Yes, again; I use a bit of alum half as big as my nail, once or twice a-week, and let it dissolve in my mouth. I should not think that using it oftener could be prejudicial. You should inquire; but as you are in more hurry than I am, you should certainly use it oftener than I do. I wish I could cure my lady Ailesbury, too. Ice-water has astonishing effect on my stomach, and removes all pain like a charm. Pray, though the one's teeth may not be so white as formerly, nor t'other look in perfect health, let the Danish king see such good specimens of the last age-though, by what I hear, he likes nothing but the very present age. However, sure you will both come and look at him: not that I believe he is a jot better than the apprentices that flirt to Epsom in a Tim-whisky; but I want to meet you in town.

I don't very well know what I write, for I hear a caravan on my stairs, that are come to see the house; Margaret is chattering, and the dogs barking; and this I call retirement! and yet I think it preferable to your visit at Becket. Adieu! Let me know something more of your motions before you go to Ireland, which I think a strange journey, and better compounded for: and when I see you in town I will settle with you another visit to Park-place.

Yours ever.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, August 13, 1768.

I WONDERED, indeed, what was become of you, as I had offered myself to you so long ago, and you did not accept my bill; and now it is payable at such short notice, that as I cannot find Mr. Chute, nor know where he is, whether at your brother's or the Vine, I think I had better defer my visit till the autumn, when you say you will be less hurried, and more at leisure. I believe I shall go to Ragley the beginning of September, and possibly on to lord Strafford's, and therefore I may call on you, if it will not be inconvenient to you, on my return.

I came to town to see the Danish king. He is as diminutive

1 Christian the Seventh, king of Denmark, who had married, on the 8th November 1766, the princess Caroline Matilda, a posthumous child of Frederick prince of Wales, and sister of his majesty king George III. [Ed.]

as if he came out of a kernel in the Fairy Tales. He is not ill made, nor weakly made, though so small; and, though his face. is pale and delicate, it is not at all ugly, yet has a strong cast of the late king, and enough of the late prince of **** to put one upon one's guard not to be prejudiced in his favour. Still he has more royalty than folly in his air; and, considering he is, not twenty, is as well as one expects any king in a puppet-show to be. He arrived on Thursday, supped and lay at St. James's. Yesterday evening, he was at the queen's and Carlton-house, and at night at lady Hertford's assembly. He only takes the title of altesse, an absurd mezzotermine, but acts king exceedingly; struts in the circle like a cock-sparrow, and does the honours of himself very civilly. There is a favourite, too, who seems a complete jackanapes; a young fellow called Holke, well enough in his figure, and about three-and-twenty, but who will be tumbled down long before he is prepared for it. Bernsdorff, a Hanoverian, his first minister, is a decent sensible man; I pity him, though I suppose he is envied. From lady Hertford's they went to Ranelagh, and to-night go to the opera. There had like to have been an untoward circumstance: the last new opera in the spring, which was exceedingly pretty, was called I Viaggiatori Ridicoli, and they were on the point of acting it for this royal traveller.

I am sure you are not sorry that Cornwallis is archbishop. He is no hypocrite, time-server, nor high-priest. I little expected so good a choice. Adieu!

Yours ever.

TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.

Strawberry-hill, Aug. 16, 1768.

As you have been so good, my dear lord, as twice to take notice of my letter, I am bound in conscience and gratitude to try to amuse you with any thing new. A royal visitor, quite fresh, is a real curiosity-by the reception of him, I do not think many more of the breed will come hither. He came from Dover in hackney-chaises; for somehow or other the master of the horse happened to be in Lincolnshire; and the king's coaches

having received no orders, were too good subjects to go and fetch a stranger king of their own heads. However, as his Danish majesty travels to improve himself for the good of his people, he will go back extremely enlightened in the arts of government and morality, by having learned that crowned heads may be reduced to ride in a hired chaise.

By another mistake, king George happened to go to Richmond about an hour before king Christiern arrived in London. An hour is exceedingly long; and the distance to Richmond still longer so, with all the dispatch that could possibly be made, king George could not get back to his capital till next day at noon. Then, as the road from his closet at St. James's to the king of Denmark's apartment on t'other side of the palace is about thirty miles, which posterity, having no conception of the prodigious extent and magnificence of St. James's, will never believe, it was half an hour after three before his Danish majesty's courier could go, and return to let him know that his good brother and ally was leaving the palace in which they both were, in order to receive him at the queen's palace, which you know is about a million of snail's paces from St. James's. Notwithstanding these difficulties and unavoidable delays, Woden, Thor, Friga, and all the gods that watch over the kings of the North, did bring these two invincible monarchs to each others' embraces about half an hour after five the same evening. They passed an hour in projecting a family compact that will regulate the destiny of Europe to latest posterity: and then, the Fates so willing it, the British prince departed for Richmond, and the Danish potentate repaired to the widowed mansion of his royal motherin-law, where he poured forth the fullness of his heart in praises on the lovely bride she had bestowed on him, from whom nothing but the benefit of his subjects could ever have torn him.—————Aud here let calumny blush, who has aspersed so chaste and faithful a monarch with low amours; pretending that he has raised to the honour of a seat in his sublime council, an artisan of Hamburgh, known only by repairing the soles of buskins, because that mechanic would, on no other terms, consent to his fair daughter's being honoured with majestic embraces. So victorious over his passions is this young Scipio from the Pole, that though on Shooter's-hill he fell into an ambush laid for him by an illustrious countess, of blood-royal herself, his majesty after

descending from his car, and courteously greeting her, again mounted his vehicle, without being one moment eclipsed from the eyes of the surrounding multitude.-Oh! merey on me! I am out of breath-Pray let me descend from my stilts, or I shall send you as fustian and tedious a history as that of Henry II.—Well, then, this great king is a very little one; not ugly, nor ill-made. He has the sublime strut of his grandfather, or of a cock-sparrow; and the divine white eyes of all his family by the mother's side. His curiosity seems to have consisted in the original plan of travelling, for I cannot say he takes notice of any thing in particular. His manner is cold and dignified, but very civil and gracious and proper. The mob adore him and huzza him; and so they did the first instant. At present they begin to know why-for he flings money to them out of his windows: and by the end of the week I do not doubt but they will want to choose him for Middlesex. His court is extremely well ordered; for they bow as low to him at every word as if his name was Sultan Amurat. You would take his first minister for only the first of his slaves. I hope this example, which they have been so good as to exhibit at the opera, will contribute to civilise us. There is, indeed, a pert young gentleman, who a little discomposes this august ceremonial. His name is count Holke, his age three-andtwenty and his post answers to one that we had formerly in England many years ago, and which in our tongue was called the lord high favourite. Before the Danish monarchs became absolute, the most refractory of that country used to write libels, called North Danes, against this great officer; but that practice has long since ceased. Count Holke seems rather proud of his favour thau shy of displaying it.

I hope, my dear lord, you will be content with my Danish politics, for I trouble myself with no other. There is a long history about the baron de Bottetourt, and sir Jeffery Amherst, who has resigned his regiment; but it is nothing to me, nor do I care a straw about it. I am deep in the anecdotes of the new court and if you want to know more of count Holke or count Molke, or the grand vizier Bernsdorff, or mynheer Schimmelman, apply to me, and you shall be satisfied-But what do I talk of? You will see them yourself. Minerva in the shape of

1 Lord Lyttelton's. [Ed.]

count Bernsdorff, or out of all shape in the person of the duchess of ***, is to conduct Telemachus to York races; for can a monarch be perfectly accomplished in the mysteries of king-craft, as our Solomon James I. called it, unless he is initiated in the arts of jockeyship? When this northern star travels towards its own sphere, lord Hertford will go to Ragley. I shall go with him; and, if I can avoid running foul of the magi that will be thronging from all parts to worship that star, I will endeavour to call at Wentworth castle for a day or two, if it will not be inconvenient, I should think it would be about the second week in September, but your lordship shall hear again, unless you should forbid me, who am ever Lady Strafford's and your lordship's

Most faithful humble servant.

TO THE REV. MR. COLE.

Strawberry-hill, Aug. 30, 1768.

You are always heaping so many kindnesses on me, dear sir, that I think I must break off all acquaintance with you, unless I can find some way of returning them. The print of the countess of Exeter is the greatest present to me in the world. I have been trying for years to no purpose to get one. Reynolds the painter promised to beg one for me of a person he knows, but I have never had it. I wanted it for four different purposes. 1. As a grandmother (in law, by the Cranes and Allingtons): 2. for my collection of heads: 3. for the volumes of prints after pieces in my collection: and, above all, for my collection of Faithornes, which, though so fine, wanted such a capital print: and to this last I have preferred it. I give you unbounded thanks for it: and yet I feel exceedingly ashamed to rob you. The print of Jane Shore I had: but as I have such various uses for prints I easily bestowed it. It is inserted in my anecdotes, where her picture is mentioned.

Thank you, too, for all your notices. I intend next summer to set about the last volume of my Anecdotes, and to make still further additions to my former volumes, in which these notes will find their place. I am going to reprint all my pieces together, and, to my shame be it spoken, find they will at least make two large