Mr. Fox said nothing about your brother; if the offer was ill-designed from one quarter, I think you may make the refusal of it have its weight in another.

It would be odd to conclude a letter from White’s without a bon-mot of George Selwyn’s; he came in here t’other night, and saw James Jefferies playing at piquet with Sir Everard Falkener, “Oh!” says he, “now he is robbing the mail.”  Good night! when do you come back?

(357) On the death of the Prince of Wales in 1751, his eldest son, Prince George, was committed to the care of the Earl of Harcourt as governor.

151 Letter 69 To Sir Horace Mann.  Strawberry Hill, Dec. 11, 1752, N. S.

I don’t know whether I may not begin a new chapter of revolutions:  if one may trust prognosticators, the foundations of a revolution in earnest are laying.  However, as I am only a simple correspondent, and no almanack-maker, I shall be content with telling you facts, and not conjectures, at least if I do tell you conjectures they shall not be my own.  Did not I give you a hint in the summer of some storms gathering in the tutorhood?  They have broke out; indeed there wanted nothing to the explosion but the King’s arrival, for the instant he came, it was pretty plain that he was prepared for the grievances he was to hear—­not very impartially it seems, for he would not speak to Lord Harcourt.  In about three days he did, and saw him afterwards alone in his closet.  What the conversation was, I can’t tell you:  one should think not very explicit, for in a day or two afterwards it was thought proper to send the Archbishop and Chancellor to hear his lordship’s complaints; but on receiving a message that they would wait on him by the King’s orders, he prevented the visit by going directly to the Chancellor; and on hearing their commission, Lord Harcourt, after very civil speeches of regard to their persons, said, he must desire to be excused, for what he had to say was of a nature that made it improper to be said to any body but the King.  You may easily imagine that this is interpreted to allude to a higher person than the mean people who have offended Lord Harcourt and the Bishop of Norwich.  Great pains were taken to detach the former from the latter; “dear Harcourt, we love you, we wish to make you easy; but the Bishop must go.”  I don’t tell you these were the Duke of Newcastle’s words; but if I did, would they be unlike him?  Lord Harcourt fired, and replied with spirit, “What! do you think to do me a favour by offering me to stay! know, it is I that will not act with such fellows as Stone and Cresset, and Scott:  if they are kept, I will quit, and if the Bishop is dismissed, I will quit too.”  After a few days, he had his audience and resigned.  It is said, that he frequently repeated, “Stone is a Jacobite,” and that the other person who made up the t`ete-`a-t`ete cried, “Pray, my lord! pray, my lord!”—­and would not hear upon that subject.  The next day the Archbishop went to the King, and begged to know whether the Bishop of Norwich might have leave to bring his own resignation, or whether his Majesty would receive it from him, the Archbishop, The latter was chosen, and the Bishop’ was refused an audience.