for it.  Bernsdorff, a Hanoverian, his first minister, is a decent sensible man; I pity him, though I suppose he is envied.  From Lady Hertford’s they went to Ranelagh, and to-night go to the opera.  There had like to have been an untoward circumstance:  the last new opera in the spring, which was exceedingly pretty, was called “I Viaggiatori Ridicoli,” and\ they were on the point of acting it for this royal traveller.

I am sure you are not sorry that Cornwallis is archbishop.  He is no hypocrite, time-server, nor high-priest.  I little expected so good a choice.  Adieu!  Yours ever.

Letter 350 To The Earl Of Strafford.  Strawberry Hill, Aug. 16, 1768. (page 529)

As you have been so good, my dear lord, as twice to take notice of my letter, I am bound in conscience and gratitude to try to amuse you with any thing new.  A royal visiter, quite fresh, is a real curiosity—­by the reception of him, I do not think many more of the breed will come hither.  He came from Dover in hackney-chaises; for somehow or other the master of the horse happened to be in Lincolnshire; and the King’s coaches having received no orders, were too good subjects to go and fetch a stranger King of their own heads.  However, as his Danish Majesty travels to improve himself for the good of his people, he will go back extremely enlightened in the arts of government and morality, by having learned that crowned heads may be reduced to ride in a hired chaise.

By another mistake, King George happened to go to Richmond about an hour before King Christiern arrived in London.  An hour Is exceedingly long; and the distance to Richmond Still longer:  so with all the despatch that could possibly be made, King George could not get back to his capital till next day at noon.  Then, as the road from his closet at St. James’s to the King of Denmark’s apartment on t’other side of the palace is about thirty miles, which posterity, having no conception of the prodigious extent and magnificence of St. James’s, will never believe, it was half an hour after three before his Danish Majesty’s courier could go, and return to let him know that his good brother and ally was leaving the palace in which they both were, in order to receive him at the Queen’s palace, which you know is about a million of snail’s paces from St. James’s.  Notwithstanding these difficulties and unavoidable delays, Woden, Thor, Fria, and all the gods that watch over the Kings of the North, did bring these two invincible monarchs to each other’s embraces about half an hour after five that same evening.  They passed an hour in projecting a family compact that will regulate the destiny of Europe to latest posterity:  and then, the Fates so willing it, the British Prince departed for Richmond, and the Danish potentate repaired to the widowed mansion of his royal mother-in-law, where he poured forth the fulness of his heart in praises on the lovely bride she had bestowed on him,