I come now to speak to you of the affair of the Duke of Newcastle; but absolutely, on considering it much myself, and on talking of it with your brother, we both are against your attempting any such thing.  In the first place, I never heard a suspicion of the duke’s taking presents, and should think he would rather be affronted:  in the next place, my dear child, though you are fond of that coffee-pot, it would be thought nothing among such wardrobes as he has, of the finest wrought plate:  why, he has- a set of gold plates that would make a figure on any sideboard in the Arabian Tales;(753) and as to Benvenuto cellini, if the duke could take it for his, people in England understand all work too well to be deceived.  Lastly, as there has been no talk of alterations in the foreign ministers, and as all changes seem at an end, why should you be apprehensive?  As to Stone,(754) if any thing was done, to be sure it should be to him though I really can’t advise even that.  These are my sentiments sincerely:  by no means think of the duke.  Adieu!

(751) Charles Philip of Neubourg, , Elector Palatine.  He died December 31, 1742.  He was succeeded by Charles Theodore, Prince of Sulzbach, descended from a younger branch of the house of Neubourg, and who, in his old age, became Elector of Bavaria.-D.

(752) Catherine Hyde, daughter of the Earl of Clarendon, and wife of Charles Douglas, Duke of Queensberry; a famous beauty, celebrated by Prior in that pretty poem which begins, “Kitty, beautiful and young,” and often mentioned in Swift and Pope’s letters, She was forbid the Court for promoting subscriptions to the second part of the Beggar’s Opera, when it had been prohibited from being acted.  She and the duke erected the monument to Gay in Westminster Abbey. [And to which Pope supplied the epitaph, “the first eight lines of which,” says Dr. Johnson, “have no grammar; the adjectives without substantives, and the epithets without a subject.”  The duchess died in 1777, and her husband in the year following.]

(753) Walpole, in his Memoires, says that the duke’s houses, gardens, table, and equipages swallowed immense treasures, and that the sums he owed were only exceeded by those he wasted.  He employed several physicians, without having had apparently much need of them.  His gold plate appears to have been almost as dear to him as his health; for he usually kept it in pawn, except when he wished to display it on great occasions.

(754) Andrew Stone, at this time private secretary to the Duke of Newcastle. he subsequently filled the offices of under-secretary of state, sub-governor to Prince George, keeper of the state-paper office, and, on the marriage of George the third, treasurer to the Queen. he died in 1773.-E.

304 Letter 94 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, Jan. 13, 1743,

Your brother brought me two letters together this morning, and at the same time showed me yours to your father.  How should I be ashamed, were I he, to receive such a letter! so dutiful, so humble, and yet so expressive of the straits to which he has let you be reduced!  My dear child, it looks too much like the son of a minister, when I am no longer so; but I can’t help repeating to you offers of any kind of service that you think I can do for you any way.