soldiers and sailors, who will all come to the gallows,
unless some timely provision can be made for them.--The former part of
his letter relates to a grievance he complains of, that men who have
_not_ served are admitted into garrisons, and then into our hospitals,
which were designed for meritorious sufferers. Adieu!

_THE ORDINARY WAY OF LIFE IN ENGLAND--WILKES--C. TOWNSHEND--COUNT
LALLY--LORD CLIVE--LORD NORTHINGTON--LOUIS LE BIEN AIME--THE DRAMA IN
FRANCE._

TO THE EARL OF HERTFORD.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Dec._ 29, 1763

You are sensible, my dear lord, that any amusement from my letters must
depend upon times and seasons. We are a very absurd nation (though the
French are so good at present as to think us a very wise one, only
because they, themselves, are now a very weak one); but then that
absurdity depends upon the almanac. Posterity, who will know nothing of
our intervals, will conclude that this age was a succession of events. I
could tell them that we know as well when an event, as when Easter, will
happen. Do but recollect these last ten years. The beginning of October,
one is certain that everybody will be at Newmarket, and the Duke of
Cumberland will lose, and Shafto win, two or three thousand pounds.
After that, while people are preparing to come to town for the winter,
the Ministry is suddenly changed, and all the world comes to learn how
it happened, a fortnight sooner than they intended; and fully persuaded
that the new arrangement cannot last a month. The Parliament opens;
everybody is bribed; and the new establishment is perceived to be
composed of adamant. November passes, with two or three self-murders,
and a new play. Christmas arrives; everybody goes out of town; and a
riot happens in one of the theatres. The Parliament meets again; taxes
are warmly opposed; and some citizen makes his fortune by a
subscription. The opposition languishes; balls and assemblies begin;
some master and miss begin to get together, are talked of, and give
occasion to forty more matches being invented; an unexpected debate
starts up at the end of the session, that makes more noise than anything
that was designed to make a noise, and subsides again in a new peerage
or two. Ranelagh opens and Vauxhall; one produces scandal, and t'other a
drunken quarrel. People separate, some to Tunbridge, and some to all the
horse-races in England; and so the year comes again to October. I dare
to prophesy, that if you keep this lette