The first storm that is likely to burst in politics, seems to be threatened from the Bedford quarter.  The Duke and Duchess have been in town but for two days the whole summer, and are now going to Trentham, whither Lord Gower, qui se donnoit pour favori, is retired for three months.  This is very unlike the declaration in spring, that the Duke must reside at Streatham,(648) because the King could not spare him for a day.

The memorial(649) left by Guerchy at his departure, and the late arr`ets in France on our American histories, make much noise, and seem to say that I have not been a false prophet!  If our ministers can stand so many difficulties from abroad, and so much odium at home, they are abler men than I take them for.  Adieu, the whole H`otel de Lassay!(650) I verily think I shall see it soon.

(633) He had the lucrative office of usher of the exchequer, and a couple of other less considerable sinecures.-C.

(634) Robert, last Earl of Holderness, grandson of the great Duke Schomberg; he had been secretary of state at the accession.-C.

(635) Lady Hertford was daughter of the late, and cousin of the existing Duke of Grafton, who was one of the leaders of the opposition.-C.

(636) The state of the public mind at this time is thus described by Gray:—­“Grumble, indeed, every one does; but, since Wilkes’s affair, they fall off their metal, and seem to shrink under the brazen hand of Norton and his colleagues.  I hear there will be no Parliament till after Christmas.  If the French should be so unwise as to suffer the Spanish court to go on in their present measures (for they refuse to pay the ransom of Manilla, and have driven away our logwood cutters already,) down go their friends in the ministry, and all the schemes of right divine and prerogative; and this is perhaps the best chance we have.  Are you not struck with the great similarity there is between the first years of Charles the First and the present times?  Who would have thought it possible five years ago?” Works, vol. iv. p. 34.-E.

(637) It is not easy to say what hundred and fifty years he alludes to; the contests of Whig and Tory were never so violent as in the last years of Queen Anne, just fifty years before this time.-C.

(638) The Marquis of Carnarvon, eldest son of the second Duke of Chandos.-E.

(639) See ant`e, p. 258, letter 184.

(640) Lord John and Lord Frederick Cavendish, his grace’s brothers.-E.

(641) Lady Mary, daughter of the second Lord Godolphin, granddaughter of the great Duke of Marlborough, and sister of the Duchess of Newcastle.-E.

(642) Dr. John Hume.-E.

(643) The reader will not fail to observe the sudden effect of Mr. Walpole’s conversion to the Duke of Newcastle’s politics, how it abates all ridicules and sweetens all acerbities.  As no writer has contributed so much as Mr. Walpole to depreciate the character of the Duke of Newcastle, this kind of palinode is not unimportant.  See ant`e, p. 258, letter 184.-C.