My Lord Denbigh is going to marry a fortune, I forget her name; my Lord Gower asked him how long the honey-moon would last? He replied, "Don't tell me of the honey-moon; it is harvest moon with me." Adieu!
VICTORY OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA AT LOWOSITZ—SINGULAR RACE—QUARREL OF THE PRETENDER WITH THE POPE.
TO SIR HORACE MANN.
STRAWBERRY HILL, Oct. 17, 1756.
Lentulus (I am going to tell you no old Roman tale; he is the King of Prussia's aid-de-camp) arrived yesterday, with ample confirmation of the victory in Bohemia.[1]—Are not you glad that we have got a victory that we can at least call Cousin? Between six and seven thousand Austrians were killed: eight Prussian squadrons sustained the acharnement, which is said to have been extreme, of thirty-two squadrons of Austrians: the pursuit lasted from Friday noon till Monday morning; both our countrymen, Brown and Keith, performed wonders—we seem to flourish much when transplanted to Germany—but Germans don't make good manure here! The Prussian King writes that both Brown and Piccolomini are too strongly intrenched to be attacked. His Majesty ran to this victory; not à la Molwitz. He affirms having found in the King of Poland's cabinet ample justification of his treatment of Saxony—should not one query whether he had not these proofs in his hands antecedent to the cabinet? The Dauphiness[2] is said to have flung herself at the King of France's feet and begged his protection for her father; that he promised "qu'il le rendroit au centuple au Roi de Prusse."
[Footnote 1: On the 1st of the month Frederic II. had defeated the Austrian general, Marshal Brown, at Lowositz. It was the first battle of the Seven Years' War, and was of great political importance as leading to the capture of Dresden and of laying all Saxony at the mercy of the conqueror. "À la Molwitz" is an allusion to the first battle in the war of the Austrian Succession, April 10, 1741, in which Frederic showed that he was not what Voltaire and Mr. Pitt called "a heaven-born general;" since on the repulse of his cavalry he gave up all for lost, and rode from the field, to learn at night that, after his flight, his second in command, the veteran Marshal Schwerin, had rallied the broken squadrons, and had obtained a decisive victory.]
[Footnote 2: The Dauphiness was the daughter of Augustus, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony.]
Peace is made between the courts of Kensington and Kew:[1] Lord Bute, who had no visible employment at the latter, and yet whose office was certainly no sinecure, is to be Groom of the Stole to the Prince of Wales; which satisfies. The rest of the family will be named before the birthday—but I don't know how, as soon as one wound is closed, another breaks out! Mr. Fox, extremely discontent at having no power, no confidence, no favour (all entirely engrossed by the old monopolist), has asked leave to resign. It is not yet granted. If Mr. Pitt will—or can, accept the seals, probably Mr. Fox will be indulged,—if Mr. Pitt will not, why then, it is impossible to tell you what will happen. Whatever happens on such an emergency, with the Parliament so near, with no time for considering measures, with so bad a past, and so much worse a future, there certainly is no duration or good in prospect. Unless the King of Prussia will take our affairs at home as well as abroad to nurse, I see no possible recovery for us—and you may believe, when a doctor like him is necessary, I should be full as willing to die of the distemper.
[Footnote 1: "The courts of Kensington and Kew"—in other words, of the King and the Prince of Wales and his mother, to whom George II. was not very friendly. A scandal, which had no foundation, imputed to the Princess undue intimacy with the Earl of Bute, who, however, did stand high in her good graces, and who probably was indebted to them for his appointment in the next reign to the office of Prime Minister, for which he had no qualification whatever.]
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 not you 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?