My compliments to the House of’ Montagu-upon my word I congratulate the General and you, and your viceroy, that you escaped being deposed by the primate of Novogorod.

Letter 133 To The Rev. Mr. Cole.  Strawberry Hill, August 19, 1762. (page 190)

Sir, I am very sensible of the obligations I have to you and Mr. Masters, and ought to make separate acknowledgments to both; but, not knowing how to direct to him, I must hope that you will kindly be once more the channel of our correspondence; and that you will be so good as to convey to him an answer to what you communicated from him to me, and in particular my thanks for the most obliging offer he has made me of a picture of Henry VII.; of which I will by no means rob him.  My view in publishing the Anecdotes was, to assist gentlemen in discovering the hands of pictures they possess:  and I am sufficiently rewarded when that purpose is answered.  If there is another edition, the mistake in the calculation of the tapestry shall be rectified, and any others, which any gentleman will be so good as to point out.  With regard to the monument of Sir Nathaniel Bacon, Vertue certainly describes it as at Culford; and in looking Into the place to which I am referred, in Mr. Master’s History of Corpus Christi College, I think he himself allows in the note, that there is such a monument at Culford.  Of Sir Balthazar Gerber there are several different prints.  Nich.  Lanicre purchasing pictures at the King’s sale, is undoubtedly a mistake for one of his brothers—­I cannot tell now whether Vertue’s mistake or my own.  At Longleafe is a whole-length of Frances Duchess of Richmond, exactly such as Mr. Masters describes, but in oil.  I have another whole-length of the same duchess, I believe by Mytins, but younger than that at Longleafe.  But the best picture of her is in Wilson’s life of King James, and very diverting indeed.  I Will not trouble you, Sir, or Mr. Masters, with any more at present; but, repeating my thanks to both, will assure you that I am, etc.

Letter 134 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.  Strawberry Hill, Sept. 9, 1762. (page 191)

Nondurn laurus erat, longoque decentia crine
Tempera cingebat de qualibet arbore Phoebus.(238)

This is a hint to you, that Phoebus, who was certainly your superior, could take up with a chestnut garland, or any crown he found, you must have the humility to be content without laurels, when none are to be had:  you have hurried far and near for them, and taken true pains to the last in that old nursery-garden Germany, and by the way have made me shudder with your last journal:  but you must be easy with qu`alibet other arbore; you must come home to your own plantations.  The Duke of Bedford is gone in a fury to make peace, for he cannot be even pacific with temper; and by this time I suppose the Duke de Nivernois is unpacking his portion of olive dans la rue de Suffolk-street.  I say, I suppose- -for I do not, like my friends at Arthur’s, whip into my postchaise to see every novelty.  My two sovereigns, the Duchess of Grafton and Lady Mary Coke, are arrived, and yet I have seen neither Polly nor Lucy.  The former, I hear, is entirely French; the latter as absolutely English.