and they have neither parts nor characters to impose even upon the mob! think to what a government is sunk, when a Secretary of State is called in Parliament to his face “the most profligate sad dog in the kingdom,"(757) and not a man can open his lips in his defence.  Sure power must have some strange unknown charm, when it can compensate for such contempt!  I see many who triumph in these bitter pills which the ministry are so often forced to swallow; I own I do not; it is more mortifying to me to reflect how great and respectable we were three years ago, than satisfactory to see those insulted who have brought such shame upon us.  ’Tis moor amends to national honour to know, that if a printer is set in the pillory, his country wishes it was my Lord This, or Mr. That.  They will be gathered to the Oxfords, and Bolingbrokes, and ignominious(758) of former days; but the wound they have inflicted is perhaps indelible.  That goes to my heart, who had felt all the Roman pride of being one of the first nations upon earth!—­Good night!—­I will go to bed, and dream of Kings drawn in triumph; and then I will go to paris, and dream I am proconsul there; pray, take care not to let me be wakened with an account of an invasion having taken place from Dunkirk!(759) Yours ever, H. W.

(749) The resolutions which were the foundation of the famous Stamp-act.-E.

(750) The substance of this petition, and the grave answer which the King was advised to give to such a ludicrous appeal, are preserved in the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1765, p. 95; where also we learn that Mr. Walpole’s idea of the Carpenters’ petition was put in practice, and his Majesty was humbly entreated to wear a wooden leg himself, and to enjoin all his servants to do the same.  It may, therefore, be presumed that this jeu d’esprit was from the pen of Mr. Walpole.-C.

(751) Lady Hirriot Wentworth, sister of the last Lord Strafford, wife of Henry Vernon, Esq., and mother of Lady Grosvenor, whose intrigue with the Duke of Cumberland made so much noise.-C.

(752) Thomas Villers, second son of Lord Jersey, first Lord Hyde of his family:  his lady was Charlotte, daughter of Lady Jane Hyde, wife of William Earl of Essex, daughter of Henry, second Earl of clarendon, and sister of the Duchess of Queensberry.-C.

(753) George, fifteenth Lord Abergavenny; and his lady, Henrieta Pelham, sister of the first Earl of Chichester:  she died in 1768.-E.

(754) Lady Sophia Keppel, daughter of the first Earl of Albemarle, and wife of Colonel Thomas.-E.

(755) A Jack-boot, in allusion to the Christian name and title of Lord Bute.-C.

(756) In a blue purse trimmed with orange, the colour of the revolution, in opposition to the Stuart.-C.

(757) ant`e, p. 370, letter 239.

(758) We might be surprised at finding a person of Mr. Walpole’s taste and judgment, describing Harley and St. John as ignominious, if we did not recollect, that during their administration his father had been sent to the Tower, and expelled the House of commons for alleged official corruptions.  It were to be wished that Mr. Walpole’s personal prejudices could always be traced to so amiable a source.-C.