TO MR. WORTLEY MONTagu.

Genoa, July 29, N.S. [1741].

I RECEIVED yesterday the bill for £250, for which I return you thanks. If I wrote you all the political stories I hear, I should have a great deal to say. A great part is not true, and what I think so, I dare not mention, in consideration of the various hands this paper must pass through before it reaches you. Lord Lincoln and Mr. Walpole (youngest son to Sir Robert) left this place two days ago; they visited me during their short stay; they are gone to Marseilles, and design passing some months in the south of France.

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TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU.

Genoa, Aug. 15, N.S. [1741].

I AM sorry to trouble you on so disagreeable a subject as our son, but I received a letter from him last post, in which he solicits your dissolving his marriage, as if it was wholly in your power, and the reason he gives for it, is so that he may marry more to your satisfaction." It is very vexatious (though no more than I expected) that time has no effect, and that it is impossible to convince him of his true situation. He enclosed this letter in one to Mr. Birtles, and tells me that he does not doubt that debt of £200 is paid. You may imagine this silly proceeding occasioned me a dun from Mr. Birtles. I told him the person that wrote the letter, was, to my knowledge, not worth a groat, which was all I thought proper to say on the subject. Here is arrived a little while since, Count -, who was president of the council of war, and enjoyed many other great places under the late emperor. He is a Spaniard. The next day after his arrival, he went to the Doge, and declared himself his subject, and from thence to the archbishop, and desired to be received as one of his flock. He has taken a great house at Pierre l'Arène, where he sees few people, but what I think particular, he has brought with him thirty

five cases of books. I have had a particular account of Lord Oxford's death1 from a very good hand, which he advanced by choice, refusing all remedies till it was too late to make use of them. There was a will found, dated 1728, in which he gave everything to my lady: which has affected her very much. Notwithstanding the many reasons she had to complain of him, I always thought there was more weakness than dishonesty in his actions, and is [sic] a confirmation of the truth of that maxim of Mr. Rochefoucault, un sot n'a pas assez d'étoffe pour être honnête homme.

TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU.

[Genoa] Aug. 25, N.S. [1741].

I RECEIVED yours of the 27th July this morning. I had that of March 19, which I answered very particularly the following post, with many thanks for the increase of my allowance. It appears to me that the letters I wrote between the 11th of April and the 31st of May were lost, which I am not surprised at. I was then at Turin, and that court in a very great confusion, and extreme jealous of me, thinking I came to examine their conduct. I have some proof of this, which I do not repeat, lest this should be stopped also.

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The manners of Italy are so much altered since we were here last, the alteration is scarce credible. They say it has been by the last war. The French, being masters, introduced all their customs, which were eagerly embraced by the ladies, and I believe will never be laid aside; yet the different governments make different manners in every

1 Edward Earl of Oxford, Pope's correspondent. Lord Orrery thus alludes to his death in a letter dated July 7, 1741: "Poor Lord Oxford is gone to those regions from whence travellers never return, unless in an airy visit to faithless lovers, as Margaret to William; or to cities devoted to destruction, as Hector amidst the flames of Troy. The deceased earl has left behind him many books, many manuscripts, and no money. His lady brought him five hundred thousand pounds; four of which have been sacrificed to indolence, good nature, and want of worldly wisdom; and there will still remain, after proper sales and right management, five thousand a year for his widow."-T.

2 On their return from Constantinople in 1718.—T.

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state. You know, though the republic is not rich, here are many private families vastly so, and live at a great superfluous expense: all the people of the first quality keep coaches as fine as the Speaker's, and some of them two or three, though the streets are too narrow to use them in the town; but they take the air in them, and their chairs carry them to the gates. The liveries are all plain : gold or silver being forbidden to be worn within the walls, the habits are all obliged to be black, but they wear exceeding fine lace and linen; and in their country-houses, which are generally in the faubourg, they dress very rich, and have extreme fine jewels. Here is nothing cheap but houses. A palace fit for a prince may be hired for fifty pounds per annum : I mean unfurnished. All games of chance are strictly prohibited, and it seems to me the only law they do not try to evade: they play at quadrille, piquet, &c., but not high. Here are no regular public assemblies. I have been visited by all of the first rank, and invited to several fine dinners, particularly to the wedding of one of the house of Spinola, where there were ninety-six sat down to table, and I think the entertainment one of the finest I ever saw. There was the night following a ball and supper for the same company, with the same profusion. They tell me that all their great marriages are kept in the same public manner. Nobody keeps more than two horses, all their journeys being post; the expense of them, including the coachman, is (I am told) fifty pounds per annum. A chair is very near as much; I give eighteen francs a week for mine. The senators can converse with no strangers during the time of their magistracy, which lasts two years. The number of servants is regulated, and almost every lady has the same, which is two footmen, a gentleman-usher, and a page, who follows her chair.

TO THE COUNTESS OF POMfret.

Turin, October 2 [1741].

I HAD the honour of seeing Lord Lempster yesterday, who told me to my great surprise your letter complains of

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my silence, while I was much mortified at yours, having never heard once from you since I left Leghorn, though I have wrote several times. I suppose our frequent removals have occasioned this breach in our correspondence, which it will be a great pleasure to me to renew. I hear you are very well diverted at Bruxelles; I am very much pleased here, where the people in general are more polite and obliging than in most parts of Italy. I am told Lady Walpole is at present at Verona, and intends to pass the carnival at Venice. Mrs. Pratt passed this way last week; the Duchess of Buckingham is daily expected. Italy is likely to be blessed with the sight of English ladies of every sort and size. I stayed some time at Genoa, tempted to it by the great civilities I received there, and the opportunity of hiring a palace in the most beautiful situation I ever saw. I was visited there by Lord Lincoln and Mr. Walpole, who informed me that you hurried away from Venice, designing for England. I hope some good occasion has stopped you. I do not doubt you have heard Mrs. Goldsworthy's melancholy history; which is very comical. I saw often Signora Clelia Durazzo, who was your friend and very much mine; and we had the pleasure of talking frequently of your ladyship, in many parties we had together. I have thus given you a long account of my

1 Lady Pomfret had resided in Brussels since the previous July.-T. 2 Daughter of John Pratt, Esq., of the city of Dublin, and sister of the wife of Sir George Savile. She appears to have been a connexion of the Duchess of Buckingham, and to have travelled with her.-T.

3 Mrs. Goldsworthy, of whom we have an anecdote subsequently, was a daughter of Captain Vanbrugh, commander of a man-of-war. She married Barrington Goldsworthy, Esq., a nephew of Sir Charles Wager, and was now residing at Leghorn with her husband, who was British consul there. Walpole calls her "a pert little unbred thing; " and has several jokes upon her ignorance and affectation, but Walpole was prejudiced against her husband, whom he believed to be endeavouring to supplant his friend Mann at Florence. What was the "melancholy" history here alluded to does not appear; but it was probably the story of General Wachtendonck, commander of the grand-duke's troops at Leghorn, and "the hundred sequins per month" obscurely hinted at in Walpole's Letter to Mann of Nov. 2, 1741. General Wachtendonck, according to Walpole, was a "Cicisbeo to the consul's wife." Her more serious misfortune, which happened somewhat later, may perhaps help to piece out the story. See letter to Lady Pomfret, Avignon, Nov. 4, N.S. [1742].-T.

travels, I hope to have in return the history of yours. I am told, since I began this letter, that Miss Windsor,' who is very well married in Holland (I forget the name), is gone to Naples. I think I was very unlucky not to meet with her; I should be very glad to have an opportunity of showing my regard to your ladyship in serving any of your relations; and perhaps my experience might be of some use to a stranger. If my intelligence from hence can be any way agreeable to you, you have a right to command it. I wish I could show you more effectually how much I am Ever yours. Be pleased to direct, "Recommandé à Mons. Villette, Ministre de S. M. Britannique."

TO MR. WORTLEY MONTAGU.

Geneva, Oct. 12 [1741].

I ARRIVED here last night, where I find everything quite different from what it was represented to me: it is not the first time it has happened to me on my travels. Everything is as dear as it is at London. "Tis true, as all equipages are forbidden, that expense is entirely retrenched. I have been visited this morning by some of the chief people in the town, who seem extreme good sort of people, which is their general character; very desirous of attracting strangers to inhabit with them, and consequently very officious in all they imagine can please them. The way of living is absolutely the reverse of that in Italy. Here is no show, and a great deal of eating; there is all the magnificence imaginable, and no dinners but on particular occasions; yet the difference of the prices renders the total expense very near equal. As I am not yet deter

1 Thomas Windsor, created an Irish peer by King William III. by the title of Viscount Windsor, and a British peer by the title of Baron Mountjoy, by Queen Anne; married Charlotte (Lady Charlotte Herbert, only daughter of Philip seventh Earl of Pembroke), widow of John Jeffries, the second Lord Jeffries of Wem, the father of Lady Pomfret ; so that Miss Windsor was half-sister to Lady Pomfret.-This Miss Windsor was married to Monsieur d'Estevan von Berkenrode, of the haute noblesse of Holland; afterwards for forty years the Dutch ambassador at Paris.-T.