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 Harry 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!

CAPTURE OF BELLEISLE - GRAY'S POEMS-
HOGARTH'S VANITY.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

ARLINGTON STREET, May 5, 1761.

WE have lost a young genius, Sir William Williams; an express from Belleisle, arrived this morning, brings

nothing but his death. He was shot very unnecessarily, riding too near a battery; in sum, he is a sacrifice to his own rashness, and to ours. For what are we taking Belleisle? I I rejoiced at the little loss. we had on landing; for the glory, I leave it the common council. I am very willing to leave London to them too, and do pass half the week at Strawberry, where my two passions, lilacs and nightingales, are in full bloom. I spent Sunday as if it were Apollo's birthday; Gray and Mason were with me, and we listened to the nightingales till one o'clock in the morning. Gray has translated two noble incantations from the Lord knows who, a Danish Gray, who lived the Lord knows when. They are to be enchased in a history of English bards, which Mason and he are writing; but of which the former has not written a word yet, and of which the latter, if he rides Pegasus at his usual footpace, will finish the first page two years hence.

But the true frantic Estus resides at present with Mr. Hogarth; I went t'other morning to see a portrait he is painting of Mr. Fox. Hogarth told me he had promised, if Mr. Fox would sit as he liked, to make as good a picture as Vandyke or Rubens could. I was silent-"Why now," said he, "you think this very vain, but why should not one speak truth?" This truth was uttered in the face of his own Sigismonda, which is exactly a maudlin street-walker, tearing off

Belleisle was of no value to us to keep; but Pitt sent an expedition against it, that in any future treaty of peace he might be able to exchange it for Minorca.

the trinkets that her keeper had given her, to fling at his head. She has her father's picture in a bracelet on her arm, and her fingers are bloody with the heart, as if she had just bought a sheep's pluck in St. James's Market. As I was going, Hogarth put on a very grave face, and said, "Mr. Walpole, I want to speak to you." I sat down, and said, I was ready to receive his commands. For shortness, I will mark this wonderful dialogue by initial letters.

H. I am told you are going to entertain the town with something in our way. W. Not very soon, Mr. Hogarth. H. I wish you would let me have it, to correct; I should be very sorry to have you expose yourself to censure; we painters must know more of those things than other people. W. Do you think nobody understands painting but painters? H. Oh! so far from it, there's Reynolds, who certainly has genius; why, but t'other day he offered a hundred pounds for a picture, that I would not hang in my cellar; and indeed, to say truth, I have generally found, that persons who had studied painting least were the best judges of it; but what I particularly wished to say to you was about Sir James Thornhill (you know he married Sir James's daughter): I would not have you say anything against him; there was a book published some time ago, abusing him, and it gave great offence. He was the first that attempted history in England, and, I assure you, some Germans have said that he was a very great painter. W. My work will go no lower than the year one thousand seven hundred, and I really have not considered

whether Sir J. Thornhill will come within my plan or not; if he does, I fear you and I shall not agree upon his merits. H. I wish you would let me correct it; besides, I am writing something of the same kind myself; I should be sorry we should clash. W. I believe it is not much known what my work is, very few persons have seen it. H. Why, it is a critical history of painting, is not it? W. No, it is an antiquarian history of it in England; I bought Mr. Vertue's MSS., and, I believe, the work will not give much offence; besides, if it does, I cannot help it; when I publish anything, I give it to the world to think of it as they please. H. Oh! if it is an antiquarian work, we shall not clash; mine is a critical work; I don't know whether I shall ever publish it. It is rather an apology for painters. I think it is owing to the good sense of the English that they have not painted better. W. My dear Mr. Hogarth, I must take my leave of you, you now grow too wild-and I left him. If I had stayed, there remained nothing but for him to bite me. I give you my honour this conversation is literal, and, perhaps, as long as you have known Englishmen and painters, you never met with anything so distracted. I had consecrated a line to his genius (I mean, for wit) my Preface; I shall not erase it; but I hope nobody will ask me if he is not mad. Adieu !

in

INTENDED MARRIAGE OF THE KING-BATTLES IN GERMANY-CAPTURE OF PONDICHERRY—BURKE.

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

STRAWBERRY HILL, July 22, 1761.

FOR my part, I believe Mademoiselle Scuderi1 drew the plan of this year. It is all royal marriages, coronations, and victories; they come tumbling so over one another from distant parts of the globe, that it looks just like the handywork of a lady romance writer, whom it costs nothing but a little false geography to Inake the Great Mogul in love with a Princess of Mecklenburgh, and defeat two marshals of France as he rides post on an elephant to his nuptials. I don't know where I am. I had scarce found Mecklenburg Strelitz with a magnifying-glass before I am whisked to Pondicherry-well, I take it, and raze it. I begin to grow acquainted with Colonel Coote,3 and figure him packing up chests of diamonds, and sending them to his wife against the King's wedding-thunder go to the Tower guns, and behold, Broglie and Soubise are

Mdlle. Scudéri and her brother were writers of romances of enormous length, and, in their time, of great popularity (see D'Israeli's account of them," Curiosities of Literature," i. 105).

"Defeat two French marshals”—they were Maréchal de Broglie and the Prince de Soubise. The action, which, however, was of but little importance, is called by Lacretelle "Le Combat de Fillingshausen."

3 Colonel Eyre Coote, the best soldier next to Clive himself that India had yet seen, had defeated the French Governor, Count Lally, at Wandewash in January, 1760; and the capture of Pondicherry was one important fruit of the victory.