I remain in town, and have not taken at all to withdrawing, which I hear has given offence,(457) as well as my gay face in public; but as I had so little joy in the grandeur, I am determined to take as little part in the disgrace.  I am looking about for a new house.

I have received two vast packets from you to-day, I believe from the bottom of the sea, for they have been so washed that I could scarce read them.  I could read the terrible history of the earthquakes at Leghorn:  how infinitely good you was to poor Mrs. Goldsworthy!  How could you think I should not approve such vast humanity? but you are all humanity and forgiveness.  I am only concerned that they will be present when you receive all these disagreeable accounts of your friends.  Their support” is removed as well as yours.  I only fear the interest of the Richmonds (458) with the Duke of Newcastle; but I will try to put you well with Lord Lincoln.  We must write circumspectly, for our letters now are no longer safe.

I shall see Amorevoli to-night to give him the letter.  Ah!  Monticelli and the Visconti are to sing to-night at a great assembly at Lady Conway’s.  I have not time to write more:  so, good night, my dearest child! be in good spirits.  Yours, most faithfully.

P. S. We have at last got Cr`ebillon’s “Sofa:”  Lord Chesterfield received three hundred, and gave them to be sold at White’s.  It is admirable! except the beginning of the first volume, and the last story, it is equal to any thing he has written.  How he has painted the most refined nature in Mazulhim! the most retired nature in Mocles! the man of fashion, that sets himself above natural sensations, and the man of sense and devotion, that would skirmish himself from their influence, are equally justly reduced to the standard of their own weakness.(459)

(443) Secker, Bishop of Oxford.

(444) Richard Temple, Viscount Cobham, so created in 1717, with remainder to the issue male of his sister, Hester Grenville.  He had served in Flanders under the Duke of Marlborough, and was upon the overthrow of Sir Robert Walpole’s administration promoted to the military rank of field marshal.  He is now best remembered as the friend of pope and the creator of the gardens at Stowe.-D.

(445) Sir John Hinde Cotton, Bart. of Landwade, in Cambridgeshire; long a member of parliament, and one of the leaders of the Jacobite party.  He died in 1752, and Horace Walpole, in his Memoires, in noticing this event, says, “Died Sir John Cotton, the last Jacobite of any sensible activity."-D.

Lord Carteret and Mr. Pulteney had really betrayed their party, and so injudiciously, that they lost their old friends and gained no new ones.