Prince George, who has a most amiable countenance, behaved excessively well on his father’s death.  When they told him of it, he turned pale, and laid his hand on his breast.  Ayscough said, “I am afraid, Sir, you are not well!”—­he replied, “I feel something here, just as I did when I saw the two workmen fall from the scaffold at Kew.”  Prince Edward is a very plain boy, with strange loose eyes, but was much the favourite.  He is a sayer of things!  Two men were heard lamenting the death in Leicester Fields:  one said, “He has left a great many small children!”—­“Ay,” replied the other, “and what is worse, they belong to our parish!” But the most extraordinary reflections on his death were set forth in a sermon at Mayfair chapel.  “He had no great parts (pray mind, this was the parson said so, not I), but he had great virtues; indeed, they degenerated into vices:  he was very generous, but I hear his generosity has ruined a great many people:  and then his condescension was such, that he kept very bad company.”

Adieu! my dear child; I have tried, you see, to blend so much public history with our private griefs, as may help to interrupt your too great attention to the calamities in the former part of my letter.  You will, with the properest good-nature in the world, break the news to the poor girl, whom I pity, though I never saw.  Miss Nicoll is, I am told, extremely to be pitied too; but so is everybody that knew Whithed!  Bear it yourself as well as you can!

CHANGES IN THE MINISTRY AND HOUSEHOLD—­THE MISS GUNNINGS—­EXTRAVAGANCE IN LONDON—­LORD HARCOURT, GOVERNOR OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, June 18, 1751.

I send my letter as usual from the Secretary’s office, but of what Secretary I don’t know.  Lord Sandwich last week received his dismission, on which the Duke of Bedford resigned the next day, and Lord Trentham with him, both breaking with old Gower, who is entirely in the hands of the Pelhams, and made to declare his quarrel with Lord Sandwich (who gave away his daughter to Colonel Waldegrave) the foundation of detaching himself from the Bedfords.  Your friend Lord Fane comforts Lord Sandwich with an annuity of a thousand a-year—­scarcely for his handsome behaviour to his sister; Lord Hartington is to be Master of the Horse, and Lord Albemarle Groom of the Stole; Lord Granville[1] is actually Lord President, and, by all outward and visible signs, something more—­in short, if he don’t overshoot himself, the Pelhams have; the King’s favour to him is visible, and so much credited, that all the incense is offered to him.  It is believed that Impresario Holdernesse will succeed the Bedford in the foreign seals, and Lord Halifax in those for the plantations.  If the former does, you will have ample instructions to negotiate for singers and dancers!  Here is an epigram made upon his directorship: 

[Footnote 1:  Lord Granville, known as Lord Carteret during the lifetime of his mother, was a statesman of the very highest ability, and was regarded with special favour by the King for his power of conversing in German, then a very rare accomplishment.]