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the pit, "Accordez vous, canaille!" Yet, to a man without ambition or interestedness, politicians are canaille. Nothing appears to me more ridiculous in my life than my having ever loved their squabbles, and that at an age when I loved better things, too! My poor neutrality, which thing I signed with all the world, subjects me, like other insignificant monarchs on parallel occasions, to affronts. On Thursday, I was summoned to princess E***'s loo. Loo she called it, politics it was. The second thing she said to me was, "How were you the two long days?" "Madam, I was only there the first." " And how did you vote?" "Madam, I went away." Upon my word that was carving well." Not a very pleasant apostrophe to one who certainly never was a time-server! Well, we sat down. She said, " I hear Wilkinson is turned out, and that sir Edward Winnington1 is to have his place; who is he?" addressing herself to me, who sat over against her. "He is the late Mr. Winnington's heir, madam." "Did you like that Winnington?" "I can't but say I did, madam." She shrugged up her shoulders, and continued; Winnington originally was a great Tory; what do you think he was when he died?"

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Madam, I believe what all people are in place." Pray, Mr. Montagu, do you perceive any thing rude or offensive in this? Hear then; she flew into the most outrageous passion, coloured like scarlet, and said, " None of your wit; I don't understand joking on those subjects; what do you think your father would have said if he had heard you say so? He would have murdered you, and you would have deserved it." I was quite confounded and amazed; it was impossible to explain myself across a loo table, as she is so deaf: there was no making a reply to a woman and a princess, and particularly for me, who have made it a rule when I must converse with royalties, to treat them with the greatest respect, since it is all the court they will ever have from me. I said to those on each side on me, "What can I do? I cannot explain myself now." Well, I held my peace, and so did she for a quarter of an hour. Then she began with me

1 Sir Edward Winnington, grandson of sir Francis Winnington, knight, of Stanford Court, in the county of Worcester, an eminent lawyer, and solicitor-general to king James the second, and son of Walpole's friend, Thomas Winnington, esq., one of the lords of the Treasury, was created a baronet, 15th February 1755. [Ed.]

again, examined me on the whole debate, and at last asked me directly, which I thought the best speaker, my father or Mr. Pitt. If possible, this was more distressing than her anger. I replied, it was impossible to compare two men so different; that I believed my father was more a man of business than Mr. Pitt. "Well, but Mr. Pitt's language?" "Madam," said I, "I have always been remarkable for admiring Mr. Pitt's language." At last, this unpleasant scene ended; but, as we were going away; I went close to her, and said, " Madam, I must beg leave to explain myself; your royal highness has seemed to be very angry with me, and I am sure I did not mean to offend you : all I intended to say was, that I supposed Tories were Whigs when they got places!" "Oh!" said she, "I am very much obliged to you, indeed I was very angry." Why she was angry, or what she thought I meaned, I do not know to this moment, unless she supposed that I would have hinted that the duke of Newcastle and the opposition were not men of consummate virtue, and had lost their places out of principle. The very reverse was at that time in my head, for I meaned Tories would be just as loyal as the Whigs, when they got any thing by it.

You will laugh at my distresses, and in truth they are a little serious; yet they almost put me out of humour. If your cousin realises his fair words to you, I shall be very good-humoured again. I am not so morose as to dislike my friends for being in place. Indeed, if they are in great place, my friendship goes to sleep like a paroli at Pharaoh, and does not wake again till their deal is over. Good night!

Yours ever.

DEAR SIR,

TO THE REV. MR. COLE.

Arlington-street, Dec. 23, 1762.

You are always abundantly kind to me, and pass my power of thanking you. You do nothing but give yourself trouble and me presents. My cousin Calthorp is a great rarity, and I think I ought, therefore, to return him to you, but that would not be treating him like a relation, or you like a friend. My ancestor's epitaph, too, was very agreable to me.

I have not been at Strawberry-hill these three weeks. My maid is ill there, and I have not been well myself with the same flying gout in my stomach and breast, of which you heard me complain a little in the summer. I am much persuaded to go to a warmer climate, which often disperses these unsettled complaints. I do not care for it, nor can determine till I see I grow worse: if I do go, I hope it will not be for long; and you shall certainly hear again before I set out.

Your's most sincerely.

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Strawberry-hill, February 28, 1763.

YOUR letter of the 19th seems to postpone your arrival rather than advance it; yet lady Ailesbury tells me that to her you talk of being here in ten days. I wish devoutly to see you, though I am not departing myself; but I am impatient to have your disagreeable function at an end, and to know that you enjoy yourself after such fatigues, dangers, and ill-requited services. For any public satisfaction you will receive in being at home, you must not expect much. Your mind was not formed to float on the surface of a mercenary world. My prayer (and my belief) is, that you may always prefer what you always have preferred, your integrity, to success. You will then laugh, as I do, at the attacks and malice of faction or ministers. I taste of both; but, as my health is recovered, and my mind does not reproach me, they will perhaps only give me an opportunity, which I should never have sought, of proving that I have some virtue-and it will not be proved in the way they probably expect. I have better evidence than by hanging out the tattered ensigns of patriotism. But this and a thousand other things I shall reserve for our meeting. Your brother has pressed me much to go with him, if he goes, to Paris. I take it very kindly, but have excused myself, though I have promised either to accompany him for a short time at first, or to go to him if he

The re-embarkation of the British troops from Flanders after the peace. [Or.]

2 As ambassador. [Or.]

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should have any particular occasion for me: but my resolution against ever appearing in any public light is unalterable. When I wish to live less and less in the world here, I cannot think of mounting a new stage at Paris. At this moment I am alone here, while every body is ballotting in the House of Commons. Sir John Philips proposed a commission of accounts, which has been converted into a select committee of 21, eligible by ballot. As the ministry is not predominant in the affections of mankind, some of them may find a jury elected that will not be quite so complaisant as the house is in general when their votes are given openly. As many may be glad of this opportunity, I shun it; for I should scorn to do any thing in secret, though I have some enemies that are not quite so generous.

You say you have seen the North Briton, in which I make a capital figure. Wilkes, the author, I hear, says, that if he had thought I should have taken it so well, he would have been damned before he would have written it—but I am not sore where I am not sore.

The theatre at Covent-garden has suffered more by riots than even Drury-lane. A footman of lord Dacre has been hanged for murdering the butler. George Selwyn had great hand in bringing him to confess it. That Selwyn should be a capital performer in a scene of that kind is not extraordinary: I tell it you for the strange coolness which the young fellow, who was but nineteen, expressed: as he was writing his confession," I

3 On Tuesday, 25th January 1763, there was a serious riot at Drury-lane, in consequence of the managers refusing admittance at the end of the third act of a play for half price; when the glass lustres were broken and thrown upon the stage, the benches torn up and the performance put a stop to. The same scene was threatened on the following evening, but was prevented by Garrick's consenting to "give admittance for half price after the third act," except during the first winter of a new pantomime.

At Covent-garden the redress demanded having been readily acceded, no disturbance took place on that occasion; but a more serious riot happened there on the 24th February, in consequence of a demand for full prices at the Opera of Artaxerxes. The mischief done was the greatest ever known on any occasion of the kind, the loss being estimated at not less than two thousand pounds. The rashness of the rioters, four of whom were committed to the gatehouse, was so great, that they cut away the wooden pillars between the boxes, so that if the insides of them had not been iron, the galleries must have fallen upon them and crushed them. [Ed.]

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murd" he stopped, and asked, "How do you spell murdered?"

Mr. Fox is much better than at the beginning of the winter; and both his health and power seem to promise a longer duration than people expected. Indeed, I think the latter is so established, that lord Bute would find it more difficult to remove him, than he did his predecessors, and may even feel the effects of the weight he has made over to him; for it is already obvious that lord Bute's levee is not the present path to fortune. Permanence is not the complexion of these times a distressful circumstance to the votaries of a court, but amusing to us spectators. Adieu !

Yours ever.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, March 29, 1763.

THOUGH you are a runaway, a fugitive, a thing without friendship or feeling, though you grow tired of your acquaintance in half the time you intended, I will not give you up I will >write to you once a quarter, just to keep up a connection that grace may catch at, if it ever proposes to visit you. This is my -plan, for I have little or nothing to tell you. The ministers only cut one another's throats, instead of ours. They growl over their prey like two curs over a bone, which neither can determine to quit; and the whelps in opposition are not strong enough to beat either away, though like the species, they will probably hunt the one that shall be worsted. The saddest dog of all, Wilkes, shews most spirit. The last North Briton is a master-piece of mischief. He has written a dedication, too, to an old play, the fall of Mortimer, that is wormwood; and he had the impudence t'other day to ask Dyson if he was going to the treasury; “Because,” said he, "a friend of mine has dedicated a play to lord Bute, and it is usual to give dedicators something; I wish you would put his lordship in mind of it." Lord and lady Pembroke are reconciled, and live again together. Mr. Hunter would have taken his daughter, too, but upon condition she should give back her settlement to lord Pembroke and her child she replied nobly, that she did not trouble herself about

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