I have no letter from you to answer, nor any thing new that is the least interesting to tell you.  The Duke of Argyll has sent a gentleman with a cart-load of affidavits, which the latter read to mother and daughter, in order to prevent the publication of their libel; but it only enraged the former, -who vows she will print all she knows, that is, any thing she has heard by their entire intimacy in the family, or, no doubt, what she can invent or misrepresent.  What a Medusa!  There has been a fragment of a rehearsal in the Haymarket, but still the Pantheon remains master of the field of battle:  the vanquished are preparing manifestoes, but they seldom recover the day.

Madame du Barry(745) is come over to recover her jewels, of which she has been robbed—­not by the National Assembly, but by four Jews who have been seized here and committed to Newgate.  Though the late Lord Barrymore acknowledged her husband to be of his noble blood, will she own the present Earl for a relation, when she finds him turned strolling player!(746) If she regains her diamonds, perhaps Mrs. Hastings may carry her to court.(747)

If you want bigger events, you may send to the Russian army, who will cut you fifteen thousand throats in a paragraph; or, en attendant, you may piddle with the havoc made at Chantilly, which has been half demolished by the rights of men, as the poor old Mesdames have been stopped by the rights of the poissardes; for, as it is true that extremes meet, the moment despotism was hurled from the throne, it devolved to the mob, whose majesties, not being able to write their names, do not issue lettres de cachet, but execute their wills with their own hands; for hanging, which degrades an executioner, ne deroge pas in sovereigns—­witness the Czar Peter the Great, Muley Ishmael, and many religious and gracious African monarchs.

After eleven weeks of close confinement, I went out yesterday to take the air; but was soon driven back by rain and sleet, which soon ripened to a tempest of wind and snow, and continued all night — it does not freeze, but blows so hard, that I shall sally out no more tilt the weather has recovered its temper-I do not mean that I expect Pisan skies.

28th.

It was on Saturday that I began this; it is now Monday, and I have no letter from you, though we have had dozens of east winds.  I am sorry to find that it costs above six weeks to say a word at Pisa and have an answer in London.  This makes correspondence very uncomfortable; you will be talking to me of Miss Gunning, when, perhaps, she may be sent to Botany Bay, and be as much forgotten here as the Monster.(748) Still she has been a great resource this winter; for, though London is apt to produce Wilkeses, and George Gordons, and Mrs. Rudds, and Horne Tookes, and other phenomena, wet and dry, the, present season has been very unprolific; and we are forced to import French news, as we used to do fashions and Operas comiques.  The Mesdames are actually set out:  I shall be glad to hear they are safe at Turin, for are there no poissardes but at Paris?(749) Natio poissarda est.