In short, I can think of no reason in the world against your going there but one:  do you know his youngest brother?  If you to be so unlucky, I can’t flatter you so far as to advise you to make him a visit; for there is nothing in the world the Baron of Englefield has such an aversion for as for his brother.

(1044) Mr. Walpole’s brother, Sir Edward.  See Ant`e, p.189, letter 42.

(1045) Styan Thirlby, fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, published an edition of Justin Martyr, and, I think, wrote something against Middleton.  He communicated several notes to Theobald for his Shakspeare, and in the latter part of his life, took to study the common law.  He lived chiefly for his last years with Sir Edward Walpole, who had procured for him a small place in the Custom house, and to whom he left his papers:  he had lost his intellects some time before his death. [He died a martyr to intemperance, in 1751, in his sixty-first year.  Mr. Nichols says, that, while in Sir Edward’s houses, he kept a miscellaneous book of Memorables, containing whatever was said or done amiss by Sir Edward, or any part of his family.]

417 Letter 165 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.  Arlington Street, May 27, 1745.

My dear Harry, As gloriously as you have set out, yet I despair of seeing you a perfect hero!  You have none of the charming violences that are so essential to that character.  You write as coolly, after behaving well in battle, as you fought in it.  Can your friends flatter themselves with seeing you, one day or other, be the death of thousands, when you wish for peace in three weeks after four first engagements and laugh at the ambition of those men who have given you this opportunity of distinguishing yourself?  With the person of an Orondates, and the courage, you have all the compassion, the reason, and the ’reflection of one that never read a romance.  Can one ever hope you will make a figure, when you only fight because it was right you should, and not because you hated the French or loved destroying mankind?  This is so un-English, or so un-heroic, that I despair of you!

Thank Heaven, you have one spice of madness!  Your admiration of your master(1047) leaves me a glimmering of hope, that you will not be always so unreasonably reasonable.  Do you remember the humorous lieutenant, in one of Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays, that is in love with the king?  Indeed, your master is not behindhand with you; you seem to have agreed to puff one another.

If you are acting up to the strictest rules of war and chivalry in Flanders, we are not less scrupulous on this side the water in fulfilling all the duties of the same order.  The day the young volunteer(1048 departed for the army (unluckily indeed, it was after the battle), his tender mother Sisygambis, and the beautiful Statira,(1049) a lady formerly known in your history by the name of Artemisia, from her cutting off her hair in your absence, were so afflicted and SO inseparable, that they made a party together to Mr. graham’S(1050) (you may read lapis if you please) to be blooded.  It was settled that this was a more precious way of expressing Concern than shaving the head, which has been known to be attended with false locks the next day.