“Madam,
“It is long since I have had the pleasure of writing to you, for though I have much inclination to do so, I have little leisure. I am now coming on you with a great deal of news from the city of our Great King. The Parliament is all in a flame, the Court have had but a majority of seven. There is a great struggle between Giles, Earle, and Dr. Lee, which shall be for the Committees. The city is in great alarm that they are going to lose six hundred thousand pounds out of Leghorn, which it is expected will be taken, and the Port lost to our merchants.
“Now as to private affairs, it is reported the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough[188] is dead, that she departed last night, and no one weeps for her to-day. Extravagance will lavish away those treasures her avarice accumulated.... I am not sure the report is true, though private letters and public papers do affirm that the spirit of pride, avarice, and ambition have stolen from her as quietly as the common breath of the nostrils....”
[188] Sarah Jennings, born 1660, died 1744.
The duchess did not die then, as will be seen by the next letter to the same person. This was the illness when the doctor told her, unless she was blistered, she would die, when she cried, “I won’t be blistered, and I won’t die!” And she did not, for she lived till 1744!
“December 19, 1741.
“Madam,
“I believe the wars abroad, and tumults at home, will make the publick papers worth reading. Dr. Lee has carried his Election by four, the Court is concerned at it. The King[189] suspended even his dinner (an action of as great importance as any done in the reigns of some Monarchs) till this affair between Dr. Lee and Earle was determined. The Westminster Election will now be carried against the Court. It is thought Lord Percival will undoubtedly be chosen at the new Election. The friends of Sir R——[190] lament that now he will not be able to carry any of the petitions, but where the right is on his side, and which, too, is looked upon by them as an unfortunate thing for the Kingdom in general.
“The Duchess of Marlborough is not dead yet, but in great danger; she has St. Anthony’s fire to a terrible degree, and will have no advice but such as her apothecary gives her. To Mr. Spencer[191] she has bequeathed in her will £30,000 a year, in addition to what he has already. The Duchess of Manchester[192] she has struck out. How the rest of her enormous fortune is disposed of people do not know.
“We lost two of our Divines to-day, Dr. Young and the Dean of Exeter, men of very different genius, but both agreeable companions.”