You will be pleased with the Anacreontic, written by Lord Middlesex upon Sir Harry Bellendine:  I have not seen any thing so antique for ages; it has all the fire, poetry, and simplicity of Horace.

“Ye sons of Bacchus, come and join
in solemn dirge, while tapers shine
Around the grape-embowered shrine
Of honest Harry Bellendine.

Pour the rich juice of Bourdeaux’s wine,
Mix’d with your falling tears of brine,
In full libation o’er the shrine
Of honest Harry Bellendine.

Your brows let ivy chaplets twine,
While you push round the sparkling wine,
And let your table be the shrine
Of honest Hairy Bellendine.”

He died in his vocation, of a high fever, after the celebration of some orgies.  Though but six hours in his senses, he gave a proof of his usual good humour, making it his last request to the sister Tuftons to be reconciled; which they are.  His pretty villa, in my neighbourhood, I fancy he has left to the new Lord Lorn.  I must tell you an admirable bon-mot of George Selwyn, though not a new one; when there was a malicious report that the eldest Tufton was to marry Dr. Duncan, Selwyn said, “How often will she repeat that line of Shakspeare,

“Wake Duncan with this knocking—­would thou couldst!”

I enclose the receipt from your lawyer.  Adieu!

(152) William Gerard Hamilton, commonly called Single-speech Hamilton, was, on the appointment of Lord Halifax to the viceroyalty of Ireland, selected as his secretary, and was accompanied thither by the celebrated Edmund Burke, partly as a friend and partly as his private secretary.-E.

(153) The celebrated empiric, see ant`e, p. 37, letter 10.  His drops were first introduced in 1732, by Sir Thomas Robinson; upon which occasion, Sir C. H. Williams addressed to him his poem, commencing,

“Say, knight, for learning most renown’d, What is this wondrous drop?"-E.

Letter 74 To George Montagu, Esq.  Arlington Street, April 28, 1761. (page 122)

I am glad you will relish June for Strawberry; by that time I hope the weather will have recovered its temper.  At present it is horridly cross and uncomfortable; I fear we shall have a cold season; we cannot eat our summer and have our summer.

There has been a terrible fire in the little traverse street, at the upper end of Sackville Street.  Last Friday night, between eleven and twelve, I was sitting with Lord Digby in the coffee-room at Arthur’s; they told us there was a great fire somewhere about Burlington Gardens.  I, who am as constant at a fire as George Selwyn at an execution, proposed to Lord Digby to go and see where it was.  We found it within two doors of that pretty house of Fairfax, now General Waldegrave’s.  I sent for the latter, who was at Arthur’s; and for the guard, from St. James’s.  Four houses were in flames before they could find a drop of water;