I shall be sorry on my account if one particular(877) letter has miscarried, in which I mentioned some trifles that I wished to purchase from Stosch’s collection.  As you do not mention any approaching sale, I will stay to repeat them till you tell me that you have received no such letter.

Thank you for the `eloge on your friend poor Cocchi; you had not told me of his death, but I was prepared for it, and heard it from Lord Huntingdon.  I am still more obliged to you for the trouble you have given yourself about King Richard.  You have convinced me of Crescimbeni’s blunder as to Rome.  For Florence, I must intreat you to send me ’another copy, for your copyist or his original have made undecipherable mistakes; particularly in the last line; La Mere Louis is impossible to be sense:  I should wish, as I am to print it, to have every letter of the whole sonnet more distinct and certain than most of them are.  I don’t know how to repay you for all the fatigue I give you.  Mr. Fox’s urns are arrived, but not yet delivered from the Custom-house.  You tell me no more of Botta;(878) is he invisible in dignity, like Richcourt; or sunk to nothing, like our Poor old friend the Prince?(879) Here is a good epigram on the Prince de Soubize, with which I must conclude, writing without any thing to tell you, and merely to show you that I do by no means neglect you;

Soubize, apr`es ses grands exploits,
Peut b`atir un palais qui ne lui co`ute gu`ere;
Sa Femme lui fournit le bois,
Et chacun lui jette la pierre.

(877) The letter of Dec. 17th, which was lost.

(878) Marshal Botta, commander at Florence for the Emperor Francis.

(879) The Prince de Craon, chief of the council, superseded by the Comte de Richcourt.

416 Letter 257 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, March 21, 1758.

Between my letters of Nov. 20th and Jan. 11th, which you say you have received, was one of Dec. 11th lost, I suppose in the packet:  what it contained, it is impossible for me to recollect; but I conclude the very notices about the expedition, the want of which troubled you so much.  I have nothing now to tell you of any moment; writing only to keep up the chain of our ’correspondence, and to satisfy you that there is nothing particular.

I forgot in my last to say a word of our East Indian hero, Clive, and his victories; but we are growing accustomed to success again!  There is Hanover retaken!—­if to have Hanover again is to have success!  We have no news but what is military; Parliaments are grown idle things, or busy like quarter-sessions.  Mr. Pitt has been in the House of Commons but twice this winter, yet we have some grumblings:  a Navy-bill of Mr. George Grenville, rejected last year by the Lords, and passed again by us, has by Mr. Fox’s underhand management been made an affair by the Lords; yet it will pass.  An extension of the Habeas corpus, of forty times the consequence, is impeded by the same dealings, and is not likely to have so prosperous an issue.  Yet these things scarce make a heat within doors, and scarce conversation without.