Pray make the general collect authentic accounts of those civil wars against he returns—­you know where they will find their place, and that you are one of the very few that will profit of them.  I will grind and dispense to you all the corn you bring to my mill.

We good-humoured souls vote eight millions with as few questions, as if the whole House of Commons was at the club at Arthur’s; and we live upon distant news, as if London was York or Bristol.  There is nothing domestic, but that Lord George Lennox, being refused Lord Ancram’s consent, set out for Edinburgh with Lady Louisa Kerr, the day before yesterday; and Lord Buckingham is going to be married to our Miss Pitt of Twickenham, daughter of that strange woman who had a mind to be my wife, and who sent Mr. Raftor to know why I did not marry her.  I replied, “Because I was not sure that the two husbands, that she had at once, were both dead.”  Apropos to my wedding, Prince Edward asked me at the Opera, t’other night, when I was to marry Lady Mary Coke:  I answered, as soon as I got a regiment; which, you know, is now the fashionable way.

The kingdom of beauty is in as great disorder as the kingdom of Ireland.  My Lady Pembroke looks like a ghost-poor Lady Coventry is going to be one; and the Duchess of Hamilton is so altered I did not know her.  Indeed, she is bid with child, and so big, that as my Lady Northumberland says, it is plain she has a camel in her belly, and my Lord Edgecumbe says, it is as true it did not go through the eye of a needle.  That Countess has been laid up with a hurt in her leg; Lady Rebecca Paulett pushed her on the birthnight against a bench:  the Duchess of Grafton asked if it was true that Lady Rebecca kicked her?  “Kick me, Madam!  When did you ever hear of a Percy that took a kick?”

I can tell you another anecdote of that house, that will not divert you less.  Lord March making them a visit this summer at Alnwick Castle, my lord received him at the gate, and said, “I believe, my lord, this is the first time that ever a Douglas and a Percy met here in friendship.”  Think of this from a Smithson to a true Douglas!

I don’t trouble my head about any connexion; any news into the country I know is welcome, though it comes out higlepigledy, just as it happens to be packed up.  The cry in Ireland has been against Lord Hilsborough, supposing him to mediate an union of the two islands; George Selwyn, seeing him set t’other night between my Lady Harrington and Lord Barrington, said, “Who can say that my Lord Hilsborough is not an enemy to an union?”

I will tell you one more story, and then good night.  Lord Lyttelton(11) was at Covent Garden; Beard came on:  the former said, “How comes Beard here? what made him leave Drury Lane?” Mr. Shelley, who sat next him, replied, “Why, don’t you know he has been such a fool as to go and marry a Miss Rich?  He has married Rich’s daughter.”  My lord coloured; Shelley found out what he had said, and ran away.