(670) General John Campbell, who, upon the death of Archibald Duke of Argyle, succeeded to that title.

(671) An Elegy on an Empty Assembly-room.-E.

(672) Fulke Greville, Esq.  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, in a letter to her daughter, dated Louvere, Oct. 9, 1757, says, “We have had many English here.  Mr. Greville, his lady, and her suite of adorers deserved particular notice:  he was so good as to present me with his curious book:  since the days of the Honourable Edward Howard, nothing has been published like it.  I told him the age wanted an Earl of Dorset to celebrate it properly; and he was so well pleased with that speech, that he visited me every day, to the great comfort of Madame, who was entertained, meanwhile, with parties of pleasure of another kind, though I fear I lost his esteem at last, by refusing to correspond with him."-E.

318 Letter 179 To Sir Horace Mann.  Strawberry Hill, April 18, 1756.

I wish I could send you accounts of your brother’s amendment in proportion to your impatience, and to my own:  he does mend certainly, but it is slowly:  he takes the air every day, and they talk of his riding, though I don’t think him strong enough yet to sit a horse; when he has rid a little he is to go to the Bath.  I wish it much; for though he is at Richmond, there is no keeping him from doing too much business.  Dr. Cocchi has showed his usual sagacity:  the case is pronounced entirely asthmatic.  As they have acquitted him of a consumption, I feel easy, though the complaint he has is so uneasy to himself’.  You must not be discouraged by my accounts; for I see your brother so very often, that it is not possible for me to discern the progress of alteration in him.

You Will not believe how little we have thought of the French lately!  We are engaged in a civil war-not between St. James’s and Leicester House, but between the Dukes of Grafton and Bedford, about a new turnpike-road on the back of the town:  as you may imagine, it grows politics; and if it is not compromised during the recess, the French may march deep into the kingdom before they become greater politics.

We think them not ready for Minorca, and that we shall be prepared to receive them there.  The Hessians are expected immediately; and soon after them the Hanoverians; and soon after them many jealousies and uneasinesses.

These are all the politics I can tell you; and I have as little else to tell you.  Poor Lady Drumlanrig(673) Whose lord perished so unfortunately about a ear and a half ago, is dead of a consumption from that shock; and Sir William Lowther, one of the two heirs of old Sir James, died two days ago of a fever.  He was not above six-and-twenty, master of above twenty thousand pounds a-year — sixteen of which comes to young Sir James, who was equally rich:  think what a fortune is here assembled-will any Florentine believe this when reduced to sequins or scudi?