Williams, the reprinter of the North Briton, stood in the pillory to-day in Palace Yard.[1] He went in a hackney-coach, the number of which was 45.  The mob erected a gallows opposite him, on which they hung a boot[2] with a bonnet of straw.  Then a collection was made for Williams, which amounted to near L200.  In short, every public event informs the Administration how thoroughly they are detested, and that they have not a friend whom they do not buy.  Who can wonder, when every man of virtue is proscribed, and they have neither parts nor characters to impose even upon the mob!  Think to what a government is sunk, when a Secretary of State is called in Parliament to his face “the most profligate sad dog in the kingdom,” and not a man can open his lips in his defence.  Sure power must have some strange unknown charm, when it can compensate for such contempt!  I see many who triumph in these bitter pills which the ministry are so often forced to swallow; I own I do not; it is more mortifying to me to reflect how great and respectable we were three years ago, than satisfactory to see those insulted who have brought such shame upon us.  ’Tis poor amends to national honour to know, that if a printer is set in the pillory, his country wishes it was my Lord This, or Mr. That.  They will be gathered to the Oxfords, and Bolingbrokes, and ignominious of former days; but the wound they have inflicted is perhaps indelible.  That goes to my heart, who had felt all the Roman pride of being one of the first nations upon earth!—­Good night!—­I will go to bed, and dream of Kings drawn in triumph; and then I will go to Paris, and dream I am pro-consul there:  pray, take care not to let me be awakened with an account of an invasion having taken place from Dunkirk![3] Yours ever, H.W.

[Footnote 1:  This was the last occasion on which the punishment of the pillory was inflicted.]

[Footnote 2:  A scandal, for which there was no foundation, imputed to the Princess of Wales an undue intimacy with John Earl of Bute; and with a practical pun on his name the mob in some of the riots which were common in the first years of his reign showed their belief in the lie by fastening a jack-boot and a petticoat together and feeding a bonfire with them.]

[Footnote 3:  One article in the late treaty of peace had stipulated for the demolition of Dunkirk.]

HIS “CASTLE OF OTRANTO”—­BISHOP PERCY’S COLLECTION OF OLD BALLADS.

TO THE REV.  WILLIAM COLE.

STRAWBERRY HILL, March 9, 1765.

Dear Sir,—­I had time to write but a short note with the “Castle of Otranto,” as your messenger called on me at four o’clock, as I was going to dine abroad.  Your partiality to me and Strawberry have, I hope, inclined you to excuse the wildness of the story.  You will even have found some traits to put you in mind of this place.  When you read of the picture quitting its panel, did not you recollect the portrait of Lord