manner of title, and which I wish not for, unless it would enable me to be of service to gentlemen of merit, like yourself.  I will say no more on this head, but to repeat, that if any occasion should draw you to this part of England, (as I shall be sorry if it is ill health that has carried you from home,) I flatter myself you will let me have the satisfaction and, for the last time of using so formal a word, the honour of seeing you.

In the mean time, you will oblige me by letting me know how I can convey my Catalogue to you.  I ought, I know, to stay till I can send you a more correct edition; but, though the first volume is far advanced, the second may profit by your remarks.  If you could send me the passage and the page in Vardus, relating to the Earl of Totness, it would much oblige ne; for I have only the English edition; and as I am going a little journey for a week, cannot just now get the Latin.

You mention, Sir, Mr. Thoresby’s museum:  is it still preserved entire?

I would fain ask you another question, very foreign to any thing I have been saying, but from your searches into antiquity, you may possibly, Sir, be able to explain what nobody whom I have consulted hitherto can unravel.  At the end of the second part of the p. 105, in the folio edition, is a letter from Henry viii. to the Cardinal Cibo, dated from our palace, Mindas, 10th July, 1527.  In no map, topographical account, or book of antiquity, can I possibly find such house or place as Mindas.(928)

(928) See this corrected as a typographical mistake, post, p. 455.-C.

440 Letter 277 To Sir Horace Mann.  Strawberry Hill, Aug. 12, 1758.

It is not a thousand years since I wrote to you, is it?—­nay, if it is, blame the King of Prussia, who has been firing away his time at Olmutz; blame Admiral Howe, who never said a word of having taken Cherbourg till yesterday.—­Taken Cherbourg!—­ yes, he has—­he landed within six miles of it on the 6th, saw some force, who only stayed to run away; attacked a fort, a magazine blew up, the Guards marched against a body of French, who again made fools of them, pretending to stand, and then ran away—­and then, and then, why, then we took Cherbourg.  We pretended to destroy the works. and a basin that has just cost two millions.  We have not lost twenty men.  The City of London, I suppose, is drinking brave Admiral Howe’s and brave Cherbourg’s health; but I miss all these festivities by going into Warwickshire tomorrow to Lord Hertford.  In short, Cherbourg comes very opportunely:  we had begun to grow peevish at Louisbourg not being arrived, and there are some(929) people at least as peevish that Prince de Soubize has again walked into Hanover after having demolished the Hessians.  Prince Ferdinand, who a fortnight ago was as great a hero as if he had been born in Thames Street, is kept in check by Monsieur de Contades, and there are some little apprehensions that our Blues, etc., will not be able to join him.  Cherbourg will set all to rights; the King of Prussia may fumble as much as he pleases, and though the French should not be frightened out of their senses at the loss of this town, we shall be fully persuaded they are, and not a gallon less of punch will be drunk from Westminster to Wapping.