309 Letter 98 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, Feb. 24, 1743.
I write to you in the greatest hurry in the world, but write I will. Besides, I must wish you joy; you are warriors; nay, conquerors;(777) two things quite novel in this war, for hitherto it has been armies without fighting, and deaths without killing. We talk of this battle as of a comet; "Have you heard of the battle?" it Is so strange a thing, that numbers imagine you may go (ind see it at Charing Cross. Indeed, our officers, who are going to Flanders, don't quite like it; they are afraid it should grow the fashion to fight, and that a pair of colours should be no longer a sinecure. I am quite unhappy about poor Mr. Chute: besides, it is cruel to find that abstinence is not a drug. If mortification ever ceases to be a medicine, or virtue to be a passport to carnivals in the other world, who will be a self-tormentor any longer-not, my child, that I am one; but, tell me, is he quite recovered?
I thank you for King Theodore's declaration,(778) and wish Him success with all my soul. I hate the Genoese; they make a commonwealth the most devilish of all tyrannies!
We have every now and then motions for disbanding Hessians and Hanoverians, alias mercenaries; but they come to nothing. To-day the party have declared that they have done for this session; so you will hear little more but of fine equipages for Flanders: our troops are actually marched, and the officers begin to follow them-1 hopes they know whither! You know in the last war in Spain, Lord Peterborough rode galloping about to inquire for his army.
But to come to more real contests; Handel has set up an oratorio against the opera @ind succeeds. He has hired all the goddesses from farces and the singers of Roast Beef(779) from between the acts at both theatres, with a man with one note in his voice, and a girl without ever an one; and so they sing, and make brave hallelujahs; and the good company encore the recitative, if it happens to have any cadence like what they call a tune. I was much diverted the other night at the opera; two gentlewoman sat before my sister, and not knowing her, discoursed at their ease. Says one, "Lord! how fine Mr. W. is!" "Yes," replied the other, with a tone of saying sentences, "some men love to be particularly so, your petit-maitres-but they are not always the brightest of their sex.'@-Do thank me for this period! I am sure you will enjoy it as much as we did.
I shall be very glad of my things, and approve entirely of your precautions; Sir R. will be quite happy, for there is no telling YOU how impatient he is for his Dominichin. Adieu!
(777) This alludes to an engagement, which took place on the 8th of February, near Bologna, between the Spaniards under M. de Gages, and the Austrians under General Traun, in which the latter were successful.-D.
(778) With regard to Corsica, of which he had declared himself King. By this declaration, which was dated January 30, Theodore recalled, under pain of confiscation of their estates, all the Corsicans in foreign service, except that of the Queen of Hungary, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany.-E.
(779) It was customary at this time for the galleries to call for a ballad called "The Roast Beef of Old England," between the acts, or before or after the play.
310 Letter 99 To Sir Horace Mann. March 3d, 1743.