mity of the public is as
great in approving of it, which has stifled the usual political and
polemical argumentations.

Cardinal Bernis's disgrace is as sudden, and hitherto as little
understood, as his elevation was. I have seen his poems, printed at
Paris, not by a friend, I dare say; and to judge by them, I humbly
conceive his Eminency is a p-----y. I will say nothing of that excellent
headpiece that made him and unmade him in the same month, except O KING,
LIVE FOREVER.

Good-night to you, whoever you pass it with.

LETTER CCXXXVIII

LONDON, February 2, 1759

MY DEAR FRIEND: I am now (what I have very seldom been) two letters in
your debt: the reason was, that my head, like many other heads, has
frequently taken a wrong turn; in which case, writing is painful to me,
and therefore cannot be very pleasant to my readers.

I wish you would (while you have so good an opportunity as you have at
Hamburg) make yourself perfectly master of that dull but very useful
knowledge, the course of exchange, and the causes of its almost perpetual
variations; the value and relation of different coins, the specie, the
banco, usances, agio, and a thousand other particulars. You may with ease
learn, and you will be very glad when you have learned them; for, in your
business, that sort of knowledge will often prove necessary.

I hear nothing more of Prince Ferdinand's garter: that he will have one
is very certain; but when, I believe, is very uncertain; all the other
postulants wanting to be dubbed at the same time, which cannot be, as
there is not ribband enough for them.

If the Russians move in time, and in earnest, there will be an end of our
hopes and of our armies in Germany: three such mill-stones as Russia,
France, and Austria, must, sooner or later, in the course of the year,
grind his Prussian Majesty down to a mere MARGRAVE of Brandenburg. But I
have always some hopes of a change under a 'Gunarchy'--[Derived from the
Greek word 'Iuvn' a woman, and means female government]--where whim and
humor commonly prevail, reason very seldom, and then only by a lucky
mistake.

I expect the incomparable fair one of Hamburg, that prodigy of beauty,
and paragon of good sense, who has enslaved your mind, and inflamed your
heart. If she is as well 'etrennee' as you say she shall, you will be
soon out of her chains; for I have, by long experience, found women to be
like Telephus's spear, if one end kills, the other cures.

The