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with him in a bundle, and threatened the servants he would murder them if they mentioned it to his wife. He left a letter for her, which the duke of Marlborough was afraid to deliver to her, and opened. It desired she would not write to him, as it would make him completely mad. He desires the king would preserve his rank of major-general, as some time or other he may serve again. Here is an indifferent epigram made on the occasion: I send it you, though I wonder any body could think it a subject to joke upon.

As Pembroke a horseman by most is accounted,

'Tis not strange that his lordship a Hunter has mounted.

Adieu!
Yours ever.

MADAM,

TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY.

Strawberry-hill, March 5, 1762.

One of your slaves, a fine young officer, brought me two days ago a very pretty medal from your ladyship. Amidst all your triumphs you do not, I see, forget your English friends, and it makes me extremely happy. He pleased me still more, by assuring me that you return to England when the campaign opens. I can pay this news by none so good as by telling you that we talk of nothing but peace. We are equally ready to give law to the world, or peace. Martinico has not made us intractable. We and the new czar2 are the best sort of people upon earth I am sure, madam, you must adore him; he is willing to resign all his conquests, that you and Mr. Conway may be settled again at Park-place. My lord Chesterfield, with the despondence of an old man and the wit of a young one, thinks the French and Spaniards must make some attempt upon these islands, and is frightened lest we should not be so well prepared to repel invasions as to make them: he says, "What

1 The citadel of Port Royal in that island capitulated to general Monkton on the 4th February, 1762. [Ed.]

2 Peter III. ascended the throne of Russia on the death of his aunt, the empress Elizabeth, 5th January 1762. [Ed.]

will it avail us if we gain the whole world, and lose our own soul!'

I am here alone, madam, and know nothing to tell you. I came from town on Saturday for the worst cold I ever had in my life, and, what I care less to own even to myself, a cough. I hope lord Chesterfield will not speak more truth in what I have quoted, than in his assertion, that one need not cough if one did not please. It has pulled me extremely, and you may believe I do not look very plump, when I am more emaciated than usual. However, I have taken James's powder for four nights, and have found great benefit from it; and if miss Conway does not come back with soixante et douze quartiers, and the hauteur of a landgravine, I think I shall still be able to run down the precipices at Park-place with her-This is to be understood, supposing that we have any summer. Yesterday was the first moment that did not feel like Thule; not a glimpse of spring or green, except a miserable almond-tree, half opening one bud, like my lord P * * * 's eye.

It will be warmer, I hope, by the king's birthday, or the old ladies will catch their deaths. There is a court dress to be instituted (to thin the drawing-room)-stiff-bodied gowns and bare shoulders. What dreadful discoveries will be made both on fat and lean! I recommend you to the idea of Mrs. C * * * *, when half-stark; and I might fill the rest of my paper with such images, but your imagination will supply them; and you shall excuse me, though I leave this a short letter: but I wrote merely to thank your ladyship for the medal, and, as you perceive, have very little to say, besides that known and lasting truth, how much I am Mr. Conway's, and

Your ladyship's faithful humble servant.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, March 9, 1762.

I AM glad you have received my books safe, and are content with them. I have little idea of Mr. Bentley's; though his imagination is sufficiently Pindaric, nay obscure, his numbers are not apt to be so tuneful as to excuse his flights.

He should always give his wit, both in verse and prose, to somebody else to make up. If any of his things are printed at Dublin, let me have them; I have no quarrel with his talents. Your cousin's behaviour has been handsome, and so was his speech, which is printed in our papers. Advice is arrived to-day, that our troops have made good their landing at Martinico; I don't know any of the incidents yet.

You ask me for an epitaph for lord Cutts.1 I scratched out the following lines last night as I was going to bed; if they are not good enough, pray don't take them: they were written in a minute, and you are under no obligation to like them.

Late does the muse approach to Cutts's grave,
But ne'er the grateful muse forgets the brave:
He gave her subjects for th' immortal lyre,
And sought in idle hours the tuneful choir;
Skilful to mount by either path to fame,
And dear to memory by a double name.
Yet if ill known amid th' Aonian groves,
His shade a stranger and unnotic'd roves,
The dauntless chief a nobler band may join:
They never die, who conquer'd at the Boyne.

The last line intends to be popular in Ireland; but you must take care to be certain that he was at the battle of the Boyne; I conclude so; and it should be specified the year, when you erect the monument. The latter lines mean to own his having been but a moderate poet, and to cover that mediocrity under his valour; all which is true. Make the sculptor observe the stops.

I have not been at Strawberry above a month, nor ever was so long absent; but the weather has been cruelly cold and disagreeable. We have not had a single dry week since the beginning of September; a great variety of weather, all bad. Adieu! Yours ever.

1 Lord John Cutts, a brave English soldier, died at Dublin, 1707. His poems were published in 1687. [Ed.]

3

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, March 22, 1762.

You may fancy what you will, but the eyes of all the world are not fixed upon Ireland. Because you have a little virtue, and a lord lieutenant, that refuses four thousand pounds a year, and a chaplain of a lord lieutenant, that declines a huge bishoprick, and a secretary, whose eloquence can convince a nation of blunderers, you imagine that nothing is talked of but the castle of Dublin. In the first place, virtue may sound its own praises, but it never is praised; and, in the next place, there are other feats besides self-denials; and for eloquence, we overflow with it. Why, the single eloquence of Mr. Pitt, like an annihilated star, can shine many months after it has set. I tell you it has conquered Martinico. If you will not believe me, read the gazette, read Moncton's letter; there is more martial spirit in it than in half Thucydides, and in all the grand Cyrus. Do you think Demosthenes or Themistocles ever raised the Grecjan stocks two per cent. in four-and-twenty hours? I shall burn all my Greek and Latin books; they are histories of little people. The Romans never conquered the world, till they had conquered three parts of it, and were three hundred years about it; we subdue the globe in three campaigns; and a globe, let me tell you, as big again as it was in their days. Perhaps you may think me proud; but you don't know that I had some share in the reduction of Martinico; the express was brought by my godson, Mr. Horatio Gates;5 and I have a very good precedent for attributing some of the glory to myself: I have by me a love-letter, written during my father's administration, by a

The Irish House of Commons having voted an address to the king to increase the salary of the lord lieutenant, the earl of Halifax declined having any augmentation. [Or.]

2 Doctor Crane, chaplain to the earl of Halifax, had refused the bishoprick of Elphin. [Or.]

3 Mr. Hamilton. [Or.]

4 General Moncton's letter, containing an account of the capitulation of the Isle of Martinique, on the 4th February 1762, appeared in the London Gazette Extraordiaary, on the 23d March. [Ed.]

5 Major Gates, one of General Moncton's aides-de-camp. [Ed.]

journeyman tailor to my brother's second chambermaid; his offers were honourable; he proposed matrimony, and to better his terms, informed her of his pretensions to a place; they were founded on what he called, some services to the government. As the nymph could not read, she carried the epistle to the housekeeper to be deciphered, by which means it came into my hands. I enquired what were the merits of Mr. vice Crispin; was informed that he had made the suit of clothes for a figure of lord Marr, that was burned after the rebellion. I hope now you don't hold me too presumptuous for pluming myself on the reduction of Martinico. However, I shall not aspire to a post, nor to marry my lady Bute's Abigail. I only trust my services to you as a friend, and do not mean under your temperate administration to get the list of Irish pensions loaded with my name, though I am godfather to Mr. Horatio Gates.

The duchess of Grafton and the English have been miraculously preserved at Rome by being at loo, instead of going to a great concert, where the palace fell in, and killed ten persons and wounded several others. I shall send orders to have an altar dedicated in the capitol.

Pammio O. M.

Capitolino

Ob Annam Ducissam de Grafton

Merito Incolumem.

I tell you of it now, because I don't know whether it will be worth while to write another letter on purpose. Lord Albemarle takes up the victorious grenadiers at Martinico, and in six weeks will conquer the Havannah. Adieu!

Yours ever,

HORATIO.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, April 29, 1762.

I AM most absurdly glad to hear you are returned well and safe, of which I have at this moment received your account from Hankelow, where you talk of staying a week. However, not knowing the exact day of your departure, I direct this to Great

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