“Lybs must fly south, and Eurus east,
For jewels for her neck and breast.”

Indeed, one would take you for my Chloe, when one looks on this modicum of gilt paper, which resembles a billet-doux more than a letter to a minister.  You must take it as the widow’s mite, and since the death of my spouse, poor Mr. News, I cannot afford such large doles as formerly.  Adieu! my dear child, I am yours ever, from a quire of the largest foolscap to a vessel of the smallest gilt.

(794) There was a party at this time in Sweden, who tried to choose the Prince Royal of Denmark for successor to King Frederick of sweden.

(795) Dr. Wilcox, Bishop of Rochester, and Dr. Sherlock, Bishop of Salisbury:  the latter afterwards accepted the See of London.

317 Letter 103 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, April 14, 1743.

This has been a noble week; I have received three letters at once from you.  I am ashamed when I reflect on the poverty of my own! but what can one do?  I don’t sell you my news, and therefore should not be excusable to invent.  I wish we don’t grow to have more news!  Our politics, which have not always been the most in earnest, now begin to take a very serious turn.  Our army is wading over the Rhine, up to their middles in snow.  I hope they will be thawed before their return:  but they have gone through excessive hardships.  The King sends six thousand more of his Hanoverians at his own expense:  this will be popular-and the six thousand Hessians march too.  All this will compose an army considerable enough to be a great loss if they miscarry.  The King certainly goes abroad in less than a fortnight.  He takes the Duke with him to Hanover who from thence goes directly to the army.  The Court will not be great:  the King takes only Lord Carteret, the Duke of Richmond, master of the horse, and Lord Holderness and Lord Harcourt,(796) for the bedchamber.  The Duchesses of Richmond and Marlborough,(797) and plump Carteret,(798) go to the Hague.

His Royal Highness is not Regent:  there are to be fourteen.  The Earl of Bath and Mr. Pelham, neither of them in regency-posts, are to be of the number.

I have read your letters about Mystery to Sir Robert.  He denies absolutely having ever had transactions with King Theodore, and is amazed Lord Carteret can; which he can’t help thinking but he must, by the intelligence about Lady W. Now I can conceive all that affected friendship for Richcourt!  She must have meant to return to England by Richcourt’s interest with Touissant(799) and then where was her friendship?  You are quite in the right not to have engaged with King Theodore:  your character is not-Furibondo.  Sir R. entirely disapproves all Mysterious dealings; he thinks Furibondo most bad and most improper, and always did.  You mistook me about Lady W.’s Lord-I meant Quarendon, who is now Earl of Litchfield, by his father’s death, which I mentioned.  I think her lucky in Sturges’s death, and him lucky in dying.  He had outlived resentment; I think had almost lived to be pitied.