Letter 72 To The Countess Of Suffolk.(150) Friday night, April 1761. (page 120)

We are more successful, Madam, than I could flatter myself we should be.  Mr. Conway—­and I need say no more—­has negotiated so well, that the Duke of Grafton is disposed to bring Mr. Beauclerk(151) in for Thetford.  It will be expected, I believe, that Lord Vere should resign Windsor in a handsome manner to the Duke of Cumberland.  It must be your ladyship’s part to prepare this; which I hope will be the means of putting an end to these unhappy differences.  My only fear now is, lest the Duke should have promised the Lodge.’  Mr. Conway writes to Lord Albemarle, who is yet at Windsor, to prevent this, if not already done, till the rest is ready to be notified to the Duke of Cumberland.  Your ladyship’s good sense and good heart make it unnecessary for me to say more.

(150) Now first collected.

(151) The Hon. Aubrey Beauclerk, son of Lord Vere; afterwards Duke of St. Albans.

Letter 73 To George Montagu, Esq.  Arlington Street, April 16, 1761. (page 121)

You are a very mule; one offers you a handsome stall and manger in Berkeley Square, and you will not accept it.  I have chosen your coat, a claret colour, to suit the complexion of the country you are going to visit; but I have fixed nothing about the lace.  Barrett had none of gauze, but what were as broad as the Irish Channel.  Your tailor found a very reputable one at another place, but I would not determine rashly; it will be two or three-and-twenty shillings the yard:  you might have a very substantial real lace,’ which would wear like your buffet, for twenty.  The second order of gauzes are frippery, none above twelve shillings, and those tarnished, for the species are out of fashion.  You will have time to sit in judgment upon these important points; for Hamilton(152) your secretary told me at the Opera two nights ago, that he had taken a house near Busby, and hoped to be in my neighbourhood for four months.

I was last night at your plump Countess’s who is so shrunk, that she does not seem to be composed of above a dozen hassocs.  Lord Guildford rejoiced mightily over your preferment.  The Duchess of Argyle was playing there, not knowing that the great Pam was just dead,, to wit, her brother-in-law.  He was abroad in the morning, was seized with a palpitation after dinner, and was dead before the surgeon could arrive.  There’s the crown of Scotland too fallen upon my Lord Bute’s head!  Poor Lord Edgecumbe is still alive, and may be so for some days; the physicians, who no longer ago than Friday se’nnight persisted that he had no dropsy, in order to prevent his having Ward,(153) on Monday last proposed that Ward should be called in, and at length they owned they thought the mortification begun.  It is not clear it is yet; at times he is in his senses, and entirely so, composed, clear, and most rational; talks of his death, and but yesterday, after such a conversation with his brother, asked for a pencil to amuse himself with drawing.  What parts, genius, agreeableness thrown away at a hazard table, and not permitted the chance of being saved by the villainy of physicians!