(84) Mr. Walpole had been robbed the week before in Hyde Park, and narrowly escaped being killed by the accidental going off of the highwayman’s pistol, which did stun him, and took off the skin of his cheekbone.

(85) The mob was determined not to suffer French Players; and Lord Trentham’s engaging in their defence was made great use, of against him at the ensuing election for Westminster; where he was to be rechosen, on being appointed a lord of the admiralty.

(86) Lady Mary Coke swore the peace against her husband.

48 letter 18 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, Jan. 10, 1750.

I don’t at all know what to say to you, for not having writ to you since the middle of November:  I only know that nothing has happened, and so I have omitted telling you nothing.  I have had two from you in the interim, one of Nov. @8th, and one without a date, in which you are extremely kind about my robbery, of which in my last I assured you there were no consequences:  thank you a thousand times for having felt so much on my account.  Gibberne has been with me again to-day, as his mother was a fortnight ago:  she talked me to death, and three times after telling me her whole history, she said, “Well then, Sir, upon the whole,” and began it all again.  Upon the whole, I think she has a mind to keep her son in England; (-ind he has a mind to be kept, though in my opinion he is very unfit for living in England—­he is too polished!  For trade, she says, he is in a cold sweat if she mentions it; and so they propose, by the acquaintance, he says,. his mother has among the quality, to get him that nothing called something.  I assured them, you had too much friendship for him to desire his return, if it would be a prejudice to his interest—­did not I say right?  He seems a good creature; too good to make his way here.

I beg you will not omit sending me every tittle that happens to compose my Lady Pomfret’s second volume.  We see perpetual articles of the sale of the furniture in the Great Duke’s villas:  is there any truth in it?  You would know me again, if you saw me playing at pharaoh on one side of Madame de Mirepoix, as I used to do by her mother:  I like her extremely, though she likes nothing but gaming.  His pleasure is dancing:  don’t you envy any body that can have spirits to be so simple as to like themselves in a minuet after fifty?  Don’t tell his brother, but the Chevalier Lorenzi is the object of the family’s entertainment.  With all the Italian thirst for English knowledge, he vents as many absurdities as if he had a passion for Ireland too.  He saw some of the Florentine Gesses at Lord Lincoln’s; he showed them to the Ambassadress with great transport, and assured her that the Great Duke had the originals, and that there never had been made any copies of them.  He told her the other day that he had seen a sapphire of the size of her diamond ring,,, and worth more:  she said that could not be.  “Oh!” said he, “I mean, supposing your diamond were a sapphire.”