I rejoice that your jaunt has been serviceable to Lady Ailesbury.  The Charming man(558) is actually with me; but neither he nor I can keep our promise incontinently.  He expects two sons of his brother Sir William, whom he is to pack up and send to the P`eres de l’Oratoire at Paris.  I expect Lord and Lady Waldegrave to-morrow, who are to pass a few days with me; but both the Charming man and I will be with you soon.  I have no objection to a wintry visit:  as I can neither ride nor walk, it is more comfortable when most of my time is passed within doors.  If I continue perfectly well, as I am, i shall not settle in town till after Christmas:  there will not be half a dozen persons there for whom I care a straw.

I know nothing at all.  The peace between the Austrian harpy and the frogs is made.  They were stout, and preferred being gobbled to parting with their money.  At last, France offered to pay the money for them.  The harpy blushed-for the first time-and would not take it; but signed the peace, and will plunder somebody else.

Have you got Boswell’s most absurd enormous book?(559) The best thing in it is a bon-mot of Lord Pembroke.(560) “The more one learns of Johnson, the more preposterous assemblage he appears of’ strong sense, of the lowest bigotry and prejudices, of pride, brutality, fretfulness, and vanity; and Boswell is the ape of most of his faults, without a grain of his sense.  It is the story of a mountebank and his zany.

I forgot to say, that I wonder how, with your turn, and knowledge, and enterprise, in scientific exploits, you came not to visit the Duke of Bridgewater’s operations; or did you omit them, because I should not have understood a word you told me?  Adieu!

(557) “Capability Brown;"for an account of whom, see vol. ii. p. 112, letter 46.  “I took,” says Hannah More, “a very agreeable lecture from my friend Mr. Brown in his art, and he promised to give me taste by inoculation.  I am sure he has a charming one; and he illustrates every thing he says about gardening by some literary or grammatical allusion.  He told me he compared his art to literary composition.  ‘Now, there,’ said he, pointing his finger, ‘I make a comma; and there,’ pointing to another spot, ’where a more decided turn is proper, I make a colon:  at another part (where an interruption is desirable to break the view), a parenthesis—­now a full stop; and then I begin another subject.’” Memoirs, vol. i. p. 26.-E.

(558) Edward Jerningham, Esq.  See post, September 4, 1789.-E.

(559) The “enormous book,” of which Walpole here speaks so disparagingly, is Boswell’s popular “Journal of his Tour to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland with Dr. Johnson, in the autumn of 1773.”  It is now incorporated with the author’s general narrative of the Doctor’s life in Mr. Croker’s edition of 1831 — and not the least interesting circumstance connected with it is, that Johnson himself read, from time to time, Boswell’s record of his sayings and doings; and, so far from being displeased with its minuteness, expressed great admiration of its accuracy, and encouraged the chronicler to proceed with his grand ulterior proceeding.  See Life, vol. i.  P. viii. ed. 1835.-E.