Of the Pretender’s family one never hears a word:  unless our Protestant brethren the Dutch meddle in their affairs, they will be totally forgotten; we have too numerous a breed of our own, to want Princes from Italy.  The old Chevalier by your account is likely to precede his rival, who with care may still last a few years, though I think will scarce appear again out of his own house.

I want to ask you if it is possible to get the royal edition of the Antiquities of Herculaneum?(988) and I do not indeed want you to get it for me unless I am to pay for it.  Prince San Severino has told the foreign ministers here that there are to be twelve hundred volumes, of it—­and they believe it.  I imagine the fact is, that there are but twelve hundred copies printed.  Could Cardinal Albani get it for me?  I would send him my Strawberry-editions, and the Birmingham-editions(988) in exchange—­things here much in fashion.

The night before I came from town, we heard of the fall of the Cardinal de Bernis,(989) but not the cause of it(990)—­if we have a Dutch war, how many cardinals will fall in France and in England, before you hear of these or I of the former!  I have always written to you with the greatest freedom, because I care more that you should be informed of the state of your own country, than what secretaries of state or their clerks think of me,—­but one must be more circumspect if the Dey of Algiers is to open one’s letters.  Adieu!

(983) The Princess Dowager of Orange, eldest daughter of George ii.

(984) Lord Chesterfield, in a letter of the 15th, says, “The estimates for the expenses of the year 1759 are made up.  I have seen them; and what do you think they amount to?  No less than twelve millions three hundred thousand pounds:  a most incredible sum, and its yet already all subscribed, and even more offered!  The unanimity in the House of Commons in voting such a sum, and such forces, both by sea and land, is not less astonishing.  This is Mr. Pitt’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes."-E.

(985) Frederick, Prince of Wales, had designed, if he outlived the King, to make Sir George Lee chancellor of the exchequer.

(986) He was Charles Butler, the second and last surviving son of Thomas, Earl of Ossory, eldest son of the first Duke of Ormond.  He had been created, in 1693, Baron Clogligrenan, Viscount Tullough, and Earl of Arran, in Ireland; and at the same time Baron Butler of Weston, in the Peerage of England.  Dying without issue his titles became extinct.-D.

(987) The Catalogue of Royal and Noble Authors.

(988) Editions printed with the Baskerville types.-D.

(989) The Cardinal de Bernis was a frivolous and incapable minister, who was equally raised and overthrown by the influence of the King of France’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour.-D.

(990) “Cardinal Bernis’s disgrace,” says Lord Chesterfield, “is as sudden, and hitherto as little understood, as his elevation was.  I have seen his poems printed at Paris, not by a friend, I dare say; and, to judge by them, I humbly conceive his excellency is a puppy.  I will say nothing of that excellent headpiece that made him and unmade him in the same month, except O King, live for ever!"-E.