(1043) Walter Goodall, librarian of the Advocates’ Library, Edinburgh.  He was warmly devoted to Mary Queen of Scots, and in 1754, published an Examination of the letters said to be written by Mary to the Earl of Bothwell, in which he endeavoured to prove them to be forgeries.-E.

(1044) Robert, the third King of Scotland, from the imputation of bastardy.-E.

499 Letter 324 To George Montagu, Esq.  Strawberry Hill, July 19, 1759.

Well, I begin to expect you; you must not forget the first of August.  If we do but look as well as we do at present, you will own Strawberry is still in its bloom.  With English verdure, we have had an Italian summer, and

Whatever sweets Sabaean springs disclose,
Our Indian jasmin, and the Persian rose.

I am forced to talk of Strawberry, lest I should weary you with what every body wearies me, the French and the militia.  They, I mean the latter only, not the former, passed just by us yesterday, and though it was my own clan, I had not the curiosity to go and see them.  The crowds in Hyde Park, when the King reviewed them, were unimaginable.  My Lord Orford, their colonel, I hear, looked gloriously martial and genteel, and I believe it;(1045) his person and air have a noble wildness in them; the regiments, too, are very becoming, scarlet faced with black, buff waistcoats, and gold buttons.  How knights of shires, who have never shot any thing but woodcocks, like this warfare, I don’t know; but the towns through which they pass adore them; every where they are treated and regaled.  The Prince of Wales followed them to Kingston, and gave fifty guineas among the private men.

I expect some anecdotes from you of the coronation at Oxford; I hear my Lord Westmoreland’s own retinue was all be-James’d with true-blue ribands; and that because Sir William Calvert, who was a fellow of a college, and happened to be Lord Mayor, attended the Duke of Newcastle at his inthronization, they dragged down the present Lord Mayor to Oxford, who is only a dry-salter.

I have your Butler’s posthumous works.(1046) The poetry is most uncouth and incorrect, but with infinite wit; especially one thing on plagiaries is equal to any thirty in Hudibras.  Have you read my Lord Clarendon’s?  I am enchanted with it; ’tis very incorrect, but I think more entertaining than his History.  It makes me quite out of humour with other memoirs.  Adieu!

(1045) Mr. Pitt, in a letter of this day, to Lady Hester, says, “Nothing could make a better appearance than the two Norfolk battalions.  Lord Orford, with the port of Mars himself, and really the genteelest figure under arms I ever saw, was the theme of every tongue.”  Chatham Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 4.-E.

(1046) “The Genuine Remains, in prose and verse, of Samuel Butler; with notes by R. Thyer.”  A very pleasant review of this work, by Oliver Goldsmith, will be found in the fourth volume of Mr. Murray’s enlarged edition of his Miscellaneous Works.-E.