I hear no particular news here, and I don’t pretend to send you the common news; for as I must have it first from London, you will have it from thence sooner in the papers than in my letters.  There have been great rejoicings for the victory; which I am convinced is very considerable by the pains the Jacobites take to persuade it is not.  My Lord Carteret’s Hanoverian articles have much offended; his express has been burlesqued a thousand ways.  By all the letters that arrive, the loss of the French turns out more considerable than by the first accounts:  they have dressed up the battle into a victory for themselves-I hope they will always have such!  By their not having declared war with us, one should think they intended a peace.  It is allowed that our fine horse did us no honour — the victory was gained by the foot.  Two of their princes of the blood, the Prince de Dombes, and the Count d’Eu(836) his brother, were wounded, and several of their first nobility.  Our prisoners turn out but seventy-two officers, besides the private men; and by the printed catalogue, I don’t think of great family.  Marshal Noailles’s mortal wound is quite vanished, and Duc d’Aremberg’s shrunk to a very slight one.  The King’s glory remains in its first bloom.

Lord Wilmington is dead.  I believe the civil battle for his post will be tough.  Now we shall see what service Lord Carteret’s Hanoverians will do him.  You don’t think the crisis unlucky for him, do you?  If you wanted a treasury, should you choose to have been in Arlington Street,(837) or driving by the battle of Dettingen?  You may imagine our Court wishes for Mr. Pelham.  I don’t know any one who wishes for Lord Bath but himself-I believe that is a pretty substantial wish.

I have got the Life of King Theodore, but I don’t know how to convey it—­I will inquire for some way.

We are quite alone.  You never saw any thing so unlike as being here five months out of place, to the congresses of a fortnight in place. but you know the “Justum et tenacem propositi virum” can amuse himself without the “Civium ardor!” As I have not so much dignity of character to fill up my time, I could like a little more company.  With all this leisure, you may imagine that I might as well be writing an ode or so upon the victory; but as I cannot build upon the Laureate’s place till I know whether Lord Carteret or Mr. Pelham will carry the Treasury, I have vounded my compliments to a slender collection of quotations against I should have any occasion for them.  Here are some fine lines from Lord Halifax’s (838) poem on the battle of the Boyne-

“The King leads on, the King does all inflame, The King!-and carries millions in the name.”

Then follows a simile about a deluge, which you may imagine, but the next lines are very good —

“So on the foe the firm battalions prest,
And he, like the tenth wave, drove on the rest. 
Fierce, gallant, young, he shot through every place,
Urging their flight, and hurrying on the chase,
He hung upon their rear, or lighten’d in their face.”