Beauclerck looks wretchedly, and has been very ill.  Our Minister,(79) as you call him, goes on very well, but he is now a widower a second time; his Lady set out for Paris last Saturday.  I hope he will not be undermined.  The King will never have a servant that will please the public more.  I dine with him often a petit convert at March’s.  I am not desirous that my friends should become ministers; but if they are ministers, it is fair to wish they may become one’s friends.  He is yours very cordially, I’m persuaded.  He always asks very kindly after you, and seems uneasy that the Order has not yet reached you.  He said the other day at dinner, aun ton tres patetique, “I shall be much disappointed if in four or five years Lord Carlisle does not give a very good account of himself.”  Ministre, ou non ministre, qui tient des propos pareils, n’aura pas grande difficulte a me contenter sur le reste.  I have abandoned him to-day for Lady Sarah, at which you will be neither surprised, [n]or offended.  He dines at March’s, and I in the Privy Garden.

The D[uke] and D[uches]s of Rich[mon]d are in town.  A young man whose name I cannot recollect asked me very kindly after you yesterday, at the H[ouse] of C[ommons]; he used to sit by your bedside of a morning in King Street; he is tall and thin.

Dr. Musgrave, the Provost of Oriel College in Oxf[or]d, cut his throat in bed the other day; he was ill, but he had taken to heart a mistake which he had madeabout a letter of Sir J. Dolben’s, who is to be member for the University the remainder of this Parliament.  A dispute with the Fellows, as they tell me, arose in consequence of it, and this seized the poor man’s brains.  He was reckoned very passionate, but d’ailleurs a good kind of man.  I knew his person and his elder brother, Sir Philip, formerly very well.  There is a stagnation of news just at this moment, but as soon as any preferments, peerages, or changes of any kind are known for certain, I will send you word of them.

I dined at the D[uchess]’s or Duke’s, which you please, of Northumberland’s(80) on Saturday; you are a great favourite of her Grace’s.  She told me of I don’t know how many sheets which you had wrote to Lady Carlisle, giving an account of your travels.  All the company almost were of Yorkshire, or of the North; Lord and Lady Ravensw[orth], Sir M. Ridley and his father, the Punch Delaval, Lord Tankerville, &c.  Her Grace goes soon to Paris, but has as yet fixed no day.

A disagreeable report has prevailed lately, but I believe without the least foundation, that Crew has lost a monstrous sum to Menil.  Almack’s thrives, but no great events there.  I have ordered the M[arquis] of Kildare to be put up at the young club, at White’s.  If little Harry is come to town, he shall write to you; others should write to you if I could make them, but I am afraid those wishes are more of a courtier than a friend.  I should be sorry and ashamed, by endeavouring to flatter your inclination, if I lost your good opinion, which without flattery I value much.