[Footnote 2:  The Dauphiness was the daughter of Augustus, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony.]

Peace is made between the courts of Kensington and Kew:[1] Lord Bute, who had no visible employment at the latter, and yet whose office was certainly no sinecure, is to be Groom of the Stole to the Prince of Wales; which satisfies.  The rest of the family will be named before the birthday—­but I don’t know how, as soon as one wound is closed, another breaks out!  Mr. Fox, extremely discontent at having no power, no confidence, no favour (all entirely engrossed by the old monopolist), has asked leave to resign.  It is not yet granted.  If Mr. Pitt will—­or can, accept the seals, probably Mr. Fox will be indulged,—­if Mr. Pitt will not, why then, it is impossible to tell you what will happen.  Whatever happens on such an emergency, with the Parliament so near, with no time for considering measures, with so bad a past, and so much worse a future, there certainly is no duration or good in prospect.  Unless the King of Prussia will take our affairs at home as well as abroad to nurse, I see no possible recovery for us—­and you may believe, when a doctor like him is necessary, I should be full as willing to die of the distemper.

[Footnote 1:  “The courts of Kensington and Kew”—­in other words, of the King and the Prince of Wales and his mother, to whom George II. was not very friendly.  A scandal, which had no foundation, imputed to the Princess undue intimacy with the Earl of Bute, who, however, did stand high in her good graces, and who probably was indebted to them for his appointment in the next reign to the office of Prime Minister, for which he had no qualification whatever.]

Well! and so you think we are undone!—­not at all; if folly and extravagance are symptoms of a nation’s being at the height of their glory, as after-observers pretend that they are forerunners of its ruin, we never were in a more flourishing situation.  My Lord Rockingham and my nephew Lord Orford have made a match of five hundred pounds, between five turkeys and five geese, to run from Norwich to London.  Don’t you believe in the transmigration of souls?  And are not you convinced that this race is between Marquis Sardanapalus and Earl Heliogabalus?  And don’t you pity the poor Asiatics and Italians who comforted themselves on their resurrection with their being geese and turkeys?

Here’s another symptom of our glory!  The Irish Speaker Mr. Ponsonby has been reposing himself at Newmarket:  George Selwyn, seeing him toss about bank-bills at the hazard-table said, “How easily the Speaker passes the money-bills!”

You, who live at Florence among vulgar vices and tame slavery, will stare at these accounts.  Pray be acquainted with your own country, while it is in its lustre.  In a regular monarchy the folly of the Prince gives the tone; in a downright tyranny, folly dares give itself no airs; it is in a wanton overgrown commonwealth that whim and debauchery intrigue best together.  Ask me which of these governments I prefer—­oh! the last—­only I fear it is the least durable.