You will wonder more at what I am going to tell you in the last place:  I am preparing, in earnest, to make you a visit-not next week, but seriously in February.  After postponing it for seven idle months, you will stare at my thinking of it just after the meeting Of the Parliament.  Why, that is just one of my principal reasons.  I will stay and see the opening and one or two divisions; the minority will be able to be the majority, or they will not:  if they can, they will not want me, who want nothing of them:  if they cannot, I am sure I can do them no good, and shall take my leave of them;—­I mean always, to be sure, if things do not turn on a few votes:  they shall not call me a deserter.  In every other case, I am so sick of politics, which I have long detested, that I must bid adieu to them.  I have acted the part by your brother that I thought right.  He approves what I have done, and what I mean to do; so do the few I esteem, for I have notified my intention; and for the rest of the world, they may think what they please.  In truth, I have a better reason, which would prescribe my setting out directly, if it was consistent with my honour.  I have a return of those nightly fevers and pains in my breast, which have come for the three last years -,it this season:  change of air and a better climate are certainly necessary to me in winter.  I shall thus indulge my inclinations every way.  I long to see you and my Lady Hertford, and am wofully sick of the follies and distractions of this country, to which I see no end, come what changes will!  Now, do you wonder any longer at my resolution?  In the mean time adieu for the present!

(694) D’Auberval was not only a celebrated dancer, but a composer of ballets.@.

(695) The reconciliation of the Duke and Duchess of Grafton.-E.

(696) The Princess Dowager of Wales.

(697) Lord Morton was elected.

Letter 232 To The Right Hon. Lady Hervey.  November 10, 1764. (page 355)

Soh! madam, you expect to be thanked, because you have done a very obliging thing.(698) But I won’t thank you, and I won’t be obliged.  It is very hard one can’t come into your house and commend any thing, but you must recollect it and send it after one!  I will never dine in your house again; and, when I do, I will like nothing; and when I do, I will commend nothing; and when I do, you shan’t remember it.  You are very grateful indeed to Providence that give you so good a memory, to stuff it with nothing but bills of fare of what every body likes to eat and drink!  I wonder you are not ashamed!  Do you think there is no such thing as gluttony of the memory?—­You a Christian!  A pretty account you will be able to give of yourself!-Your fine folks in France may call this friendship and attention, perhaps—­but sure, if I was to go to the devil, it should be for thinking of nothing but myself, not of others, from morning to night.  I would send back your temptations; but, as I will not be obliged to you for them, verily I shall retain them to punish you; ingratitude being a proper chastisement for sinful friendliness.  Thine in the spirit, Pilchard Whitfield.