The new Duke of Somerset(111) is dead:  that title is at last restored to Sir Edward Seymour, after his branch had been most unjustly deprived of it for about one hundred and fifty years.  Sir Hugh Smithson and Sir Charles Windham are Earls of Northumberland and Egremont, with vast estates; the former title, revived for the blood of Percy, has the misfortune of being coupled with the blood of a man that either let or drove coaches—­such Was Sir Hugh’s grandfather!  This peerage vacates his seat for Middlesex, and has opened a contest for the county, before even that for Westminster is decided.  The Duchess of Richmond takes care that house shall not be extinguished:  she again lies in, after having been with child seven-and-twenty times:  but even this is not so extraordinary as the Duke’s fondness for her, or as the vigour of her beauty:  her complexion is as fair and blooming as when she was a bride.

We expect some chagrin on the new regency, at the head of which is to be the Duke; “Au Augustum fess`a aetate totiens in Germaniam commeare potuisse,” say the mutineers in Tacitus—­ Augustus goes in April.  He has notified to my Lord Orford his having given the reversion of New Park to his daughter Emily; and has given him leave to keep it in the best repair.  One of the German women, Madame Munchausen, his minister’s wife, contributes very kindly to the entertainment of the town.  She is ugly, devout, and with that sort of coquetry which proceeds from a virtue that knows its own weakness so much as to be alarmed, even when nothing is meant to its prejudice.(112) At a great dinner which they gave last -week, somebody observed that all the sugar figures in the dessert were girls:  the Baron replied, “Sa est frai; ordinairement les petits cupitons sont des garsons; mais ma femme s’est amus`ee toute la matin`ee `a en `oter tout sa par motestie.”  This improvement of hers is a curious refinement, though all the geniuses of the age are employed in designing new plans for desserts.  The Duke of Newcastle’s last was a baby Vauxhall, illuminated with a million of little lamps of various colours.

We have been sitting this fortnight on the African Company:  we, the British Senate, that temple of liberty, and bulwark of Protestant Christianity, have this fortnight been pondering methods to make more effectual that horrid traffic of selling negroes.  It has appeared to us that six-and-forty thousand of these wretches are sold every year to our plantations alone!—­ It chills one’s blood.  I would not have to say that I voted in it for the continent of America!(113) The destruction of the miserable inhabitants by the Spaniards was but a momentary misfortune, that flowed from the discovery of the New World, compared to this lasting havoc which it brought upon Africa.  We reproach Spain, and yet do not even pretend the nonsense of butchering these poor creatures for the good of their souls!

I have just received your long letter of February 13th, and am pleased that I had writ this volume to return it.  I don’t know how almost to avoid wishing poor Prince Craon dead, to see the Princess upon a throne.(114) I am sure she would invert Mr. Vaughan’s wish, and compound to have nothing else made for her, provided a throne were.