I wish you could have come here this October for more reasons than one.  The Teddingtonian history is grown wofully bad.  Mark Antony, though no boy, persists in losing the world two or three times over for every gipsy that be takes for a Cleopatra.  I have laughed, been scolded, represented, begged, and at last spoken very roundly—­all with equal success; at present we do not meet.  I must convince him of ill usage, before I can make good usage of any service.  All I have done is forgot, because I will not be enamoured of Hannah Cleopatra too.  You shall know the whole history when I see you; you may trust me for still being kind to him; but that he must not as yet suspect; they are bent on going to London, that she may visit and be visited, while he puts on his red velvet and ermine, and goes about begging in robes.

Poor Mr. Chute has had another very severe fit of the gout; I left him in bed, but by not hearing he is worse, trust on Saturday to find him mended.  Adieu!

(106) Charlotte, third daughter of Sir Edward Walpole, and sister to Lady Waldegrave, and to Mrs. Keppel.

Letter 47 To Sir Horace Mann.  Arlington Street, Oct. 5, 1760.  Page 91)

I am afraid you will turn me off from being your gazetteer.  Do you know that I came to town to-day by accident, and was here four hours before I heard that Montreal was taken?  The express came early this morning.  I am so posthumous in my intelligence, that you must not expect any intelligence from me—­but the same post that brings you this, will convey the extraordinary gazette, which of late is become the register of the Temple of Fame.  All I know is, that the bonfires and squibs are drinking General Amherst’s(107) health.

Within these two days Fame and the Gazette have laid another egg; I wish they may hatch it themselves! but it is one of that unlucky hue which has so often been addled; in short, behold another secret expedition.  It was notified on Friday, and departs in a fortnight.  Lord Albemarle, it is believed, will command it.  One is sure at least that it cannot be to America, for we have taken it all.  The conquest of Montreal may perhaps serve in full of all accounts, as I suspect a little that this new plan was designed to amuse the City of London at the beginning of the session, who would not like to have wasted so many millions on this campaign, without any destruction of friend or foe.(108) Now, a secret expedition may at least furnish a court-martial, and the citizens love persecution even better than their money.  A general or in admiral to be mobbed either by their applause or their hisses, is all they desire.-Poor Lord Albemarle!

The charming Countess(109) is dead at last; and as if the whole history of both sisters was to be extraordinary, the Duchess of Hamilton is in a consumption too, and going abroad directly.  Perhaps you may see the remains of these prodigies, you will see but little remains; her features were never so beautiful as Lady Coventry’s, and she has long been changed, though not yet I think above six-and-twenty.  The other was but twenty-seven.