erted to the discipline of a
camp or convent. Patient to hear, swift to redress, inexorable to
punish, his tribunal was always accessible to the poor and the stranger;
nor could birth, nor dignity, nor the immunities of the Church protect
the offender or his accomplices." But his head was turned by his
success. He even caused himself to be crowned, while "his wife, his son,
and his uncle, a barber, exposed the contrast of vulgar manners and
princely expense; and, without acquiring the majesty, Rienzi degenerated
into the vices of a king." The people became indignant; the nobles whom
he had degraded found it easy to raise the public feeling against him.
Before the end of the same year (1347) he was forced to fly from Rome,
and lived in exile or imprisonment at Avignon seven years; and returned
to Rome in 1354, only to be murdered in an insurrection.]

I must finish, for Lord Hertford is this moment come in, and insists on
my dining with the Prince of Monaco, who is come over to thank the King
for the presents his Majesty sent him on his kindness and attention to
the late Duke of York. You shall hear the suite of the above histories,
which I sit quietly and look at, having nothing more to do with the
storm, and sick of politics, but as a spectator, while they pass over
the stage of the world. Adieu!

_FLEETING FAME OF WITTICISMS--"THE MYSTERIOUS MOTHER."_

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _April_ 15, 1768.

Mr. Chute tells me that you have taken a new house in Squireland, and
have given yourself up for two years more to port and parsons. I am very
angry, and resign you to the works of the devil or the church, I don't
care which. You will get the gout, turn Methodist, and expect to ride to
heaven upon your own great toe. I was happy with your telling me how
well you love me, and though I don't love loving, I could have poured
out all the fulness of my heart to such an old and true friend; but what
am I the better for it, if I am to see you but two or three days in the
year? I thought you would at last come and while away the remainder of
life on the banks of the Thames in gaiety and old tales. I have quitted
the stage, and the Clive[1] is preparing to leave it. We shall neither
of us ever be grave: dowagers roost all around us, and you could never
want cards or mirth. Will you end like a fat farmer, repeating annually
the price of oats, and discussing stale newspapers? There have you got,
I hear, into an ol