(790) Colonel Graham. When the Duchess was young, and as insolent as afterwards, her mother used to say, "You need not be so proud, for you are not the King's but old Graham's daughter." It is certain, that his legitimate daughter, the Countess of Berkshire and Suffolk, was extremely like the Duchess, and that he often said with a sneer, "Well, well, kings are great men, they make free with whom they please! All I can say is, that I am sure the same man begot those two women." The Duchess often went to weep over her father's body at Paris: one of the monks seeing her tenderness, thought it a proper opportunity to make her observe how ragged the pall is that lies over the body, (which is kept unburied, to be some time or other interred in England,)-but she would not buy a new!
314 Letter 101 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, March 25, 1743.
Well! my dear Sir, the Genii, or whoever are to look after the seasons, seem to me to change turns, and to wait instead of one another, like lords of the bedchamber. We have had loads of sunshine all the winter; and within these ten days nothing but snows, north-east winds, and blue plagues. The last ships have brought over all your epidemic distempers: not a family in London has escaped under five or six ill: many people have been forced to hire new labourers. Guernier, the apothecary, took two new apothecaries, and yet could not drug all his patients. It is a cold and fever. I had one of the worst, and was blooded on Saturday and Sunday, but it is quite gone: my father was blooded last night: his is but slight. The physicians say that there has been nothing like it since the year Thirty-three, and then not so bad: in short, our army abroad would shudder to see what streams of blood have been let out! Nobody has died of it, but old Mr. Eyres, of Chelsea, through obstinacy of not bleeding; and his ancient Grace of York:(791) Wilcox of Rochester(792) succeeds him, who is fit for nothing in the world, but to die of this cold too.
They now talk of the King's not going abroad: I like to talk on that side; because though it may not be true, one may at least be able to give some sort of reason why he should not. We go into mourning for your Electress on Sunday; I suppose they will tack the Elector of Mentz to her, for he is just dead. I delight in Richcourt's calculation- I don't doubt but it is the method he often uses in accounting with the Great Duke.
I have had two letters from you of the 5th and 12th, with a note of things coming by sea; but my dear child, you are either run Roman Catholicly devout, or take me to be so; for nothing but a religious fit of zeal could make you think of sending me so many presents. Why, there are Madonnas enough in one case to furnish a more than common cathedral-I absolutely will drive to Demetrius, the silversmith's, and bespeak myself a pompous shrine! But indeed, seriously, how can I, who have a conscience, and am no saint, take all these things? You must either let me pay for them, or I will demand my unfortunate coffee-pot again, which has put you upon ruining yourself By the way, do let me have it again, for I cannot trust it any longer in your hands at this rate; and since I have found out its virtue, I will present it to somebody, whom I shall have no scruple of letting send me bales and cargoes, and ship-loads of Madonnas, perfumes, prints, frankincense, etc. You have not even drawn upon me for my statue, my hermaphrodite, my gallery, and twenty other things, for which I am lawfully your debtor.
I must tell you one thing, that I will not say a word to my lord of this Argosie, as Shakspeare calls his costly ships, till it is arrived, for he will tremble for his Dominichin, and think it will not come safe in all this company-by the way, will a captain of a man-of-war care to take all? We were talking over Italy last night- my lord protests, that if he thought he had strength, he would see Florence, Bologna, and Rome, by way of Marseilles, to Leghorn. You may imagine how I gave in to such a jaunt. I don't set my heart upon it, because I think he cannot do it; but if he does, I promise you, you shall be his Cicerone. I delight in the gallantry of the Princess's brother.(793) I will tell you what, if the Italians don't take care, they will grow as brave and as wrongheaded as their neighbours. Oh! how shall I do about writing to her? Well, if I can, I will be bold, and write to her to-night.
I have no idea what the two minerals are that you mention, but
I will inquire, and if there are such, you shall have them;
and gold and silver, if they grow in this land; for I am sure
I am deep enough in your debt. Adieu! .
P. S. It won't do! I have tried to write, but you would bless yourself to see what stuff I have been forging for half an hour, and have not waded through three lines of paper. i have totally forgot my Italian, and if she will but have prudence enough to support the loss of a correspondence, which was long since worn threadbare, we will come to as decent a silence as may be.
(791) Doctor lancelot Blackburne. Walpole, in his Memoires, vol. i. p. 74, calls him "the jolly old archbishop, who had the manners of a man of quality, though he had been a buccaneer, and was a clergyman." Noble, in his continuation of Granger, treats these aspersions as the effect of malice. "How is it possible!" he asks, ,that a buccaneer should be so great a scholar as Blackburne certainly was? he who had so perfect a knowledge of the classics, as to be able to read them with the same ease as he could Shakspeare, must have taken great pains to have acquired the learned languages, and have had both leisure and good masters." He is allowed to have been a remarkably pleasant man; and it was said of him, that "he gained more hearts than souls."-E.
(792) He was not succeeded by Dr. Wilcox, but by Dr. Herring, who was elevated, in 1747, to the archbishopric of Canterbury, and died in 1757.-E.