I have this morning sent aboard the St. Quintin a box for you, with your secretary-not in it.

Old Weston of Exeter is dead.  Dr. Clarke, the Dean, Dr. Willes, the decipherer, and Dr. Gilbert of Llandaff, are candidates to succeed him.(413) Sir R. is for Willes, who, he says, knows so many secrets, that he might insist upon being archbishop.

My dear Mr. Chute! how concerned I am that he took all that trouble to no purpose.  I will not write to him this post, for as you show him my letters, this here will sufficiently employ any one’s patience-but I have done.  I long to hear that the Dominichini is safe.  Good night.  Yours, ever.

(391) The name of Lord Chesterfield.

(392) On the subject of Sir Robert’s alleged want of partiality for his son, the following passage occurs in the anecdotes prefixed to Lord Wharncliffe’s edition of the works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu:-"Those ironical lines, where Pope says that Sir Robert Had never made a friend in private life, And was, besides, a tyrant to his wife,’ are well understood, as conveying a sly allusion to his good-humoured unconcern about some things which more strait-laced husbands do not take so coolly.  In a word, Horace Walpole was generally supposed to be the son of Carr Lord Hervey, and Sir Robert not to be ignorant of it.  One striking circumstance was visible to the naked eye; no beings in human shape could resemble each other less than the two passing for father and son; and while their reverse of personal likeness provoked a malicious whisper, Sir Robert’s marked neglect of Horace in his infancy tended to confirm it.  Sir Robert took scarcely any notice of him till his proficiency in Eton school, when a lad of some standing, drew his attention, and proved that, whether he had or had not a right to the name he went by, he was likely to do it Honour.”  Vol. i. 1). 33.-E.

(393) General Charles Churchill. (Whose character has been so inimitably sketched, at about the same period when this letter was written, by Sir Charles Hanbury Williams, in his poem of’, Isabella, or the Morning:"-

“The General, one of those brave old commanders,
Who served through all our glorious wars in Flanders. 
Frank and good-natur’d, of an honest heart,
Loving to act the steady friendly part;
None led through youth a gayer life than he,
Cheerful in converse, smart in repartee;
But with old age, its Vices Come along,
And in narration he’s extremely long;
Exact in circumstance, and nice in dates,
He each minute particular relates. 
If you name one of marlbro’s ten campaigns,
         He gives you its whole history for your pains,
And Blenheim’s field becomes by his reciting,
As long in telling as it was in fighting. 
His old desire to please is still express’d,
His hat’s well cock’d, his periwig’s well dress’d. 
He rolls his stockings still, white gloves he wears,
And in the boxes with the beaux appears. 
His eyes through wrinkled corners cast their rays,
Still he looks cheerful, still soft things he says,
And still remembering that he once was young,
He strains his crippled knees, and struts along."-D.)