rime Minister of France from 1727 to
1742. Pope celebrated his love of peace--

Peace is my dear delight, not Fleury's more;

and by his resolute maintenance of peace during the first seven years of
his administration he had so revived the resources and restored the
power of his country, that when the question of going to war with France
was discussed in the Council of Vienna the veteran Prince Eugene warned
the Ministers that his wise and prudent administration had been so
beneficial to his country that the Empire was no longer a match for it.]

My poor niece [Lady Waldegrave] does not forget her Lord, though by this
time I suppose the world has. She has taken a house here, at Twickenham,
to be near me. Madame de Boufflers has heard so much of her beauty, that
she told me she should be glad to peep through a grate anywhere to get a
glimpse of her,--but at present it would not answer. I never saw so
great an alteration in so short a period; but she is too young not to
recover her beauty, only dimmed by grief that must be temporary. Adieu!
my dear Sir.

_Monday, May 2nd_, ARLINGTON STREET.

The plot thickens: Mr. Wilkes is sent to the Tower for the last _North
Briton_;[1] a paper whose fame must have reached you. It said Lord Bute
had made the King utter a gross falsehood in his last speech. This hero
is as bad a fellow as ever hero was, abominable in private life, dull in
Parliament, but, they say, very entertaining in a room, and certainly no
bad writer, besides having had the honour of contributing a great deal
to Lord Bute's fall. Wilkes fought Lord Talbot in the autumn, whom he
had abused; and lately in Calais, when the Prince de Croy, the Governor,
asked how far the liberty of the press extended in England, replied, I
cannot tell, but I am trying to know. I don't believe this will be the
only paragraph I shall send you on this affair.

[Footnote 1: The celebrated No. 45 which attacked the speech with which
the King had opened Parliament; asserting that it was the speech not of
the King, but of the Ministers; and that as such he had a right to
criticise it, and to denounce its panegyric of the late speech as
founded on falsehood.]

_A PARTY AT "STRABERRI"--WORK OF HIS PRINTING PRESS--EPIGRAMS--A GARDEN
PARTY AT ESHER._

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

STRAWBERRY HILL, _May_ 17, 1763.

"On vient de nous donner une tres jolie fete au chateau de Straberri:
tout etoit tapisse de narcisses, de tulipes, et de