Rienzi recalled to their recollection “the ancient glories of the Senate and people from whom all legal authority was derived.  He raised the enthusiasm of the populace; collected a band of conspirators, at whose head, clad in complete armour, he marched to the Capitol, and assumed the government of the city, declining “the names of Senator or Consul, of King or Emperor, and preferring the ancient and modern appellation of Tribune....  Never perhaps has the energy and effect of a single mind been more remarkably felt than in the sudden, though transient, reformation of Rome by the Tribune Rienzi.  A den of robbers was converted to the discipline of a camp or convent.  Patient to hear, swift to redress, inexorable to punish, his tribunal was always accessible to the poor and the stranger; nor could birth, nor dignity, nor the immunities of the Church protect the offender or his accomplices.”  But his head was turned by his success.  He even caused himself to be crowned, while “his wife, his son, and his uncle, a barber, exposed the contrast of vulgar manners and princely expense; and, without acquiring the majesty, Rienzi degenerated into the vices of a king.”  The people became indignant; the nobles whom he had degraded found it easy to raise the public feeling against him.  Before the end of the same year (1347) he was forced to fly from Rome, and lived in exile or imprisonment at Avignon seven years; and returned to Rome in 1354, only to be murdered in an insurrection.]

I must finish, for Lord Hertford is this moment come in, and insists on my dining with the Prince of Monaco, who is come over to thank the King for the presents his Majesty sent him on his kindness and attention to the late Duke of York.  You shall hear the suite of the above histories, which I sit quietly and look at, having nothing more to do with the storm, and sick of politics, but as a spectator, while they pass over the stage of the world.  Adieu!

FLEETING FAME OF WITTICISMS—­“THE MYSTERIOUS MOTHER."

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

STRAWBERRY HILL, April 15, 1768.

Mr. Chute tells me that you have taken a new house in Squireland, and have given yourself up for two years more to port and parsons.  I am very angry, and resign you to the works of the devil or the church, I don’t care which.  You will get the gout, turn Methodist, and expect to ride to heaven upon your own great toe.  I was happy with your telling me how well you love me, and though I don’t love loving, I could have poured out all the fulness of my heart to such an old and true friend; but what am I the better for it, if I am to see you but two or three days in the year?  I thought you would at last come and while away the remainder of life on the banks of the Thames in gaiety and old tales.  I have quitted the stage, and the Clive[1] is preparing to leave it.  We shall neither of us ever be grave:  dowagers roost all around us, and you could never