occasion, that Pitt, who has an Enfield of his own within an hour of town, and never feels for the unfloated bowling-greens of others, who has determined with his deputy to withdraw all advice and correspondence from me upon that head. I say I scorn to ask of them what I am to do; but do you, to whose sage counsel I have referred the linen and the chariot, tell me what in fitness, decency, and decorum, I am to do: upon your veto I give up all thoughts of delay, but with your consent I shall indulge myself as long as I may in this world, ready to change it for a better like a good Christian when I must, and not 'till then. A thousand thanks to the Earl of Buckinghamshire for the letter', which will save me ten guineas, as well as prevent my setting a bad example, and so, with compliments to my sister, I am, &c., &c. COBHAM. MR. PITT TO MR. GRENVILLE. Pay Office, January 20, 1749-50. DEAR GRENVILLE,—It is with much concern that I hear the waters do not continue to agree with Mrs. Grenville as they promised to do at first. I have almost experience enough of the Bath waters to be a physician with regard to them, and as such, I advise Mrs. Grenville to discontinue them a little, and try them again in small quantities, and with some corrective adapted to her case, before she entirely gives up the use of them. I have done what I advise, many times, and with great benefit. I should not take it ill if you was to call in some other 1 A hint about the peerage fees. of the faculty, and I will add, that notwithstanding all the opinion I have of Duncan', there are certainly at Bath men more knowing in all the various effects of those waters, and the several ways of qualifying them, according to the inconvenience they occasion, than he can possibly be. I hope you and Mrs. Grenville will pardon this officiousness, and perhaps take my advice. News, I have none to tell you; when we meet, we shall have, no doubt, matter to quid nunc upon. The Mutiny Bill at present employs all our time, and all our rhetoric on all sides. We fought the Oath of Secrecy yesterday: the requisition to disclose is now placed in the Courts of Justice. The next point will be the revision, and Tuesday the day for it. I hope you both find Bath not void of amusements, and that virtù contributes its part towards it. Whenever you return, I believe you will find us idle enough, all prospect of great attacks being over. Adieu, dear Grenville, and believe me, very affectionately yours, W. PITT. MR. PITT TO MR. GRENVILLE. Pay Office, January 25, 1749-50. LATE as it is, and tired as I am with the Mutiny Bill, which we have just finished in the Committee, I can't forbear taking this post to return a thousand thanks for the honour and pleasure of a joint letter I received from Bath. To begin, the first, as in duty bound, with the lady, my patient, I will own that, however vain I might be of my skill in physic, I did not expect to be feed so 1 An eminent physician. He was created a baronet in August, 1764. Sir William Duncan married Lady Mary Tufton, eldest daughter of Sackville, Earl of Thanet. He died in September, 1774. infinitely higher than the most eminent of the profession, by the honour of some lines from Mrs. Grenville's own fair hands. The fee, indeed, would have risen in its value if these lines had given a better account of her health; but though they are short in that respect, yet they speak such good spirits that I will hope perfect recovery can't be far off. I wish extremely I could, in obedience to her commands, send any receipt for the immediate attainment of it; I should be not a little glad if I could but help her to any one for high dice, and the poultry-yard in consequence of it; but till I can teach blind chance to see and discern those she ought to favour, (which, though an excellent physician, I am not oculist good enough to do,) I can promise no kind of assistance. Grenville, but will not I now come to my dear Mr. detain him with much discourse. the Mutiny Bill is in fact this. Oath of Secrecy is now declared requisition of any Court of Justice to give evidence relating to a sentence of a Court Martial. The Attorney moved it; the Solicitor spoke for it; my Lord Cobham declared for it, and in a manner that did him credit. It was was opposed (properly speaking) by none, but disrelished by many; more of this when we meet. I will be sure to take care of you Monday next. The post is going, so adieu! It is impossible to be more sensible than I am of the manner in which you and Mrs. Grenville are so good to accept my most sincere wishes for your health and happiness. W. PITT. GEORGE, PRINCE OF WALES', TO VISCOUNT COBHAM. Leicester House, April 26, 1750. MY LORD,-I am obliged to you for your affectionate expressions of concern for my misfortune in losing the best of fathers. Your attachment to me gives me great pleasure; and with great regard, GEORGE P. I am, MR. JAMES GRENVILLE TO VISCOUNT COBHAM. Paultons, July 13, 1752. It was not fraternal fondness nor any such low motive that excited my epistolary ardour in writing to you from London, but since the purest actions of my life are fated to undergo the worst interpretations that friend or enemy can put upon them, I shall submit to my hard fortune, and persist in being what my new acquaintance Martinelli calls himself a malheureux honnête homme. I wish it was in my power to give you satisfaction, in making an ample description of the circumstances which attended the late fire at Lincoln's Inn2. As Virgil, Tasso, Dante, and Ovid in his conflagration of the world, had succeeded with so much general applause in those animated descriptions of fire, I chose to leave untouched a part of poetry in which I despaired of beating my rivals, and I shall still continue in the 1 Afterwards King George the Third. Frederick, Prince of Wales, died on the 20th of March. 2 Numbers 10 and 11, in Lincoln's Inn New Square. The fire happened on the 27th of June, and broke out in the chambers of Mr. Wilbraham, about one in the morning. same modest diffidence of my own force: unless you insist upon my taking down the lyre and giving you a specimen of my genius. I must indeed confess that I ought to have been more exact in what relates to your deeds. Not a syllable of any other paper belonging to you was affected by those flames than what perished in the counterpart of your marriage settlement. Perhaps it would have been better fortune to you if they too had suffered, as the destruction of deeds by such fires always serves to make good the titles of those estates, which the subsistence of them frequently invalidates. There was an Act of Parliament for making good the deeds that perished in the Temple fire. There will be one next sessions for those which were destroyed in this. If I was too inaccurate in the circumstances of a calamity which affected you, perhaps you have been as little accurate in one that may affect me. You talk of leaving Stowe and going into Northamptonshire, but not one word about the time when, which, nevertheless, is a circumstance which it much imports me to know; and I do humbly implore your goodness to let me be fully apprized of that circumstance, forthwith the whirl of my motions being to depend much thereupon. I suppose you know with what danger and difficulty Mr. Yorke' escaped from the fire. J. G. 1 Mr. Charles Yorke, second son of the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, was the principal sufferer in this calamity. He not only very narrowly escaped with his life, but the whole of his library of books, manuscripts, and papers, were entirely destroyed, including the valuable state papers of his great uncle, Lord Somers, which having recently come into possession of the Hardwicke family, had been deposited in Mr. Yorke's chambers. Lord Hardwicke has given an animated description of the VOL. I. H |