are, I would make Peter's ghost perch on the
dome of Sancta Sophia, and, when the Russian fleet comes in sight, roar,
with a voice of thunder that should reach to Petersburg,

Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow!

[Footnote 1: Count Orloff was one of the Czarina's earlier lovers, and
was universally understood to have been the principal agent in the
murder of her husband.]

We have had two or three simpletons return from Russia, charmed with the
murderess, believing her innocent, _because_ she spoke graciously to
_them_ in the drawing-room. I don't know what the present Grand
Signior's name is, Osman, or Mustapha, or what, but I am extremely on
his side against Catherine of Zerbst; and I never intend to ask him for
a farthing, nor write panegyrics on him for pay, like Voltaire and
Diderot; so you need not say a word to him of my good wishes. Benedict
XIV. deserved my friendship, but being a sound Protestant, one would
not, you know, make all Turk and Pagan and Infidel princes too familiar.
Adieu!

[Illustration: SIR ROBERT WALPOLE

_From a mezzotint by J. Simon after a picture by Sir Godfrey Kneller_]

_WILKES--BURKE'S PAMPHLET--PREDICTION OF AMERICAN
REPUBLICS--EXTRAVAGANCE IN ENGLAND._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _May_ 6, 1770.

I don't know whether Wilkes is subdued by his imprisonment, or waits for
the rising of Parliament, to take the field; or whether his dignity of
Alderman has dulled him into prudence, and the love of feasting; but
hitherto he has done nothing but go to City banquets and sermons, and
sit at Guildhall as a sober magistrate. With an inversion of the
proverb, "Si ex quovis Mercurio fit lignum!" What do you Italians think
of Harlequin Potesta?[1] In truth, his party is crumbled away strangely.
Lord Chatham has talked on the Middlesex election till nobody will
answer him; and Mr. Burke (Lord Rockingham's governor) has published a
pamphlet[2] that has sown the utmost discord between that faction and
the supporters of the Bill of Rights. Mrs. Macaulay[3] has written
against it. In Parliament their numbers are shrunk to nothing, and the
session is ending very triumphantly for the Court. But there is another
scene opened of a very different aspect. You have seen the accounts from
Boston. The tocsin seems to be sounded to America. I have many visions
about that country, and fancy I see twenty empires and republics forming
upon vast scales over all that continent, which is g