Our Parliament is put off till after Christmas; so, I have no more resource from domestic politics than from foreign wars.  For my own particular, I desire neither.  I live here in tranquillity and idleness, can content myself with trifles, and think the world is much the happier when it has nothing to talk of.  Most people ask, “Is there any news?”—­How can one want to know one does not know what? when anything has happened, one hears it.

There is one subject on which I wish I had occasion to write; I think it long since I heard how you go on:  I flatter myself, as I have no letter from you or your nephew, prosperously.  I should prefer a letter from him, that you may not have the trouble; and I shall make this the shorter, as a precedent for his not thinking more than a line necessary.  The post does not insist on a certain quantity; it is content with being paid for whatever it carries—­nay, is a little unreasonable, as it doubles its price for a cover that contains nothing but a direction:  and now it is the fashion to curtail the direction as much as possible.  Formerly, a direction was an academy of compliments:  “To the most noble and my singularly respected friend,” &c., &c.—­and then, “Haste! haste, for your life, haste!” Now, we have banished even the monosyllable To!  Henry Conway,[1] Lord Hertford’s son, who is very indolent, and has much humour, introduced that abridgment.  Writing to a Mr. Tighe at the Temple, he directed his letter only thus:  “T.  Ti., Temple"[2]—­and it was delivered!  Dr. Bentley was mightily flattered on receiving a letter superscribed “To Dr. Bentley in England.”  Times are altered; postmen are now satisfied with a hint.  One modern retrenchment is a blessing; one is not obliged to study for an ingenious conclusion, as if writing an epigram—­oh! no; nor to send compliments that never were delivered.  I had a relation who always finished his letters with “his love to all that was near and dear to us,” though he did not care a straw for me or any of his family.  It was said of old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, that she never put dots over her i’s, to save ink:  how she would have enjoyed modern economy in that article!  She would have died worth a thousand farthings more than she did—­nay, she would have known exactly how many; as Sir Robert Brown[3] did, who calculated what he had saved by never having an orange or lemon on his sideboard.  I am surprised that no economist has retrenched second courses, which always consist of the dearest articles, though seldom touched, as the hungry at least dine on the first.  Mrs. Leneve,[4] one summer at Houghton, counted thirty-six turkey-pouts[5] that had been served up without being meddled with.

[Footnote 1:  Second son of Francis Seymour Conway, first Earl of Hertford.—­WALPOLE.]

[Footnote 2:  This address was surpassed towards the end of the reign, by a letter which arrived in London addressed to “Srumfredafi, England;” and was correctly interpreted at the Post Office as being designed for Sir Humphrey Davy.]