P. S. Since I have finished this, I received yours of November 13th, with the account of Richcourt’s illness.  What! you are forced to have recourse to apoplexies and deaths for revolutions!  We make nothing of changing our ministers at every fall of the leaf.  My Lord Huntingdon (who, by the way, loves you, and does you justice,) has told me one or two very good bon-mots of the Pope:(735) I have always had a great partiality for the good old man:  I desire you will tell me any anecdotes or stories of him that you know-.  I remember some of his sayings with great humour and wit.  You can never oblige me more than by anecdotes of particular people—­but you are indeed always good in that and every other way.

(734) Percy Windham Obrien, second son of Sir William Windham, by a daughter of Charles Duke of Somerset.  The Earl of Thomond, who had married another daughter, left his estate to this Mr. Windham, his wife’s nephew, on condition of his taking the name of Obrien.

(735) Prospero Lambertini, called Benedict the Fourteenth.

352 Letter 205 To Sir Horace Mann.  Strawberry Hill, Dec. 8, 1756.

Your poor brother desires me to write to you to-day, as he is in bed (and not able.  He went to town last week, caught cold, and returned with a fever.  He has been drinking tar-water since the middle of November, at the persuasion of your older brother and his Richmond friends.  Indeed he had gone through the whole course of drugs to no purpose.  There is a great eruption to-day in most parts of his body, which they think will be of great service to him.  In my own opinion, he is so weak, that I am in great apprehensions for him.  He is very low-spirited, and yet thinks himself much better to-day.  Your brother Ned was surprised at my being so alarmed, as they had considered this as a most fortunate crisis-but I have much difficulty in persuading myself to be so sanguine.  As we have a recess for a few days, I shall stay here till Saturday, and see your brother again, and will tell you my opinion again.  You see I don’t deceive you:  if that is any satisfaction, be assured that nobody else would give you so bad an account, as I find all his family have new hopes of him:  would to God I had

Our first day of Parliament(736) passed off harmoniously; but in the House of Lords there was an event.  A clause of thanks for having sent for the Hanoverians had crept into the address of the peers—­by Mr. Fox’s means, as the world thinks:  Lord Temple came out of a sick bed to Oppose it.(737) Next day there was an alarm of an intention of instating the same clause in our address.  Mr. Pitt went angry to court, protesting that he would not take the seals, if any such motion passed:  it was sunk.  Next day he accepted—­and the day after, Mr. Fox, extremely disgusted with the Duke of Devonshire for preferences shown to Mr. Pitt, retired into the country.  The Parliament is adjourned for the reelections; and Mr. Pitt, who has pleased in the closet, is again laid up with the gout.  We meet on Monday, when one shall be able to judge a little better of the temper of the winter.  The Duke of Bedford is to be Lord Lieutenant of Ireland-no measure of peace!  Not to mention his natural warmth, every body is sensible that he is only placed there to traverse Pitt.