Fanny Murray’s is certain.  I liked her spirit in an instance I heard t’other night:  she was complaining of want of money; Sir Robert Atkins immediately gave her a twenty pound note; she said, “D-n your twenty pound! what does it signify?” clapped it between two pieces of bread and butter, and ate it.  Adieu! nothing should make me leave off so shortly but that my gardener waits for me, and you must allow that he is to be preferred to all the world.

569 Letter 265 To Sir Horace Mann.  Strawberry Hill, October 24, 1748.

I have laughed heartily at your adventure of Milord Richard Onslow;(1475) it is an admirable adventure!  I am not sure that Riccardi’s absurdity was not the best part of it.  Here were the Rinuncinis, the Panciaticis, and Pandolfinis? were they as ignorant too?  What a brave topic it would have been for Niccolini, if he had been returned, to display all his knowledge of England!

Your brothers are just returned from Houghton, where they found my brother extremely recovered:  my uncle too, I hear, is better; but I think that an impossible recovery.(1476) Lord Walpole is setting out on his travels; I shall be impatient to have him in Florence; I flatter myself you will like him:  I, who am not troubled with partiality to my family, admire him much.  Your brother has got the two books of Houghton, and will send them by the first Opportunity:  I am by no means satisfied with then; they are full of’ faults, and the two portraits wretchedly unlike.

The peace is signed between us, France, and Holland, but does not give the least joy; the stocks do not rise, and the merchants are unsatisfied; they say France will sacrifice us to Spain, which has not yet signed:  in short, there has not been the least symptom of public rejoicing; but the government is to give a magnificent firework.

I believe there are no news, but I am here all alone, planting.  The Parliament does not meet till the 29th of next month:  I shall go to town but two or three days before that.  The Bishop of Salisbury,(1477) who refused Canterbury, accepts London, upon a near prospect of some fat fines.  Old Tom Walker(1478) is dead, and has left vast wealth and good places; but have not heard where either are to go.  Adieu!  I am very paragraphical, and you see have nothing to say.

(1475) One Daniel Bets, a Dutchman or Fleming, who called himself my Lord Richard Onslow, and pretended to be the Speaker’s son, having forged letters of credit Ind drawn money from several bankers, came to Florence, and was received as an Englishman of quality by Marquis Riccardi, who could not be convinced by Mr. Mann of the imposture till the adventurer ran away on foot to Rome in the night.

(1476) Yet he did in great measure recover by the use of soap and limewater.

(1477) Dr. Sherlock.

(1478) He was surveyor of the roads; had been a kind of toad-eater to Sir Robert Walpole and Lord Godolphin; was a great frequenter of Newmarket, and a notorious usurer.  His reputed wealth is stated, in the Gentleman’s Magazine, at three hundred thousand pounds.]