let out a moth.  I told him I did not know that the Methodists had any principle so good, and that I, who am certainly not on the point of becoming one, always did so too.  One of the bravest and best men I ever knew, Sir Charles Wager, I have often heard declare he never killed a fly willingly.  It is a comfortable reflection to me, that all the victories of last year have been gained since the suppression of the Bear Garden and prize-fighting; as it is plain, and nothing else would have made it so, that our valour did not singly and solely depend upon these two Universities.  Adieu!

[Sidenote:  Horace Walpole]

Can we easily leave the remains of such a year as this?  It is still all gold.  I have not dined or gone to bed by a fire till the day before yesterday.  Instead of the glorious and ever-memorable year 1759, as the newspapers call it, I call it this ever-warm and victorious year.  We have not had more conquest than fine weather; one would think we had plundered East and West Indies of sunshine.  Our bells are worn threadbare with ringing for victories.  I believe it will require ten votes of the House of Commons before people will believe it is the Duke of Newcastle that has done this, and not Mr. Pitt.  One thing is very fatiguing—­all the world is made knights or generals.  Adieu!  I don’t know a word of news less than the conquest of America.  Adieu! yours ever.

P.S.—­You shall hear from me again if we take Mexico or China before Christmas.

[Sidenote:  Horace Walpole]

You are so thoughtless about your dress that I cannot help giving you a little warning against your return.  Remember, everybody that comes from abroad is cense to come from France, and whatever they wear at their first reappearance immediately grows the fashion.  Now if, as is very likely, you should through inadvertence change hats with a master of a Dutch smack, Offley will be upon the watch, will conclude you took your pattern from M. de Bareil, and in a week’s time we shall all be equipped like Dutch skippers.  You see I speak very disinterestedly; for, as I never wear a hat myself, it is indifferent to me what sort of hat I don’t wear.

[Sidenote:  Horace Walpole]

Lord Frederick Cavendish is returned from France.  He confirms and adds to the amiable accounts we have received of the Duc d’Aiguillon’s behaviour to our prisoners.  You yourself, the pattern of attentions and tenderness, could not refine on what he has done both in good-nature and good-breeding:  he even forbad any ringing of bells or rejoicings wherever they passed—­but how your representative blood will curdle when you hear of the absurdity of one of your countrymen:  the night after the massacre at St. Cas, the Duc d’Aiguillon gave a magnificent supper of eighty covers to our prisoners—­a Colonel Lambert got up at the bottom of the table, and, asking for a bumper, called out to the Duc, “My Lord Duke, here’s the Roy de Franse!” You must put all the English you can crowd into the accent. My Lord Duke was so confounded at this preposterous compliment, which it was impossible for him to return, that he absolutely sank back into his chair and could not utter a syllable:  our own people did not seem to feel more.