at the head of half White’s, went the first day — his aunt was crying over him:  as soon as they were withdrawn, she said to him, knowing they were of White’s, “My dear, what did the lords say to you? have you ever been concerned with any of them?"-Was not that admirable? what a favourable idea people must have of White’s!—­and what if White’s should not deserve a much better!  But the chief personages who have been to comfort and weep over this fallen hero are Lady Caroline Petersham and Miss Ashe:  I call them Polly and Lucy, and asked them if he did not sing

Thus I stand like the Turk with his doxies around."(168)

Another celebrated Polly has been arrested for thirty pounds, even old Cuzzoni.(169) The Prince Of Wales bailed her—­who will do as much for him?

I am much obliged to you for your intended civilities to my liking Madame Capello; but as I never liked any thing of her, but her prettiness, for she is an idiot, I beg you will dispense with them on my account:  I should even be against your renewing your garden assemblies. you would be too good to pardon the impertinence of the Florentines, and would very likely expose yourself to more:  besides, the absurdities which English travelling boys are capable of, and likely to act or conceive, always gave me apprehensions of your meeting with disagreeable scenes-and then there is another animal still more absurd than Florentine men or English boys, and that is, travelling governors, who are mischievous into the bargain, and whose pride is always hurt because they are sure of its never being indulged:  they will not learn the world, because they are sent to teach it, and as they come forth more ignorant of it than their pupils, take care to return with more prejudices, and as much care to instil all theirs into their pupils.  Don’t assemble them!

Since I began my letter, the King of Portugal’s death is contradicted:  for the future, I will be as circumspect as one of your Tuscan residents was, who being here in Oliver’s time, wrote to his court, “Some say the Protector is dead; others that he is not:  for my part, I believe neither one nor t’other.”

Will u send me some excellent melon seeds?  I have a neighbour who shines in fruit, and have promised to get him some:  Zatte`e, I think he says, is a particular sort.  I don’t know the best season for sending them, but you do, and will oblige me by some of the best sorts.

I suppose you know all that execrable history that occasioned an insurrection lately at Paris, where they were taking up young children to try to people one of their colonies, in which grown persons could never live.  You have seen too, to be sure, in the papers the bustle that has been all this winter about purloining some of our manufacturers to Spain.  I was told to-day that the informations, if they had had rope given them, would have reached to General Wall.(170) Can you wonder?  Why should Spain prefer a native of England(171) to her own subjects, but because he could and would do us more hurt than a Spaniard could? a grandee is a more harmless animal by far than an Irish Papist.  We stifled this evidence:  we are in their power; We forgot at the last peace to renew the most material treaty!  Adieu!  You would not forget a material treaty.