nothing could make him assist.  You may judge what would make the Dauphin assist him! he was one day reading the reign of Nero he said, “Ma foi, c’`etoit le plus grand sc`el`erat qui f`ut jamais; il ne lui manquoit que d’`etre Janseniste.”  I am grieving for my favourite,(752) the Pope, whom we suppose dead, at least I trust he was superannuated when they drew from him the late Bull enjoining the admission of the Unigenitus on pain of damnation; a step how unlike all the amiable moderation of his life!  In my last I told you the death of another monarch, for whom in our time you and I have interested ourselves, King Theodore.  He had just taken the benefit of the act of insolvency, and went to the Old Bailey for that purpose:  in order to it, the person applying gives up all his effects to his creditors — his Majesty was asked what effects he had?  He replied, nothing but the kingdom of Corsica—­and it is actually registered for the benefit of the creditors.  You may get it intimated to the Pretender, that if he has a mind to heap titles upon the two or three medals that he coins, he has nothing to do but to pay King Theodore’s debts, and he may have very good pretensions to Corsica.  As soon as Theodore was at liberty, he took a chair and went to the Portuguese minister, but did not find him at home:  not having sixpence to pay, he prevailed on the chairman to carry him to a tailor he knew in Soho, whom he prevailed upon to harbour him; but he fell sick the next day, and died in three more.

Byng’s trial continues; it has gone ill for him, but mends; it is the general opinion that he will come off for some severe censure.

Bower’s first part of his reply is published; he has pinned a most notorious falsehood about a Dr. Aspinwall on his enemies, which must destroy their credit, and will do him more service than what he has yet been able to prove about himself.  They have published another pamphlet against his history, but so impertinent and scurrilous and malicious, that it will serve him more than his own defence:  they may keep the old man’s life so employed as to prevent the prosecution of his work, but nothing can destroy the merit of the three volumes already published, which in every respect is the best written history I know:  the language is the purest, the compilation the most judicious, and the argumentation the soundest.

The famous Miss Elizabeth Villiers Pitt(753) is in England; the only public place in which she has been seen is the Popish chapel; her only exploit, endeavours to wreak her malice on her brother William, whose kindness to her has been excessive.  She applies to all his enemies, and, as Mr. Fox told me, has even gone so far as to send a bundle of his letters to the author of the Test, to prove that Mr. Pitt has cheated her, as she calls it, of a hundred a year, and which only prove that he once allowed her two, and after all her wickedness still allows her one. she must be vexed that she has no way of setting the gout more against him!  Adieu! tell me if you receive all my letters.