lerck looks wretchedly, and has been very ill. Our
Minister,(79) as you call him, goes on very well, but he is now a
widower a second time; his Lady set out for Paris last Saturday. I
hope he will not be undermined. The King will never have a servant
that will please the public more. I dine with him often a petit
convert at March's. I am not desirous that my friends should become
ministers; but if they are ministers, it is fair to wish they may
become one's friends. He is yours very cordially, I'm persuaded. He
always asks very kindly after you, and seems uneasy that the Order
has not yet reached you. He said the other day at dinner, aun ton
tres patetique, "I shall be much disappointed if in four or five
years Lord Carlisle does not give a very good account of himself."
Ministre, ou non ministre, qui tient des propos pareils, n'aura pas
grande difficulte a me contenter sur le reste. I have abandoned him
to-day for Lady Sarah, at which you will be neither surprised, [n]or
offended. He dines at March's, and I in the Privy Garden.

The D[uke] and D[uches]s of Rich[mon]d are in town. A young man
whose name I cannot recollect asked me very kindly after you
yesterday, at the H[ouse] of C[ommons]; he used to sit by your
bedside of a morning in King Street; he is tall and thin.

Dr. Musgrave, the Provost of Oriel College in Oxf[or]d, cut his
throat in bed the other day; he was ill, but he had taken to heart a
mistake which he had madeabout a letter of Sir J. Dolben's, who is
to be member for the University the remainder of this Parliament. A
dispute with the Fellows, as they tell me, arose in consequence of
it, and this seized the poor man's brains. He was reckoned very
passionate, but d'ailleurs a good kind of man. I knew his person and
his elder brother, Sir Philip, formerly very well. There is a
stagnation of news just at this moment, but as soon as any
preferments, peerages, or changes of any kind are known for certain,
I will send you word of them.

I dined at the D[uchess]'s or Duke's, which you please, of
Northumberland's(80) on Saturday; you are a great favourite of her
Grace's. She told me of I don't know how many sheets which you had
wrote to Lady Carlisle, giving an account of your travels. All the
company almost were of Yorkshire, or of the North; Lord and Lady
Ravensw[orth], Sir M. Ridley and his father, the Punch Delaval, Lord
Tankerville, &c. Her Grace goes soon to Paris, but has as yet fixed
no day.

A di