234 letter 121 To Richard Bentley, Esq.  Arlington Street, Jan. 9, 1755.

I used to say that one could not go out of London for two days without finding at one’s return that something very extraordinary had happened; but of late the climate had lost its propensity to odd accidents.  Madness be praised, we are a little restored to the want of our senses!  I have been twice this Christmas at Strawberry Hill for a few days, and at each return have been not a little surprised:  the last time, at the very unexpected death of Lord Albemarle,(541) who was taken ill at Paris, going home from supper, and expired in a few hours; and last week at the far more extraordinary death of Montford.(542) He himself, with all his judgment in bets, I think would have betted any man in England against himself for self-murder:  yet after having been supposed the sharpest genius of his time, he, by all that appears, shot himself on the distress of his circumstances; an apoplectic disposition I believe concurring, either to lower his spirits, or to alarm them.  Ever since Miss * * * * lived with him, either from liking her himself, as some think, or to tempt her to marry his lilliputian figure, he has squandered vast sums at Horse-heath, and in living.  He lost twelve hundred a-year by Lord Albemarle’s death, and four by Lord Gage’s, the same day.  He asked immediately for the government of Virginia or the Foxhounds, and pressed for an answer with an eagerness that surprised the Duke of Newcastle, who never had a notion of pinning down the relief of his own or any other man’s wants to a day.  Yet that seems to have been the case of Montford, who determined to throw the die of life and death, Tuesday was Se’nnight, on the answer he was to receive from court; which did not prove favourable.  He consulted indirectly, and at last pretty directly several people on the easiest method of finishing life; and seems to have thought that he had been too explicit; for he invited company to dinner for the day after his death, and ordered a supper at Whites, where he Supped, too, the night before.  He played at whist till one in the morning; it was New Year’s morning — Lord Robert Bertie drank to him a happy new year; he clapped his hands strangely to his eyes!  In the morning he had a lawyer and three witnesses, and executed his will, which he made them read twice over, paragraph by paragraph:  and then asking the lawyer if that will would stand good, though a man were to shoot himself? and being assured it would; he said, " Pray stay while I step into the next room;"=-went into the next room and shot himself.  He clapped the pistol so close to his head, that they heard no report.  The housekeeper heard him fall, and, thinking he had a fit, ran up with drops, and found his skull and brains shot about the room You will be charmed with the friendship and generosity of Sir Francis.  Montford a little time since opened his circumstances to him.  Sir Francis said, “Montford,