Old Somerset(1483) is at last dead, and the Duke of Newcastle Chancellor of Bainbridge, to his heart’s content.  Somerset tendered his pride even beyond his hate; for he has left the present Duke all the furniture of his palaces, and forbore to charge the estate, according to a power he had, with five-and-thirty thousand pounds.  To his Duchess,(1484) who has endured such a long slavery with him, he has left nothing but one thousand pounds and a small farm, besides her jointure; giving the whole of his unsettled estate, which is about six thousand pounds a-year, equally between his two daughters, and leaving it absolutely in their own powers now, though neither are of age; and to Lady Frances, the eldest, he has additionally given the fine house built by Inigo Jones, in Lincoln’s-inn-fields, (which he had bought of the Duke of Ancaster for the Duchess,) hoping that his daughter will let her mother live with her.  To Sir Thomas Bootle he has given half a borough, and a whole one,(1485) to his grandson Sir Charles Windham,(1486) with an estate that cost him fourteen thousand pounds.  To Mr. Obrien,(1487) Sir Charles Windham’s brother, a single thousand; and to Miss Windham an hundred a-year, which he gave her annually at Christmas, and is just Such a legacy as you would give to a housekeeper to prevent her from going to service again.  She is to be married immediately to the second Grenville;(1488) they have waited for a larger legacy.  The famous settlement(1489) is found, which gives Sir Charles Windham about twelve thousand pounds a-year of the Percy estate after the present Duke’s death; the other five, with the barony of Percy, must go to Lady Betty Smithson.(1490) I don’t know whether you ever heard that, in Lord Grenville’s administration, he had prevailed with the King to grant the earldom of Northumberland to Sir Charles; Lord Hertford represented against it; at last the King said he would give it to whoever they would make it appear was to have the Percy estate; but old Somerset refused to let any body see his writings, and so the affair dropped, every body believing that there was no such settlement.

John Stanhope of the admiralty is dead, and Lord Chesterfield gets thirty thousand pounds for life:  I hear Mr. Villiers is most likely to succeed to that board.  You know all the Stanhopes are a family aux bon-mots:  I must tell you one of this John.  He was sitting by an old Mr. Curzon, a nasty wretch, and very covetous:  his nose wanted blowing, and continued to want it:  at last Mr. Stanhope, with the greatest good-breeding, said, “Indeed, Sir, if you don’t wipe your nose, you will lose that drop.”