Well, it seems I guessed better about Sir James Grey than he knew about himself.  Sir Benjamin Keene is dead;(857) I dined to-day where Colonel Grey did; he told me it is a year and a half since the King named his brother for Spain, and that he himself was told but yesterday that Sir James was too well at Naples to be removed,(858) and that reasons of state called for somebody else.  Would they called for you! and why not?  You are attached to nobody; your dear brother had as much reason to flatter himself with Mr. Pitt’s favour, as he was marked by not having Mr. Fox’s.  Your not having the least connexion with the latter cannot hurt you.  Such a change, for so great an object, would overrule all my prudence:  but I do not know whether it were safe, to hint it’. especially as by this time, at least before your application could come, it must be disposed of.  Lord Rochfort wishes it, Lord Huntingdon has asked it; Lord Tyrawley and Lord Bristol(859) are talked of.  I am so afraid of ticklish situations for you, that in case of the latter’s removal, I should scarce wish you Turin.  I cannot quit this chapter without lamenting Keene! my father had the highest opinion of his abilities, and indeed his late Negotiations have been crowned with proportionate success.  He had great wit, agreeableness, and an indolent good-humour that was very pleasing:  he loved our dearest Gal.!

The King of Prussia is quite idle; I think he has done nothing this fortnight but take Breslau, and Schweidnitz, and ten or a dozen generals, and from thirty to fifty thousand prisoners—­ in this respect he contradicts the omne majus continet in se minus.  I trust he is galloping somewhere or other with only a groom to get a victory.  Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick has galloped a little from one:  when we were expecting that he would drive the French army into the sea, and were preparing to go to Harwich to see it, he turned back, as if he wanted to speak with the King of Prussia.  In a street very near me they do not care to own this; but as my side of Arlington Street is not ministerial, we plain-dealing houses speak our mind about it.  Pray, do not you about that or any thing else; remember you are an envoy, and though you must not presume to be as false as an ambassador, yet not a grain of truth is consistent with your character.  Truth is very well for such simple people as me, with my Fari quae sentiat, which my father left me, and which I value more than all he left me; but I am errantly wicked enough to desire you should lie and prosper.  I know you don’t like my doctrine, and therefore I compound with you for holding your tongue.  Adieu! my dear child—­shall we never meet!  Are we always to love one another at the discretion of a sheet of paper?  I would tell you in another manner that I am ever yours.

P. S. I will not plague you with more than a postscript on my eyes:  I write this after midnight quite at my ease; I think the greatest benefit I have found lies between old rum and elder-water, (three spoonfuls of the latter to one of the former,) and dipping my head in a pail of cold water every morning the moment I am out of bed.  This I am told may affect my hearing, but I have too constant a passion for my eyes to throw away a thought on any rival.