letter to that lady under a cover addressed to the duke; and in it I made many complaints against some proceedings, which I suppose he has seen. I never made him one request for myself; and if I spoke for another, he was always upon his guard; which was but twice, and for trifles; but failed in both.
The father of our friend in France[1] may outlive the son; for I would venture a wager, that if you pick out twenty of the oldest men in England, nineteen of them have been the most worthless fellows in the kingdom. You tell me, with great kindness as well as gravity, that I ought, this spring, to make a trip to England, and your motive is admirable, that shifting the scene was of great service to you, and therefore it may be so to me. I answer as an academic, Nego consequentiam. And besides comparisons are odious. You are what the French call plein de vie. As you are much younger, so I am a dozen years older than my age makes me, by infirmities of mind and body; to which I add the perpetual detestation of all publick persons and affairs in both kingdoms. I spread the story of Mrs. Mapp while it was new to us: there was something humourous in it throughout, that pleased every body here. Will you engage for your friend Carteret that he will oppose any step toward arbitrary power? He has promised me, under a penalty, that he will continue firm; and yet some reports go here of him, that have a little disconcerted me. Learning and good sense
- ↑ The friend in France appears to be lord viscount Bolingbroke, whose father, sir Henry St. John, bart., had been created baron St. John of Battersea, and viscount St. John, July 2, 1716.
