landscape, and added to that, all the industry and patience of a German.  We are just now practising, and have succeeded surprisingly in a new method of painting, discovered at Paris by Count Caylus, and intended to be the encaustic method of the ancients.  My Swiss has painted, I am writing the account,(943) and my press is to notify our improvements.  As you will know that way, I will not tell you here at large.  In short, to finish all the works I have in hand, and all the schemes I have in my head, I cannot afford to live less than fifty years more.  What pleasure it would give me to see you here for a moment!  I should think I saw you and your dear brother at once!  Can’t you form some violent secret expedition against Corsica or Port Mahon, which may make it necessary for you to come and settle here?  Are we to correspond till we meet in some unknown world?  Alas!  I fear so; my dear Sir, you are as little likely to save money as I am—­would you could afford to resign your crown and be a subject at Strawberry Hill!  Adieu!

P. S. I have forgot to tell you of a wedding in our family; my brother’s eldest daughter(944) is to be married tomorrow to lord Albemarle’s third brother, a canon of Windsor.  We are very happy with the match.  The bride is very agreeable, and sensible, and good; not so handsome as her sisters, but further from ugliness than beauty.  It is the second, Maria,(945) who is beauty itself!  Her face, bloom, eyes, hair, teeth, and person are all perfect.  You may imagine how charming she is, when her only fault, if one must find one, is, that her face is rather too round.  She has a great deal of wit and vivacity, with perfect modesty.  I must tell you too of their brother:(946) he was on the expedition to St. Maloes; a party of fifty men appearing on a hill, he was despatched to reconnoitre with only eight men.  Being stopped by a brook, he prepared to leap it; an old sergeant dissuaded him, from the inequality of the numbers.  “Oh!” said the boy, “I will tell you what; our profession is bred up to so much regularity that any novelty terrifies them—­with our light English horses we will leap this stream; and I’ll be d—­d if they don’t run.”  He did so, and they did so.  However, he was not content; but insisted that each of his party should carry back a prisoner before them.  They got eight, when they overtook an elderly man, to whom they offered quarter, bidding him lay down his arms.  He replied, “they were English, the enemies of his King and country; that he hated them, and had rather be killed.”  My nephew hesitated a minute, and said, “I see you are a brave fellow, and don’t fear death, but very likely you fear a beating-if you don’t lay down your arms this instant, my men shall drub you as long as they can stand over you.”  The fellow directly flung down his arms in a passion.  The Duke of Marlborough sent my brother word of this, adding, it was the only clever action in their whole exploit.  Indeed I am pleased with it; for besides