him was, “a Whig! a Whig!” As for Lord B. I may truly say, he is humbled and licks the dust; for his tongue, which never used to hang below the waistband of his breeches, is now dropped down to his shoe-buckles; and had not Mr. Stone assured him that if the worst came to the worst, they could but make their fortunes under another family, I don’t know whether he would not have despaired of the commonwealth.  But though I sincerely pity so good a citizen, I cannot help feeling most for poor Lord Holderness, who sees a scheme of glory dashed which would have added new lustre to the British annals and have transmitted the name D’Arcy down to latest posterity.  He had but just taken Mr. Mason the poet into his house to write his deserts; and he had just reason to expect that the secretary’s office would have gained a superiority over that of France and Italy, which was unknown even to Walsingham.

I had written thus far, and perhaps should have elegized on for a page or two further, when Harry, who has no idea of the dignity of grief, blundered in, with satisfaction in his countenance, and thrust two packets from you into my hand.- -Alas! he little knew that I was incapable of tasting any satisfaction but in the indulgence of my concern.—­I was once going to commit them to the devouring flames, lest any light or vain sentence should tempt me to smile but my turn for true philosophy checked my hand, and made me determine to prove that I could at once launch into the bosom of pleasure and be insensible to it.-I have conquered; I have read your letters, and yet I think of nothing but Mr. Pelham’s death!  Could Lady Catherine(462) do thus @ Could she receive a love-letter from Mr. Brown, and yet think only on her breathless Lord?

Thursday,

I wrote the above last night, and have stayed as late as I could this evening, that I might be able to tell you who the person is in whom all the world is to discover the proper qualities for replacing the national loss.  But, alas! the experience of two @,whole days has showed that the misfortune is irreparable; and I don’t know whether the elegies on his death will not be finished before there be any occasion for congratulations to his successor.  The mystery is profound.  How shocking it will be if things should go on just as they are!  I mean by that, how mortifying if it is discovered, that when all the world thought Mr. Pelham did and could alone maintain the calm and carry on the government, even he was not necessary, and that it was the calm and the government that carried on themselves!  However, this is not my opinion.—­I believe all this will make a party.(453)

Good night! here are two more new plays:  Constantine,(464) the better of them, expired the fourth night at Covent-garden.  Virginia,(465) by Garrick’s acting and popularity, flourishes still:  he has written a remarkably good epilogue to it.  Lord Bolingbroke is come forth in five pompous quartos, two and a half new and most unorthodox.(466) Warburton is resolved to answer, and the bishops not to answer him.  I have not had a moment to look into it.  Good night!