and then staking them again!  ’Tis wearisome!  I hate the discussion, and yet One cannot always sit at a gaming-table and never make a bet.  I wish for nothing, I care not a straw for the ins or the outs; I determine never to think of them, yet the contagion catches one; can you tell any thing that will prevent infection?  Well then, here I swear,-no I won’t swear, one always breaks one’s oath.  Oh, that I had been born to love a court like Sir William Breton!  I should have lived and died with the comfort of thinking that courts there will be to all eternity, and the liberty of my country would never once have ruffled my smile, or spoiled my bow.  I envy Sir William.  Good night!

(429) Anne, one of the daughters and coheirs of Thomas Chambers, of Hanworth, in the county of Middlesex, Esq. wife of Earl Temple.  This lady was a woman of genius:  it will hereafter be seen, that a small volume of her poems was printed at the Strawberry Hill press.-E.

(430) Of Brunswick.

Letter 188 To The Earl Of Hertford.  Arlington Street, Jan. 22, 1764. (page 270)

Monsieur Monin, who will deliver this to you, my dear lord, is the particular friend I mentioned in my last,(431) and is, indeed, no particular friend of mine at all, but I had a mind to mislead my Lord Sandwich, and send you one letter which he should not open.  This I write in peculiar confidence to you, and insist upon your keeping it entirely to yourself from every living creature.  It will be an answer to several passages in your letters, to which I did not care to reply by the post.

Your brother was not pleased with your laying the stopping your bills to his charge.(432) To tell you the truth, he thinks you are too much inclined to courts and ministers, as you think him too little so.  So far from upbraiding him on that head, give me leave to say you have no reason to be concerned at it.  You must be sensible, my dear lord, that you are far from standing well with the opposition, and should any change happen, your brother’s being well with them, would prevent any appearance that might be disagreeable to you.  In truth, I cannot think you have abundant reason to be fond of the administration.  Lord Bute(433) never gave you the least real mark of friendship.  The Bedfords certainly do not wish you well:  Lord Holland has amply proved himself your enemy:  for a man of your morals, it would be a disgrace to you to be connected with Lord Sandwich; and for George Grenville,(434) he has shown himself the falsest and most contemptible of mankind.  He is now the intimate tool of the Bedfords, and reconciled to Lord Bute, whom he has served and disserved just as occasion or interest directed.  In this situation of things, can you wonder that particular marks of favour are withheld from you, or that the expenses of your journey are not granted to you as they were to the Duke of Bedford!