We have operas, burlettas, cargoes of Italian dancers, and none good but the Mingotti, a very fine figure and actress.  I don’t know a single bon-mot that is new:  George Selwyn has not waked yet for the winter.  You will believe that, when I tell you, that t’other night having lost eight hundred pounds at hazard, he fell asleep upon the table with near half as much more before him, and slept for three hours, with every body stamping the box close at his ear.  He will say prodigiously good things when he does wake.  In the mean time, can you be content with one of Madame S`evign`e’s best bons-mots, which I have found amongst her new letters?  Do you remember her German friend the Princess of Tarente, who was always in mourning for some sovereign prince or princess?  One day Madame de S`evign`e happening to meet her in colours, made her a low curtsey, and said, “Madame, je me r`ejouis de la sant`e de l’Europe.”  I think I may apply another of her speeches which pleased me, to what I have said t@ you in the former part of my letter.  Mademoiselle du Plessis had said something she disapproved:  Madame S`evign`e said to her, “Mais que cela est sot; car je veux vous parler doucement.”  Adieu!

(525) Cumberland, in his Memoirs, speaking of Mr. Bentley, says, “There was a certain eccentricity and want of worldly prudence in my uncle’s character, that involved him in distresses, and reduced him to situations uncongenial with his feelings, and unpropitious to the cultivation and encouragement of his talents."-E.

(526) At the close of the Oxfordshire election the sheriff returned all the four candidates, who all of them petitioned.  Two were chosen upon what was called the new interest, and were supported by the court; and two by the old interest.  The expense and animosity which this dispute occasioned is incredible.  Even murder was committed upon the place of elections The friends of the new interest were ultimately voted to be the sitting members by a majority of 233 against 103.-E.

228 Letter 117 To Sir Horace Mann.  Strawberry Hill, Dec. 1, 1754

You do me justice, my dear Sir, when you impute the want of my letters to my want of news:  as a proof, I take up my pen again on the first spring-tide of politics.  However, as this is an age of abortions, and as I have often announced to you a pregnancy of events, which have soon after been stillborn, I beg you will not be disappointed if nothing comes of the present ferment.  The offenders and the offended have too often shown their disposition to soothe, or to be soothed, by preferments, for one to build much on the duration or implacability of their aversions.  In short, Mr. Pitt has broke with the Duke of Newcastle, on the want of power, and has alarmed the dozing House of Commons with some sentences, extremely in the style of his former Pittics.  As Mr. Fox is not at all more in humour, the world expects every day to see these two commanders, first unite to overturn all