The Duchess of Kendal(815) is dead-eighty-five years old:  she was a year older than her late King.  Her riches were immense; but I believe my Lord Chesterfield will get nothing by her death-but his wife:  (816) she lived in the house with the duchess, where he had played away all his credit.

Hough,(817) the good old Bishop of Worcester, is dead too.  I have been looking at the “Fathers in God” that have been flocking over the way this Morning to Mr. Pelham, who is just come to his new house.  This is absolutely the ministerial street Carteret has a house here too; and Lord Bath seems to have lost his chance by quitting this street.  Old Marlborough has made a good story of the latter; she says, that when he found he could not get the privy seal, he begged that at least they would offer it to him, and upon his honour he would not accept it, but would plead his vow of never taking a place; in which she says they humoured him.  The truth is, Lord Carteret did hint an offer to him, upon which he went with a nolo episcopari to the King-he bounced, and said, “Why I never offered it to you:”  upon which he recommended my Lord Carlisle, with equal Success.

Just before the King went, he asked my Lord Carteret, " Well, when am I to get rid of those fellows in the Treasury?” They are on so low a foot, that somebody said Sandys had hired a stand of hackney-coaches, to look like a levee.

Lord Conway has begged me to send you a commission, which you will oblige me much by executing.  It is to send him three Pistoia barrels for guns:  two of them, of two feet and a half in the barrel in length; the smallest of the inclosed buttons to be the size of the bore, hole, or calibre, of the two guns.  The third barrel to be three feet and an inch in length; the largest of these buttons to be the bore of it; these feet are English measure.  You will be so good to let me know the price of them.

There has happened a comical circumstance at Leicester House:  one of the Prince’s coachmen, who used to drive the Maids of Honour, was so sick of them, that he has left his son three hundred pounds, upon condition that he never carries a Maid of Honour!

Our journey to Houghton is fixed to Saturday se’nnight; ’tis unpleasant, but I flatter myself that I shall get away in the beginning of August.  Direct your letters as you have done all this winter; your brother will take care to send them to me.  Adieu!

(814) There was no great victory this year till the battle of Dettingen, which took place in June; but the Austrians obtained many advantages during the spring over the Bavarians and the French, and obliged the latter to recross the Rhine.-D.

(815) Erangard Melusina Schulembergh, the mistress of George I. George I. created her Duchess of Munster and Marchioness of Dungannon in Ireland in 1719; Ind Duchess of Kendal, Countess of Feversham, and Baroness of Glastonbury. in England, in 1723.  All these honours were for life only.  He also persuaded the Emperor to create her Princess of eberstein in the Roman empire in 1723.-D.