Had I written sooner, I should have told your lordship, too, of the King of Prussia's triumphs-but they are addled too! I hoped to have had a few bricks from Prague to send you towards building Mr. Bentley's design, but I fear none will come from thence this summer. Thank God, the happiness of the menagerie does not depend upon administrations or victories! The happiest of beings in this part of the world is my Lady Suffolk: I really think her acquisition and conclusion of her lawsuit will lengthen her life ten years. You may be sure I am not so satisfied, as Lady Mary(800) has left Sudbroke. Are your charming lawns burnt up like our humble hills? Is your sweet river as low as our deserted Thames?—I am wishing for a handful or two of those floods that drowned me last year all the way from Wentworth Castle. I beg my best compliments to my lady, and my best wishes that every pheasant egg and peacock egg may produce as many colours as a harlequin-jacket.
Tuesday, July 5.
Luckily, my good lord, my conscience had saved its distance. I had writ the above last night, when I received the honour of your kind letter this morning. You had, as I did not doubt, received accounts of all our strange histories. For that of the pretty Countess,(801) I fear there is too much truth in all you have heard: but you don't seem to know that Lord Corydon and Captain Corydon(802) his brother have been most abominable. I don't care to write scandal; but when I see you, I will tell you how much the chits deserve to be whipped. Our favourite general(803) is at his camp: lady Ailesbury don't go to him these three weeks. I expect the pleasure of seeing her and Miss Rich and Fred. Campbell here soon for a few days. I don't wonder your lordship likes St. Philippe better than Torcy:(804) except a few passages interesting to Englishmen, there cannot be a more dry narration than the latter. There is an addition of seven volumes of Universal History to Voltaire's Works, which I think will charm you: I almost like it the best of his works.(805) It is what you have seen extended, and the Memoirs of Louis XIV. refondues in it. He is a little tiresome with contradicting La Beaumelle out of pique—and there is too much about Rousseau. Between La Beaumelle and Voltaire, one remains with scarce a fixed idea about that time. I wish they would produce their authorities and proofs; without which, I am grown to believe neither. From mistakes in the English part, I suppose there are great ones in the more distant histories; yet altogether it is a fine work. He is, as one might believe, worst informed on the present times. He says eight hundred persons were put to death for the last rebellion-I don't believe a quarter of the number were: and he makes the first ]lord Derwentwater—who, poor man! was in no such high-spirited mood—bring his son, who by the way was not above a year -,ind a half old, upon the scaffold to be sprinkled with his blood. However, he is in the right to expect to be believed: for he believes all the romances in Lord Anson's Voyage, and how Admiral Almanzor made one man-of-war box the ears of the whole empire of China!—I know nothing else new but a new edition of Dr. Young's Works. If your lordship thinks like me, who hold that even in his most frantic rhapsodies there are innumerable fine things you will like to have this edition. Adieu, once more, my best lord!
(799) He was apt to be dirty.
(800) Lady Mary Coke, daughter of John Campbell, Duke of Argyle, and sister to Lady Strafford.
(801) The Countess of Coventry.-E.
(802) Lord Bolingbroke, and his brother, the Hon. Henry St. John.-E.
(803) General Conway.
(804) A translation of the Memoirs of the Marquis de Torcy, secretary of state to Louis XIV., had just been published in London. E.
(805) For a review of these volumes by Oliver Goldsmith, see the enlarged edition of his Miscellaneous Works, vol. iii. p. 445.- E.