won’t even venture the appearance of it.  I have often applied to you in my own mind a very pretty passage that I remember in a letter of Chillingworth; “you would not do that for preferment that you would not do but for preferment.”  You oblige me much in what you say about my nephews, and make me happy in the character you have heard of Lord Malpas;(1471) I am extremely inclined to believe he deserves it.  I am as sorry to hear what a companion lord Walpole has got:  there has been a good deal of noise about him, but I had laughed at it, having traced the worst reports to his gracious mother, who is now sacrificing the character of her son to her aversion for her husband.  If we lived under the Jewish dispensation, how I should tremble at my brother’s leaving no children by her, and its coming to my turn to raise him up issue!

Since I gave you the account of the Duchess of Ireland’s piked horns among the tombs of the Veres, I have found a long account in Bayle of the friar, who, as I remember to have read somewhere, preached so vehemently against that fashion:  it was called Hennin, and the monk’s name was Thomas Conecte.  He was afterwards burnt at Rome for censuring the lives of the clergy.  As our histories say that Anne of Bohemia introduced the fashion here, it is probable that the French learnt it from us, and were either long before they caught it, Or long in retaining the mode; for the Duke of Ireland died in 1389, and Connect was burnt at Rome in 1434.  There were, indeed, several years between his preaching down Hennins and his death, but probably not near five-and-forty years, and half that term was a long duration for so outrageous a fashion.  But I have found a still more entertaining fashion in another place in Bayle which was, the women wearing looking-glasses upon their bellies’:  I don’t conceive for what use.  Adieu! don’t write any more, but come.

(1471) Eldest son of George, third Earl of Cholmondoley, and grandson of Sir Robert Walpole.

567 Letter 263 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.  Strawberry Hill, Oct. 6, 1748.

Dear harry, I am sorry our wishes clash so much.  Besides that I have no natural inclination for the Parliament, it will particularly disturb me now in the middle of all my planting; for which reason I have never inquired when it will meet, and cannot help you to guess—­but I should think not hastily-for I believe the peace, at least the evacuations, are not in so prosperous a way as to be ready to make any figure in the King’s speech.  But I speak from a distance; it may all be very toward:  our ministers enjoy the consciousness of their wisdom, as the good do of their virtue, and take no pains to make it shine before men.  In the mean time, we have several collateral emoluments from the pacification:  all our milliners, tailors, tavern keepers, and young gentlemen are tiding to France for our improvement in luxury; and as I foresee we shall be told on their return that we have lived in a total state of blindness