Adieu, my dear Harry!  Direct to me at Downing Street.  Good-bye!  Yours ever.

(241) Isabella Fitzroy, daughter of Charles Duke of Grafton.  She had been married in May, to(Walpole’s maternal cousin), Francis Seymour Conway, afterwards Earl of Hertford.(

242) Miss Anne conway, youngest sister of Henry Seymour Conway.

(243) They were first cousins by the mother’s side; Francis first Lord conway having married Charlotte, eldest daughter of John Shorter of Bybrook in Kent, sister to Catherine Shorter Lady Walpole.

176 Letter 35 To Sir Horace Mann.  Downing Street, Oct. 8, 1741, O. S.

I have been very near sealing this letter with black wax; Sir Robert came from Richmond on Sunday night extremely ill, and on Monday was in great danger.  It was an ague and looseness; but they have stopped the latter, and converted the other into a fever, which they are curing with the bark.  He came out of his chamber to-day for the first time, and is quite out of danger.  One of the newspapers says, Sir R. W. is so bad that there are no Hopes of him.

The Pomfrets (244) are arrived; I went this morning to visit my lord, but did not find him.  Lady Sophia is ill, and my earl (245) still at Paris, not coming.  There is no news, nor a soul in town.  One talks of nothing but distempers, like Sir Robert’s.  My Lady Townsende (246) was reckoning up the other day the several things that have cured them; such a doctor so many, such a medicine, so many; but of all, the greatest number have found relief from the sudden deaths of their husbands.

The opera begins the day after the King’s birthday:  the singers are not permitted to sing till on the stage, so no one has heard them, nor have I seen Amorovoli to give him the letter.  The opera is to be on the French system of dancers, scenes, and dresses.  The directors have already laid out great sums.  They talk of a mob to silence the operas, as they did the French players; but it will be more difficult, for here half the young noblemen in town are engaged, and they will not be so easily persuaded to humour the taste of the mobility:  in short, they have already retained several eminent lawyers from the Bear Garden (247) to plead their defence.  I have had a long visit this morning from Don Benjamin:  (248) he is one of the best kind of agreeable men I ever saw-quite fat and easy, with universal knowledge:  he is in the greatest esteem at my court.

I am going to trouble you with some commissions.  Miss Rich, (249) who is the finest singer except your sister (250) in the world, has begged me to get her some music, particularly “the office of the Virgin of the Seven Sorrows,” by Pergolesi, (251) the “Serva Padrona, il Pastor se torna Aprile,” and “Symplicetta Pastorella.”  If you can send these easily, you will much oblige me.  Do, too, let me know by your brother, what you have already laid out for me, that I may pay him.