LONDON, New-year's Day, 1759
MY DEAR FRIEND: 'Molti e felici', and I have done upon that subject, one truth being fair, upon the most lying day in the whole year.
I have now before me your last letter of the 21st December, which I am glad to find is a bill of health: but, however, do not presume too much upon it, but obey and honor your physician, "that thy days may be long in the land."
Since my last, I have heard nothing more concerning the ribband; but I take it for granted it will be disposed of soon. By the way, upon reflection, I am not sure that anybody but a knight can, according to form, be employed to make a knight. I remember that Sir Clement Cotterel was sent to Holland, to dub the late Prince of Orange, only because he was a knight himself; and I know that the proxies of knights, who cannot attend their own installations, must always be knights. This did not occur to me before, and perhaps will not to the person who was to recommend you: I am sure I will not stir it; and I only mention it now, that you may be in all events prepared for the disappointment, if it should happen.
G——-is exceedingly flattered with your account, that three thousand of his countrymen; all as little as himself, should be thought a sufficient guard upon three-and-twenty thousand of all the nations in Europe; not that he thinks himself, by any means, a little man, for when he would describe a tall handsome man, he raises himself up at least half an inch to represent him.
The private news from Hamburg is, that his Majesty's Resident there is woundily in love with Madame———-; if this be true, God send him, rather than her, a good DELIVERY! She must be 'etrennee' at this season, and therefore I think you should be so too: so draw upon me as soon as you please, for one hundred pounds.
Here is nothing new, except the unanimity with which the parliament gives away a dozen of millions sterling; and the unanimity of the public is as great in approving of it, which has stifled the usual political and polemical argumentations.
Cardinal Bernis's disgrace is as sudden, and hitherto as little understood, as his elevation was. I have seen his poems, printed at Paris, not by a friend, I dare say; and to judge by them, I humbly conceive his Eminency is a p——-y. I will say nothing of that excellent headpiece that made him and unmade him in the same month, except O KING, LIVE FOREVER.
Good-night to you, whoever you pass it with.
LONDON, February 2, 1759
MY DEAR FRIEND: I am now (what I have very seldom been) two letters in your debt: the reason was, that my head, like many other heads, has frequently taken a wrong turn; in which case, writing is painful to me, and therefore cannot be very pleasant to my readers.
I wish you would (while you have so good an opportunity as you have at Hamburg) make yourself perfectly master of that dull but very useful knowledge, the course of exchange, and the causes of its almost perpetual variations; the value and relation of different coins, the specie, the banco, usances, agio, and a thousand other particulars. You may with ease learn, and you will be very glad when you have learned them; for, in your business, that sort of knowledge will often prove necessary.
I hear nothing more of Prince Ferdinand's garter: that he will have one is very certain; but when, I believe, is very uncertain; all the other postulants wanting to be dubbed at the same time, which cannot be, as there is not ribband enough for them.
If the Russians move in time, and in earnest, there will be an end of our hopes and of our armies in Germany: three such mill-stones as Russia, France, and Austria, must, sooner or later, in the course of the year, grind his Prussian Majesty down to a mere MARGRAVE of Brandenburg. But I have always some hopes of a change under a 'Gunarchy'—[Derived from the Greek word 'Iuvn' a woman, and means female government]—where whim and humor commonly prevail, reason very seldom, and then only by a lucky mistake.
I expect the incomparable fair one of Hamburg, that prodigy of beauty, and paragon of good sense, who has enslaved your mind, and inflamed your heart. If she is as well 'etrennee' as you say she shall, you will be soon out of her chains; for I have, by long experience, found women to be like Telephus's spear, if one end kills, the other cures.
There never was so quiet, nor so silent a session of parliament as the present; Mr. Pitt declares only what he would have them do, and they do it 'nemine contradicente', Mr. Viner only expected.
Duchess Hamilton is to be married, to-morrow, to Colonel Campbell, the son of General Campbell, who will some day or other be Duke of Argyle, and have the estate. She refused the Duke of B——-r for him.
Here is a report, but I believe a very groundless one, that your old acquaintance, the fair Madame C———e, is run away from her husband, with a jeweler, that 'etrennes' her, and is come over here; but I dare say it is some mistake, or perhaps a lie. Adieu! God bless you!
LONDON, February 27, 1759
MY DEAR FRIEND: In your last letter, of the 7th, you accuse me, most unjustly, of being in arrears in my correspondence; whereas, if our epistolary accounts were fairly liquidated, I believe you would be brought in considerably debtor. I do not see how any of my letters to you can miscarry, unless your office-packet miscarries too, for I always send them to the office. Moreover, I might have a justifiable excuse for writing to you seldomer than usual, for to be sure there never was a period of time, in the middle of a winter, and the parliament sitting, that supplied so little matter for a letter. Near twelve millions have been granted this year, not only 'nemine contradicente', but, 'nemine quicquid dicente'. The proper officers bring in the estimates; it is taken for granted that they are necessary and frugal; the members go to dinner; and leave Mr. West and Mr. Martin to do the rest.
I presume you have seen the little poem of the "Country Lass," by Soame Jenyns, for it was in the "Chronicle"; as was also an answer to it, from the "Monitor." They are neither of them bad performances; the first is the neatest, and the plan of the second has the most invention. I send you none of those 'pieces volantes' in my letters, because they are all printed in one or other of the newspapers, particularly in the "Chronicles"; and I suppose that you and others have all those papers among you at Hamburg; in which case it would be only putting you to the unnecessary expense of double postage.
I find you are sanguine about the King of Prussia this year; I allow his army will be what you say; but what will that be 'vis-a-vis' French, Austrians, Imperialists, Swedes, and Russians, who must amount to more than double that number? Were the inequality less, I would allow for the King of Prussia's being so much 'ipse agmen' as pretty nearly to balance the account. In war, numbers are generally my omens; and, I confess, that in Germany they seem not happy ones this year. In America. I think, we are sure of success, and great success; but how we shall be able to strike a balance, as they call it, between good success there, and ill success upon the continent, so as to come at a peace; is more than I can discover.
Lady Chesterfield makes you her compliments, and thanks you for your offer; but declines troubling you, being discouraged by the ill success of Madame Munchausen's and Miss Chetwynd's commissions, the former for beef, and the latter for gloves; neither of which have yet been executed, to the dissatisfaction of both. Adieu.
LONDON, March 16, 1759