Letter 186 To The Earl Of Hertford.
Arlington Street, Dec. 29, 1763. (page 263)
You are sensible, my dear lord, that any amusement from my letters must depend upon times and seasons. We are a very absurd nation (though the French are so good at present as to think us a very wise one, only because they themselves, are now a very weak one); but then that absurdity depends upon the almanac. Posterity, who will know nothing of our intervals, wilt conclude that this age was a succession of events. I could tell them that we know as well when an event, as when Easter will happen. Do but recollect these last ten years. The beginning of October, one is certain that every body will be at Newmarket, and the Duke of Cumberland will lose', and Shafto(420) win, two or three thousand pounds. After that, while people are preparing to come to town for the winter, the ministry is suddenly changed, and all the world comes to learn how it happened, a fortnight sooner than they intended; and fully persuaded that the new arrangement cannot last a month. The Parliament opens; every body is bribed; and the new establishment is perceived to be composed of adamant. November passes, with two or three self-murders, and a new play. Christmas arrives; every body goes out of town; and a riot happens in one of the theatres. The Parliament meets again; taxes are warmly opposed; and some citizen makes a fortune by a subscription.(421) The opposition languishes; balls and assemblies begin; some master and miss begin to get together, are talked of, and give occasion to forty more matches being invented; an unexpected debate starts up at the end of the session, that makes more noise than any thing that was designed to make a noise, and subsides again in a new peerage or two. Ranelagh opens and Vauxhall; one produces scandal, and t'other a drunken quarrel. People separate, some to Tunbridge, and some to all the horseraces in England; and so the year comes again to October. I dare to prophesy, that if you keep this letter, YOU Will find that my future correspondence will be but an illustration of this text; at least, it is an excuse for my having very little to tell you at present, and was the reason of My not writing to you last week.
Before the Parliament adjourned, there was nothing but a trifling debate in an empty House, occasioned by a motion from the ministry, to order another physician and surgeon to attend Wilkes; it was carried by about seventy to thirty, and was only memorable by producing Mr. Charles Townshend, who having sat silent through the question of privilege, found himself interested in the defence of Dr. Brocklesby!(422) Charles ridiculed Lord North extremely, and had warm words with George Grenville. I do not look upon this as productive of consequential speaking for the opposition; on the contrary, I should expect him sooner in place, if the ministry could be fools enough to restore weight to him and could be ignorant that he can never hurt them so much as by being with them. Wilkes refused to see Heberden and Hawkins, whom the House commissioned to visit him; and to laugh at us more, sent for two Scotchmen, Duncan and Middleton. Well! but since that, he is gone off himself: however, as I (lid in D'Eon's case, I can now only ask news of him from you, and not tell you any; for You have got him. I do not believe you will invite him, and make so much of him, as the Duke of Bedford did. Both sides pretend joy at his being gone; and for once I can believe both. You will be diverted, as I was, at the cordial esteem the ministers have for one another; Lord Waldegrave(423) told my niece, this morning, that he had offered a shilling, to receive an hundred pounds when-@Sandwich shall lose his head! What a good opinion they have of one another! apropos to losing heads, is Lally beheaded?
The East India Company have come to an unanimous resolution of not paying Lord Clive the three hundred thousand pounds, which the ministry had promised him in lieu of his nabobical annuity. Just after the bargain was made, his old rustic of a father was at the King's lev`ee; the King asked where his son was; he replied, "Sire, he is coming to town, and their your Majesty will have another vote." If you like these franknesses, I can tell you another. The Chancellor(424) is chosen a governor of St. Bartholomew's Hospital; a smart gentleman, who was sent with the staff, carried it in the evening, when the Chancellor happened to be drunk. "Well, Mr. Bartlemy," said his lordship, snuffling, "what have you to say?" The man, who had prepared a formal harangue, was transported to have so fair opportunity given him of uttering it, and with much dapper gesticulation congratulated his lordship on his health, and the nation on enjoying such great abilities. The Chancellor stopped him short, crying, "By God, it is a lie! I have neither health nor abilities my bad health has destroyed my abilities." The late Chancellor(425) is much better.
The last time the King was at Drury-lane, the play given out for the next night was "All in the Wrong:" the Galleries clapped, and then cried out. "Let us be all in the right! Wilkes and Liberty!" When the King comes to a theatre, or goes out, or goes to the House, there is not a single applause; to the Queen there is a little: in short, Louis le bien-aim`e is not French at present for King George.
The town, you may be sure, is very empty; the greatest party is at Woburn, whither the Comte de Guerchy and the Duc de Pecquigny are going. I have been three days at Strawberry, and had George Selwyn, Williams, and Lord Ashburnham;(426) but the weather was intolerably bad. We have scarce had a moment's drought since you went, no more than for so many months before. The towns and the roads are beyond measure dirty, and every thing else under water. I was not well neither, nor am yet, with pains in my stomach: however, if I ever used one, I could afford to pay a physician. T'other day, coming from my Lady Townshend's, it came into my head to stop at one of the lottery offices, to inquire after a single ticket I had, expecting to find it a blank, but it was five hundred pounds—Thank you! I know you wish me joy. It will buy twenty pretty things when I come to Paris.
I read last night, your new French play, Le Comte de Warwick(427) which we hear has succeeded much. I must say, it does but confirm the cheap idea I have of you French: not to mention the preposterous perversion of history in so known a story, the Queen's ridiculous preference of old Warwick to a young King; the omission of the only thing she ever said or did in her whole life worth recording, which was thinking herself too low for his wife, and too high for his mistress;(428) the romantic honour bestowed on two such savages as Edward and Warwick: besides these, and forty such glaring absurdities, there is but one scene that has any merit, that between Edward and Warwick in the third act. Indeed, indeed, I don't honour the modern French: it is making your son but a slender compliment, with his knowledge, for them to say it is extraordinary. The best proof I think they give of their taste, is liking you all three. I rejoice that your little boy is recovered. Your brother has been at Park-place this week, and stays a week longer: his hill is too high to be drowned.
Thank you for your kindness to Mr. Selwyn: if he had too much impatience, I am sure it proceeded only from his great esteem for you.
I will endeavour to learn what you desire; and will answer, in another letter, that and some other passages in your last. Dr. Hunter is very good, and calls on me sometimes. You may guess whether we talk you over or not. Adieu!
P. S. There has not been a death, but Sir William Maynard's, who is come to life again: or a marriage, but Admiral Knollys's who has married his divorced wife again.