of the finest and most ancient monuments in the abbey should be removed, and begging, if it was removed, that he would bestow it on me, who would erect and preserve it here. After a fortnight's deliberation, the bishop sent me an answer, civil indeed, and commending my zeal for antiquity! but avowing the story under his own hand. He said, that at first they had taken Pembroke's tomb for a knight templar's. Observe, that not only the man who shows the tombs names it every day, but that there is a draught of it at large in Dart's Westminster; that upon discovering whose it was, he had been very unwilling to consent to the removal, and at last had obliged Wilton to engage to set it up within ten feet of where it stands at present. His lordship concluded with congratulating me on publishing learned authors at my press. I don't wonder that a man who thinks Lucan a learned author, should mistake a tomb in his own cathedral. If I had a mind to be angry, I could complain with reason; as, having paid forty pounds for ground for my mother's tomb, that the chapter of Westminster sell their church over and over again; the ancient monuments tumble upon one's head through their neglect, as one of them did, and killed a man at lady Elizabeth Percy's funeral; and they erect new waxen dolls of queen Elizabeth, &c., to draw visits and money from the mob. I hope all this history is applicable to some part or other of my letter; but letters you will have, and so I send you one, very like your own stories that you tell your daughter: There was a king, and he had three daughters, and they all went to see the tombs; and the youngest, who was in love with Aylmer de Valence, &c.

Thank you for your account of the battle; thank prince Ferdinand for giving you a very honourable post, which, in spite of his teeth and yours, proved a very safe one; and above all, thank prince Soubise, whom I love better than all the German princes in the universe. Peace, I think, we must have at last, if you beat the French, or at least hinder them from beating you, and afterwards starve them. Bussy's last last courier is expected; but as he may have a last last last courier, I trust no more to this than to all the others. He was complaining t'other day to Mr. Pitt of our haughtiness, and said it would drive the French to some desperate effort; "Thirty thousand men," continued he, "would embarrass you a little, I believe!" "Yes, truly," re

ཙ

plied Pitt," for I am so embarrassed with those we have already, I don't know what to do with them."

Adieu! Don't fancy that the more you scold, the more I will write it has answered three times, but the next cross word you give me shall put an end to our correspondence. Sir Horace Mann's father used to say, "Talk, Horace, you have been abroad:"You cry, "Write, Horace, you are at home." No, sir, you can beat a hundred and twenty thousand French, but you cannot get the better of me. I will not write such foolish letters as this every day, when I have nothing to say.

Yours as you behave.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Strawberry-hill, Aug. 20, 1761.

A FEW lines before you go, your resolutions are good, and give me great pleasure; bring them back unbroken; I have no mind to lose you; we have been acquainted these thirty years, and to give the devil his due, in all that time I never knew a bad, a false, a mean or ill-natured thing in the devil-but don't tell him I say so, especially as I cannot say the same of myself. I am now doing a dirty thing, flattering you to preface a commission. Dickey Bateman' has picked up a whole cloister-full of old chairs in Herefordshire. He bought them one by one, here and there in farm-houses, for three-and-sixpence, and a crown a-piece. They are of wood, the seats triangular, the backs, arms, and legs loaded with turnery. A thousand to one but there are plenty up and down Cheshire, too. If Mr. and Mrs. Wetenhall, as they ride or drive out, would now and then pick up such a chair, it would oblige me greatly. Take notice, no two need be of the same pattern.

Keep it as the secret of your life; but if your brother John addresses himself to me a day or two before the coronation, I can place him well to see the procession: when it is over, I will give you a particular reason why this must be such a mystery.

1 Richard Bateman, brother of lord viscount Bateman. He figures in sir C. H. Williams' Poems as 'Constant Dicky.' [Ed.]

I was extremely diverted t'other day with my mother's and my old milliner; she said she had a petition to me-" What is it, Mrs. Burton ?" "It is in behalf of two poor orphans." I began to feel for my purse. "What can I do for them, Mrs. Burton?" "Only if your honour would be so compassionate as to get them tickets for the coronation." I could not keep my countenance, and these distressed orphans are two and three and twenty: Did you ever hear a more melancholy case?

The queen is expected on Monday. I go to town on Sunday. Would these shows and your Irish journey were over, and neither of us a day the poorer!

I am expecting Mr. Chute to hold a chapter on the cabinet. A barge-load of niches, window-frames, and ribs, is arrived. The cloister is paving,. the privy garden making, painted glass adjusting to the windows on the back stairs: with so many irons in the fire, you may imagine I have not much time to write. I wish you a safe and pleasant voyage.

Yours faithfully.

TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.

Arlington-street, Tuesday morning.

MY DEAR LORD,

Nothing was ever equal to the bustle and uncertainty of the town for these three days. The queen was seen off the coast of Sussex on Saturday last, and is not arrived yet-nay, last night at ten o'clock it was neither certain when she landed, nor when she would be in town. I forgive history for knowing nothing, when so public an event as the arrival of a new queen is a mystery even at the very moment in St. James's-street. The messenger that brought the letter yesterday morning, said she arrived at half an hour after four at Harwich. This was immediately translated into landing, and notified in those words to the ministers. Six hours afterwards, it proved no such thing, and that she was only in Harwich-road; and they recollected that half an hour after four happens twice in twenty-four hours,

and the letter did not specify which of the twices it was. Well! the bridemaids whipped on their virginity; the new road and the parks were thronged; the guns were choaking with impatience to go off; and sir James Lowther, who was to pledge his majesty, was actually married to lady Mary Stuart.1 Five, six, seven, eight o'clock came, and no queen: she lay at Witham at lord Abercorn's, who was most tranquilly in town; and it is not certain even whether she will be composed enough to be in town to-night. She has been sick but half an hour; sung and played on the harpsichord all the voyage, and been cheerful the whole time. The coronation will now certainly not be put offso I shall have the pleasure of seeing you on the 15th. The weather is close and sultry; and, if the wedding is to-night, we shall all die.

They have made an admirable speech for the Tripoline ambassador-that he said he heard the king had sent his first eunuch to fetch the princess. I should think he meaned lord ***.

You will find the town over head and ears in disputes about rank, precedence, processions, entrées, &c. One point, that of the Irish peers, has been excellently liquidated: lord Halifax has stuck up a paper in the coffee-room at Arthur's, importing, "That his majesty, not having leisure to determine a point of such great consequence, permits for this time such Irish peers as shall be at the marriage to walk in the procession." Every body concludes those personages will understand this order, as it is drawn up in their own language; otherwise, it is not very clear how they are to walk to the marriage, if they are at it before they come to it.

Strawberry returns its duty and thanks for all your lordship's goodness to it, and, though it has not got its wedding-clothes yet, will be happy to see you. Lady Betty Mackenzie is the

Eldest daughter of the earl of Bute. Sir James Lowther succeeded to the Baronetcy on the death of Henry, third viscount Lonsdale, and was created baron Lowther of Lowther, and baron of Kendal, co. Cumberland, baron of Brugh, co. Westmoreland, and earl of Lonsdale 1784, all of which titles became extinct on his death without issue in 1802. But he was also created in 1797 Baron and Viscount Lowther of Whitehaven, co. Cumberland, with remainder to the heirs male of the Rev. Sir W. Lowther, bart., in which title he was succeeded by the present earl, son and heir of the said Sir William. [Ed.]

individual woman she was-she seems to have been gone three years, like the sultan in the Persian Tales, who popped his head into a tub of water, pulled it up again, and fancied he had been a dozen years in bondage in the interim. She is not altered in a tittle. Adieu, my dear lord!

Your most faithful servant.

Twenty minutes past three in the afternoon, not in the middle of the night.

Madame Charlotte is this instant arrived. The noise of coaches, chaises, horsemen, mob, that have been to see her pass through the parks, is so prodigious that I cannot distinguish the guns. I am going to be dressed, and before seven shall launch into the crowd. Pray for me!

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Arlington-street, Sept. 9, 1761.

THE date of my promise is now arrived, and I fulfil it— fulfil it with great satisfaction, for the queen is come; I have seen her, have been presented to her and may go back to Strawberry. For this fortnight I have lived upon the road between Twickenham and London: I came, grew impatient, returned; came again, still to no purpose. The yachts made the coast of Suffolk last Saturday, on Sunday entered the road of Harwich, and on Monday morning the king's chief eunuch, as the Tripoline ambassador calls lord A***, landed the princess. She lay that night at lord Abercorn's at Witham, the palace of silence; and yesterday at a quarter after three arrived at St. James's. In half an hour, one heard of nothing but proclamations of her beauty: every body was content, every body pleased. At seven, one went to court. The night was sultry. About ten, the procession began to move towards the chapel, and at eleven they all came up into the drawing-room. She looks very sensible, cheerful, and is remarkably genteel. Her

1 Lord Anson, who had the command of the squadron which conveyed the royal yacht. [Ed.]