and distressed by no contending factions, and did not endeavour to bribe them to let him pursue his great object of humbling France!  The Duke of Marlborough was not overborne in a similar and more glorious career by a detestable Cabal!—­and if Oxford and Bolingbroke did remove him, from the most patriot motives, they, good men! used no corruption!  Twelve Peerages showered at once, to convert the House of Lords, were no bribes; nor was a shilling issued for secret services; nor would a member of either House have received it!

Sir R. Walpole came, and strange to tell, found the whole Parliament, and every Parliament, at least a great majority of every Parliament, ready to take his money.  For what?—­to undo their country!—­which, however, wickedly as he meant, and ready as they were to concur, he left in every respect in the condition he found it, except in being improved in trade, wealth, and tranquillity; till its friends who expelled him, had dipped their poor country in a war; which was far from mending its condition.  Sir Robert died, foretelling a rebellion, which happened in less than six months, and for predicting which he had been ridiculed:  and in detestation of a maxim ascribed to him by his enemies, that every man has his price, the tariff of every Parliament since has been as well known as the price of beef and mutton; and the universal electors, who cry out against that traffic, are not a jot less vendible than their electors.—­Was not Sir Robert Walpole an abominable Minister?

29th.

P.S.—­The man who certainly provoked Ireland to think, is dead—­Lord
Sackville.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Lord George Sackville Germaine, third son of Lionel [first] Duke of Dorset, who, when secretary to his father, when Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, gave rise, by his haughty behaviour, to the factions that have ever since disturbed that country, and at last shaken off its submission to this country.—­WALPOLE.]

30th.

I see, by the Gazette, that Lord Cowper’s pinchbeck principality is allowed.  I wonder his Highness does not desire the Pope to make one of his sons a bishop in partibus infidelium.

BREVITY OF MODERN ADDRESSES—­THE OLD DUCHESS OF MARLBOROUGH.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, Oct. 4, 1785.

I don’t love to transgress my monthly regularity; yet, as you must prefer facts to words, why should I write when I have nothing to tell you?  The newspapers themselves in a peaceable autumn coin wonders from Ireland, or live on the accidents of the Equinox.  They, the newspapers, have been in high spirits on the prospect of a campaign in Holland; but the Dutch, without pity for the gazetteers of Europe, are said to have submitted to the Emperor’s terms:  however, the intelligence-merchants may trust that he will not starve them long!

Your neighbour, the Queen of Sardinia, it seems, is dead:  but, if there was anything to say about her, you must tell it to me, not I to you; for, till she died, I scarce knew she had been alive.