The new Elector(1011) seems to set out well for us, though there are accounts of his having taken the style of Archduke, as claiming the Austrian succession:  if he has, it will be like the children’s game of beat knaves out of doors, where you play the pack twenty times over; one gets pam, the other gets pam, but there is no conclusion to the game till one side has never a card left.

After my ill success with the baronet,(1012) to whom I gave a letter for you.  I shall always be very cautious how I recommend barbarians to your protection.  I have this morning been solicited for some credentials for a Mr. Oxenden.(1013) I could not help laughing:  he is a son of Sir George, my Lady W.’s famous lover!  Can he want recommendations to Florence?  However, I must give him a letter; but beg you will not give yourself any particular trouble about him, for I do not know him enough to bow to.  His person is good:  that and his name, I suppose, will bespeak my lady’s attentions, and save you the fatigue of doing him many honours.

Thank Mr. Chute for his letter; I will answer it very soon.  I delight in the article of the Mantua Gazette.  Adieu!

(1007) The Venetian ambassador.

(1008) Swift, in speaking of Lord Granville, says, that “he carried away from college more Greek, Latin, and philosophy than properly became a person of his rank;” and Walpole, in his Memoires, describes him as “an extensive scholar, master of all classic criticism, and of all modern politics."-E.

(1009) “Mr. Pitt, who had been laid up with the gout, came down with the mien and apparatus of an invalid, on purpose to make a full declaration of his sentiments on our present circumstances.  What he said was enforced with much grace both of action and elocution.  He commended the ministry for pursuing moderate and healing measures, and such -,is tended to set the King at the head of all his people.”  See Mr.- P. Yorke’s MS. Parliamentary Journal.-E.

(1010) Charles Vii.  Elector of Bavaria.

(1011) Maximilian Joseph.  He died in 1777.-E.

(1012) Sir William Maynard. (He married the daughter of Sir Cecil Bisshopp, and died in 1772.]

(1013) Afterwards Sir Henry Oxenden, the sixth baronet of the family, and eldest son of Sir George Oxenden, for many years a lord of the treasury during the reign of George the Second.  He died in 1803.-E.

404 Letter 157 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, Feb. 28, 1745.

You have heard from your brother the reason of my not having written to you so long.  I have been out but twice since my father fell into this illness, which is now near a month; and all that time either continually in his room, or obliged to see multitudes of people; for it is most wonderful how every body of all kinds has affected to express their concern for him.  He has been out of danger above this week; but I can’t say he mended at all perceptibly,