My dear sir, Your argosie is arrived safe; thank you for shells, trees, cones; but above all, thank you for the landscape.  As it is your first attempt in oils, and has succeeded so much beyond my expectation, (and being against my advice too, you may believe the sincerity of my praises,) I must indulge my Vasarihood, and write a dissertation upon it.  You have united and mellowed your colours, in a manner to make it look like an old picture; yet there is something in the tone of it that is not quite right.  Mr. Chute thinks that you should have exerted more of your force in tipping with light the edges on which the sun breaks:  my own opinion is, that the result of the whole is not natural, by your having joined a Claude Lorrain summer sky to a winter sea, which you have drawn from the life.  The water breaks fine] but the distant hills are too strong, and the outlines much too hard ..The greatest fault is the trees (not apt to be your stumbling-block):  they are not of a natural green, have no particular resemblance, and are out of all proportion too large for the figures.  Mend these errors, and work away in oil.  I am impatient to see some Gothic ruins of your painting.  This leads me naturally to thank you for the sweet little cul-de-lampe to the entail it is equal to any thing you have done in perspective and for taste but the boy is too large.

For the block of granite I shall certainly think a louis well bestowed—­provided I do but get the block, and that you are sure it will be equal to the sample you sent me.  My room remains in want of a table; and as it will take so much time to polish it, I do wish you would be a little expeditious in sending it.

I have but frippery news to tell you; no politics; for the rudiments of a war, that is not to be a war, are not worth detailing.  In short, we have acted with spirit, have got ready thirty ships of the line, and conclude that the French will not care to examine whether they are well manned or not.  The House of Commons hears nothing but elections; the Oxfordshire till seven at night three times a week:  we have passed ten evenings on the Colchester election, and last Monday sat upon it till near two in the morning.  Whoever stands a contested election, and pays for his seat, and attends the first session, surely buys the other six very dear!

The great event is the catastrophe of Sir John Bland(552) who has flirted away his whole fortune at hazard.  He t’other night exceeded what was lost by the late Duke of Bedford, having at one period of the night (though he recovered the greatest part of it) lost two-and-thirty thousand pounds.  The citizens put on their double-channeled pumps and trudge to St. James’s Street, in expectation of seeing judgments executed on White’s—­angels with flaming swords, and devils flying away with dice-boxes, like the prints in Sadeler’s Hermits.  Sir John lost this immense sum to a Captain * @ * * *, who at present has nothing but a few debts and his commission.