has assisted him, and so he
has been able to support his mother and his nearest relations, whom his
father, with a great deal of literary merit, had left beggars. I have
given you this succinct history of my doctor, whom you have enlisted
into your corps. I was once before obliged to write his character for
Lord Ossory, when he settled himself in Bedfordshire, and Lord Ossory
has found it true in all particulars.

The K(ing) has told my friend M. that Lord Cadogan(151) wants to sell
his house at Caversham, for why, I know not. Lord Walpole's eldest son
is to marry Lady Cadogan's sister. Churchill, du cote du falbala, ne
reussit pas mal; his sons, I am afraid, one of them at least, has
(have) not managed so well. But I would myself sooner have been married
to (a) Buckhorse, than to that (A)Esop Lord C. The Zarina repents of
her bargain, and, it is said, will give no more than 20,000 for the
pictures.(152) If that is not accepted, Lord Orford make (may) take
them back. He gets an estate of near 10,000 pounds a year by his
mother's death. Her will is all wrote in her own hand, and not one
word, even her own name, rightly spelt.

(149) George, fourth Viscount Middleton (1754-1836); son of George,
third viscount, and Albinia, daughter of the Hon. Thomas Townshend. He
married first, in 1778, Lady Frances Pelham, daughter of Thomas, first
Earl of Chichester, who died in 1783.

(150) Frederick, second Baron Boston (1749-1825), son of Sir William,
first Baron Boston and Albinia, daughter of Henry Selwyn. He
married, in 1775, Christiana, only daughter of'Paul Methuen.

(151) Charles Sloane, third Baron and first Earl Cadogan (1728-1807).
The house at Caversham Park was destroyed by fire in 1850 and re-built.

(152) The gallery of pictures at Houghton, collected by Sir Robert
Walpole, was, with some reservations, sold by the third Lord Orford, to
the Empress Catharine of Russia in 1779. "Private news we have none,
but what I have long been bidden to expect the completion of the sale
of the pictures at Houghton to the Czarina" (Letters of Walpole, vol.
vii. p. 234.) The date of the sale and of Selwyn's gossiping allusion
are not reconcilable.

Few events in the annals of the House of Commons are more remarkable
than the sudden rise of Pitt. His maiden speech--in support of
Burke's Bill for economical reform--placed him at once in the first
rank of parliamentary orators. "I was able to execute in some
measure what I intende