(555) Francis Seymour Conway, Earl of Hertford; his mother was sister to Lady Walpole.

(556) Henrietta Louisa, Countess-dowager of pomfret, having quarrelled with her eldest son, who was ruined and forced to sell the furniture of his seat at Easton Neston, bought his statues, which had been part of the Arundelian collection, and had been purchased by his grandfather.

243 Letter 127 To Richard Bentley, Esq.  Arlington Street, March 27, 1755.

Your chimney(557) is come, but not to honour:  the caryatides are fine and free, but the rest is heavy:  Lord Strafford is not at all struck with it, and thinks it old-fashioned:  it certainly tastes of Inigo Jones.

Your myrtles I have seen in their pots, and they are magnificent, but I fear very sickly.  In return, I send you a library.  You will receive, some time or other, or the French for you, the following books:  a fourth volume of Dodsley’s Collection Of Poems, the worst tome of the four; three volumes of Worlds; Fielding’s Travels, or rather an account how his dropsy was treated and teased by an inn-keeper’s wife in the Isle of Wight; the new Letters of Madame de S`evign`e, and Hume’s History of Great Britain; a book which, though more decried than ever book was, and certainly with faults, I cannot help liking much.  It is called Jacobite, but in my opinion is only not George-abite:  where others abuse the Stuarts, he laughs at them:  I am sure he does not spare their ministers.  Harding,(558) who has the History of England at the ends of his parliament fingers, says, that the Journals will contradict most of his facts.  If it is so, I am sorry; for his style, which is the best we have in history, and his manner imitated from Voltaire, are very pleasing.  He has showed very clearly that we ought to quarrel originally with Queen Elizabeth’s tyranny for most of the errors of Charles the First.  As long as he is Willing to sacrifice some royal head, I would not much dispute with him which it should be.  I incline every day to lenity, as I see more and more that it is being very partial to think worse of some men than of others.  If I was a king myself, I dare say I should cease to love a republic.  My Lady Rochford desired me t’other day to give her a motto for a ruby ring, which had been given by a handsome woman of quality to a fine man; he gave it to his mistress, she to Lord * * * * *, he to my lady:  who, I think, does not deny that it has not yet finished its travels.  I excused myself for some time, on the difficulty of reducing such a history to a poesy—­at last I proposed this: 

“This was given by woman to man, and by man to woman.”