hears it, calls for the Physician, and gives him a bowl, which she orders him to prescribe to the Count. The Doctor hesitates, doubts, begs to know the ingredients,-" Come," says her Majesty, "your suspicions are just-it is poison; but remember, it is a crime I want from you, not a lecture, go and obey my orders: my Captain of the guard and two soldiers shall accompany you, and see that you execute my command, and give no hint of my secret; go, I will have no reply:" the Physician submits, finds the prisoner in bed, his mistress sitting by. The Doctor feels his pulse, produces the bowl, sighs, and says, "My dear friend, I cannot cure your disorder, but I have a remedy here for myself," and swallows the poison.

Is not this entirely new? it would be a fine coup de théâtre, and yet would not do for a tragedy, for the Physician would become the hero of the piece, would efface the lovers; and yet the rest of the play could not be made to turn on him.

As all this will serve for a letter at any time, I will keep the rest of my paper for something that will not bear postponing.

20th.

Come, my letter shall go, though with only one new paragraph. Lord Weymouth has resigned, as well as Lord Gower. I believe that little faction flattered themselves that their separation would blow up Lord North, and yet I am persuaded that sheer cowardice has most share in Weymouth's part. There is such universal dissatisfaction, that when the crack is begun, the whole edifice perhaps may tumble, but where is the architect that can repair a single story? The nation stayed till everything was desperate before it would allow that a single tile was blown off.

1867. TO THE REV. WILLIAM COLE.

Berkeley Square, Nov. 16, 1779.

You ought not to accuse yourself only, when I have been as silent as you. Surely we have been friends too long to admit ceremony as a go-between. I have thought of writing to you several times, but found I had nothing worth telling you. I am rejoiced to hear your health has been better: mine has been worse the whole summer and autumn than ever it was without any positive distemper, and thence I conclude it is a failure in my constitution-of which, being a thing of course, we will say no more-nobody but a physician is bound to

hear what he cannot cure-and if we will pay for what we cannot expect, it is our own fault.

I have seen Dr. Lort, who seems pleased with becoming a limb of Canterbury. I heartily wish the mitre may not devolve before it has beamed substantially on him. In the mean time he will be delighted with ransacking the library at Lambeth; and, to do him justice, his ardour is literary, not interested.

I am much obliged to you, dear Sir, for taking the trouble of transcribing Mr. Tyson's 'Journal,' which is entertaining. But I am so ignorant as not to know where Hatfield Priory is.' The three heads I remember on the gate at Whitehall; there were five more. The whole demolished structure was transported to the Great Park at Windsor by the late Duke of Cumberland, who intended to re-edify it, but never did; and now I suppose

Its ruins ruined, as its place no more.

I did not know what was become of the heads, and am glad any are preserved. I should doubt there being the works of Torregiano. Pray who is Mr. Nichols, who has published the 'Alien Priories ;' there are half a dozen or more pretty views of French cathedrals. I cannot say that I found anything else in the book that amused me --but as you deal more in ancient lore than I do, perhaps you might be better pleased.

I am told there is a new History of Gloucestershire,' very large, but ill executed, by one Rudder-still I have sent for it, for Gloucestershire is a very historic country.

It was a wrong scent on which I employed you. The arms I have impaled were certainly not Boleyn's. You lament removal of friends-alas! dear Sir, when one lives to our age, one feels that in a higher degree than from their change of place! but one must not dilate those common moralities. You see by my date I have changed place myself. I am got into an excellent, comfortable, cheerful house; and as, from necessity and inclination, I live much more at home than I used to do, it is very agreeable to be so pleasantly lodged, and to be in a warm inn as one passes through the last vale. Adieu! Yours ever.

1 Hatfield Peverell in Essex. The three Hatfield heads were engraved by J. T. Smith.-CUNNINGHAM.

1868. TO THE COUNTESS OF OSSORY.

Berkeley Square, Nov. 21, 1779.

I AM Sorry, Madam, to inform you, if you have not heard it, that the troubles in Ireland ripen. An express came yesterday, that the independent army had invested the House of Commons, and forced the members to take an oath of voting for Free Trade and a short money bill. The mob, too, palliser'd the houses of the AttorneyGeneral Scott' and Sir Henry Cavendish, who had ventured to plead a little for the English Government. This is all I know yet, for I have been confined again these three days with the gout in my foot, and was not out of bed to-day till three o'clock.

Lord Weymouth has resigned, and quits his bureau to-morrow. This, I suppose, was what your Ladyship meant by saying you. heard the sheath was absolutely thrown away; if it is, I believe Lord Weymouth will run after it, for I think the sword will never be his weapon.

Nor can I admire any, who, after doing all the mischief they could, cry out Fire! That they will go to extremities I do not doubt-what principle should restrain them?

A few answers to your last and I have done, for I am a little in pain. I have not seen the Prologue and Epilogue to 'The Critic,' but am now very impatient, for I hear they are Mr. Fitzpatrick's, and will answer I shall admire them. If your Ladyship has copies, I beg you will let them be transcribed and sent to me incontinently.

The story you have heard of a Royal amour, I fancy, was founded on a letter that has made much noise, and was delivered by mistake to a wrong person. The circumstances are too numerous for a letter, and were only the gossiping of two girls, who did not expect to have their correspondence rehearsed to the Ladies of the Bedchamber.

La Signorina I have not seen, and, in truth, did not ask to see her. I love David too well, not to be peevish at an Abishag of eight years old.'

Should I hear anything before to-morrow night, it shall make a P.S., but I wrote to-day lest I should not be able to-morrow.

1 Afterwards Lord Chancellor Eldon.-CUNNINGHAM.

2 George Selwyn and his little pupil, Mademoiselle Fagniani.-CUNNINGHAM.

22nd, from my bed.

P.S. I have had a bad night, though I expected a most tranquil one, for, about eight in the evening, as Lady Aylesbury and Mrs. Damer were sitting with me, the door opened and entered General Conway. As the wind had been violent, I was comforting myself that it was contrary; but he had landed at Portsmouth the night before, after being blown to Plymouth. After his servants and baggage were embarked, the frigate was very near being lost.

I have seen nobody but him to-day, so cannot tell any more

news.

1869. TO SIR HORACE MANN.

Berkeley Square, Nov. 28, 1779.

I DID not forget you on the Parliament meeting, though you have not received proof of my recollection. Being ill in bed, and not able to write myself, I dictated a line to your nephew, to beg that, if anything very particular should happen on Thursday, the first day of the session, he would write to you the next day, which would have been my post-night. Your nephew was not in town, nor was expected till to-day; and, having the gout in both feet and knees, I continued in too much pain to write myself, or even to dictate: besides that, in that situation, I had learnt few or no circumstances of the debate, except that little or no fluctuation had happened in the quintessence of debates-numbers on the division. I remember a man of humour proposing that, for the convenienee of the greater part, the division should always precede the debate; that only they who liked to talk should stay and make their speeches, which he supposed never determined or altered the several votes: no compliment to oratory, and still less a panegyric on corruption and prejudice!

In fact, a very considerable defaleation from the standing majority had been expected. The inglorious and unprosperous events of the summer; the general discontent and dissatisfaction that are arisen; but, above all, the crack that has happened in the Administration itself by the resignations of Lord Gower and Lord Weymouth, which at least implied apprehension in them that the edifice was falling, and which, being timed at the very eve of Parliament, were certainly not intended to prop it; and it having been as artfully divulged, that endeavours had been made to terrify Lord North from his post, by assuring him he could not maintain it: such a concurrence of

untoward circumstances naturally suggested a vision of much diminution of the majority; and such a vision naturally is apt to realise it, by the caution of such prudent senators as love to proceed on sure ground, and absent themselves till the prospect is more clear.

Lord North, however, had courage to stand the issue of a battle; his troops were better disciplined than had been expected, and the Lords Gower and Weymouth found that nobody had been frightened but themselves. What the latter feared, no mortal can guess; for he is actually run away to Longleate, and no persuasions could retain him. The deserted would not impeach him for what they had co-operated in; and, if beaten, the victorious would have spared him for the merit of having opened a gate to their success. But enough of such a recreant!

The other deserter has not yet gone over to the enemy. He will wait, no doubt, till some new fact leads him to thinking it much more heinous than all that is past. In the mean time, to console themselves for the little mischief their flight has occasioned, their small squadron of friends affect to impute the bulk of the majority, on Thursday last, to the intemperance of the Amendment proposed by the Opposition to the Address. The vacancies are supplied by Lord Bathurst as President, and by Lord Hillsborough as Secretary of State. You must not expect, however, that the storm is quite dispersed. Disappointment is no composer to some minds.

Fortune has shown us some partiality. D'Estaing's fleet of twenty-two ships has been dispersed, and probably suffered considerably, by a terrible tempest that lasted for three days off Carolina. Thus, the West Indies are likely to be saved. The danger is, that this favourable event may reinvigorate our impracticable phrenzy of reconquering America; the most certain way of our not recovering it. Ireland is in great danger, if we apply our American ideas to it; but, alas! experience and misfortune have not yet operated as medicines!

That old meteor, Wilkes, has again risen above the horizon, when he had long seemed virtually extinct. The citizens, revolted from the Court on the late disgraces, have voted him into the post of Chamberlain of London, a place of fifteen hundred pounds a year. How Massaniello and Rienzi and Jack Cade would stare at seeing him sit down as comfortably as an Alderman of London !—If he should die of a surfeit of custard at last!

I had forgotten myself; but you see I am much better to-day. My pains are gone off, and I rose to-day at noon, after keeping my