I am sorry you have lost poor Mr. Bentham. Will you say a civil thing for me to his widow, if she is living, and you think it not improper? I have not forgotten their kindness to me. Pray send me your papers on Mr. Prior's generosity to Mr. Baker.(307) I am sorry it was not so. Prior is much a favourite with me, though a Tory, nor did I ever hear any thing ill of him. He left his party, but not his friends, and seems to me to have been very amiable. Do you know I pretend to be very impartial sometimes. Mr. Hollis(308) wrote against me for not being Whig enough. I am offended with Mrs. Macaulay(309) for being too much a Whig. In short, we are all silly animals, and scarce ever more so than when we affect sense. Yours ever.
(305) Dr. Edmund Keene-E.
(306) See ant`e, p. 155, letter 108.
(307) The Biograpbia Britannica had asserted, that Prior ceded to Mr. Baker the profits of his fellowship after his expulsion.-E.
(308) Thomas Hollis, Esq. the editor of Toland's Life of Milton; Algernon Sidney's Discourses on Government; Algernon Sidney's Works, etc. He died in 1774.-E.
(309) The celebrated Catherine Macaulay, well known by her "History of England."-E.
Letter 138 To The Countess Of Ailesbury.
Strawberry Hill, June 25, 1778. (page 189)
I am quite astonished, Madam, at not hearing of Mr. Conway's being returned! What is he doing? Is he revolting and setting up for himself, like our nabobs in India? or is he forming Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark, into the united provinces in the compass of a silver penny? I should not wonder if this was to be the fate of our distracted empire, which we seem to have made so large, only that it might afford to split into separate kingdoms. I told Mr. C. I should not write any more, concluding he would not stay a twinkling; and your ladyship's last encouraged my expecting him. In truth, I had nothing to tell him if he had written.
I have been in town but one single night this age, as I could not bear to throw away this phoenix June. It has rained a good deal this morning, but only made it more delightful. The flowers are all Arabian. I have found but One inconvenience, which is the hosts of cuckoos: one would not think one was in Doctors' Commons. It is very disagreeable, that the nightingales should sing but half a dozen songs, and the other beasts squall for two months together.
Poor Mrs. Clive has been robbed again in her own lane, as she was last year, and has got the jaundice, she thinks, with the fright. I don't make a visit without a blunderbuss; so one might as well be invaded by the French. Though I live in the centre of ministers, I do not know a syllable of politics; and though within hearing of Lady Greenwich, who is but two miles off, I have not a word of news to send your ladyship. I live like Berecynthia, surrounded by nephews and nieces; yet Park-place is full as much in my mind, and I beg for its history. I am, Madam, etc.