Well, mon beau cousin! you may be as cross as you please now. when you beat two Marshals of France and cut their armies to pieces, I don’t mind your pouting; but in good truth, it was a little vexatious to have you quarrelling with me, when I was in greater pain about you than I can express.  I Will Say no more; make a peace, under the walls of Paris if you please, and I will forgive you all—­but no more battles:  consider, as Dr. Hay said, it is cowardly to beat the French now.

Don’t look upon yourselves as the only conquerors in the world.  Pondicherri is ours, as well as the field of KirkDenckirk.  The park guns never have time to cool; we ruin ourselves in gunpowder and skyrockets.  If you have a mind to do the gallantest thing in the world after the greatest, you must escort the Princess of Mecklenburgh through France.  You see what a bully I am; the moment the French run away, I am sending you on expeditions.  I forgot to tell you that the King has got the isle of Dominique and the chickenpox, two trifles that don’t count in the midst of all these festivities.  No more does your letter of the 8th, which I received yesterday:  it is the one that is to come after the 16th, that I shall receive graciously.

Friday 24th.

Not satisfied with the rays of glory that reached Twickenham, I came to town to bask in your success; but am most disagreeably disappointed to find you must beat the French once more, who seem to love to treat the English mob with subjects for bonfires.  I had got over such an alarm, that I foolishly ran into the other extreme, and concluded there was not a French battalion left entire upon the face of Germany.  Do write to me; don’t be out of humour, but tell me every motion you make:  I assure you I have deserved you should.  Would you were out of the question, if it were only that I might feel a little humanity!  There is not a blacksmith or linkboy in London that exults more than I do, upon any good news, since you went abroad.  What have I to do to hate people I never saw, and to rejoice in their calamities?  Heaven send us peace, and you home!  Adieu!

Letter 87 To George Montagu, Esq.  Arlington Street, July 28, 1761. (page 138)

No, I shall never cease being a dupe, till I have been undeceived round by every thing that calls itself a virtue.  I came to town yesterday, through clouds of dust, to see The Wishes, and went actually feeling for Mr. Bentley, and full of the emotions he must be suffering.  What do you think, in a house crowded, was the first thing I saw?  Mr. and Madame Bentley, perched up in the front boxes, and acting audience at his own play!  No, all the impudence of false patriotism never came up to it.  Did one ever hear of an author that had courage to see his own first night in public’?  I don’t believe Fielding or Foote himself ever did; and this was the modest, bashful Mr. BenTley, that died at the