Your Lord Northampton has not acted a much more gallant part by his new mistress than by his fair one at Florence.  When it was all agreed, he refused to marry unless she had eighteen thousand pounds.  Eight were wanting.  It looked as if he was more attached to his old flame than to his new one; but her uncle, Norborne Berkeley,(1049) has nobly made up the deficiency.

I told Mr. Fox of the wine that is coming, and he told me what I had totally forgot, that he has left off Florence, and chooses to have no more.  He will take this parcel, but you need not trouble yourself again.  Adieu! my dear Sir, don’t let Marshal Botta terrify you:  when the French dare not stir out of any port they have, it will be extraordinary if they venture to come into the heart of us.

(1047) Frances, eldest daughter of Sir Charles Hanbury Williams.  See ant`e, p. 216, letter 108.-E.

(1048) “I have heard the Duke of Newcastle is much broke ever since his sister Castlecorner died; not that he cared for her, or saw her above once a year:  but she was the last of the brood that was left; and he now goes regularly to church, which he never did before.”  Gray, Works, vol. iii. p. 218.-E.

(1049) Brother of the Duchess of Beaufort, mother of Lady Anne Somerset, whom Lord Northampton did marry. (Norborne Berkeley afterwards established his claim to the ancient barony of Botetourt.-D.)

502 Letter 327 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, Aug. 8, 1759.

If any body admires expedition, they should address themselves to you and me, who order watches, negotiate about them by couriers, and have them finished, with as little trouble as if we had nothing to do, but, like the men of business in the Arabian tales, rub a dark lantern, a genie appears, one bespeaks a bauble worth two or three Indies, and finds it upon one’s table the next morning at breakfast.  The watch was actually finished, and delivered to your brother yesterday.  I trust to our good luck for finding quick conveyance.  I did send to the White@horse cellar here in Piccadilly, whence all the stage-coaches set out, but there was never a genie booted and spurred, and going to Florence on a sunbeam.  If you are not charmed with the watch, never deal with us devils any more.  If any thing a quarter so pretty was found in Herculaneum, One should admire Roman enamellers more than their Scipios and Caesars.  The device of the second seal I stole; it is old, but uncommon; a Cupid standing on two joined hands over the sea; si la foy manque, l’amour perira—­I hope for the honour of the device. it will arrive before half the honeymoon is over!—­But, alack!  I forget the material point; Mr. Deard, who has forty times more virtue than if he had been taken from the plough to be colonel of the militia, instead of one hundred and sixteen pounds to which I pinned him down, to avoid guineas, will positively take but one hundred and ten pounds.  I did all