of myself. You tell me nothing of Lady
Harriet [Stanhope]: have you no tongue, or the French no eyes? or are
her eyes employed in nothing but seeing? What a vulgar employment for a
fine woman's eyes after she is risen from her toilet? I declare I will
ask no more questions--what is it to me, whether she is admired or not?
I should know how charming she is, though all Europe were blind. I hope
I am not to be told by any barbarous nation upon earth what beauty and
grace are!

[Footnote 1: Mr. Conway and Lady Aylesbury were now at Paris
together.--WALPOLE.]

For myself, I am guilty of the gout in my elbow; the left--witness my
handwriting. Whether I caught cold by the deluge in the night, or
whether the bootikins, like the water of Styx, can only preserve the
parts they surround, I doubt they have saved me but three weeks, for so
long my reckoning has been out. However, as I feel nothing in my feet, I
flatter myself that this Pindaric transition will not be a regular ode,
but a fragment, the more valuable for being imperfect.

Now for my Gazette.--Marriages--Nothing done. Intrigues--More in the
political than civil way. Births--Under par since Lady Berkeley left off
breeding. Gaming--Low water. Deaths--Lord Morton, Lord Wentworth,
Duchess Douglas. Election stock--More buyers than sellers.
Promotions--Mr. Wilkes as high as he can go.--_Apropos_, he was told the
Lord Chancellor intended to signify to him, that the King did not
approve the City's choice: he replied, "Then I shall signify to his
lordship, that I am at least as fit to be Lord Mayor as he is to be Lord
Chancellor." This being more Gospel than everything Mr. Wilkes says, the
formal approbation was given.

Mr. Burke has succeeded in Bristol, and Sir James Peachey will miscarry
in Sussex. But what care you, Madam, about our Parliament? You will see
the _rentree_ of the old one, with songs and epigrams into the bargain.
We do not shift our Parliaments with so much gaiety. Money in one hand,
and abuse in t'other--those are all the arts we know. _Wit and a
gamut_[1] I don't believe ever signified a Parliament, whatever the
glossaries may say; for they never produce pleasantry and harmony.
Perhaps you may not taste this Saxon pun, but I know it will make the
Antiquarian Society die with laughing.

[Footnote 1: Walpole is punning on the old Saxon name of the National
Council, Witangemot.]

Expectation hangs on America. The result of the general assembly is
expec