Garrick has produced a detestable English opera, which is crowded by all true lovers of their country.  To mark the opposition to Italian operas, it is sung by some cast singers, two Italians, and a French girl, and the chapel boys; and to regale us with sense, it is Shakspeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, which is forty times more nonsensical than the worst translation of any Italian opera-books.  But such sense and such harmony are irresistible!

I am at present confined with a cold, which I caught by going to a fire in the middle of the night, and in the middle of the snow, two days ago.  About five in the morning Harry waked me with a candle in his hand, and cried, “Pray, your honour, don’t be frightened!”—­“No, Harry, I am not:  but what is it that I am not to be frightened at?” —­“There is a great fire here in St. James’s Street.”—­I rose, and indeed thought all St. James’s Street was on fire, but it proved in Bury Street.  However, you know I can’t resist going to a fire; for it Is certainly the only horrid sight that is fine.  I slipped on my slippers, and an embroidered suit that hung on the chair, and ran to Bury Street, and stepped into a pipe that was broken up for water.—­It would have made a picture—­the horror of the flames, the snow, the day breaking with difficulty through so foul a night, and my figure, party per pale, mud and gold.  It put me in mind of Lady Margaret Herbert’s providence, who asked somebody for a pretty pattern for a nightcap.  “Lord!” said they, “what signifies the pattern for a nightcap?” “Oh! child,” said she, “but you know, in case of fire.”  There were two houses burnt, and a poor maid; an officer jumped out of window, and is much hurt, and two young beauties were conveyed out the same way in their shifts. there have been two more great fires.  Alderman Belchier’s house at Epsom, that belonged to the Prince, is burnt, and Beckford’s fine house(553) in the country, with pictures and furniture to a great value.  He says, “Oh!  I have an odd fifty thousand pounds in a drawer:  I will build it up again:  it won’t be above a thousand pounds apiece difference to my thirty children.”  Adieu!

(552) Who shot himself at Kippax Park.-E.

(553) At Fonthill, in Wiltshire.  The loss was computed at thirty thousand pounds.-E.

241 letter 125 To Richard Bentley, Esq.  Arlington Street, March 6, 1755.

My dear sir, I have to thank you for two letters and a picture.  I hope my thanks will have a more prosperous journey than my own letters have had of late.  You say you have received none since January 9th.  I have written three since that.  I take care, in conjunction with the times, to make them harmless enough for the post.  Whatever secrets I may have (and you know I have no propensity to mystery) will keep very well till I have the happiness of seeing you, though that date should be farther off than I hope.  As I mean my letters should relieve some of your anxious or dull minutes, I will