might not have been very pleasant retribution. The good woman, who
minded her affairs, and was not to be put out of her way, went about her
business. She had a piece of coarse cloth to make a couple of shifts for
herself and child. She no sooner began to measure it but the yard fell
a-measuring, and there was no stopping it. It was sunset before the good
woman had time to take breath. She was almost stifled, for she was up to
her ears in ten thousand yards of cloth. She could have afforded to have
sold Lady Mary Wortley a clean shift, of the usual coarseness she wears,
for a groat halfpenny.

I wish you would tell the Princess this story. Madame Riccardi, or the
little Countess d'Elbenino, will doat on it. I don't think it will be
out of Pandolfini's way, if you tell it to the little Albizzi. You see I
have not forgot the tone of my Florentine acquaintance. I know I should
have translated it to them: you remember what admirable work I used to
make of such stories in broken Italian. I have heard old Churchill tell
Bussy English puns out of jest-books: particularly a reply about eating
hare, which he translated, "j'ai mon ventre plein de poil." Adieu!

_DEATH OF HIS FATHER--MATTHEWS AND LESTOCK IN THE
MEDITERRANEAN--THOMSON'S "TANCRED AND SIGISMUNDA"--AKENSIDE'S
ODES--CONUNDRUMS IN FASHION._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _March_ 29, 1745.

I begged your brother to tell you what it was impossible for me to tell
you. You share nearly in our common loss! Don't expect me to enter at
all upon the subject. After the melancholy two months that I have
passed, and in my situation, you will not wonder I shun a conversation
which could not be bounded by a letter--a letter that would grow into a
panegyric, or a piece of moral; improper for me to write upon, and too
distressful for us both!--a death is only to be felt, never to be talked
over by those it touches!

I had yesterday your letter of three sheets: I began to flatter myself
that the storm was blown over, but I tremble to think of the danger you
are in! a danger, in which even the protection of the great friend you
have lost could have been of no service to you. How ridiculous it seems
for me to renew protestations of my friendship for you, at an instant
when my father is just dead, and the Spaniards just bursting into
Tuscany! How empty a charm would my name have, when all my interest and
significance are buried in my father's grave! All hopes of present