to supper. Besides him, and those you know, is a Mr. Sylvester Smith. Every body was asking, "But who is Sylvester Smith?" Harry Townshend replied, "Why, he is the son of Delaval, who was the son of Lowther, who was the son of Armitage, who was the son of Downe.2

The fleet sailed on Thursday morning. I don't know why, but the persuasion is that they will land on this side Ushant, and that we shall hear some events by Tuesday or Wednesday. Some believe that lord Anson and Howe have different destinations. Rochfort, where there are 20,000 men, is said positively not to be the place. The king says there are 80,000 men and three marshals in Normandy and Bretagne. George Selwyn asked general Campbell, if the ministry had yet told the king the object?

Mademoiselle de l'Enclos is arrived, to my supreme felicity -- I cannot say very handsome or agreeable; but I had been prepared on the article of her charms. I don't say, like Harry VIII. of Anne of Cleves, that she is a Flanders mare, though to be sure she is rather large: on the contrary, I bear it as well as ever prince did who was married by proxy - and she does not find me fricassé dans de la neige. Adieu.

4

Yours ever.

P.S. I forgot to tell you of another galanterie I have had, a portrait of queen Elizabeth left here while I was out of town. The servant said it was a present, but he had orders not to say from whom.

SIR,

TO DR. DUCAREL.

June, 1758.

I AM very much obliged to you for the remarks and hints you have sent me on my catalogue. They will be of use to me; and any observations of my friends I shall be very thankful for, and disposed to employ, to make my book, what it is extremely far from being, more perfect. - I was very glad to hear, sir, that the present lord archbishop of Canterbury has continued you in an employment, for which nobody is so fit, and in which

▲ Madame de Sevigné, in her Letters to her daughter, reports that Ninon thus expressed herself relative to her son the marquis de Sevigné, who was one of her lovers.

nobody would be so useful. I wish all manner of success to, as well as continuance of, your labours; and am, &c. &c.

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

June 16, 1758, 2 o'clock noon.

WELL, my dear Harry! you are not the only man in England who have not conquered France!1 Even dukes of Marlborough have been there without doing the business. I don't doubt but your good heart has even been hoping, in spite of your understanding, that our heroes have not only taken St. Maloes, but taken a trip cross the country to burn Rochefort, only to show how easy it

We have waited with astonishment at not hearing that the French court was removed in a panic to Lyons, and that the mesdames had gone off in their shifts with only a provision of rouge for a week. Nay, for my part, I expected to be deafened with encomiums on my lord Anson's continence, who, after being allotted madame

Pompadour as his share of the spoils, had again imitated Scipio, and, in spite of the violence of his temperament, had restored her unsullied to the king of France. - Alack! we have restored nothing but a quarter of a mile of coast to the right owners. A messenger arrived in the middle of the night with an account that we have burned two frigates and an hundred and twenty small fry; that it was found impossible to bring up the cannon against the town; and that, the French army approaching the coast, commodore Howe, with the expedition of harlequin as well as the taciturnity, reimbarked our whole force in seven hours, volunteers and all, with the loss only of one man, and they are all gone to seek their fortune somewhere else. Well! in half a dozen more wars we shall know something of the coast of France. Last war we discovered a fine bay near port l'Orient: we have now found out that we knew nothing of St. Maloes. As they are popular persons, I hope the city of London will send some more gold boxes to these discoverers. If they send a patch box to lord George Sackville, it will hold all his laurels. As our young nobility cannot at present travel through France, I suppose this is a method for finishing their studies. George Selwyn says he supposes the French ladies will have scaffolds erected on the shore to see the English go by. - But I won't detain the messenger any longer; I am impatient to make the duchess happy, who I hope will soon see the duke returned from his coasting voyage.

The C****s will be with you next Wednesday, and I believe I too; but I can take my own word so little, that I will not give it you. I know I must be back at Strawberry on Friday night; for lady Hervey and lady Stafford are to be there with me for a few days from to-morrow se'nnight. Adieu!

Yours ever.

TO THE EARL OF STRAFFORD.

MY DEAR LORD,

Arlington-street, June 16, 1758.

I STAID to write to you, in obedience to your commands, till I had something worth telling you. St. Maloes is taken by storm. The governor leaped into the sea at the very name of the duke of Marlborough. Sir James Lowther put his hand into his pocket, and gave the soldiers two hundred and fifty thousand pounds to drink the