The former copy I think you will like:  it was written by one Mr. Ashton (646) on Mr. West, two friends of mine, whom you have heard me often mention.  The other copy was printed in the Common Sense, I don’t know by whom composed:  the end of it is very bad, and there are great falsities in it, but some strokes are terribly like!

I have not a moment to thank the Grifona, nor to answer yours of June 17, N. S. which I have this instant read.  Yours, in great haste.

(644) See ante, pp. 121, (Letter 1), 251, (Letter 65).

(645) The report, mentioned in a preceding letter, that Horace Walpole, brother to Sir Robert, was created a peer.

(646)Thomas Ashton, afterwards fellow of Eton College. [See ant`e, p. 128, Letter 6, footnote 153.)

271 Letter 76 To Sir Horace Mann.  London, July 7, 1742.

Well! you may bid the Secret Committee good night.  The House adjourns to-day till Tuesday, and on Thursday is to be prorogued.  Yesterday we had a bill of Pultney’s, about returning officers and regulating elections:  the House was thin, and he carried it by 93 to 92.  Mr. Pelham was not there, and Winnington did not vote, for the gentleman is testy still; when he saw how near he had been to losing it, he said loud enough to be heard, “I will make the gentlemen of that side feel me!” and, rising up, he said, “He was astonished, that a bill so calculated for the freedom of elections was so near being thrown out; that there was a report on the table, which showed how necessary such a bill was, and that though we had not time this year to consider what was proper to be done in consequence of it, he hoped we should next,"-with much to the same purpose; but all the effect this notable speech had, was to frighten my uncle, and make him give two or three shrugs extraordinary to his breeches.  They now say,(647) that Pultney will not take out the patent for his earldom, but remain in the House of Commons in terrorem; however, all his friends are to have places immediately, or, as the fashion of expressing it is, they are to go to Court in the Bath coach!"(648)

Your relation Guise (649) is arrived from Carthagena, madder than ever.  As he was marching up to one of the forts, all his men deserted him; his lieutenant advised him to retire; he replied, “He never had turned his back yet, and would not now,” and stood all the fire.  When the pelicans were flying over his head, he cried out, “What would Chloe (650) give for some of these to make a pelican pie!” When he is brave enough to perform such actions as are really almost incredible, what pity it is that he should for ever persist In saving things that are totally so!

Lord Annandale (651) is at last mad in all the forms:  he has long been an out-pensioner of Bedlam College.  Lord and Lady Talbot,(652) are parted; he gives her three thousand pounds a-year.  Is it not amazing, that in England people will not find out that they can live separate without parting?  The Duke of Beaufort says, “He pities Lord Talbot to have met with two such tempers as their two wives!”