a boisterous and overbearing torrent; but they joined at last; and long may they continue united, to the comfort of each other, and to the glory, honour, and happiness of this nation!” I hope you are not mean-spirited enough to dread an invasion, when the senatorial contests are reviving in the temple of Concord.-But will it make a party?  Yes, truly:  I never saw so promising a prospect.  Would not it be cruel, at such a period, to be laid up?

I have only had a note from you to promise me a letter; but it is not arrived:—­but the partridges are, and well; and I thank you.

England seems returning:(640) for those who are not in Parliament, there are nightly riots at Drury-lane, where there is an anti-Gallican party against some French dancers.  The young men of quality have protected them till last night, when, being Opera night, the galleries were victorious.(641)

Montagu writes me many kind things for you; he is in Cheshire, but comes to town this winter.  Adieu!  I have so much to say, that I have time to say but very little.

P. S. George Selwyn hearing much talk of a sea-war or a continent, said, , I am for a sea-war and a continent admiral.”

(640) Walpole means the disposition towards mobs and rioting at public places, which was then common among young men, and had been a sort of fashion in his early youth.-E.

(641) A spectacle brought out by Garrick, in the beginning of this month, at Drury-lane gave great offence to the public, in consequence of the number of foreigners employed in it; and, on the sixth representation, a violent riot took place, by which a damage to the theatre was incurred of several thousand pounds.-E.

292 Letter 161 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, Nov. 16, 1755.

I have received a letter from you of Oct. 25th, full of expectation of the invasion I announced to you-but we have got two new parties erected, and if you imagine that the invasion is attended to, any more than as it is played off by both those parties, you know little of England.  The Parliament met three days ago:  we have been so un-English lately as to have no parties at all, have now got what never was seen before, an opposition in administration.  Mr. Pitt, Mr. Legge, and their adherents, no great number, have declared open and unrelenting war with the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Fox; and on the address, which hinted approbation of the late treaties, and promised direct support of Hanover, we sat till five the next morning.  If eloquence could convince, Mr. Pitt would have had more than 105 against 31 1; but it is long since the arts of persuasion were artful enough to persuade-rhetoric was invented before places and commissions!  The expectation of the world is suspended, to see whether these gentlemen will resign or be dismissed:  perhaps neither; perhaps they may continue in place and opposition; perhaps they may continue in place and not oppose.  Bossuet wrote “L’Histoire