P. S. I believe I scarce ever mentioned to you last Winter the follies of the Opera:  the impertinences of a great singer were too old and common a topic.  I must mention them now, when they rise to any improvement in the character Of national folly.  The Mingotti, a noble figure, a great mistress of music, and a most incomparable actress, surpassed any thing I ever saw for the extravagance of her humours.(622) She never sung above one night in three, from a fever upon hot-temper:  and never would act at all when Ricciarelli, the first man, was to be in dialogue with her.(623) Her fevers grow so high, that the audience caught them, and hissed her more than once:  she herself once turned and hissed again—­Tit pro tat geminat phoy d’achamiesmeyn—­among the treaties which a secretary of state has negotiated this summer, he has contracted for a succedaneum to the Mingotti.  In short, there is a woman hired to sing when the other shall be- out of humour!

Here is a “World” by Lord Chesterfield:(624) the first part is very pretty, till it runs into witticism.  I have marked the passages I particularly like.

You would not draw Henry iv. at a siege for me:  pray don’t draw Louis xv.(625

(620) Lord Chesterfield, in a letter to Mr. Dayrolles, of the 4th of this month, says, “the next which now draws very near, will, I believe, be a very troublesome one; and I really think it very doubtful whether the subsidiary treaties with Russia and Cassel will be carried or not.  To be sure, much may be said against both; but yet I dread the consequences of rejecting them by Parliament, since they are made."-E.

(621) This is an allusion to a contemplated marriage between the Prince of Wales, afterwards George the Third, and a daughter of the Duke of Brunswick Wolfenbuttle.  The following is Lord Waldegrave’s account of this project:—­“An event happened about the middle of the summer, which engaged Leicester House still deeper in faction than they at first intended.  The Prince of Wales was just entering into his eighteenth year; and being of a modest, sober disposition, with a healthy, vigorous constitution, it might reasonably be supposed that a matrimonial companion might be no unacceptable amusement.  The Duchess of Brunswick Wolfenbuttle, with her two unmarried daughters, waited on his Majesty at Hanover.  The older, both as to person and understanding, was a most accomplished Princess:  the King was charmed with her cheerful, modest, and sensible behaviour, and wished to make her his granddaughter, being too old to make her his wife.  I remember his telling me, with great eagerness, that had he been only twenty years younger, she would never have been refused by a Prince of Wales, but should at once have been Queen of England.  Now, whether his Majesty spoke seriously is very little to the purpose; his grandson’s happiness was undoubtedly his principal object; and he was desirous the match might be concluded before his own death,