thought himself a proper match.(362) Don’t you think he would make a very proper preceptor?  Among other candidates, they talk of Dr. hales, the old philosopher, a poor good primitive creature, whom I call the Santon Barsisa; do you remember the hermit in the Persian tales, who after living in the odour of sanctity for above ninety years, was tempted to be naughty with the King’s daughter, who had been sent to his cell for a cure?  Santon Hales but two years ago accepted the post of clerk of the closet to the Princess, after literally leading the life of a studious anchorite till past seventy.  If he does accept the preceptorship, I don’t doubt but by the time the present clamours are appeased, the wick of his old life will be snuffed out, and they will put Johnson in his socket.  Good night!  I shall carry this letter to town to-morrow, and perhaps keep it back a few days, till I am able to send you this history complete.

Arlington Street, Dec. 17th.

Well! at last we shall have a governor:  after meeting with divers refusals, they have forced lord Waldegrave(364) to take it; and he kisses hands to-morrow.  He has all the time declared that nothing but the King’s earnest desire should make him accept it-and so they made the King earnestly desire it!  Dr. Thomas, the Bishop of Peterborough, I believe, is to be the tutor—­I know nothing of him:  he had lain by for many years, after having read prayers to the present King when he lived at Leicester House, which his Majesty remembered, and two years ago popped him into a bishopric.

There is an odd sort of manifesto arrived from Prussia, which does not make us in better humour at St. James’s.  It stops the payment of the interest on the Silesian loan, till satisfaction is made some Prussian captures during the war.  The omnipotence of the present ministry does not reach to Berlin!  Adieu!  All the world are gone to their several Christmases, as I should do, if I could have got my workmen out of Strawberry Hill; but they don’t work at all by the scale of my impatience.

(358) The Bishop of Norwich, who was a prelate of profound learning, and conscientiously zealous for the mental improvement of his pupil, disgusted the young Prince by his dry and pedantic manners, and offended the Princess, his mother, by persevering in the discipline which he deemed necessary to remedy the gross neglect of her son’s education.”  Coxe’s Pelham, vol. ii. p. 236.-E.

(359) Thomas Osborne, fourth Duke of Leeds.  He died in 1789.-D.

(360) John, second Earl of Ashburnham.  He died at a great age, April 8th, 1812.-D.

(361) Dr. Edmund Keene, Bishop of Chester, was, for some reason which is not known, the constant subject of Gray’s witty and splenetic effusions.  One of the chief amusements discovered by the poet, pour passer le temps in a postchaise, was making extempore epigrams upon the Bishop, and then laughing at them immoderately.  The following, which is the commencement of one of them, may serve as a specimen: