Your brother, who dines here with Mr. Chute and Gray,(229) has just brought me your letter of March 12th. The libel you ask about was called "Constitutional Queries:" have not you received mine of February 9th? there was some account of our present history. Adieu! I have not time to write any longer to you; but you may well expect our correspondence will thicken.
(225) Frederick, Prince of Wales, was a man in no way estimable, though his understanding and disposition were cried up by those who were in opposition to his father's government. Walpole says of him, "His best quality was generosity; his worst, insincerity and indifference to truth, which appeared so early, that Earl Stanhope wrote to Lord Sunderland from Hanover, "He has his father's head, and his mother's heart." His death was undoubtedly a deliverance for those who, had he lived, would have become his subjects.-D.
(226) Frederick, Prince of Wales's debts were never paid.-D.
(227) Princess Emily had the reversion of New-park.
(228) The auditor of the exchequer, was in the gift of Mr. Pelham, as chancellor of the exchequer, and first lord of the treasury.
(229) Thomas Gray, author of the Elegy in a Churchyard, and other poems.
97 Letter 38 To Sir Horace Mann. Arlington Street, April 1, 1751.
How shall I begin a letter that will-that must give you as much pain as I feel myself? I must interrupt the story of the Prince's death, to tell you of two more, much more important, God knows! to you and me! One I had prepared you for-but how will you be shocked to hear that our poor Mr. Whithed is dead(230) as well as my brother! Whithed had had a bad cough for two months: he was going out of town to the Minchester assizes; I persuaded and sent him home from hence one morning to be blooded. However, he went, in extreme bad weather. His youngest brother, the clergyman, who is the greatest brute in the world, except the elder brother, the layman, dragged him out every morning to hunt, as eagerly as if it had been to hunt heretics. One day they were overturned in a water, and then the parson made him ride forty miles: in short, he arrived it the Vine half dead, and soon grew delirious. Poor Mr. Chute was sent for to him last Wednesday, and sent back for two more physicians, but in vain; he expired on Friday night! Mr. Chute is come back half distracted, and scarce to be known again. You may easily believe that my own distress does not prevent my doing all in my power to alleviate his. Whithed, that best of hearts, had forgiven all his elder brother's beastliness, and has left him the Norton estate, the better half; the rest to the clergyman, with an annuity of one hundred and twenty pounds a year to his Florentine mistress, and six hundred pounds to their child. He has left Mr. Chute one thousand pounds, which, if forty times the sum, would not comfort him, and, little as it is, does not in the least affect or alter his concern. Indeed, he not only loses an intimate friend, but in a manner an only child; he had formed him to be one of the prettiest gentlemen in England, and had brought about a match for him, that was soon to be concluded with a Miss Nicholl, an immense fortune; and I am persuaded had fixed his heart on making him his own heir, if he himself outlived his brother. With such a fortune, and with such expectations, how hard to die!—or, perhaps, how lucky, before he had tasted misfortune and mortification.
I must now mention my own misfortune, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings, the physicians and all the family of painful death,(231) (to alter Gray's phrase,) were persuaded and persuaded me, that the bark, which took great place, would save my brother's life —but he relapsed at three o'clock on Thursday, and died last night. He ordered to be drawn and executed his will with the greatest tranquillity and satisfaction on Saturday morning. His spoils are prodigious-not to his own family! indeed I think his son the most ruined young man in England. My loss, I fear, may be considerable, which is not the only motive of my concern, though, as you know, I had much to forgive, before I could regret: but indeed I do regret. It is no small addition to my concern, to fear or foresee that Houghton and all the remains of my father's glory will be pulled to pieces! The widow-Countess immediately marries—not Richcourt, but Shirley, and triumphs in advancing her son's ruin by enjoying her own estate, and tearing away great part of his.
Now I shall divert your private grief by talking to you of what is called the public. The King and Princess are grown as fond as it they had never been of different parties, or rather as people who always had been of different. She discountenances all opposition, and he all ambition. Prince George, who, with his two eldest brothers, is to be lodged at St. James's, is speedily to be created Prince of Wales. Ayscough, his tutor, is to be removed, with her entire inclination as well as with every body's approbation. They talk of a Regency to be established (in case of a minority) by authority of Parliament, even this session, with the Princess at the head of it. She and Dr. lee, the only one she consults of the late cabal, very sensibly burned the late Prince's papers the moment he was dead. lord Egmont, by seven o'clock the next morning, summoned (not very decently) the faction to his house: all was whisper! at least he hinted something of taking the Princess and her children under their protection, and something of the necessity of harmony. No answer was made to the former proposal. Somebody said, it was very likely indeed they should agree now, when the Prince could never bring it about: and so every body went away to take care of himself. The imposthumation is supposed to have proceeded, not from his fall last year, but from a blow with a tennis-ball some years ago. The grief for the dead brother is affectedly great; the aversion to the living one as affectedly displayed. They cried about an elegy,(232) and added, "Oh, that it were but his brother!" On 'Change they said, "Oh, that it were but the butcher!(233)"