(828) Madame de Graffigny, the author of “Lettres d’une Peruvienne,” and several dramatic pieces.  She died in the following year.  A collection of her works, in four volumes, was published at Paris in 1788.-E.

(829) A favourite cat of Lady Stafford’s.

396 Letter 240
To George Montagu, Esq. 
Arlington Street, Sept. 20(830)

My dear Sir, I have been roving about Hampshire with Mr. Chute, and did not receive your very kind note till yesterday, or I should certainly not have deferred a moment to thank you for it, and to express my great concern for Miss Montagu’s bad health.  You do me justice when you reckon on my feeling most sincerely for you:  but let me ask why you will not bring her to town?  She might not only have more variety of assistance, but it would be some relief to you:  it must be dreadful, with your tenderness and feeling, to have nobody to share and divert your uneasiness.

I did not, till on the road the day before yesterday, hear the catastrophe of poor Sir John Bland, and the execrable villany, or, what our ancestors would have called, the humours of Taaffe.  I am extremely sorry for Bland!  He was very good-natured, and generous and well-bred; but never was such infatuation — I can call it by no term but flirting away his fortune and his life; he seemed to have no passion for play while he did it, nor sensibility when it ruined him but I fear he had both!  What judgments the good people in the city (I mean the good in their own style, moneyed) will construe upon White’s, when two of the most remarkable members have despatched themselves in nine months!

I shall be most sincerely glad to receive another letter to tell me that Miss Montagu mends:  you have both my most hearty wishes.  Yours ever.

(830) This letter is misplaced:  the date of the year is 1755.-E.

397 Letter 241 To Sir Horace Mann.  Strawberry Hill, Sept. 29, 1757.

For how many years have I been telling you that your country was mad, that your country was undone!  It does not grow wiser; it does not grow more prosperous!  You can scarce have recovered your astonishment at the suspension of arms(831) concluded near Stade.  How do you behave on these lamentable occasions?  Oh! believe me, it is comfortable to have an island to hide one’s head in!  You will be more surprised when you hear that it is totally disavowed here.  The clamour is going to be extreme—­no wonder, when Kensington is the headquarters of murmur.  The commander-in-chief is recalled—­ the late Elector(832) is outrageous.  On such an occasion you may imagine that every old store of malice and hatred is ransacked:  but you would not think that the general is now accused of cowardice!  As improbable as that is, I do not know whether it may not grow your duty as a minister to believe it-and if it does, you must be sure not to believe, that with all this tempest the suspension was dictated from hence.