Lord Nottingham's letter I shall certainly mention.
I yesterday sent to Mr. Whiston a little piece that I have just mentioned here, and desired him to convey it to you; you must not expect a great deal from it: yet it belongs so much to my Catalogue, that I thought it a duty to publish it. A better return to some of your civilities is to inform you of Dr. Jortin's Life of Erasmus, with which I am much entertained. There are numberless anecdotes of men thought great in their day, now as much forgotten, that it grows valuable again to hear about them. The book is written with great moderation and goodness of heart: the style is not very striking, and has some vulgarisms, and In a work of that bulk I should rather have taken more pains to digest and connect it into a flowing narrative, than drily give it as a diary: yet I dare promise it will amuse you much.
With your curiosity, Sir, and love of information, I am sure you will be glad to hear of a most valuable treasure that I have discovered; it is the collection of state papers,(963) amassed by the two Lords Conway, that were secretaries of state, and their family: vast numbers have been destroyed; yet I came time enough to retrieve vast numbers, many, indeed, in a deplorable condition. They were buried under lumber' upon the pavement of an unfinished chapel, at Lord Hertford's in Warwickshire, and during his minority, and the absence of his father, an ignorant steward delivered them over to the oven and kitchen, and yet had not been able to destroy them all. It is a vast work to dry, range, and read them, and to burn the useless, as bills, bonds, and every other kind of piece of paper that ever came into a house, and were all jumbled and matted together. I propose, by degrees, to print the most curious; of which, I think, I have already selected enough to form two little volumes of the size of my Catalogue. Yet I will not give too great expectations about them, because I know how often the public has been disappointed when they came to see in print what in manuscript has appeared to the editor wonderfully choice.
(960) We can hardly account for this expression, unless Mr. Walpole alludes to Lord Cromerty's political reputation. Macky states, that " his arbitrary proceedings had rendered him so obnoxious to the people, he could not be employed;" and, certainly, his character for consistency and integrity was not very exalted: but almost all contemporary writers describe him as a man of great weight and of singular endowments; and Walpole himself, in his subsequent editions, calls him "a person eminent for his learning, and for his abilities as a statesman and general."-C.
(961) That Duke Humphrey had at least a relish for learning, may be inferred from the following passage. At the close of a fine manuscript in the Cotton collection (Nero E. v.) is "Origo et processus gentis Scotorum, ae de superioritate Regum Angliae super regnum illud." It once belonged to Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, and has this Sentence in his own handwriting at the end, "Cest livre est `a moy Homfrey Duc de Gloucestre, lequel j'achetay des executeurs de maistre Thomas Polton, feu evesque de Wurcestre." Bishop Polton died in 1436.-C.
(962) The second part of Lord Clarendon's history was printed in folio, in 1760, and also in three volumes octavo.-C.
(963) The increased and increasing taste of the public for the materials of history, such as these valuable papers supply, will, we have reason to hope, be gratified by the approaching appearance of this collection, publication of which was, we see, contemplated even as long since as 1758.-C.
456 Letter 288 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey. Arlington Street, Oct. 17, 1758.
Your ladyship, I hope, will not think that such a strange thing as my own picture seems of consequence enough to me to write a letter about it: but obeying your commands does seem so; lest you should return and think I had neglected it, I must say that I have come to town three several times on purpose, but Mr. Ramsay (I will forgive him) has been constantly Out of town. So much for that.
I would have sent you word that the King of Portugal coming along the road at midnight, which was in his own room at noon, his foot slipped, and three balls went through his body; which, however, had no other consequence than giving him a stroke of a palsy, of which he is quite recovered, except being dead.(964) Some, indeed, are so malicious as to say, that the Jesuits, who are the most conscientious men in the world, murdered him, because he had an intrigue with another man's wife: but all these histories I supposed your ladyship knew better than me, as, till I came to town yesterday, I imagined you was returned. For my own part, about whom you are sometimes so good as to interest yourself, I am as well as can be expected after the murder of a king and the death of a person of the next consequence to a king, the master of the ceremonies, poor Sir Clement,(965) who is supposed to have been suffocated by my Lady Macclesfield's(966) kissing hands.