[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]
Lord Frederick Cavendish is returned from France. He confirms and adds to the amiable accounts we have received of the Duc d'Aiguillon's behaviour to our prisoners. You yourself, the pattern of attentions and tenderness, could not refine on what he has done both in good-nature and good-breeding: he even forbad any ringing of bells or rejoicings wherever they passed—but how your representative blood will curdle when you hear of the absurdity of one of your countrymen: the night after the massacre at St. Cas, the Duc d'Aiguillon gave a magnificent supper of eighty covers to our prisoners—a Colonel Lambert got up at the bottom of the table, and, asking for a bumper, called out to the Duc, "My Lord Duke, here's the Roy de Franse!" You must put all the English you can crowd into the accent. My Lord Duke was so confounded at this preposterous compliment, which it was impossible for him to return, that he absolutely sank back into his chair and could not utter a syllable: our own people did not seem to feel more.
[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]
Well! and so you think we are undone!—not at all; if folly and extravagance are symptoms of a nation's being at the height of their glory, as after-observers pretend that they are forerunners of its ruin, we never were in a more flourishing situation. My Lord Rockingham and my nephew Lord Orford have made a match of five hundred pounds, between five turkeys and five geese, to run from Norwich to London. Don't you believe in the transmigration of souls? And are you not convinced that this race is between Marquis Sardanapalus and Earl Heliogabalus? And don't you pity the poor Asiatics and Italians who comforted themselves, on their resurrection, with their being geese and turkeys?
[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]
Here's another symptom of our glory! The Irish Speaker, Mr. Ponsonby, has been reposing himself at Newmarket. George Selwyn, seeing him toss about bank-bills at the hazard-table, said, "How easily the Speaker passes the money-bills!"
[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]
You would be more diverted with a Mrs. Holman, whose passion is keeping an assembly, and inviting literally everybody to it. She goes to the drawing-room to watch for sneezes; whips out a curtsy, and then sends next morning to know how your cold does, and to desire your company next Thursday.
[Sidenote: Horace Walpole]
For my own part, I comfort myself with the humane reflection of the Irishman in the ship that was on fire—I am but a passenger! If I were not so indolent, I think I should rather put in practice the late Duchess of Bolton's geographical resolution of going to China, when Whiston told her the world would be burnt in three years. Have you any philosophy? Tell me what you think.