(671) An Elegy on an Empty Assembly-room.-E.
(672) Fulke Greville, Esq. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in a letter to her daughter, dated Louvere, Oct. 9, 1757, says, "We have had many English here. Mr. Greville, his lady, and her suite of adorers deserved particular notice: he was so good as to present me with his curious book: since the days of the Honourable Edward Howard, nothing has been published like it. I told him the age wanted an Earl of Dorset to celebrate it properly; and he was so well pleased with that speech, that he visited me every day, to the great comfort of Madame, who was entertained, meanwhile, with parties of pleasure of another kind, though I fear I lost his esteem at last, by refusing to correspond with him."-E.
318 Letter 179 To Sir Horace Mann. Strawberry Hill, April 18, 1756.
I wish I could send you accounts of your brother's amendment in proportion to your impatience, and to my own: he does mend certainly, but it is slowly: he takes the air every day, and they talk of his riding, though I don't think him strong enough yet to sit a horse; when he has rid a little he is to go to the Bath. I wish it much; for though he is at Richmond, there is no keeping him from doing too much business. Dr. Cocchi has showed his usual sagacity: the case is pronounced entirely asthmatic. As they have acquitted him of a consumption, I feel easy, though the complaint he has is so uneasy to himself'. You must not be discouraged by my accounts; for I see your brother so very often, that it is not possible for me to discern the progress of alteration in him.
YOU Will not believe how little we have thought of the French lately! We are engaged in a civil war-not between St. James's and Leicester House, but between the Dukes of Grafton and Bedford, about a new turnpike-road on the back of the town: as you may imagine, it grows politics; and if it is not compromised during the recess, the French may march deep into the kingdom before they become greater politics.
We think them not ready for Minorca, and that we shall be prepared to receive them there. The Hessians are expected immediately; and soon after them the Hanoverians; and soon after them many jealousies and uneasinesses.
These are all the politics I can tell you; and I have as little else to tell you. Poor Lady Drumlanrig(673) Whose lord perished so unfortunately about a ear and a half ago, is dead of a consumption from that shock; and Sir William Lowther, one of the two heirs of old Sir James, died two days ago of a fever. He was not above six-and-twenty, master of above twenty thousand pounds a-year - sixteen of which comes to young Sir James, who was equally rich: think what a fortune is here assembled-will any Florentine believe this when reduced to sequins or scudi?
I receive such packets of thanks of Lady Harry Beauclerc, transmitted to her from Mr. Dick, that you must bear to have some of them returned to you. I know you enough to believe that you will be still better pleased with new trouble than with my gratitude, therefore I will immediately flounce into more recommendation; but while I do recommend, I must send a bill of discount at the same time: in short, I have been pressed to mention a Sir Robert Davers to you; but as I have never seen him, I will not desire much more than your usual civility for him; sure he may be content with that! I remember Sir William Maynard,(674) and am cautious.
Since I began this, I receive yours of April 2d, full of uneasiness for your brother's quicksilver and its effects. I did not mention it to you, because, though it put him back, his physicians were persuaded that he would not suffer, and he has not. As to reasoning with them, my dear child, it is impossible: I am more ignorant in physic than a child of six years old; if it were not for reverence for Dr. Cocchi, and out of gratitude to Dr. Pringle, who has been of such service to your brother, I should say, I am as ignorant as a physician. I am really so sensible of the good your brother has received from this doctor, that I myself am arrived so far towards being ill, that I now know, if I was to be ill, who should be my physician. The weather has been so wet and cold that your brother has received very little benefit from it: he talked to me again this morning of riding but I don't yet think him able; if you had seen him as I saw him the day I wrote my first letter to you, you would be as happy as I am now: without that I fear you would be shocked to see how he is emaciated; but his eyes, his spirits, his attention, give me great hopes, though I absolutely think it a tedious astigmatic case. Adieu! my dear child; be in better spirits, and don't expect either sudden amendment or worse change.
(673) Daughter of the Earl of Hopton.-E.