out of her way, went about her business.  She had a piece of coarse cloth to make a couple of shifts for herself and child.  She no sooner began to measure it but the yard fell a-measuring, and there was no stopping it.  It was sunset before the good woman had time to take breath.  She was almost stifled, for she was up to her ears in ten thousand yards of cloth.  She could have afforded to have sold Lady Mary Wortley a clean shift, of the usual coarseness she wears, for a groat halfpenny.

I wish you would tell the Princess this story.  Madame Riccardi, or the little Countess d’Elbenino, will doat on it.  I don’t think it will be out of Pandolfini’s way, if you tell it to the little Albizzi.  You see I have not forgot the tone of my Florentine acquaintance.  I know I should have translated it to them:  you remember what admirable work I used to make of such stories in broken Italian.  I have heard old Churchill tell Bussy English puns out of jest-books:  particularly a reply about eating hare, which he translated, “j’ai mon ventre plein de poil.”  Adieu!

DEATH OF HIS FATHER—­MATTHEWS AND LESTOCK IN THE MEDITERRANEAN—­THOMSON’S “TANCRED AND SIGISMUNDA”—­AKENSIDE’S ODES—­CONUNDRUMS IN FASHION.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, March 29, 1745.

I begged your brother to tell you what it was impossible for me to tell you.  You share nearly in our common loss!  Don’t expect me to enter at all upon the subject.  After the melancholy two months that I have passed, and in my situation, you will not wonder I shun a conversation which could not be bounded by a letter—­a letter that would grow into a panegyric, or a piece of moral; improper for me to write upon, and too distressful for us both!—­a death is only to be felt, never to be talked over by those it touches!

I had yesterday your letter of three sheets:  I began to flatter myself that the storm was blown over, but I tremble to think of the danger you are in! a danger, in which even the protection of the great friend you have lost could have been of no service to you.  How ridiculous it seems for me to renew protestations of my friendship for you, at an instant when my father is just dead, and the Spaniards just bursting into Tuscany!  How empty a charm would my name have, when all my interest and significance are buried in my father’s grave!  All hopes of present peace, the only thing that could save you, seem vanished.  We expect every day to hear of the French declaration of war against Holland.  The new Elector of Bavaria is French, like his father; and the King of Spain is not dead.  I don’t know how to talk to you.  I have not even a belief that the Spaniards will spare Tuscany.  My dear child, what will become of you? whither will you retire till a peace restores you to your ministry? for upon that distant view alone I repose!