Rinuncini returns to you this week, not at all contented with England:  Niccolini is extremely, and turns his little talent to great account; there is nobody of his own standard but thinks him a great genius.  The Chutes and I deal extremely together; but they abuse me, and tell me I am grown so English! lack-a-day! so I am; as folks that have been in the Inquisition, and did not choose to broil, come out excellent Catholics.

I have been unfortunate in my own family; my nephew, Captain Cholmondeley,(1318) has married a player’s sister; and I fear Lord Malpas(1319) is on the brink of matrimony with another girl of no fortune.  Here is a ruined family! their father totally undone, and all be has seized for debt!

The Duke is gone to Holland to settle the operations of the campaign, but returns before the opening of it.  A great reformation has been made this week in the army; the horse are broke, and to be turned into dragoons, by which sixty thousand pounds a-year will be saved.  Whatever we do in Flanders, I think you need not fear any commotions here, where Jacobitism seems to have gasped its last.  Mr. Radcliffe, the last Derwentwater’s brother, is actually named to the gallows for Monday; but the imprudence of Lord Morton,(1320) who has drawn himself into the Bastile, makes it doubtful whether the execution will be so quick.  The famous orator Henley is taken up for treasonable flippancies.(1321)

You know Lord Sandwich is minister at the Hague.  Sir Charles Williams, who has resigned the paymastership of the marines, is talked of for going to Berlin, but it is not yet done.  The Parliament has been most serene, but there is a storm in the air:  the Prince waits for an opportunity of erecting his standard, and a disputed election between him and the Grenvilles is likely very soon to furnish the occasion.  We are to have another contest about Lord Bath’s borough,(1322) which Mr. Chute’s brother formerly lost, and which his colleague, Lu@e Robinson, has carried by a majority of three, though his competitor is returned.  Lord Bath wrote to a man for a list of all that would be against him:  the man placed his own and his brother’s names at the head of the list.

We have operas, but no company at them; the Prince and Lord Middlesex Impresarii.  Plays only are in fashion:  at one house the best company that perhaps ever were together, quin, Garrick, Mrs. Pritchard, and Mrs. Cibber:  at the other, Barry, a favourite young actor, and the Violette, whose dancing our friends don’t like; I scold them, but all the answer is, “Lord! you are so English!” If I do clap sometimes when they don’t, I can fairly say with Oedipus,

“My hands are guilty, but my heart is free.” ’

Adieu!

(1317) Cardinal Acquaviva, Protector of Spain, and a great promoter of the interests of the Pretender

(1318) Robert, second son of George, Earl of Cholmondeley, married Mary, sister of Mrs. Margaret Woffington, the actress.  He afterwards quitted the army and took orders. [Besides two church livings, he enjoyed the office of auditor of the King’s revenues in America.  He died in 1804.]