320 Letter 105 To Sir Horace Mann. May 4, 1743.
The King was detained four or five days at Sheerness but yesterday we heard that he was got to Helvoetsluys. They talk' of an interview between him and his nephew of Prussia-I never knew any advantage result from such conferences. We expect to hear of the French attacking our army, though there are accounts of their retiring, which would necessarily produce a peace-I hope so! I don't like to be at the eve, even of an Agincourt; that, you know, every Englishman is bound in faith to expect: besides, they say my Lord Stair has in his pocket, from the records of the Tower, the original patent, empowering us always to conquer. I am told that Marshal Noailles is as mad as Marshal Stair. Heavens! twice fifty thousand men trusted to two mad captains, without one Dr. Monroe(809) over them!
I am sorry I could give you so little information about King Theodore; but my lord knew nothing of him, and as little of any connexion between Lord Carteret and him. I am sorry you have him on your hands. He quite mistakes his province: an adventurer should come hither;(810) this is the soil for mobs and patriots it is the country of the world to make one's fortune - with parts never so scanty, one's dulness is not discovered, nor one's dishonesty, till one obtains the post one wanted-and then, if they do not come to light-why, one slinks into one's green velvet bag,(811) and lies so snug! I don't approve of your hinting at the falsehoods(812) of Stosch's intelligence; nobody regards it but the King , it pleases him-e basta.
I was not in the House at Vernon's frantic speech;(813) but I know he made it, and have heard him pronounce several such: but he has worn out even laughter, and did not make impression enough on me to remember till the next post that he had spoken.
I gave your brother the translated paper; he will take care of it. Ceretesi is gone to Flanders with Lord Holderness. Poor creature! he was reduced, before he went, to borrow five guineas of Sir Francis Dashwood. How will he ever scramble back to Florence?
We are likely at last to have no opera next year: Handel has had a palsy, and can't compose; and the Duke of Dorset has set himself strenuously to oppose it, as Lord Middlesex is the impresario, and must ruin the house of Sackville by a course of these follies. Besides what he will lose this year, he has not paid his share to the losses of the last; and yet is singly undertaking another for next season, with the almost certainty of losing between four or five thousand pounds, to which the deficiencies of the opera generally amount now. The Duke of Dorset has desired the King not to subscribe; but Lord Middlesex is so obstinate, that this will probably only make him lose a thousand pounds more.
The Freemasons are in so low repute now in England, that one has scarce heard the proceedings at Vienna against them mentioned. I believe nothing but a persecution could bring them into vogue again here. You know, as great as our follies are, we even grow tired of them, and are always changing.
(809) Physician of Bedlam-
"Those walls where Folly holds her throne,
And laughs to think Monroe would take her down."-E.
(810) He afterwards came to England, where he suffered much from poverty and destitution, and was finally arrested by his creditors and confined in the King,'s Bench prison. He was released from thence under the Insolvent Act, having registered the kingdom of Corsica for the use of his creditors. Shortly after this event he died, December 11, 1756, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Anne's, Soho, where Horace Walpole erected a marble slab to his memory. He was an adventurer, whose name was Theodore Anthony, Baron Newhoff, and was born at Metz, in 1686. Walpole, who had seen him, describes him as "a comely, middle-sized man, very reserved, and affecting much dignity,"-D.