I heard an admirable dialogue, which has been written at the army on the battle of Dettingen, but one can't get a copy; I must tell you two or three strokes in it that I have heard. Pierot asks Harlequin, "Que donne-t'on aux g`en`eraux qui ne se sont pas trouv`es `a la bataille!" Harl. "On leur donne le cordon rouge." Pier. "Et que donne-t'on au g`en`eral en Chef(969 qui a gagn`e la victoire!" Harl. "Son cong`e." Pier. "Qui a soin des bless`es?" Harl. "L'ennemi." Adieu!
(964) This alludes to the King of Prussia's retreat from Prague, on the approach of the Austrian army commanded by Prince Charles Lorraine.-D.
(965) In speaking of this address of the King of Prussia, Lady Hervey, in a letter of the 17th, says, "I think it very well and very artfully drawn for his purpose, and very impertinently embarrassing to our King. He is certainly a very artful prince, and I cannot but think his projects and his ambition still more extensive, than people at present imagine them."-E.
(66) On the death of his father this son succeeded to the earldom in 1763. He died in 1776, when the title became extinct.-E.
(967) Charles Poulett, third Duke of Bolton.
(968) The Hon, Charles Fielding, third son of William, third Earl of Denbigh; a lieutenant-colonel in the guards, and Gentleman-usher to Queen Caroline. He died in 1765.-E.
(969) Lord Stair.-D.
387 Letter 147 To Sir Horace Mann. Houghton, Sept. 1, 1744.
I wish you joy of your victory at Velletri!(970) I call it yours, for you are the great spring of all that war. I intend to publish your life, with an Appendix, that shall contain all the letters to you from princes, cardinals, and great men of the time. In speaking of Prince Lobkowitz's attempt to seize the King of Naples at Velletri, I shall say: "for the share our hero had in this great action, vide the Appendix, Card. Albani's letter, p. 14." You shall no longer be the dear Miny, but Manone, the Great Man; you shall figure with the Great Pan, and the Great Patapan. I wish you and your laurels and your operations were on the Rhine, in Piedmont, or in Bohemia; and then Prince Charles would not have repassed the first, nor the Prince of Conti advanced within three days of Turin, and the King of Prussia would already have been terrified from entering the last-all this lumping bad news came to counterbalance your Neapolitan triumphs. Here is all the war to begin again! and perhaps next winter a second edition of Dunkirk. We could not even have the King of France die, though he was so near it. He was in a woful fright, and promised the Bishop of Soissons, that if he lived, he would have done with his women.(971) A man with all these crowns on his head, and attaching and disturbing all those on the heads of other princes, who is the soul of all the havoc and ruin that has been and is to be spread through Europe in this war, haggling thus for his bloody life, and cheapening it at the price of a mistress or two! and this was the fellow that they fetched to the army to drive the brave Prince Charles beyond the Rhine again. It is just Such another paltry mortal(972) that has fetched him back into Bohemia-I forget which of his battles(973) it was, that when his army had got the victory, they could not find the King: he had run away for a whole day without looking behind him.
I thank you for the particulars of the action, and the list of the prisoners: among them is one Don Theodore Diamato Amor, a cavalier of so romantic a name, that my sister and Miss Leneve quite interest themselves in his captivity; and make their addresses to you, who, they hear, have such power with Prince Lobkowitz, to obtain his liberty. If he has Spanish gallantry in any proportion to his name, he will immediately come to England, and vow himself their knight.