I was reading t’other day the Life of Colonel Codrington,(504) who founded the library at All Souls — he left a large estate for the propagation of the Gospel, and ordered that three hundred negroes should constantly be constantly employed upon it.  Did one ever hear a more truly Christian charity, than keeping a perpetuity of three hundred slaves to look after the Gospel’s estate?  How could one intend a religious legacy, and miss the disposition of that estate for delivering three hundred negroes from the most shocking slavery imaginable?  Must devotion be twisted into the unfeeling interests of trade?  I must revenge myself for the horror this fact has given me, and tell you a story of Gideon.(505) He breeds his children Christians:  he had a mind to know what proficience his son had made in his new religion; “So,” says he, “I began, and asked him, who made him; He said ‘God.’  I then asked him, who redeemed him?  He replied very readily, ‘Christ.’  Well, then I was at the end of my interrogatories, and did not know what other question to put to him.  I said, Who—­who—­I did not know what to say; at last I said, Who gave you that hat?  ’The Holy Ghost,’ said the boy.”  Did you ever hear a better catechism?  The great cry against Nugent at Bristol was for having voted for the Jew-bill:  one old woman said, “What, must we be represented by a Jew and an Irishman?” He replied with great quickness, “My good dame, if you will step aside with me into a corner, I will show you that I am not a Jew, and that I am an Irishman.”

The Princess(506) has breakfasted at the long Sir Thomas Robinson’s at Whitehall; my Lady Townshend will never forgive it.  The second dowager of Somerset(507) is gone to know whether all her letters from the living to the dead have been received.  Before I bid you good-night, I must tell you of an admirable curiosity:  I was looking over one of our antiquarian volumes, and in the description of Leeds is an account of Mr. Thoresby’s famous museum there-what do you think is one of the rarities?—­a knife taken from one of the Mohocks!  Whether tradition is infallible or not, as you say, I think so authentic a relic will make their history indisputable.  Castles, Chinese houses, tombs, negroes, Jews, Irishmen, princesses, and Mohocks—­what a farrago do I send you!  I trust that a letter from England to Jersey has an imposing air, and that you don’t presume to laugh at any thing that comes from your mother island.  Adieu!

(500) Charles Montagu.

(501) Mr. Walpole, in these letters, calls the Strawberry committee, those of his friends who had assisted in the plans and Gothic ornaments of Strawberry Hill.

(502) The lady was married to the Earl of Essex on the 1st of August.  She died in childbed, in July 1759.-E.

(503) Mr. Walpole had commissioned Mr. Bentley to send him a piece of the granite found in the island of Jersey, for a sideboard in his dining-room.