The robber of Po Yang(443) is discovered, and I hope will be put to death, without my pity interfering, as it has done for Mr. Shorter’s servant,(444) or Lady Caroline Petersham’s, as it did for Maclean.  In short, it was a heron.  I like this better than thieves, as I believe the gang will be more easily destroyed, though not mentioned in the King’s speech or Fielding’s treatises.

Lord Clarendon, Lord Thanet, and Lord Burlington are dead.  The second sent for his tailor, and asked him if he could make him a suit of mourning in eight hours:  if he could, he would go into mourning for his brother Burlington(445)—­but that he did not expect to live twelve hours himself.

There are two more volumes come out of Sir Charles Grandison.  I shall detain them till the last is published, and not think I postpone much of your pleasure.  For my part, I stopped at the fourth; I was so tired of sets of people getting together, and saying, “Pray, Miss, with whom are you in love?” and of mighty good young men that convert your Mr. M * * * ’s in the twinkling of a sermon!—­You have not been much more diverted, I fear, with Hogarth’s book(446)—­’tis very silly!—­Palmyra(447) is come forth, and is a noble book; the prints finely engraved, and an admirable dissertation before it.  My wonder is much abated:  the Palmyrene empire which I had figured, shrunk to a small trading city with some magnificent public buildings out of proportion to the dignity of the place.

The operas succeed pretty well; and music has so much recovered its power of charming that there is started up a burletta at Covent Garden,(448) that has half the vogue of the old Beggar’s Opera:  indeed there is a soubrette, called the Niccolina, who, besides being pretty, has more vivacity and variety of humour than ever existed in any creature.

(438) Mr. Bentley was now in the island of Jersey; whither he had retired on account of the derangement of his affairs, and whither all the following letters are addressed to him.

(439) A nurseryman at Twickenham.  He had served Pope.  Mr. Walpole telling him he Would have his trees planted irregularly, he said, “Yes, Sir, I understand:  you would have them hung down somewhat poetical.”

(440) Frederick King of Prussia, nephew to George ii.  Mr. Walpole alludes to himself, who was upon bad terms with his uncle Horace Walpole, afterwards Lord Walpole of Wolterton.

(441) Alluding to the disturbances and opposition to government, which took place in Ireland during the viceroyalty of Lionel Duke of Dorset.

(442) In framing the act for the purchase of the Sloane Museum and the Harleian Manuscripts by lottery Mr. Pelham, who disapproved of this financial expedient, as tending to foster a spirit of gambling, had taken care to restrict the number of tickets to be sold to any single individual.  Notwithstanding which, Mr. Leheup, one of the commissioners of the lottery, had sold to one person, under names which he knew to be fictitious, between two and three hundred tickets.  The subject was brought before the House of Commons, where a series of resolutions was passed against Mr. Leheup, accompanied by an address to the King, praying that the offender might be prosecuted.  The result was, that he was prosecuted by the Attorney-general, and fined one thousand pounds.-E.