Asheton is much yours. He has preached twice at Somerset Chapel with the greatest applause. I do not mind his pleasing the generality, for you know they ran as much after Whitfield as they could after Tillotson; and I do not doubt but St. Jude converted as many Honourable women as St. Paul. But I am sure you would approve his compositions, and admire them still more when you heard him deliver them. He will write to you himself next post, but is not mad enough with his fame to write you a sermon. Adieu, dear child! Write me the progress of your recovery,(580) and believe it will give me a sincere pleasure; for I am, yours ever.
(580) Mr. West died in less than a month from the date of this letter, in the twenty-sixth year of his age. (see ant`e, p. 121, Letter 1.) In his last letter to Grey, written a few days before his death, he says, "I will take my leave of you for the present, with a vale et vive paulisper cum vivis:" so little was he aware of the short time that he himself would be numbered among the living. But this is almost constantly the case with those who die of that most flattering of all diseases, a consumption. "Shall humanity," says Mason, "be thankful or sorry that it is so? Thankful, surely! for as this malady generally attacks the young and the innocent, it seems the merciful intention of Heaven, that to these death should come unperceived, and, as it were, by stealth; divested of one of its sharpest stings, the lingering expectation of their dissolution."-E.
252 Letter 66 To Sir Horace Mann. Downing Street, May 6, 1742.
I have received a long letter from you of the 22d of April. It amazes me! that our friends of Florence should not prove our friends.(581) Is it possible? I have always talked of their cordiality, because I was convinced they could have no shadow of interest in their professions:—of that, indeed, I am convinced still-but how could they fancy they had? There is the wonder! If they wanted common honesty, they seem to have wanted common sense more. What hope of connexion could there ever be between the British ministry and the Florentine nobility! The latter have no views for being, or knowledge for being envoys, etc. They are too poor and proud to think of trading with us; too abject to hope for the restoration of their liberty from us-and, indeed, however we may affection our own, we have showed no regard for their liberty-they have had no reason ever to expect that from us! In short, to me it is mystery! But how could you not tell me some particulars? Have I so little interested myself with Florence, that you should think I can be satisfied without knowing the least particulars? I must know names. Who are these wretches that I am to scratch out of my list? I shall give them a black blot the moment I know who have behaved ill to you. Is Casa Ferroni of the number? I suspect it:-that was of your first attachments. Are the prince and princess dirty?-the Suares?-tell me, tell me! Indeed, my dear Mr. Chute, I am not of your opinion, that he should shut himself up and despise them; let him go abroad and despise them. Must he mope because the Florentines are like the rest of the world? But that is not true, for the world in England have not declared themselves so suddenly. It has not been the fashion to desert the earl and his friends: he has had more concourse, more professions, and has still, than in the height of his power. So your neighbours have been too hasty: they are new style, at least, eleven days before us. Tell them, tell Richcourt, tell his Cleopatra,(582) that all their hopes are vanished, all their faith in Secret Committees-the reconciliation is made, and whatever reports their secretships may produce, there will be at least above a hundred votes added to our party. Their triumph has been but in hope, and their hope has failed in two months.
As to your embroil with Richcourt, I condemn you excessively: not that you was originally in fault, but by seeming to own yourself so. He is an impertinent fellow, and will be so if you'll let him. My dear child, act with the spirit of your friends here; show we have lost no credit by losing power, and that a little Italian minister must not dare to insult you. Publish the accounts I send you; which I give you my honour are authentic. If they are not, let Cytheris, your Antony's travelling concubine, contradict them.
You tell me the St. Quintin is arrived at Genoa: I see by the prints of to-day that it is got to leghorn: I am extremely glad, for I feared for it, for the poor boy, and for the things. Tell me how you like your secretary. I shall be quite happy, if I have placed one with you that you like.
I laughed much at the family of cats I am to receive. I believe they will be extremely welcome to Lord Islay now: for he appears little, lives more darkly and more like a wizard than ever. These huge cats will figure prodigiously in his cell: he is of' the mysterious, dingy nature of Stosch.
As words is what I have not rhetoric to find out to thank you, for sending me this paragraph of Madame Goldsworthy, I can only tell you that I have laughed for an hour at it. This was one of my Lady Pomfret's correspondents.
There seems to be a little stop in our embarkations: since the first, they have discovered that the horse must not go till all the hay is provided. Three thousand men will make a fine figure towards supporting the balance of power! Our whole number was to be but sixteen; and if all these cannot be assembled before the end of July, what will be said of it?
The Secret Committee go on very pitifully: they are now inquiring about some customhouse officers that were turned out at Weymouth for voting wrong at elections. Don't you think these articles will prove to the world what they have been saying of Sir Robert for these twenty years? The House still sits in observance to them; which is pleasant to me, for it keeps people in town. We have operas too; but they are almost over, and if it were not for a daily east wind, they would give way to Vauxhall and Chelsea. The new directors have agreed with the Fumagalli for next year, but she is to be second woman: they keep the Visconti. Did I never mention the Bettina, the first dancer. It seems she was kept by a Neapolitan prince, who is extremely jealous of her thither. About a fortnight ago, she fell ill, upon which her Neapolitan footman made off immediately. She dances again, but is very weak, and thinks herself poisoned.