rebellion should be made on the Royal Family, they would all stand by them.  No reply was made to this.  Then Sir Watkyn Williams spoke, Sir Francis Dashwood, and Tom Pitt,(27) and the meeting broke up.  I don’t know what his coalition may produce; it will require time with no better heads than compose it at present, though great Mr. Doddington had carried to the conference the assistance of his.  In France a very favourable event has happened for us, the disgrace of Maurepas,(28) one of our bitterest enemies, and the promoter of their marine.  Just at the beginning of the war, in a very critical period, he had obtained a very large sum for that service, but which one of the other factions, lest he should gain glory and credit by it, got to be Suddenly given away to the King of Prussia.

Sir Charles Williams is appointed envoy to this last King:  here is an epigram which he has just sent over on Lord Egmont’s opposition to the Mutiny-bill;

“Why has lord Egmont ’gainst this bill
So much declamatory skill
So tediously exerted? 
The reason’s plain:  but t’other day
He mutinied himself for pay,
And he has twice descried.”

I must tell you a bon-mot that was made the other night at the serenata of “Peace in Europe” by Wall,(29) who is Much in fashion, and a kind of Gondomar.  Grossatesta, the Modenese minister, a very low fellow, with all the jackpuddinghood of an Italian, asked, “Mais qui est ce qui repres`ente mon maitre>” Wall replied, “Mais, mon Die, l’abb`e, ne scavez vous pas que ce n’est pas un op`era boufon!” And here is another bon-mot of my Lady Townshend:  We were talking of the Methodists:  somebody said, “Nay, Madam, is it true that Whitfield has recanted?” “No, Sir, he has only canted.”

If you ever think of returning to England, as I hope it will be long first, you must prepare yourself with Methodism.  I really believe that by that time it will be necessary; this sect increases as fast as almost ever any religious nonsense did.

Lady Fanny Shirley has chosen this way of bestowing the dregs of her beauty; and Mr. Lyttelton is very near making the same sacrifice of the dregs of all those various characters that he has worn.  The Methodists love your big sinners as proper subjects to work upon—­and indeed they have a plentiful harvest—­I think what you call flagrancy was never more in fashion.  Drinking is at the highest wine-mark; and gaming joined with it so violent, that at the last Newmarket meeting, in the rapidity of both, a bank-bill was thrown down, and nobody immediately claiming it, they agreed to give it to a man that was standing by.