Whom should I meet in the Park last night but Ceretesi!  He told me he was at a Bagne.  I will find out his bagnio; for though I was not much acquainted with him, yet the obligations I had to Florence make me eager to show any Florentine all the civilities in my power; though I do not love them near so well, since what you have told me of their late behaviour; notwithstanding your letter of June 20th, which I have just received.  I perceive that simple-hearted, good, unmeaning Ituccilai is of the number of the false, though you do not directly say so.

I was excessively diverted with your pompous account of the siege of Lucca by a single Englishman.  I do believe that you and the Chutes might put a certain city into as great a panic.  Adieu!

(616) John Leveson Gower, second Lord Gower; in 1746 created an earl.  He died in 1754.-E.

(617) Allan, first Lord Bathurst, one of the twelve Tory peers created by Queen Anne, in 1711.  He was the friend of Pope, Congreve, Swift, Prior, and other men of letters.  He lived to see his eldest son chancellor of England, and died at the advanced age of ninety, in 1775; having been created an earl in 1772.-D.

(618) William Capel, third Earl of Essex; ambassador at the court of Turin. he died in January 1743.  The Beef-eaters are otherwise called the Yeomen of the Guard.-D.

(619) Charles Powlett, third Duke of Bolton.  His second wife was Miss Lavinia Fenton, otherwise Mrs. Beswick, the actress; who became celebrated in the character of Polly Peacham in the Beggar’s Opera.  By her the duke had three sons, born before marriage.  With his first wife, the daughter and sole heiress of John Vaughan, Earl of Carberry in Ireland, he never cohabited.  He died in 1754.-D.

(620) John Wallop, first Viscount Lymington; in the following April created Earl of Portsmouth.  He died in 1762.-E.

(621) John Scrope, secretary of the treasury.  He had been in Monmouth’s rebellion, when very young, and carried intelligence to Holland in woman’s clothes.

(622) He did not die till 1753.  Tindal states that, upon giving this answer he was no further pressed.-E.

(623) Henry Berkeley; killed the next year at the battle of Dettingen.

(624) Lady Vane’s Memoirs, dictated by herself, were actually published afterward,,; in a book, called “The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle;” and she makes mention of Lady Orford. [See ant`e, p. 189, Letter 42.  Sir Walter Scott says, that “she not only furnished Smollett with the materials for recording her own infamy, but rewarded him handsomely for the insertion of her story.”]

265 Letter 73 To sir Horace Mann.  Midsummer Day, 1742.

One begins every letter with an Io Paean! indeed our hymns are not so tumultuous as they were some time ago, to the tune of Admiral Vernon.  They say there came an express last night, of the taking of Prague and the destruction of some thousand French.  It is really amazing the fortune of the Queen!  We expect every day the news of the king of Poland having made his peace; for it is affirmed that the Prussians left him but sixteen days to think of it.  There is nothing could stop the King of Prussia, if he should march to Dresden:  how long his being at peace with that king will stop him I look upon as very uncertain.