head of two thousand people through such a town as Lynn, dining with above two hundred of them, amid bumpers, huzzas, songs, and tobacco, and finishing with country dancing at a ball and sixpenny whisk!  I have borne it all cheerfully; nay, have sat hours in conversation, the thing upon earth that I hate; have been to hear misses play on the harpsichord, and to see an alderman’s copies of Rubens and Carlo Marat.  Yet to do the folks justice, they are sensible, and reasonable, and civilized; their very language is polished since I lived among them.  I attribute this to their more frequent intercourse with the world and the capital, by the help of good roads and postchaises, which, if they have abridged the King’s dominions, have at least tamed his subjects.  Well, how comfortable it will be to-morrow, to see my parroquet, to play at loo, and not be obliged to talk seriously!  The Heraclitus of the beginning of this letter will be overjoyed on finishing it to sign himself your old friend, Democritus.

P. S. I forgot to tell you that my ancient aunt Hammond came over to Lynn to see me; not from any affection, but curiosity.  The first thing she said to me, though we have not met these sixteen years, was, ,Child, you have done a thing to-day, that your father never did in all his life; you sat as they carried you,—­ he always stood the whole time.”  “Madam,” said I, “when I am placed in a chair, I conclude I am to sit in it; besides, as I cannot imitate my father in great things, I am not at all ambitious of mimicking him in little ones.”  I am sure she proposes to tell her remarks to my uncle Horace’s ghost, the instant they meet.

(142) This magnificent collection of pictures was sold to the Empress of Russia, and some curious particulars relative to the sale will be found in Beloe’s Anecdotes of Literature.  A series Of engravings was likewise made from them, which was published in 1788, under the title of “The Houghton Gallery:  a collection of prints, from the best pictures in the possession of the Earl of Orford."-E.

(143) Wife,, of William Roper, Esq. and eldest and favourite daughter of Sir Thomas More.  She bought the head of her ill-fated parent, when it was about to be thrown into the Thames, after having been affixed to London bridge, and on being questioned by the Privy Council about her conduct, she boldly replied, that she had done so that “it might not become food for fishes.”  She survived her father nine years, and died at the age of thirty-six, in 1544, and was buried at St. Dunstan’s church, Canterbury; the box containing her father’s head being placed on her coffin.-E.

(144) the prayer of Sir Robert Walpole, recorded on the foundation-stone, was, that “after its master, to a mature old age, had long enjoyed it in perfection, his latest descendants might safely possess it to the end of time."-E.

Letter 70 To The Hon. H. S. Conway.  Arlington Street, April 10, 1761. (page 118)