(295) George-William, sixth Earl of Coventry. He died in 1809, at the age of eighty-seven.-E.
(296) James, fourth Duke of Hamilton. He died in 1758.-D.
(297) On the 14th of February.-E.
(298) Captain Gray of the Guards. The duel was fought, with swords, in Marylebone Fields. lord Lempster took his trial at the Old Bailey in April, and was found guilty of manslaughter.-E.
124 Letter 55 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, March 23, 1752.
Mr. Conway has been arrived this fortnight, or a week sooner than we expected him: but my Lady Ailesbury forgives it! He is full of your praises, so you have not sowed your goodness in unthankful ground. By a letter I have just received from you he finds you have missed some from him with Commissions; but he will tell you about them himself I find him much leaner, and great cracks in his beauty. Your picture is arrived, which he says is extremely like you. Mr. Chute cannot bear it; says it wants your countenance and goodness; that it looks bonny and Irish. I am between both, and should know it; to be sure, there is none of your wet-brown-paperness in it, but it has a look with which I have known you come out of your little room, when Richcourt has raised your ministerial French, and you have writ to England about it till you were half fuddled. Au reste, it is gloriously coloured—will Astley promise to continue to do as well? or has he, like all other English painters, only laboured this to get reputation, and then intends to daub away to get money?
The year has not kept the promise of tranquillity that it made you at Christmas; there has been another parliamentary bustle. The Duke of Argyll(299) has drawn the ministry into accommodating him with a notable job, under the notion of buying for the King from the mortgagees the forfeited estates in Scotland, which are to be colonized and civilized. It passed with some inconsiderable hitches through the Commons; but in the Lords last week the Duke of Bedford took it up warmly, and spoke like another Pitt.(300) He attacked the Duke of Argyll on favouring Jacobites, and produced some flagrant instances, which the Scotch Duke neither answered nor endeavoured to excuse, but made a strange, hurt, mysterious, contemptuous, incoherent speech, neither in defence of the bill nor in reply to the Duke of Bedford, but to my Lord Bath, who had fallen upon the ministry for assuming a dispensing power, in suffering Scotland to pay no taxes for the last five years. This speech, which formerly would have made the House of Commons take up arms, was strangely flat and unanimated, for want of his old chorus. Twelve lords divided against eighty that were for the bill. The Duke, who was present, would not vote; none of his people had attended the bill in the other House, and General Mordaunt (by his orders, as it is imagined) spoke against it. This concludes the session: the King goes to Hanover on Tuesday, he has been scattering ribands of all colours, blue ones on Prince Edward, the young Stadtholder, and the Earls of Lincoln, Winchilsea, and Cardigan;(301) a green one on Lord Dumfries;(302) a red on Lord Onslow.(303)
The world is still mad about the Gunnings; the Duchess of Hamilton was presented on Friday; the crowd was so great, that even the noble mob in the drawing-room clambered upon chairs and tables to look at her. There are mobs at their doors to see them get into their chairs; and people go early to get places at the theatres when it is known they will be there. Dr. Sacheverel never made more noise than these two beauties.
There are two wretched women that just now are as much talked of, a Miss Jefferies and a Miss Blandy; the one condemned for murdering her uncle, the other her father. Both their stories have horrid circumstances; the first, having been debauched by her uncle; the other had so tender a parent, that his whole concern while he was expiring, and knew her for his murderess, was to save her life. It is shocking to think what a shambles this country is grown! Seventeen were executed this morning, after having murdered the turnkey on Friday night, and almost forced open Newgate. One is forced to travel, even at noon, as if one was going to battle.
Mr. Chute is as much yours as ever, except in the article of pen and ink. Your brother transacts all he can for the Lucchi, as he has much more weight there(304) than Mr. Chute. Adieu!