I have just now received yours of the 15th of July, with a married letter from both Prince and Princess:(679) but sure nothing ever equalled the setting out of it! She says, "The generosity of your friendship for me, Sir, leaves me nothing to desire of all that is precious in England, China, and the Indies!" Do you know, after such a testimony under the hand of a princess, that I am determined, after the laudable example of the house of Medici, to take the title of Horace the Magnificent! I am only afraid it should be a dangerous example for my posterity, who may ruin themselves in emulating the magnificence of their ancestor. It happens comically, for the other day, in removing from Downing-street, Sir Robert found an old account-book of his father, wherein he set down all his, expenses. In three months and ten days that he was in London one winter as member of parliament, he spent-what do you think?-sixty-four pounds seven shillings and five-pence! There are many articles for Nottingham ale, eighteen-pences for dinners, five shillings to Bob (now Earl of Orford), and one memorandum of six shillings given in exchange to Mr. Wilkins for his wig-and yet this old man, my grandfather, had two thousand pounds a-year, Norfolk sterling! He little thought that what maintained him for a whole session, would scarce serve one of his younger grandsons to buy japan and fans for princesses at Florence!
Lord Orford has been at court again to-day: Lord Carteret came up to thank him for his coachman; the Duke of Newcastle standing by. My father said, "My lord, whenever the duke is near overturning you, you have nothing to do but to send to me, and I will save you." The duke said to Lord Carteret, "Do you know, my lord, that the Venison you eat that day came out of Newpark?" Lord Orford laughed, and said, "So, you see I am made to kill the fatted calf for the return of the prodigals!" The King passed by all the new ministry to speak to him, and afterwards only spoke to my Lord Carteret.
Should I answer the letters from the court of Petraria again? there will be no end of our magnificent correspondence!-but would it not be too haughty to let a princess write last?
Oh, the cats! I can never keep them, and yet It is barbarous to send them all to Lord Islay: he will shut them up and starve them, and then bury them under the stairs with his wife. Adieu!
(669) Solicitor to the treasury. See ante, p. 246.
(670) Sir R. Walpole's house at Chelsea.-D.
(671) Lord Walpole was ranger of Newpark. (Now called Richmond Park.-D.)
(672) One of the band of incapables who obtained power and place on the fall of Walpole. Horace Walpole, in his Memoires, calls him "that old rag of Lord Bath's quota to an administration, the mute Harry Furnese."-D.
(673) This occurrence was celebrated in a ballad which is inserted in C. Hanbury Williams's works, and begins thus.
"As Caleb and Carteret, two birds of a feather,
Went down to a feast at Newcastle's together."