You must not expect me to write you a very composed, careless letter; my spirits are all in agitation! I am at the eve of a post that may bring me the most dreadful news! we expect to-morrow the news of a decisive battle. Oh! if you have any friend there, think what apprehensions I (826) must have of such a post! By yesterday's letters, our army was within eight miles of the French, who have had repeated orders to attack them. Lord Stair and Marshal Noailles both think themselves superior, and have pressed for leave to fight. The latter call themselves fourscore thousand; ours sixty. Mr. Pelham and Lord Lincoln come to Houghton to-morrow, so we are sure of hearing as soon as possible, if any thing has happened. By this time the King must be with them.- My fears for one or two friends have spoiled me for any English hopes-I cannot dwindle away the French army-every man in it appears to my imagination as big as the sons of Anak! I am conjuring up the ghosts of all who have perished by French ambition, and am dealing out commissions to these spectres,
"-To sit heavy on their souls to-morrow!"
Alas! perhaps that glorious to-morrow was a dismal yesterday at least, perhaps it was to me! The genius of England might be a mere mercenary man of the world, and employed all his attention to turn aside cannonballs from my Lord Stair, to give new edge to his new Marlborough's sword: was plotting glory for my Lord Carteret, or was thinking of furnishing his own apartment in Westminster Hall with a new set of trophies-who would then take care of Mr. Conway? You, who are a minister, will see all this in still another light, will fear our defeat, and will foresee the train of consequences.-Why, they may be wondrous ugly; but till I know what I have to think about my own friends, I cannot be wise in my generation.
I shall now only answer your letter; for till I have read to-morrow's post, I have no thoughts but of a battle.
I am angry at your thinking that I can dislike to receive two or three of your letters at once. Do you take me for a child, and imagine, that though I may like one plum-tart, two may make me sick? I now get them regularly; so I do but receive them, I am easy.
You are mistaken about the gallery; so far from unfurnishing any part of the house, there are several pictures undisposed of, besides numbers at Lord Walpole's, at the Exchequer, at Chelsea, and at New Park. Lord Walpole has taken a dozen to Stanno, a small house, about four miles from hence, where he lives with my lady Walpole's vicegerent.(827) You may imagine that her deputies are no fitter than she is to come where there is In a modest, unmarried girl.(828)
I will write to London for the life of Theodore, though you may depend upon its being a Grub Street piece, without one true fact. Don't let it prevent your undertaking his Memoirs. Yet I should say Mrs. Heywood,(829) or Mrs. Behn(830) were fitter to write his history.
How slight you talk of Prince Charles's victory at Brunau! We thought it of vast consequence; so it was. He took three posts afterwards, and has since beaten the Prince of Conti, and killed two thousand men. Prince Charles civilly returned him his baggage. The French in Bavaria are quite dispirited-poor wretches! how one hates to wish so ill as one does to fourscore thousand men!
There is yet no news of the Pembroke. The Dominichin has a post of honour reserved in the gallery. My Lord says, as to that Dalton's Raphael, he can say nothing without some particular description of the picture and the size, and some hint at the price, which you have promised to get. I leave the residue of my paper for tomorrow: I tremble, lest I should be forced to finish it abruptly! I forgot to tell you that I left a particular commission with my brother Ned, who is at Chelsea, to get some tea-seed from the physic-garden; and he promised me to go to Lord Islay, to know what cobolt and zingho(831) are, and where they are to be got.
Saturday morning.