TO THE RIGHT HON. LADY HERVEY.1

MADAM,

Strawberry-hill, September 13, 1757.

AFTER all the trouble your ladyship has been so good as to take voluntarily, you will think it a little hard that I should presume to give you more; but it is a cause, madam, in which I know you feel, and I can suggest new motives to your ladyship's zeal. In short, madam, I am on the crisis of losing mademoiselle de l'Enclos's picture, or of getting both that and her letters to lady Sandwich. I enclose lord Sandwich's letter to me, which will explain the whole. Madame Greffini, I suppose, is madame Graphigny; whom some of your ladyship's friends, if not yourself, must know; and she might be of use, if she could be trusted not to detain so tempting a treasure as the letters. From the effects being sealed up, I have still hopes; greater, from the goodness your ladyship had in writing before. Don't wonder,

1

Lady Hervey was only daughter of brigadier-general Nicholas Lepel. She was maid of honour to queen Caroline, and was married in 1720 to John lord Hervey, eldest son of John earl of Bristol, by whom she had four sons and four daughters.Lord Hervey was vice-chamberlain and privy-seal to George II. and well known by his eloquence, writings, duel with Mr. Pulteney, and the satires of Pope. He died in 1744. Lady Hervey died of the gout in 1767.

madam, at my eagerness: besides a good quantity of natural impatience, I am now interested as an editor and printer. Think what pride it would give me to print original letters of Ninon at Strawberry-hill! If your ladyship knows any farther means of serving me, of serving yourself, good Mr. Welldone, as the widow Lackit says in Oroonoko, I need not doubt your employing them. Your ladyship and I are of a religion, with regard to certain saints, that inspires more zeal than such trifling temptations as persecution and faggots infuse into bigots of other sects. I think a cause like ours might communicate ardour even to my lady Stafford. If she will assist in recovering Notre Dame des Amours, I will add St.Raoul' to my calendar.

I am hers and your ladyship's

Most obedient and faithful humble servant.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

MY DEAR SIR,

Arlington-street, September 20.

I HAVE been roving about Hampshire with Mr. Chute, and did not receive your very kind note till yesterday, or I should certainly not have de

A favourite cat of lady Stafford's.

ferred a moment to thank you for it, and to express my great concern for miss Montagu's bad health. You do me justice when you reckon on my feeling most sincerely for you: but let me ask why you will not bring her to town? She might not only have more variety of assistance, but it would be some relief to you: it must be dreadful, with your tenderness and feeling, to have nobody to share and divert yonr uneasiness.

I did not, till on the road the day before yesterday, hear the catastrophe of poor sir John Bland, with the execrable villany, or, what our ancestors would have called, the humours of Taaffe. I am extremely sorry for Bland! he was very good-natured, and generous and well-bred; but never was such infatuation: I can call it by no term but flirting away his fortune and his life; he seemed to have no passion for play while he did it, nor sensibility when it ruined him; but I fear he had both! What judgments the good people in the city (I mean the good in their own style, monied) will construe upon White's, when two of the most remarkable members have dispatched themselves in nine months!

I shall be most sincerely glad to receive another letter to tell me that miss Montagu mends: you have both my most hearty wishes.

Yours ever.

TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.

MY DEAR LORD,

Strawberry-hill, October 11, 1757.

You will have seen or heard that the fleet is returned.' They have brought home nothing but one little island, which is a great deal more than I expected, having neither thought so despicably of France, or so considerably of ourselves, as to believe they were exposed to much damage. My joy for Mr. Conway's return is not at all lessened by the clamour on this disappointment. Had he been chief commander, I should be very sure the nothing he had done was all he could do. As he was under orders, I wait with patience to hear his general's vindication.

I hope the Yorkists have not knocked out your brains for living in a county. In my neighbourhood they have insulted the parliament in person. He called in the blues, instead of piquing himself on dying in his curule chair in the stable-yard at Ember-court. So entirely have we lost our spirit, that the standing army is forced to defend us against the people, when we endeavour to give them a militia, to save them from a standing army;

1 From the expedition against Rochfort,

2 Mr. Onslow, the speaker.

and that the representative of the parliament had rather owe his life to the guards than die in the cause of a militia. Sure Lenthall's ghost will come and pull him by the nose!

I hope you begin to cast a southward look, and that my lady's chickens and ducklings are old enough to go to a day-school, and will not want her any longer.

My lord Townshend and George3 are engaged in a paper-war against one another, about the militia. That bill, the suspension at Stade, and the late expedition, which has cost millions, will find us in amusements this winter. It is lucky, for I despair of the Opera. The Mattei has sent certificates to prove that she is stopped by an inundation. The certificates I suppose can swim. Adieu, my dear lord!

My lady's and your

Most faithful humble servant.

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Strawberry-hill, October 13, 1757.

IF

you have received mine of Tuesday, which I directed to Portsmouth, you will perceive how much I agree with you. I am charmed with

your

3 Afterwards marquis Townshend.