Maloes; but we are prepared, and I think they will prefer cheaper laurels elsewhere.

This is but a negative description, and merely in compliance with your desire of frequent letters. Private news we have none, but what I have long been bidden to expect, the completion of the sale of the pictures at Houghton to the Czarina. The sum stipulated is forty or forty-five thousand pounds, I neither know nor care which; nor whether the picture-merchant ever receives the whole sum, which probably he will not do, as I hear it is to be discharged at

three payments—a miserable bargain for a mighty empress! Fresh lovers, and fresh, will perhaps intercept the second and third payments. Well! adieu to Houghton! about its mad master I shall never trouble myself more. From the moment he came into possession, he has undermined every act of my father that was within his reach, but, having none of that great man's sense or virtues, he could only lay wild hands on lands and houses; and, since he has stript Houghton of its glory, I do not care a straw what he does with the stone or the acres. The happiness my father entailed on this country has been thrown away in as distracted a manner, but his fame will not be injured by the insanity of any of his successors. We have paid a fine for having cut off the entail, but shall not so easily suffer a recovery.

General Conway is still in his little island, which I trust is too diminutive to be descried by an Armada. I do not desire to have him achieve an Iliad in a nut-shell.

You perceive my eye is better, but I must not use it much. Yesterday came an account of the conquest of St. Vincent by the French. The poor Caribs assisted them, and are revenged on us: I cannot blame them. How impolitic is injustice, when man cannot command fortune! I still cannot help conjecturing that France will prefer demolishing all our outworks to attempting invasion here, where we are so mightily prepared. We fear they will not engage Sir Charles Hardy, though superior in number; as he has at least thirty-eight such ships, and such able and tried captains in them, as they cannot match. By thus detaining all our force at home, distant quarters are half at their mercy. They themselves think America much disposed to return to us, and therefore will probably not hazard a defeat here, which would leave us time to treat with the Colonies. But I must not let my eye talk of politics. Good night!

1833. TO THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.

Aug. 7, 1779.

I HAVE had a double excuse for not having written to your Ladyship for above a week; a return of the gout in my eye, and the completion of the purchase of my house, for which I have been no fewer than three times in town since last Sunday. Fortune has

again smiled on me: I think myself most lucky to have paid my money; the house might be burnt, I obliged to buy it, and have nothing to pay for it at least I shall not be in debt for the ashes. Well! Fortune has smiled on more than an individual, by conducting home our West Indian fleet. Huffed, rebuffed, and driven off as she has been, she is likely to be our best ally. The rest, as ill-treated, are not so forgiving. Whether the French will come, is another matter: they certainly meditate it, and great destruction; they give out, to burn London. Lord North said publicly, at a large dinner at Lord Hertford's on Tuesday last, that he expected them in a week. Not having the Duchess of Bedford's shrewdness, I cannot discover cleverness in such a notification, unless he had bragged, too, that he had invited them. Still my mind does not misgive me, which is a comfortable resource, when one has not much grounds in reason. I take what precautions I can in my own affairs, and then resign myself to good fortune.

Your Ladyship will see Lord Grantham, and probably Lord Macartney. Our friends are returned on our hands from all quarters: would to God I were as sure of seeing Mr. Conway in safety! I do not desire to have him achieve an Iliad in a nut-shell. This I dare say to you, Madam, though not to him. Do not wonder, then, that forty or twenty miles nearer to news are important to me. If Sir Charles Hardy's navy does not beat one a third more numerous, and with little loss too, Jersey will be swallowed on the road to England. All that will remain to the few will be to cry, You cannot say we did it, though they do say so. This may sound small consolation; but weigh it against what we should feel if we had an empire lost, and all the lives and all the disgraces on our consciences, and then, Madam, is inculpability no douceur? Well! we must shut our eyes on all this at present, and defend our last stake, and not scold like the perverse Jews when the Temple totters. I could be amazed at many things, if I had leisure-as why, after stooping to beg pardon of the Congress, we rejected the mediation of Spain; why, after beseeching France not to dabble in America, we do not treat now, and save what we can, as any peace signed to-day would be preferable to what we shall possibly sign two months hence. But we have stridden from blunder to blunder, and, as at chess, when the game is deplorable, the king and the castle change places; the one is reduced to a corner, and the other, who is called rook, too, may not bring him back without being checkmated.