To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Arlington-street, July 31, 1767.

I FIND one must cast you into debt, if one has a mind to hear of you. You would drop one with all your heart, if one would let you alone. Did not you talk of passing by Strawberry in June, on a visit to the bishop? I did not summon you, because I have not been sure of my own motions for two days together for these three months. At last all is subsided; the administration will go on pretty much as it was, with Mr. Conway for part of it. The fools and the rogues, or, if you like proper names, the Rockinghams and the Grenvilles, have bungled their own game, quarrelled, and thrown it away.

Where are you? What are you doing? Where are you going or staying? I shall trip to Paris in about a fortnight, for a month or six weeks. Indeed, I have had such a loss in poor lady Suffolk, that my autumns at Strawberry will suffer exceedingly, and will not be repaired by my lord Buckingham. I have been in pain, too, and am not yet quite easy about my brother, who is in a bad state of health. Have you waded through or into lord Lyttelton? How dull one may be, if one will but take pains for six or seven-and-twenty years together! Except one day's gout, which I cured with the bootikins, I have been quite well since I saw you: nay, with a microscope you would perceive I am fatter. Mr. Hawkins saw it with his naked eye, and told me it was common for lean people to grow fat when they grow old. I am afraid the latter is more certain than the former, and I submit to it with a good grace. There is no keeping off age by sticking roses and sweet peas in one's hair, as miss Chudleigh does still.

If you are not totally abandoned, you will send me a line before I go. The Clive has been desperately nervous, but I

1 "The History of the Life of King Henry the Second, and of the Age in which he lived," by George lord Lyttelton, 4to., London, 1767, &c. 4 vols. 4to. It was of this nobleman and his work that Dr. Johnson remarked, "that he was thirty years in preparing his History, and that he employed another man to point it for him, as if another man could point it better than himself.” [Ed.]

have convinced her it did not become her, and she has recovered her rubicundity. Adieu!

Yours ever.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Friday, Aug. 7, 1767.

As I am turned knight-errant, and going again in search of my old fairy, I will certainly transport your enchanted casket, and will endeavour to procure some talisman, that may secrete it from the eyes of those unheroic harpies, the officers of the custom-house. You must take care to let me have it before to-morrow se'nnight.

The house at Twickenham, with which you fell in love, is still unmarried; but they ask a hundred and thirty pounds a-year for it. If they asked one hundred and thirty thousand pounds for it, perhaps my lord Clive might snap it up; but that not being the case, I don't doubt but it will fall, and I flatter myself that you and it may meet at last upon reasonable terms. That of general Trapaud is to be had at fifty pounds a-year, but with a fine on entrance of five hundred pounds. As I propose to return by the beginning of October, perhaps I may see you, and then you may review both. Since the loss of poor lady Suffolk, I am more desirous than ever of having you in my neighbourhood, as I have not a rational acquaintance left. Adieu !

Yours ever.

DEAR SIR,

TO THE REV. MR. COLE.

Arlington-street, October 21, 1767.

It is an age since we have had any correspondence. My long and dangerous illness last year, with my journey to Bath; my long attendance in parliament all winter, spring, and to the beginning of summer; and my journey to France since, from whence I returned but last week, prevented my asking the pleasure of seeing you at Strawberry-hill.

I wish to hear that you have enjoyed your health, and shall be glad of any news of you. The season is too late, and the parliament too near opening, for me to propose a winter journey to you. If you should happen to think at all of London, I trust you would do me the favour to call on me. In short, this is only a letter of inquiry after you, and to show you that I am always

Most truly yours.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Strawberry-hill, Sunday, Nov. 1, 1767.

THE house is taken, that you wot of, but I believe you may have general Trapaud's for fifty pounds a year, and a fine of two hundred and fifty, which is less by half, look you, than you was told at first. A jury of matrons, composed of lady Frances, my dame Bramston, lady Pembroke, and lady Carberry, and the merry Catholic lady Brown, have sat upon it, and decide that you should take it. But you must come and treat in person, and may hold the congress here. I hear lord Guildford is much better, so that the exchequer will still find you in funds. You will not dislike to hear, shall you, that Mr. Conway does not take the appointments of secretary of state. If it grows the fashion to give up above five thousand pounds a year, this ministry will last for ever, for I do not think the opposition will struggle for places without salaries. If my lord Ligonier does not go to heaven, or sir Robert Rich to the devil soon, our general will run considerably in debt; but he had better be too poor than too rich. I would not have him die like old Pulteney, loaded with the spoils of other families and the crimes of his own. Adieu! I will not write to you any more, so you may as well come.

Yours ever.

TO THE REV. MR. COLE.

Strawberry-hill, Dec. 19, 1767.

You are now I reckon settled in your new habitation: I would not interrupt you in your journeyings, dear sir, but am not at all pleased that you are seated so little to your mind; and yet I think you will stay there. Cambridge and Ely are neighbourhoods to your taste, and if you do not again shift your quarters, I shall make them and you a visit: Ely I have never seen. I could have wished that you had preferred this part of the world; and yet, I trust, I shall see you here oftener than I have done of late. This, to my great satisfaction, is my last session of parliament, to which, and to politics, I shall ever bid adieu !

I did not go to Paris for my health, though I found the journey and the sea-sickness, which I had never experienced before, contributed to it greatly. I have not been so well for some years as I am at present, and if I continue to plump up as I do at present, I do not know but by the time we may meet, whether you may not discover, without a microscope, that I am really fatter. I went to make a visit to my dear old blind woman, and to see some things I could not see in winter.

2

For the Catholic religion, I think it very consumptive. With a little patience, if Whitfield, Wesley, my lady Huntingdon, and that rogue Madan live, I do not doubt but we shall have something very like it here. And yet I had rather live at the end of a tawdry religion, than at the beginning; which is always more stern and hypocritic.

I shall be very glad to see your laborious work of the maps; you are indefatigable, I know: I think mapping would try my patience more than any thing.

My Richard the Third will go to press this week, and you shall have one of the first copies, which I think will be in about a month, if you will tell me how to convey it: direct to Arlington-street. Mr. Gray went to Cambridge yesterday se'nnight: I wait for some papers from him for my purpose.

1 Mr. Cole had lately removed from Blecheley, Bucks, to Waterbeach, near Cambridge. [Or.]

2 Madame du Deffand. [Or.]

I grieve for your sufferings by the inundation; but you are not only an hermit, but, what is better, a real philosopher.. Let me hear from you soon.

Yours ever.

DEAR SIR,

TO THE REV. MR. COLE.

Arlington-street, Feb. 1, 1768.

I have waited for the impression of my Richard, to send you the whole parcel together. This moment I have conveyed to Mr. Cartwright a large bundle for you, containing Richard the Third, the four volumes of the new edition of the Anecdotes, and six prints for your relation Tuer. You will find his head very small but the original was too inconsiderable to allow it to be larger. I have sent you no Patagonèans :2 for they are out of print: I have only my own copy, and could not get another. Pray tell me how, or what you heard of it and tell me sincerely, for I did not know it had made any noise.

I shall be much obliged to you for the extract relating to the Academy of which a Walpole was president. I doubt if he was of our branch; and rather think he was of the younger and Roman Catholic branch.

Are you reconciled to your new habitation? Don't you find it too damp? and if you do, don't deceive yourself, and try to surmount it, but remove immediately. Health is the most important of all considerations. Adieu! dear sir,

Yours ever.

1 "Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third, by Mr. Horace Walpole," London 1768, 4to. Two editions of this work, which occasioned a good deal of historical controversy, were published during the year. [Ed.]

2 "An account of the Giants lately discovered; in a Letter to a Friend in the Country," London 1766, 8vo. It was afterwards translated into French by the Chevalier Redmond, an Irish officer in the French service. [Ed.]