The town, you may be sure, is very empty; the greatest party is at Woburn, whither the Comte de Guerchy and the Duc de Pecquigny are going.  I have been three days at Strawberry, and had George Selwyn, Williams, and Lord Ashburnham;(426) but the weather was intolerably bad.  We have scarce had a moment’s drought since you went, no more than for so many months before.  The towns and the roads are beyond measure dirty, and every thing else under water.  I was not well neither, nor am yet, with pains in my stomach:  however, if I ever used one, I could afford to pay a physician.  T’other day, coming from my Lady Townshend’s, it came into my head to stop at one of the lottery offices, to inquire after a single ticket I had, expecting to find it a blank, but it was five hundred pounds—­Thank you!  I know you wish me joy.  It will buy twenty pretty things when I come to Paris.

I read last night, your new French play, Le Comte de Warwick(427) which we hear has succeeded much.  I must say, it does but confirm the cheap idea I have of you French:  not to mention the preposterous perversion of history in so known a story, the Queen’s ridiculous preference of old Warwick to a young King; the omission of the only thing she ever said or did in her whole life worth recording, which was thinking herself too low for his wife, and too high for his mistress;(428) the romantic honour bestowed on two such savages as Edward and Warwick:  besides these, and forty such glaring absurdities, there is but one scene that has any merit, that between Edward and Warwick in the third act.  Indeed, indeed, I don’t honour the modern French:  it is making your son but a slender compliment, with his knowledge, for them to say it is extraordinary.  The best proof I think they give of their taste, is liking you all three.  I rejoice that your little boy is recovered.  Your brother has been at Park-place this week, and stays a week longer:  his hill is too high to be drowned.

Thank you for your kindness to Mr. Selwyn:  if he had too much impatience, I am sure it proceeded only from his great esteem for you.

I will endeavour to learn what you desire; and will answer, in another letter, that and some other passages in your last.  Dr. Hunter is very good, and calls on me sometimes.  You may guess whether we talk you over or not.  Adieu!

P. S. There has not been a death, but Sir William Maynard’s, who is come to life again:  or a marriage, but Admiral Knollys’s who has married his divorced wife again.

(420) Robert Shafto, Esq. of Whitworth, member of Durham, well known on the turf.-C.

(421) To a loan.-C.