(957) The battle of Zorndorf.-D.

(958) Mary, their youngest sister, was afterwards married to General Pitt, brother of George Lord Rivers.

453 Letter 286 To George Montagu, Esq.  Arlington Street, Oct. 3, 1758.

having no news to send you, but the massacre of St. Cas,(959) not agreeable enough for a letter, I stayed till I had something to send you, and behold a book!  I have delivered to portly old Richard, your ancient nurse, the new produce of the Strawberry press.  You know that the wife of Bath is gone to maunder at St. Peter, and before he could hobble to the gate, my Lady Burlington, cursing and blaspheming, overtook t’other Countess, and both together made such an uproar, that the cock flew up into the tree of life for safety, and St. Peter himself turned the key and hid himself; and as nobody could get into t’other world, half the Guards are come back again, and appeared in the park to-day, but such dismal ghostly figures, that my Lady Townshend was really frightened, and is again likely to turn Methodist.

Do you design, or do you not, to look at Strawberry as you come to town? if you do.  I will send a card to my neighbour, Mrs. Holman, to meet you any day five weeks that you please—­or I can amuse you without cards; such fat bits of your dear dad, old Jemmy, as I have found among the Conway papers, such morsels of all sorts! but come and see.  Adieu!

(959) The army that took the town of Cherbourg, landed again on the coast of France near St. Maloes, but was forced to reimbark in the Bay of St. Cas with the loss of a thousand men.

454 Letter 287 To The Rev. Henry Zouch.  Strawberry Hill, October 5th, 1758.

Sir, You make so many apologies for conferring great favours on me, that if you have not a care.  I shall find it more convenient to believe that, instead of being grateful, I shall be very good if I am forgiving.  If I am impertinent enough to take up this style, at least I promise you I will be very good, and I will certainly pardon as many obligations as you shall please to lay on me.

I have that Life of Richard ii.  It is a poor thing, and not even called in the title-page Lord Holles’s; it is a still lower trick of booksellers to insert names of authors in a catalogue, which, with all their confidence, they do not venture to bestow on the books themselves; I have found several instances of this.

Lord Preston’s Boetius I have.  From Scotland, I have received a large account of Lord Cromerty, which will appear in my next edition:  as my copy is in the press, I do not exactly remember if there is the Tract on Precedency:  he wrote a great number of things, and was held it) great contempt living and dead.(960)

I have long sought, and wished to find, some piece of Duke Humphrey:(961) he was a great patron of learning, built the schools, I think, and gave a library to Oxford.  Yet, I fear, I may not take the authority of Pits, who is a wretched liar; nor is it at all credible that in so blind an age a Prince, who, with all his love of learning, I fear, had very little of either learning or parts, should write on Astronomy;—­had it been on Astrology, it might have staggered me.