Ireland ready to be so, and France arrogant, and on the point of being hostile!  Lord Bute accused of all and dying of a panic; George Grenville wanting to make rage desperate; Lord Rockingham the Duke of Portland, and the Cavendishes thinking we have no enemies but Lord Bute and Dyson, and that four mutes and an epigram can set every thing to rights, the Duke of Grafton like an apprentice, thinking the world should be postponed to a whore and a horserace; and the Bedfords not caring what disgraces we undergo, while each of them has 3000 pounds a-year and three thousand bottles of claret and champagne!  Not but that I believe these last good folks are still not satisfied with the satisfaction of their wishes.  They have the favour of the Duke of Grafton, but neither his confidence nor his company; so that they can neither sell the places in his gift nor his secrets.  Indeed, they,’ have not the same reasons to be displeased with him as you have; for they were his enemies and you his friend—­and therefore he embraced them and dropped you, and I believe would be puzzled to give a tolerable reason for either.

As this is the light in which I see our present situation, you will not wonder that I am happy to have nothing to do with it.  Not that, were it more flourishing, I would ever meddle again.  I have no good opinion of any of our factions, nor think highly of either their heads or their hearts.  I can amuse myself much more to my satisfaction; and, had I not lived to see my country at the period of its greatest glory, I should bear our present state much better.  I cannot mend it, and therefore will think as little of it as I can.  The Duke of Northumberland asked me to dine at Sion to-morrow; but, as his vanity of governing Middlesex makes him absurdly meditate to contest the county, I concluded he wanted my interest here, and therefore excused myself; for I will have nothing to do with it.

I shall like much to come to Park-place, if your present company stays, or if the Fitzroys or the Richmonds are there; but I desire to be excused from the Cavendishes, who have in a manner left me off, because I am so unlucky as not to think Lord Rockingham as great a man as my Lord Chatham, and Lord John more able than either.  If you will let me know when they leave you, you shall see me:  but they would not be glad of my company, nor I of theirs.

My hay and I are drowned; I comfort myself with a fire, but I cannot treat the other with any sun, at least not with one that has more warm than the sun in a harlequin-farce.

I went this morning to see the Duchess of Grafton, who has got an excellent house and fine prospect, but melancholy enough, and so I thought was she herself:  I did not ask wherefore.

I go to town to-morrow to see the Devil upon Two Sticks,(1034) as I did last week, but could not get in.  I have now secured a place in my niece Cholmondeley’s box, and am to have the additional entertainment of Mrs. Macauley in the same company; who goes to see herself represented, and I suppose figures herself very like Socrates.