here
formerly, by the name of the Pompeiati. Of late years she has been the
Heidegger of the age, and presided over our diversions. Her taste and
invention in pleasures and decorations are singular. She took Carlisle
House in Soho Square, enlarged it, and established assemblies and balls
by subscription. At first they scandalised, but soon drew in both
righteous and ungodly. She went on building, and made her house a fairy
palace for balls, concerts, and masquerades. Her Opera, which she called
_Harmonic Meetings_, was splendid and charming. Mr. Hobart began to
starve, and the managers of the theatres were alarmed. To avoid the act,
she pretended to take no money, and had the assurance to advertise that
the subscription was to provide coals for the poor, for she has
vehemently courted the mob, and succeeded in gaining their princely
favour. She then declared her Masquerades were for the benefit of
commerce. I concluded she would open another sort of house next for the
interests of the Foundling Hospital, and I was not quite mistaken, for
they say one of her maids, gained by Mr. Hobart, affirms that she could
not undergo the fatigue of managing such a house. At last Mr. Hobart
informed against her, and the Bench of Justices, less soothable by music
than Orpheus's beasts, have pronounced against her. Her Opera is
quashed, and Guadagni, who governed so haughtily at Vienna, that, to
pique some man of quality there, he named a minister to Venice, is not
only fined, but was threatened to be sent to Bridewell, which chilled
the blood of all the Caesars and Alexanders he had ever represented; nor
could any promises of his lady-patronesses rehabilitate his courage--so
for once an Act of Parliament goes for something.

You have got three new companions;[1] General Montagu, a West Indian
Mr. Paine, and Mr. Lynch, your brother at Turin.

[Footnote 1: As Knights of the Bath.--WALPOLE.]

There is the devil to pay in Denmark. The Queen[1] has got the
ascendant, has turned out favourites and Ministers, and literally wears
the breeches, actual buckskin. There is a physician, who is said to rule
both their Majesties, and I suppose is sold to France, for that is the
predominant interest now at Copenhagen. The Czarina has whispered her
disapprobation, and if she has a talon left, when she has done with the
Ottomans, may chance to scratch the little King.

[Footnote 1: The Queen was Caroline Matilda, a sister of George III.,
and was acc