“My Lord,
“It would be perfect sacrilege and robbing the mighty dead of his due rites, if one began one’s letter with any subject but the loss of our sovereign; on which I condole with your Lordship, in whom the virtue of Patriotism, and the antequated one of Loyalty still remain. I know you had that veneration for our late King which the justice and prudence of his government so well deserved. With him our laws and liberties were safe; he possessed in a great degree the confidence of his people and the respect of foreign governments; and a certain steadiness of character made him of great consequence in these unsettled times. During his long reign we never were subject to the insolence and rapaciousness of favourites, a grievance of all others most intolerable when persons born only one’s equals shall by the basest means perhaps possess themselves of all the strength of sovereign power, and keep their fellow subjects in a dependance on illegal authority, which insults while it subjects, and is more grievous to the spirits than even to the fortunes of free-born men. If we consider only the evils we have avoided during his late Majesty’s reign, we shall find abundant matter of gratitude towards him and respect for his memory. His character would not afford subject for Epic poetry, but will look well in the sober page of history. Conscious, perhaps, of this, he was too little regardful of sciences and the fine arts; he considered common sense as his best panegyrist. The monarch whose qualities are brilliant enough to entitle him to glory, cultivates the love of the Muses, and their handmaid arts, painting, sculpture, etc., sensible that they will blazon and adorn his fame. I hope our young Monarch will copy his predecessor’s solid virtues, and if he endeavours to make them more brilliant by the help of poetry, eloquence, etc., etc., the happiness and glory of Britain will be great. His present Majesty’s religious disposition, and decent moral conduct, give us hope we shall not be plunged into riot, and lost in debauchery and libertinism, which, if it were to take place at Court, would soon affect a rich and luxurious nation, and the profaneness and immorality of Charles the Second’s days would, from the more prosperous state of our nation at present, be outdone....
“I will now thank your Lordship for your letter and the Highland compositions. Your remarks go far in staggering my faith as to their authenticity. I think they convince me the poems cannot be as ancient as pretended. It seems to me possible, that some great bard might from uncertain and broken tradition, and from the scattered songs of former bards, form an epic poem, which might not agree with history. The pillars in the hall of Fingal struck me at first reading; but I imagined they might not refer to polished marble pillars, but to smooth lime or beech trees which one may suppose to have been used as supporters in very rude buildings, and which would look smooth and shapely to one not used to polished marble; and I imagine convenience taught the use of such supporters long before they were introduced as ornaments.... I hear Lord Marchmont says our old Highland bard is a modern gentleman of his acquaintance; if it is so, we have a living Poet who may dispute the pas on Parnassus with Pindar and the greatest of the ancients, and I honour him for carrying the Muses into the country and letting them step majestic over hills, mountains and rivers instead of tamely walking in the Park or Piccadilly.... The Bishop of Ossory tells me Mr. Macpherson receives an £100 per annum subscription while he stays in the Highlands to translate the poems; if he is writing them, he should have a thousand at least....
“Dr. Gregory, in talking of Mr. Hume, said he had a great respect for your Lordship. The Dialogue of Bayle and Locke could not be agreeable to him.... Dr. Gregory says Mr. Hume told him he spent an evening with me at Mr. Ramsay’s, and he had received very favourable impressions of me, and, I find, said much more of me than I deserve. The Doctor told him I was not of his freethinking system, but Mr. Hume thinks that no fault in a woman.... Dr. Monsey is revenging my coquetry with Lord Bath by an assiduous courtship of Miss Talbot, but he can no more be untrue to me than the needle to the pole!”
“GAZETTE EXTRAORDINARY”
The same day, October 31, Lord Lyttelton writes from his house in Hill Street—
“Madonna,
“According to my promise, I now write to tell you the news of the town; and it is with great pleasure that I can assure you all parties unite in the strongest expressions of zeal and affection for our young King, and approbation of his behaviour. Since his accession he has shown the most obliging kindness to all the royal family, and done everything that was necessary to give his government quiet and unanimity in this difficult crisis.... There will be no changes in the ministry, and I believe few at Court. The Duke of Newcastle hesitated some time whether he should undertake his arduous office in a new reign, but has yielded at last to the earnest Desires of the King himself, of the Duke of Cumberland, and of the heads of all Parties and Factions, even those who were formerly most hostile to him. His friend and mine, Lord Hardwicke, has been most graciously talked to by the King in two or three audiences, and will, I doubt not, continue in the Cabinet Council with the weight and influence he ought to have there.... Lord George Sackville has been admitted to kiss the king’s hand, and thus ends my gazette extraordinary. As for myself, I got well to town on Wednesday night, was at Court on Thursday morning, was spoken graciously to by the King, and am told by everybody that I grow fat.” He then urges Mrs. Montagu to return from Northumberland at once. “I have often told you that you are a mere hot-house plant, fine and rare, but incapable of enduring the cold of our climate, if you are not housed the first day that the white frosts come in.
“I found Mrs. Pitt in pretty good health and spirits; she is well-housed, though she has left your palace in Hill Street.”
GEORGE II. — WILL