Old Sir Charles Wager(823) is dead at last, and has left the fairest character.  I can’t help having a little private comfort, to think that Goldsworthy-but there is no danger.

Madox of St. Asaph has wriggled himself into the see of Worcester.  He makes haste; I remember him only domestic chaplain to the late Bishop of Chichester.(824) Durham is not dead, as I believe I told you from a false report.

You tell me of dining with Madame de Modene,(824) but you don’t tell me of being charmed with her.  I like her excessively-I don’t mean her person, for she is as plump as the late Queen; but, sure her face is fine; her eyes vastly fine! and then she is as agreeable as one should expect the Regent’s daughter to be.  The Princess and she must have been an admirable contrast; one has all the good breeding of a French court, and the other all the ease of it.  I have almost a mind to go to Paris to see her.  She was so excessively civil to me.  You don’t tell me if the Pucci goes into France with her.

I like the Genoese selling Corsica!  I think we should follow their example and sell France; we have about as good a title, and very near as much possession.  At how much may they value Corsica? at the rate of islands it can’t go for much.  Charles the Second sold Great Britain and Ireland to Louis XIV. for 300,000 pounds. a-year, and that was reckoned extravagantly dear.  Lord Bolingbroke took a single hundred thousand for them, when they were in much better repair.

We hear to-day that the King goes to the army on the 15th N. S. that is, to-day; but I don’t tell it you for certain.  There has been much said against his commanding it, as it is only an army of succour, and not acting as principal in the cause.  In my opinion, his commanding will depend upon the more or less probability of its acting at all.  Adieu!

(821) John, first Earl of Poulett, knight of the garter.  He died, aged upwards of eighty, on the 28th May 1743.-D.

(822) Prince Charles of Lorraine, the queen of Hungary’s general against the French.-D.

(823) This distinguished admiral died on the 24th of May, in his seventy-seventh year; at which time he was member for West looe.  A splendid monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.-E.

(824) Dr. Waddington.

(825) It was not the Duchess of Modena, but the Duke’s second sister, who went to Florence.

326 letter 109 To Sir Horace Mann.  Houghton, June 10, 1743.

You must not expect me to write you a very composed, careless letter; my spirits are all in agitation!  I am at the eve of a post that may bring me the most dreadful news! we expect to-morrow the news of a decisive battle.  Oh! if you have any friend there, think what apprehensions I (826) must have of such a post!  By yesterday’s letters, our army was within eight miles of the French, who have had repeated orders to attack them.  Lord Stair and Marshal Noailles