Oh! a story of Mr. Pope and the prince:-"Mr. Pope, you don’t love princes.”  “Sir, I beg your pardon.”  “Well, you don’t love kings, then!""Sir, I own I love the lion best before his claws are grown.”  Was it possible to make a better answer to such simple questions?  Adieu! my dearest child!  Yours, ten thousand times over.

P. S. Patapan does not seem to regret his own country.

(231) This is the first of the series of letters addressed by Walpole to Sir Horace Man, British envoy at the court of Tuscany.  The following prefatory note, entitled “Advertisement by the Author,” explains the views which led Walpole to preserve them for publication:-

“The following Collection of Letters, written very carelessly by a young man, had been preserved by the person to whom they were addressed.  The author, some years after the date of the first, borrowed them, on account of some anecdotes interspersed.  On the perusal, among many trifling relations and stories, which were only of consequence or amusing to the two persons concerned in the correspondence, he found some facts, characters, and news, which, though below the dignity of history, might prove entertaining to many other people:  and knoing how much pleasure, not only himself, but many other persons have found in a series of private and familiar letters, he thought it worth his while to preserve these, as they contain something of the customs, fashions, politics, diversions, and private history of several years; which, if worthy of any existence, can be properly transmitted to posterity only in this manner.

“The reader will find a few pieces of intelligence which did not prove true; but which are retained here as the author heard and related them, lest correction should spoil the simple air of the narrative.* When the letters were written, they were never intended for public inspection; and now they are far from being thought correct, or more authentic than the general turn of epistolary correspondence admits.  The author would sooner have burnt them than have taken the trouble to correct such errant trifles, which are here presented to the reader, with scarce any variation or omissions, but what private friendships and private history, or the great haste with which the letters were written, made indispensably necessary, as will plainly appear, not only by the unavoidable chasms, where the originals were worn out or torn away, but by many idle relations and injudicious remarks and prejudices of a young man; for which @the only excuse the author can pretend to make, is, that as some future reader may possibly be as young as he was when he first wrote, he hopes they may be amused with what graver people (if into such hands they should fall) will very justly despise.  Who ever has patience to peruse the series, will find, perhaps, that as the author grew older, some of his faults became less striking.” * They are marked in the notes.

(232) Tutor to the young Earl of Shrewsbury. [.Charles Talbot, fifteenth Earl of Shrewsbury, born December 1719.  He married, in 1753, Elizabeth, daughter of the Hon. John Dormer, afterwards Lord Dormer, and died in 1787, without issue.]