I.

Thyrsis, when we parted, swore
Ere the spring he would return.
Ah! what means yon violet flower,
And the bud that decks the thorn!
'Twas the lark that upward sprung,
'Twas the nightingale that sung.

II.

Idle notes! untimely green!
Why this unavailing haste!
Western gales and skies serene
Speak not always winter past.
Cease my doubts, my fears to move;
Spare the honour of my love.

Adieu, Madam, your most faithful servant.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Pitt had lately resigned the office of Secretary of
State, on being outvoted in the Cabinet, which rejected his proposal to
declare war against Spain; and he had accepted a pension of L3,000 a
year and a peerage for his wife--acts which Walpole condemns in more
than one letter, and which provoked comments in many quarters.]

_DEATH OF THE CZARINA ELIZABETH--THE COCK-LANE GHOST--RETURN TO ENGLAND
OF LADY MARY WORTLEY._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Jan._ 29, 1762.

I wish you joy, sir minister; the Czarina [Elizabeth] is dead. As _we
conquered America in Germany_,[1] I hope we shall overrun Spain by this
burial at Petersburg. Yet, don't let us plume ourselves too fast;
nothing is so like a Queen as a King, nothing so like a predecessor as a
successor. The favourites of the Prince Royal of Prussia, who had
suffered so much for him, were wofully disappointed, when he became the
present glorious Monarch; they found the English maxim true, that the
King never dies; that is, the dignity and passions of the Crown never
die. We were not much less defeated of our hopes on the decease of
Philip V. The Grand Duke[2] [Peter III.] has been proclaimed Czar at the
army in Pomerania; he may love conquest like that army, or not know it
is conquering, like his aunt. However, we cannot suffer more by this
event. I would part with the Empress Queen, on no better a prospect.

[Footnote 1: "_We conquered America in Germany._" This is a quotation
from a boastful speech of Mr. Pitt's on the conquest of Canada.]

[Footnote 2: The Grand Duke (Peter III.) was married, for his
misfortune, to Catharine, a princess of Anhalt-Zerbzt, whose lover,
Count Orloff, murdered him before the end of the summer, at his wife's
command; and in August she assumed the government, and was crowned with
all due solemnity as Czarina or Empress. Walpole had some reason for
saying that "nothing was so like a predecessor as a successor