Record Office (cf. Mahon, Hist. of England, iv. 11). In corresponding on these topics the envoy used a kind of cipher, in which 202 stood for Mann, 55 for Hanover, 77 for Rome, and 11 for the Old Chevalier. Minor duties were to receive and conciliate English visitors of distinction, among whom are specially noted the Duke of York, Lord Bute, and Garrick (1764), John Wilkes (1765), Smollett (1770), the Duke of Gloucester (1771), Zoffany, who put his portrait in the picture of the ‘Tribuna,’ which he executed for the king (1773), and the Duchess of Kingston (1774). Besides these distinguished persons were numerous ‘travelling boys’ belonging to the English aristocracy, whose aptitude to forget the deference due to the ‘petty Italian Transparencies’ often caused him much anxiety. Mann's salary is given in the Townshend MSS., under date 1742, as fixed at 3l. per diem, with allowance of 300l. or 400l. (Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. iv. 126).
In 1755 he succeeded his elder brother in the estate at Linton, and on 3 March in the same year he was created a baronet. His receipt of the decoration of K.B. on 25 Oct. 1768, through the medium of Sir John Dick, British consul at Genoa, was the occasion of a succession of brilliant fêtes, described in much detail in his letters to Horace Walpole.
The correspondence by which Mann is chiefly remembered commenced with his appointment. Walpole left Florence, not to return, in May 1741, and never again saw his friend, while Mann spent the remainder of his life exclusively in Italy; but during the following forty-four years they corresponded on a scale quite phenomenal, and, as Walpole remarked, ‘not to be paralleled in the history of the post-office.’ The letters on both sides were avowedly written for publication, both parties making a point of the return of each other's despatches. The strain of such an artificial correspondence led to much melancholy posturing, but the letters, on Walpole's side at least, are among the best in the language. Their publication by Lord Dover in 1833 gave Macaulay his well-used opportunity of ‘dusting the jacket,’ as he expresses it, of the most consummate of virtuosos (Edinb. Rev. October 1833). Lord Dover describes the letters on Mann's side as ‘voluminous, but particularly devoid of interest, as they are written in a dry, heavy style, and consist almost entirely of trifling details of forgotten Florentine society.’ Cunningham dismisses them as ‘utterly unreadable.’ Their contents are summarised in two volumes published by Dr. Doran (from the originals at Strawberry Hill), under the title of ‘Mann and Manners at the Court of Florence,’ in 1876. They certainly lose much from a too anxious adaptation to Walpole's prejudices and affectations, but they are often diverting, and are valuable as illustrations of Florentine society (cf. Glimpses of Italian Society in the 18th Century, from the Journey of Mrs. Piozzi, 1892). They abound in accounts of serenades, fêtes, masquerades, court ceremonial, and Italian eccentricities, including an elaborate exposition of the history and nature of cicisbeism, and many circumstances relating to the alleged poisoning of Clement XIV (Ganganelli) in 1774. There are also many interesting particulars concerning the eminent Dr. Antonio Cocchi, a savant ‘much prejudiced in favour of the English, though he resided some years among us.’ Writing from Florence in November 1754 the Earl of Cork describes Mann as living in Cocchi's ‘friendship, skill, and care,’ and adds: ‘Could I live with these two gentlemen only, and converse with few or none others, I should scarce desire to return to England for many years’ (Nchols, Lit. Anecd. i. 347). Madame Piozzi visited Mann when she was in Florence, about 1784, when the British envoy was ‘sick and old,’ but maintained a ‘weekly conversation’ on Saturday evenings (Autobiog. 1861, i. 334).
Mann's last letter to Walpole (‘of a series amounting to thousands’) is dated 5 Sept. 1786. He died at Florence on 6 Nov. 1786, and was succeeded as envoy in August 1787 by John Augustus, lord Hervey. He had been forty-six years minister. His body was removed to England, and buried at Linton. The estate and baronetcy passed to his nephew Horatio (son of his younger brother Galfridus), who, with his wife, ‘the fair and fragile’ Lady Lucy (Noel), had visited Mann at Florence in 1775, the pair being frequently mentioned with much tenderness and affection in his letters. Sir Horatio was M.P. for Sandwich in 1790, became a local magnate, and was a staunch patron of the Hambledonian cricketers (cf. Hasted, Kent; Nyren, Young Cricketer's Tutor, ed. Whibley, pp. xi, xxii, 94). He died in 1814, when the baronetcy became extinct.
In his will Mann, who had previously bought several pictures on commission for the Houghton and Strawberry Hill galleries, left five pictures by Poussin to his friend Walpole, to whom his letters were also transmitted. He had sent Walpole his portrait by Astley in 1752; this was engraved by Greatbatch, and included by Cunningham in his edition of Walpole's correspondence.
