you! What joint ministries and sole ministries! What acceptances
and resignations!--Viziers and bowstrings never succeeded one another
quicker. Luckily I have stayed till we have got an administration that
will last a little more than for ever. There is such content and harmony
in it, that I don't know whether it is not as perfect as a plan which I
formed for Charles Stanhope, after he had plagued me for two days for
news. I told him the Duke of Newcastle was to take orders, and have the
reversion of the bishopric of Winchester; that Mr. Pitt was to have a
regiment, and go over to the Duke; and Mr. Fox to be chamberlain to the
Princess, in the room of Sir William Irby. Of all the new system I
believe the happiest is Offley; though in great humility he says he only
takes the bedchamber _to accommodate_. Next to him in joy is the Earl of
Holdernesse--who has not got the garter. My Lord Waldegrave has; and
the garter by this time I believe has got fifty spots.

Had I written sooner, I should have told your lordship, too, of the King
of Prussia's triumphs[1]--but they are addled too! I hoped to have had a
few bricks from Prague to send you towards building Mr. Bentley's
design, but I fear none will come from thence this summer. Thank God,
the happiness of the menagerie does not depend upon administrations or
victories! The happiest of beings in this part of the world is my Lady
Suffolk: I really think her acquisition and conclusion of her law-suit
will lengthen her life ten years. You may be sure I am not so satisfied,
as Lady Mary [Coke] has left Sudbroke.

[Footnote 1: On the 6th of May Frederic defeated the Austrian army under
Prince Charles of Lorraine and Marshal Brown in the battle of Prague.
Brown was killed, as also was the Prussian Marshal, Schwerin; indeed,
the King lost eighteen thousand men--nearly as many as had fallen on the
side of the enemy; and the Austrian disaster was more than retrieved by
the great victory of Kolin, gained by Marshal Daun, June 18th, to which
Walpole probably alludes when he says Frederic's "triumphs are addled."]

Are your charming lawns burnt up like our humble hills? Is your sweet
river as low as our deserted Thames?--I am wishing for a handful or two
of those floods that drowned me last year all the way from Wentworth
Castle. I beg my best compliments to my lady, and my best wishes that
every pheasant egg and peacock egg may produce as many colours as a
harlequin-jacket.

_Tue