So, she is dead at last, the old Electress!(780)-well, I have nothing more to say about her and the Medici; they had outlived all their acquaintance: indeed, her death makes the battle very considerable -makes us call a victory what before we did not look upon as very decided laurels.
Lord Hervey has entertained the town with another piece of wisdom: on Sunday it was declared that he had married his eldest daughter the night before to a Mr. Phipps,(781) grandson of the Duchess of Buckingham. They sent for the boy but the day before from Oxford, and bedded them at a day's notice. But after all this mystery, it does not turn out that there is any thing great in this match, but the greatness of the secret. Poor Hervey,(782) the brother, is in fear and trembling, for he apprehends being ravished to bed to some fortune or other with as little ceremony. The Oratorios thrive abundantly-for my part, they give me an idea of heaven, where every body is to sing whether they have voices or not.
The Board (the Jacobite Club) have chosen his Majesty's Lord Privy Seal(783) for their President, in the room of Lord Litchfield. Don't you like the harmony of parties? We expect the parliament will rise this month: I shall be sorry, for if I am not hurried out of town, at least every body else will-and who can look forward from April to November? Adieu! though I write in defiance of having nothing to say, yet you see I can't go a great way in this obstinacy; but you will bear a short letter rather than none.
(780) Anna Maria of Medicis, daughter of Cosmo III. widow of John William, Elector Palatine. After her husband's death she returned to Florence, where she died, Feb @ 7 1743, aged seventy-five, being the last of that family.
(781) Constantine Phipps, in 1767, created Lord Mulgrave in Ireland. He married, on the 26th of February, Lepel, eldest daughter of Lord Hervey, and died in 1775. Her ladyship was found dead in her bed, 9th March, 1780, at her son's house in the Admiralty.-E.
(782) George William Hervey, afterwards second Earl of Bristol. He died unmarried, in 1775.-E.
(783) Lord Gower.
311 Letter 100 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, March 14, 1743.
I don't at all know how to advise you about mourning; I always think that the custom of a country, and what other foreign ministers do, should be your rule. But I had a private scruple rose with me: that was, whether you should show so much respect to the late woman (784) as other ministers do, since she left that legacy to Quella a Roma.(785) I mentioned this to my lord, but he thinks that the tender manner of her wording it, takes off that exception; however, he thinks it better that you should write for advice to your commanding officer. That will be very late, and you will probably have determined before. You see what a casuist I am in ceremony; I leave the question more perplexed than I found it.
Pray, Sir, congratulate me upon the new acquisition of glory to my family! We have long been eminent statesmen; now that we are out of employment we have betaken ourselves to war-and we have made great proficiency in a short season. We don't run, like my Lord Stair, into Berg and Juliers, to seek battles where we are sure of not finding them-we make shorter marches; a step across the Court of Requests brings us to engagement. But not to detain you any longer with flourishes, which will probably be inserted in my uncle Horace's patent when he is made a field-marshal; you must know that he has fought a duel, and has scratched a scratch three inches long on the side of his enemy-lo Paon! The circumstances of this memorable engagement were, in short, that on some witness being to be examined the other day in the House upon remittances to the army, my uncle said, He hoped they would indemnify him, if he told any thing that affected himself." Soon after he was standing behind the Speaker's chair, and Will. Chetwynd,(786) an intimate of Bolingbroke, came up to him, What, Mr. Walpole, are you for rubbing up old sores?" He replied, "I think I said very little, considering that you and your friends would last year have hanged up me and my brother at the lobby-door without a trial." Chetwynd answered, I would still have you both have your deserts." The other said, If you and I had, probably I should be here and you would be somewhere else." This drew more words, and Chetwynd took him by the arm and led him out. In the lobby, Horace said, "We shall be-observed, we had better put it off till to-morrow." "No, no, now! now!" When they came to the bottom of the stairs, Horace said, "I am out of breath, let us draw here." They drew; Chetwynd hit him on the breast, but was not near enough to pierce his coat. Horace made a pass which the other put by with his hand, but It glanced along his side-a clerk, who had observed them go out together so arm-in-arm-ly, could not believe it amicable, but followed them, and came up just time enough to beat down their swords, as Horace had driven him against a post, and would probably have run him through at the next thrust. Chetwynd went away to a surgeon's, and kept his bed the next day; he has not reappeared yet, but is in no danger. My uncle returned to the House, and was so little moved as to speak immediately upon the Cambrick bill, which made Swinny say, "That it was a sign he was not ruffled."(787) Don't you delight in this duel? I expect to see it daubed up by some circuit-painter on the ceiling of the saloon at Woolterton.