I told YOU my idle season was coming on, and that I should have great intervals between my letters; have not I kept my word? For any thing I have to tell you, I might have kept it a month longer. I came out of Essex last night, and find the town quite depopulated: I leave it to-morrow, and go to Mr. Conway's(156) in Buckinghamshire, with only giving a transient glance on Strawberry Hill. Don't imagine I am grown fickle; I thrust all my visits into a heap, and then am quiet for the rest of the season. It is so much the way in England to jaunt about, that one can't avoid it; but it convinces me that people are more tired of themselves and the country than they care to own.

Has your brother told you that my Lord Chesterfield has bought the Houghton lantern? the famous lantern, that produced so much patriot Wit;(157) and very likely some of his lordship's? My brother had bought a much handsomer at Lord Cholmondeley's sale; for, with all the immensity of the celebrated one, it was ugly, and too little for the hall. He would have given it to Lord Chesterfield rather than he should not have had it.

You tell us nothing of your big events, of the quarrel of the
Pope and the Venetians, on the Patriarchate of Aquileia. We
look upon it as so decisive that I should not wonder if Mr.
Lyttelton, or Whitfield the Methodist, were to set out for
Venice, to make them a tender of some of our religions.

Is it true too what we hear, that the Emperor has turned the tables on her Caesarean jealousy,(158) and discarded Metastasio the poet, and that the latter is gone mad upon it, instead of hugging himself on coming off so much better than his predecessor in royal love and music, David Rizzio? I believe I told you that one of your sovereigns, and an intimate friend of yours, King Theodore, is in the King's Bench prison. I have so little to say, that I don't care if I do tell you the same thing twice. He lived in a privileged place; his creditors seized him by making him believe lord Granville wanted him on business of importance; he bit at it, and concluded they were both to be reinstated at once. I have desired Hogarth to go and steal his picture for me; though I suppose one might easily buy a sitting of him. The King of Portugal (and when I have told you this, I have done with kings) has bought a handsome house here,(159) for the residence of his ministers.

I believe you have often heard me mention a Mr. Ashton,(160) a clergyman, who, in one word, has great preferments, and owes every thing upon earth to me. I have long had reason to complain of his behaviour; in short, my father is dead, and I can make no bishops. He has at last quite thrown off the mask, and in the most direct manner, against my will, has written against my friend Dr. Middleton,(161) taking for his motto these lines,

"Nullius addictus jurare in verba Magistri,
Quid verum atque decens curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum".

I have forbid him my house, and wrote this paraphrase upon his picture,

"Nullius addictus munus meminisse Patroni,
Quid vacat et qui dat, curo et rogo, et omnis in hoc sum."

I own it was pleasant to me the other day, on meeting Mr. Tonson, his bookseller, at the Speaker's, and asking him if he had sold many of Mr. Ashton's books, to be told, "Very few indeed, Sir!"

I beg you will thank Dr. Cocchi much for his book; I will thank him much more when I have received and read it. His friend, Dr. Mead, is undone; his fine collection is going to be sold: he owes about five-and-twenty thousand Pounds. All the world thought himimmensely rich; but, besides the expense of his collection, he kept a table for which alone he is said to have allowed seventy pounds a-week.