English women are--mind, I don’t give you any part of this history for authentic; you know we can have no news from France but what we run.  I have rambled so that I forgot what I intended to say; if ever we can have spring, it must be soon; I propose to expect you any day you please after Sunday se’nnight, the 30th:  let me know your resolution, and pray tell me in what magazine is the Strawberry ballad?  I should have proposed an earlier day to you, but next week the Prince of Nassau is to breakfast at Strawberry Hill, and I know your aversion to clashing with grandeur.

As I have already told you one mob story of a king, I will tell you another:  they say, that the night the Hanover troops were voted, he sent Schutz(684) for his German cook, and said, “Get me a very good supper; get me all de varieties; I don’t mind expense.”

I tremble lest his Hanoverians should be encamped at Hounslow; Strawberry would become an inn; all the Misses would breakfast there, to go and see the camp!

My Lord Denbigh,(685) is going to marry a fortune, I forget her name; my Lord Gower asked him how long the honeymoon would last?  He replied, “Don’t tell me of the honeymoon; it is harvest moon with me.”  Adieu!

(684) Augustus Schutz, a German, master of the robes to the King, and his favourite attendant.-E.

(685) Basil sixth Earl of Denbigh.  In the following year he married Mary, daughter and coheiress of Sir John Bruce Cotton.-E.

323 Letter 184 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, May 27, 1756.

Your brother is determined to go to Bristol in ten days:  our summer, which nobody but the almanack has the confidence to say is not winter, is so cold that he does not advance at all.  If his temper was at all in the power of accidents, it would be affected enough just now to affect his health!  What a figure we would make in a catalogue of philosophers or martyrs!  His wife’s aunt, Mrs. Forth, who has always promised him the half of her fortune, which is at least thirty thousand pounds, is dead, and has left him only two thousand pounds.  He sent for your brother Ned this morning to talk to him upon some other business, and it was with such unaffected cheerfulness, that your eldest brother concluded he was reserving the notification of a legacy of at least ten thousand pounds for the bonne bouche; but he can bear his wife, and then what are disappointments?  Pray, my dear child, be humble, and don’t imagine that yours is the only best temper in the world.  I pretend so little to a good one, that it is no merit in me to be out of all patience.

My uncle’s ambition and dirt are crowned at last:  he is a peer.(686) Lord Chief Justice Ryder, who was to have kissed hands with him on Monday, was too ill, and died on Tuesday;(687) but I believe his son will save the peerage.

We know nothing yet of Minorca, and seem to think so little of our war, that to pass away his time, Mars is turned Impresario:  in short, the Duke has taken the Opera-house for the ensuing season.  There has been a contest between the manager Vanneschi and the singers Mingotti and Ricciarelli;(688) the Duke patronizes the Mingotti and lists under her standard.  She is a fine singer, an admirable actress; I cannot say her temper is entirely so sweet as your brother’s.