We are alarmed with the distemper being got among the horses:  few have died yet, but a farrier who attended General Ligonier’s dropped down dead in the stable.  Adieu!

(192) The duchesses of Newcastle and Bedford.

(193) “So anxious was the Duke of Newcastle to remove his colleague, that he actually proposed either to open a negotiation with Earl Granville for settling a new administration, or to conciliate the Duke of Cumberland, without the interposition of Mr. Pelham, by agreeing to substitute Lord Sandwich in the room of the Duke of Bedford.”  Coxe’s Pelham, vol. ii. p. 137.-E.

(194) Charles Yorke.-D.

(195) Wimpole the Chancellor’s seat in Cambridgeshire.

(196) Sir Philip Honeywood, knight of the bath.

(197) Lord Viscount Fane, formerly minister at Florence.

(198) Coxe states, that Mr. Scott was recommended to the Prince of Wales by Lord Bathurst, at the suggestion of Lord Bolingbroke, and that he was favoured by the Princess.-E.

86 Letter 33 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, Dec. 19, 1750.

Well! you may be easy; your friends have been to see me at last, but it has so happened that we have never once met, nor have I even seen their persons.  They live at Newcastle-house; and though I give you my word my politics are exceedingly neutral, I happen to be often at the court of Bedford.  The Interministerium still subsists; no place is filled up but the Lieutenancy of Ireland; the Duke of Dorset was too impatient to wait.  Lord Harrington remains a melancholy sacrifice to the famous general Resignation,(199) which he led up, and of which he is the only victim.  Overtures have been made to Lord Chesterfield to be president; but he has declined it; for he says he cannot hear causes, as he is grown deaf.  I don’t think the proposal was imprudent, for if they should happen, as they have now and then happened, to want to get rid of him again, they might without consequence; that is, I suppose nobody would follow him out, any more than they did when he resigned voluntarily.  For these two days every body has expected to see Lord Granville president, and his friend the Duke of Bolton, colonel of the Blues; two nominations that would not be very agreeable, nor probably calculated to be so to the Duke, who favours the Bedford faction.  His old governor Mr. Poyntz(200) is just dead, ruined in his circumstances by a devout brother, whom he trusted, and by a simple wife, who had a devotion of marrying, dozens of her poor cousins at his expense:  you know she was the Fair Circassian.(201) Mr. Poyntz was called a very great man, but few knew any thing of his talents, for he was timorous to childishness.  The Duke has done greatly for his family, and secured his places for his children, and sends his two sons abroad, allowing them eight hundred pounds a year.  The little Marquis of Rockingham has drowned himself in claret; and old Lord Dartmouth is dead of ague.(202) When Lord Bolingbroke’s last work was published, on the State of Parties at the late King’s accession, Lord Dartmouth said, he supposed Lord Bolingbroke believed every body was dead who had lived at that period.