(385) A celebrated picture of a Madonna and Child by Dominichino, in the palace Zembeccari, at Bologna, now in the collection of the Earl of Orford, at Houghton, in Norfolk.  (Since sent to Russia with the rest of the collection.-D.)

(386) The Giogo is the highest part of the Apennine between Florence and Bologna.

(387) Son of Lord Lovel, since Earl of Leicester. [In 1744, Lord Lovel was created Viscount Coke of Holkham and Earl of Leicester.  His only son Edward died before him, in 1753, without issue; having married Lady Mary, one of the co-heirs of John Duke of Argyle and Greenwich.]

(388) A black spaniel of Mr. Walpole’s was seized by a wolf on the Alps, as it was running at the head of the chaise-horses, at noonday. [See ante, p. 139 letter 14.]

(389) George Bubb Dodington had lately resigned his post of one of the lords of the treasury, and gone again into opposition. [In Walpole’s copy of the celebrated Diary of this versatile politician, he had written a “Brief account of George Bubb Doddington, Lord Melcombe,” which the noble editor of the “Memoires” has inserted.  It describes him, “as his Diary shows, vain, fickle, ambitious, and corrupt,’ and very lethargic; but gives him credit for great wit and readiness.”  Cumberland, in his Memoirs, thus paints him:-"Dodington, lolling in his chair, in perfect apathy and self-command, dozing, and even snoring, at intervals, in his lethargic way, broke out every now and then into gleams and flashes of wit and humour.”  In 1761, he was created Lord Melcombe, and died in the following year.]

(390) Frances, daughter of Sir Robert Worseley, and first wife of John Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl of Granville.

207 Letter 50 To Sir Horace Mann.  London, Jan. 7, 1741-2, O. S.

I must answer for your brother a paragraph that he showed me in one of your letters:  “Mr. W.’s letters are full of wit; don’t they adore him in England?” Not at all-and I don’t wonder at them:  for if I have any wit in my letters, which I do not at all take for granted, it is ten to one that I have none out of my letters.  A thousand people can write, that cannot talk; and besides, you know, (or I conclude so, from the little one hears stirring,) that numbers of the English have wit, who don’t care to produce it.  Then, as to adoring; you now See Only my letters, and you may be sure I take care not to write you word of any of my bad qualities, which other people must see in the gross; and that may be a great hindrance to their adoration.  Oh! there are a thousand other reasons I could give you, why I am not the least in fashion.  I came over in an ill season:  it is a million to one that nobody thinks a declining old minister’s son has wit.  At any time, men in opposition have always most; but now, it would be absurd for a courtier to have even common sense.  There is not a Mr. Stuart, or a Mr. Stewart, whose names begin but with the first letters of Stanhope,(391) that