Yet nothing is equal to the fashion of this village:  Mr. Muntz says we have more coaches than there are in half France.  Mrs. Pritchard has bought Ragman’s Castle, for which my Lord Litchfield could not agree.  We shall be as celebrated as Baiae or Tivoli; and, if we have not such sonorous names as they boast, we have very famous people:  Clive and Pritchard, actresses; Scott and Hudson, painters; my Lady Suffolk, famous in her time; Mr. H * * *, the impudent lawyer, that Tom Hervey wrote against; Whitehead, the poet—­and Cambridge, the every thing.  Adieu! my dear Sir—­I know not one syllable of news.

259 Letter 138 To Sir Horace Mann.  Strawberry Hill, July 16, 1755.

Our correspondence will revive:  the war is begun.  I cannot refer you to the Gazette, for it is so prudent and so afraid that Europe should say we began first, (and unless the Gazette tell, how should Europe know?) that it tells nothing at all.  The case was; Captain Howe and Captain Andrews lay in a great fog that lasted near fifty hours within speech of three French ships and within sight of nine more.  The commandant asked if it was war or peace?  Howe replied he must wait for his admiral’s signal, but advised the Frenchman to prepare for war.  Immediately Boscawen gave the signal, and Howe attacked.  The French, who lost one hundred and thirty men to our thirteen, soon struck; we took one large ship, one inconsiderable, and seven thousand pounds:  the third ship escaped in the fog.  Boscawen detained the express ten days in hopes of more success; but the rest of our new enemies are all got safe into the river of Louisbourg.  This is a great disappointment!  We expect a declaration of war with the first fair wind.  Make the most of your friendship with Count lorenzi,(580) while you may.

I have received the cargo of letters and give you many thanks; but have not seen Mr. Brand; having been in the country while he was in town.

Your brother has received and sent you a dozen double prints of my eagle, which I have had engraved.  I could not expect that any drawing could give you a full idea of the noble spirit of the head, or of the masterly tumble of the feathers:  but I think Upon the whole the plates are not ill done.  Let me beg Dr. Cocchi to accept one of each plate; the rest, my dear Sir, you will give away as you please.

Mr. Chute is such an idle wretch, that you will not wonder I am his secretary for a commission.  At the Vine is the most heavenly chapel(581) in the world; it only wants a few pictures to give it a true Catholic air-we are so conscious of the goodness of our Protestantism, that we do not care how things look.  If you can pick us up a tolerable Last Supper, or can have one copied tolerably and very cheap, we will say many a mass for the repose of your headaches.  The dimensions are, three feet eleven inches and three quarters by two feet eight inches and a half high.  Take notice of two essential ingredients; it must be cheap, and the colouring must b very light, for it will hang directly under the window.