his forgiveness for every instance in which he had offended him,
and entreated his favour to his servants. He would have particularly
recommended St. John, but the young man said handsomely, "Sir, if the
letter were written by your Royal Highness yourself, it would be most
kind to me; but I cannot name myself." The Prince of Monaco, who
happened to be on the spot, was unbounded in his attentions to him, both
of care and honours; and visited him every hour till the Duke grew too
weak to see him. Two days before he died the Duke sent for the Prince,
and thanked him. The Prince burst into tears and could not speak, and
retiring, begged the Duke's officers to prevent his being sent for
again, for the shock was too great. They made as magnificent a coffin
and pall for him as the time and place would admit, and in the evening
of the 17th the body was embarked on board an English ship, which
received the corpse with military honours, the cannon of the town
saluting it with the same discharge as is paid to a Marshal of France.
St. John and Morrison embarked with the body, and Colonel Wrottesley
passed through here with the news. The poor lad was in tears the whole
time he stayed....

[Footnote 1: The Duke of York was the King's younger brother.]

You tell me of the French playing at whist;[1] why, I found it
established when I was last here. I told them they were very good to
imitate us in anything, but that they had adopted the two dullest things
we have, Whist and Richardson's Novels.

[Footnote 1: Walpole here speaks of whist as a game of but new
introduction in Paris, though it had been for some time established with
us. And the great authority on that scientific and beautiful game, the
late Mr. James Clay, writing about twenty years ago, fixes "thirty or
more years" before that date as the time when first "we began to hear of
the great Paris players. There was," he says, "a wide difference between
their system and our own," the special distinction being that "the
English player of the old school never thought of winning the game until
he saw that it was saved; the French player never thought of saving the
game until he saw that he could not win it;" and "if forced to take his
choice between these systems carried to their extremes." Mr. Clay
"would, without hesitation, prefer the game of rash attack" (that is,
the French system) "to that of over-cautious defence." And he assigns to
a French player, M. Des Chapelles, "the