[Footnote 1:  By Christopher Anstey.  “Have you read the ‘New Bath Guide’?  It is the only thing in fashion, and is a new and original kind of humour.  Miss Prue’s conversation I doubt you will paste down, as Sir W. St. Quintyn did before he carried it to his daughter; yet I remember you all read ‘Crazy Tales’ without pasting” (Gray to Wharton.—­Works by Mitford, vol. iv. p. 84).]

There are two new volumes, too, of Swift’s Correspondence, that will not amuse you less in another way, though abominable, for there are letters of twenty persons now alive; fifty of Lady Betty Germain, one that does her great honour, in which she defends her friend my Lady Suffolk, with all the spirit in the world,[1] against that brute, who hated everybody that he hoped would get him a mitre, and did not.  There is one to his Miss Vanhomrigh, from which I think it plain he lay with her, notwithstanding his supposed incapacity, yet not doing much honour to that capacity, for he says he can drink coffee but once a week, and I think you will see very clearly what he means by coffee.  His own journal sent to Stella during the four last years of the Queen, is a fund of entertainment.  You will see his insolence in full colours, and, at the same time, how daily vain he was of being noticed by the Ministers he affected to treat arrogantly.  His panic at the Mohocks is comical; but what strikes one, is bringing before one’s eyes the incidents of a curious period.  He goes to the rehearsal of “Cato,” and says the drab that acted Cato’s daughter could not say her part.  This was only Mrs. Oldfield.  I was saying before George Selwyn, that this journal put me in mind of the present time, there was the same indecision, irresolution, and want of system; but I added, “There is nothing new under the sun.”  “No,” said Selwyn, “nor under the grandson.”

[Footnote 1:  The letter dated Feb. 8, 1732-3.]

My Lord Chesterfield has done me much honour:  he told Mrs. Anne Pitt that he would subscribe to any politics I should lay down.  When she repeated this to me, I said, “Pray tell him I have laid down politics.”

I am got into puns, and will tell you an excellent one of the King of France, though it does not spell any better than Selwyn’s.  You must have heard of Count Lauragais, and his horse-race, and his quacking his horse till he killed it.[1] At his return the King asked him what he had been doing in England?  “Sire, j’ai appris a penser”—­“Des chevaux?"[2] replied the King.  Good night!  I am tired and going to bed.  Yours ever.

[Footnote 1:  In a previous letter Walpole mentioned that the Count and the English Lord Forbes had had a race, which the Count lost; and that, as his horse died the following night, surgeons were employed to open the body, and they declared he had been poisoned.  “The English,” says Walpole, “suspect that a groom, who, I suppose, had been reading Livy or Demosthenes, poisoned it on patriotic principles to secure victory to his country.  The French, on the contrary, think poison as common as oats or beans in the stables at Newmarket.  In short, there is no impertinence which they have not uttered; and it has gone so far that two nights ago it was said that the King had forbidden another race which was appointed for Monday between the Prince de Nassau and a Mr. Forth, to prevent national animosities.”]