Adieu!  Possibly I may hear something in town worth telling you.

(839) Madame Grifoni.

(840) Son of Prince Craon.

334 letter 114
To Sir Horace Mann. 
Arlington Street, July 19.

Here am I come a-Dominichining! and the first thing, I hear is, that the Pembroke must perform quarantine fourteen days for coming from the Mediterranean, and a week airing.  It is forty days, if they bring the plague from Sicily.  I will bear this misfortune as heroically as I can; and considering I have London to bear it in, may possibly support it well enough.

The private letters from the army all talk of the King’s going to Hanover, 2nd of August, N. S. If he should not, one shall be no longer in pain for him; for the French have repassed the Rhine, and think only of preparing against Prince Charles, who is marching sixty-two thousand men, full of conquest and revenge, to regain his own country.  I most cordially wish him success, and that his bravery may recover what his abject brother gave up so tamely, and which he takes as little personal pains to regain.  It is not at all determined whether we are to carry the war into France.  It is ridiculous enough! we have the name of war with Spain, without the thing and war with France, without the name!

The maiden heroes of the Guards are in great wrath with General Ilton, who kept them out of harm’s way.  They call him “the Confectioner,” because he says he preserved them.

The week before I left Houghton my father had a most dreadful accident:  it had near been fatal; but he escaped miraculously.  He dined abroad, and went up to sleep.  As he was coming down again, not quite awakened, he was surprised at seeing the company through a glass-door which he had not observed:  his foot slipped, and he, who is now entirely unwieldy and helpless, fell at once down the stairs against the door, which, had it not been there, he had dashed himself to pieces, in a stone hall.  He cut his forehead two inches long to the pericranium, and another gash upon his temple; but, most luckily, did himself’ no other hurt, and was quite well again before I came away.

I find Lord Stafford (841) married to Miss Cantillon; they are to live half the year in London, half in Paris.  Lord Lincoln is soon to marry his cousin Miss Pelham:  it will be great joy to the whole house of Newcastle.

There is no determination yet come about the Treasury.  Most people wish for Mr. Pelham; few for Lord Carteret; none for Lord Bath.  My Lady TOWnshend said an admirable thing the other day to this last:  he was complaining much of a pain in his side-"Oh!” said she, “that can’t be; you have no side.”

I have a new cabinet for my enamels and miniatures Just come home, which I am sure you would like:  it is of rosewood; the doors inlaid with carvings in ivory.’  I wish you could see ’It!  Are you to be forever ministerial sans rel`ache?  Are you never to have leave to come and “settle your private affairs,” as the newspapers call it?