(443) Mr. Walpole had given this Chinese name to a pond of gold fish at Strawberry Hill.

(444) A Swiss servant of Erasmus Shorter’s, maternal uncle to Mr. Walpole, who was not without suspicion of having hastened his master’s death.

(445) The Countesses of Thanet and Burlington were sisters.

(446) The Analysis of Beauty.

(447) “The Ruins of Palmyra, otherwise Tadmor in the Desert,” by Robert Wood, Esq.; a splendid volume in folio, with a number of elegant engravings.  In 1757, Mr. Wood published a similar description of the “Ruins of Balbec."-E.

(448) Harlequin Sorcerer.-E.

191 Letter 90
To Sir Horace Mann. 
Arlington Street, Jan. 28, 1754.

Her Serene Highness, the great Duchess Bianca Capello,(449) is arrived safe at a palace lately taken for her in Arlington Street.  She has been much visited by the quality and gentry, and pleases universally by the graces of her person and comeliness of her deportment—­my dear child, this is the least that the newspapers would say of the charming Bianca.  I, who feel all the agreeableness of your manner, must say a great deal more, or should say a great deal more, but I can only commend the picture enough, not you.  The head is painted equal to Titian; and though done, I suppose, after the ’clock had struck five-and-thirty, yet she retains a great share of beauty.  I have bespoken a frame for her, with the grand-ducal coronet at top, her story on a label at bottom, which Gray is to compose in Latin, as short and expressive as Tacitus, (one is lucky when one can bespeak and have executed such an inscription!) the Medici arms on one side, and the Capello’s on the other.  I must tell you a critical discovery of mine apropos:  in an old book of Venetian arms, there are two coats of Capello, who from their name bear a hat; on one of them is added a fleur-de-lis on a blue ball, which I am persuaded was given to the family by the Great Duke, in consideration of this alliance; the Medicis, you know, bore such a badge at the top of their own arms.  This discovery I made by a talisman, which Mr. Chute calls the Sortes Walpolianae, by which I find every thing I want, `a pointe nomm`ee, whenever I dip for it.  This discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word, which, as I have nothing better to tell you, I shall endeavour to explain to you:  you will understand it better by the derivation than by the definition.  I once read a silly fairy tale, called “The Three Princes of Serendip;” as their Highnesses travelled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of:  for instance, one of them discovered that a mule blind of the right eye had travelled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right—­now do you understand Serendipity?  One of the most remarkable instances of this accidental Sagacity, (for you must observe that no discovery of a thing you are looking for comes under this description,) was of my Lord Shaftsbury, who, happening to dine at Lord Chancellor Clarendon’s, found out the marriage of the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, by the respect with which her mother treated her at table.  I will send you the inscription in my next letter; you see I endeavour to grace your present as it deserves.