(592) This alludes to England and France not being at open war, though constantly committing aggressions against each other.  The capture of these forts formed the first article Of complaint against England, in the French declaration of war, in June, 1756.-E.

(593) The Marquis de St. Simon did publish, in 1771, a translation of Pope’s Essay on Man.-E.

(594) The Primate of ireland.

266 Letter 143
To Richard Bentley, Esq. 
Strawberry Hill, August 15, 1755.

My dear sir, Though I wrote to you so lately, and have certainly nothing new to tell you, I can’t help scribbling a line to you to-night, as I am going to Mr. Rigby’s for a week or ten days, and must thank you first for the three pictures.  One of them charms me, the Mount Orgueil, which is absolutely fine; the sea, and shadow upon it, are masterly.  The other two I don’t, at least won’t, take for finished.  If you please, Elizabeth Castle shall be Mr. Muntz’s performance:  indeed I see nothing of You in it.  I do reconnoitre you in the Hercules and Nessus; but in both your colours are dirty, carelessly dirty:  in your distant hills you are improved, and not hard.  The figures are too large—­I don’t mean in the Elizabeth Castle, for there they are neat; but the centaur, though he dies as well as Garrick can, is outrageous.  Hercules and Deianira are by no means so:  he is sentimental, and she most improperly sorrowful.  However, I am pleased enough to beg you would continue.  As soon as Mr. Muntz returns from the Vine, you shall have a supply of colours.  In the mean time why give up the good old trade of drawing?  Have you no Indian ink, no soot-water, no snuff, no Coat of onion, no juice of any thing?  If you love me, draw:  you would if you knew the real pleasure you can give me.  I have been studying all your drawings; and next to architecture and trees, I determine that you succeed in nothing better than animals.  Now (as the newspapers say) the late ingenious Mr. Seymour is dead, I would recommend horses and greyhounds to you.  I should think you capable of a landscape or two with delicious bits of architecture.  I have known you execute the light of a torch or lanthorn so well, that if it was called Schalken, a housekeeper at Hampton-court or Windsor, or a Catherine at Strawberry Hill, would show it, and say it cost ten thousand pounds.  Nay, if I could believe that you would ever execute any more designs I proposed to you, I would give you a hint for a picture that struck me t’other day in P`er`efixe’s Life of Henry iv.(595) He says, the king was often seen lying upon a common straw-bed among the soldiers, with a piece of brown bread in one hand, and a bit of charcoal in t’other, to draw an encampment, or town that he was besieging.  If this is not a character and a picture, I don’t know what is.