is the only safe road I know at present, for it is up to the middle of the horses in water.  Next week I shall not venture to London even at noon, for the Middlesex election is to be at Brentford, where the two demagogues, Wilkes and Townshend, oppose each other; and at Richmond there is no crossing the river.  How strange all this must appear to you Florentines; but you may turn to your Machiavelli and Guicciardini, and have some idea of it.  I am the quietest man at present in the whole island; not but I might take some part, if I would.  I was in my garden yesterday, seeing my servants lop some trees; my brewer walked in and pressed me to go to Guildhall for the nomination of members for the county.  I replied, calmly, “Sir, when I would go no more to my own election, you may be very sure I will go to that of nobody else.”  My old tune is,

     Suave mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis, &c.

Adieu!

P.S.—­ARLINGTON STREET, 7th.

I am just come to town, and find your letter, with the notification of Lord Cowper’s marriage; I recollect that I ought to be sorry for it, as you will probably lose an old friend.  The approaching death of the Pope will be an event of no consequence.  That old mummery is near its conclusion, at least as a political object.  The history of the latter Popes will be no more read than that of the last Constantinopolitan Emperors.  Wilkes is a more conspicuous personage in modern story than the Pontifex Maximus of Rome.  The poll for Lord Mayor ended last night; he and his late Mayor had above 1,900 votes, and their antagonists not 1,500.  It is strange that the more he is opposed, the more he succeeds!

I don’t know whether Sir W. Duncan’s marriage proved Platonic or not; but I cannot believe that a lady of great birth, and greater pride, quarrels with her family, to marry a Scotch physician for Platonic love, which she might enjoy without marriage.  I remember an admirable bon-mot of George Selwyn; who said, “How often Lady Mary will repeat, with Macbeth, ’Wake, Duncan, with this knocking—­would thou couldst!”

THE POPE’S DEATH—­WILKES IS RETURNED FOR MIDDLESEX—­A QUAKER AT VERSAILLES.

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, Oct. 22, 1774.

Though I have been writing two letters, of four sides each, one of which I enclose, I must answer your two last, if my fingers will move; and talk to you on the contents of the enclosed.

If the Jesuits have precipitated the Pope’s death,[1] as seems more than probable, they have acted more by the spirit of their order, than by its good sense.  Great crimes may raise a growing cause, but seldom retard the fall of a sinking one.  This I take to be almost an infallible maxim.  Great crimes, too, provoke more than they terrify; and there is no poisoning all that are provoked, and all that are terrified; who alternately provoke and terrify each other, till common danger produces common security.  The Bourbon monarchs will be both angry and frightened, the Cardinals frightened.  It will be the interest of both not to revive an order that bullies with arsenic in its sleeve.  The poisoned host will destroy the Jesuits, as well as the Pope:  and perhaps the Church of Rome will fall by a wafer, as it rose by it; for such an edifice will tumble when once the crack has begun.