Prince William, you know, is Duke of Gloucester, with the same appanage as the Duke of York.  Legrand(705) is his Cadogan; Clinton(706) and Ligonier(707) his grooms.

Colonel Crawford is dead at Minorca, and Colonel Burton has his regiment; the Primate (Stone) is better, but I suppose, from his distemper, which is a dropsy in his breast, irrecoverable.  Your Irish queen(708) exceeds the English Queen, and follows her with seven footmen before her chair—­well! what trumperies I tell you! but I cannot help it—­Wilkes is outlawed, D’Eon run away, and Churchill dead—­till some new genius arises, you must take up with the operas, and pensions, and seven footmen.  But patience! your country is seldom sterile long.

George Selwyn has written hither his lamentations about that Cossack Princess.  I am glad of it, for I did but hint it to my Lady Rervey, (though I give you my word, without quoting you, which I never do upon the most trifling occurrences,) and I was cut very short, and told it was impossible.  A la bonne heure!  Pray, who is Lord March(709) going to marry?  We hear so, but nobody named.  I had not heard of your losses at whisk; but if I had, should not have been terrified:  you know whisk gives no fatal ideas to any body that has been at Arthur’s and seen hazard, Quinze, and Trente-et-Quarante.  I beg you will prevail on the King of France to let Monsieur de Richelieu give as many balls and f`etes as he pleases, if it is only for my diversion.  This journey to Paris is the last colt’s tooth I intend ever to cut, and I insist upon being prodigiously entertained, like a Sposa Monacha, whom they cram with this world for a twelvemonth, before she bids adieu to it for ever.  I think, when I shut myself up in my convent here, it will not be with the same regret.  I have for some time been glutted with the world, and regret the friends that drop away every day; those, at least, with whom I came into the world, already begin to make it appear a great void.  Lord Edgecumbe, Lord Waldegrave, and the Duke of Devonshire leave a very perceptible chasm.  At the Opera last night, I felt almost ashamed to be there.  Except Lady Townshend, Lady Schaub, Lady Albemarle, and Lady Northumberland, I scarce saw a creature whose debut there I could not remember:  nay, the greater part were maccaronies.  You see I am not likely, like my brother Cholmondeley (who, by the way, was there too), to totter into a solitaire at threescore.  The Duke de Richelieu(710) is one of the persons I am curious to see—­oh! am I to find Madame de Boufflers, Princess of Conti?  Your brother and Lady Aylesbury are to be in town the day after to-morrow to hear Manzoli, and on their way to Mrs. Cornwallis, who is acting l’agonisante; but that would be treason to Lady Ailesbury.  I was at Park-place last week:  the bridge is finished, and a noble object.