at Charing Cross.  Indeed, our officers, who are going to Flanders, don’t quite like it; they are afraid it should grow the fashion to fight, and that a pair of colours should no longer be a sinecure.  I am quite unhappy about poor Mr. Chute:  besides, it is cruel to find that abstinence is not a drug.  If mortification ever ceases to be a medicine, or virtue to be a passport to carnivals in the other world, who will be a self-tormentor any longer—­not, my child, that I am one; but, tell me, is he quite recovered?

[Footnote 1:  This alludes to an engagement, which took place on the 8th of February, near Bologna, between the Spaniards under M. de Gages, and the Austrians under General Traun, in which the latter were successful.]

I thank you for King Theodore’s declaration,[1] and wish him success with all my soul.  I hate the Genoese; they make a commonwealth the most devilish of all tyrannies!

[Footnote 1:  With regard to Corsica, of which he had declared himself king.  By this declaration, which was dated January 30, Theodore recalled, under pain of confiscation of their estates, all the Corsicans in foreign service, except that of the Queen of Hungary, and the Grand Duke of Tuscany. (See vol. ii. p. 74.)]

We have every now and then motions for disbanding Hessians and Hanoverians,[1] alias mercenaries; but they come to nothing.  To-day the party have declared that they have done for this session; so you will hear little more but of fine equipages for Flanders:  our troops are actually marched, and the officers begin to follow them—­I hope they know whither!  You know in the last war in Spain, Lord Peterborough[2] rode galloping about to inquire for his army.

[Footnote 1:  The employment of Hessian and Hanoverian troops in this war was not only the subject of frequent complaints in Parliament, but was also the cause of very general dissatisfaction in the country, where it was commonly regarded as one of the numerous instances in which the Ministers sacrificed the interests of England from an unworthy desire to maintain their places by humouring the king’s preference for his native land.]

[Footnote 2:  Lord Peterborough is celebrated by Pope as

            taming the genius of the arid plain
    Almost as quickly as he conquered Spain: 

not that he did conquer Spain; but by an extraordinary combination of hardihood and skill he took Barcelona, which had defied all previous attacks; and, in the confidence inspired by this important success, he offered Archduke Charles to escort him to Madrid, so that he might be crowned King of Spain in that capital.  But the Archduke, under the advice of some of his own countrymen, who were jealous of his influence, rejected the plan.]