Harry Legge is to be chancellor of the exchequer, but the declared favour rests on Lord Duplin.  Sir George Lyttelton is to be treasurer of the navy.  The parliament is to be dissolved on the fourth of next month:  till when, I suppose, none of the changes will take place.  These are the politics of the day; but as they are a little fluctuating, notwithstanding the steadiness of the new first minister, I will not answer that they will hold true to Greatworth:  nothing lasts now but the bad weather.

I went two days ago, with Lady Ailesbury, and Mr. Conway, and Miss Anne, to hear the rehearsal of Mrs. Clive’s new farce, which is very droll, with pretty music.

202 Letter 96 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, March 28, 1754.

I promised to write to you again soon, and therefore I do:  that Is, I stick to the letter, not to the essence; for I not Only have very little to write, but your brother has, I believe, already told you all that has happened.  Mr. Fox received almost at once a testimonial that he was the most proper for minister, and a proof that he was not to be so.  He on the Tuesday consented to be secretary of state, with the management of the House of Commons, and the very next day refused to be the former, as he found he was not to have the latter.  He remains secretary at war, in rupture with the Duke of Newcastle, (who, you know, has taken the treasury,) but declaring against opposition.  That Duke is omnipotent; and, to show that power, makes use of nothing but machines.  Sir Thomas Robinson is secretary of state; Mr. Legge, chancellor of the exchequer; Lord Duplin,(470) the agent of business.(471) Yesterday an odd event happened:  Lord Gower resigned the privy seal:  it had been for some time promised to the Duke of Rutland,(472) who having been reported dead, and who really having voided a quarry of stones, is come to town; and his brother, a Lord William Manners, better known in the groom-porter’s annals than in those of Europe, and the whole Manners family having intimated to the Duke of Newcastle that unless Lord Gower was dismissed in a month, and the Duke of Rutland instated in his place, they would oppose the prosperous dawn of the new ministry, that poor Earl, who is inarticulate with the palsy, has been drawn into a resignation, and is the first sacrifice to the spirit of the new administration.(473) You will very likely not understand such politics as these, but they are the best we have.

Our old good-humoured friend Prince Craon is dead; don’t you think that the Princess will not still despair of looking well in weeds!  My Lord Orford’s grandmother(474) is dead too; and after her husband’s death, (whose life, I believe, she has long known to be not worth a farthing,) has left every thing to her grandson.  This makes me very happy, for I had apprehended, from Lord Orford’s indolence and inattention, and from his mother’s cunning and attention, that she would have wriggled herself into the best clause in the will; but she is not mentioned in it, and the Houghton pictures may still be saved.  Adieu! my dear Sir; I don’t call this a letter, but a codicil to my last:  one can’t write volumes on trifling events.