TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, Feb. 22, 1771.

Two days ago there began to be an alarm at the delay of the Spanish courier, and people were persuaded that the King of Spain had refused to ratify his ambassador’s declaration; who, on the warrant of the French King, had ventured to sign it, though expecting every hour to be recalled, as he actually was two days afterwards.  However, the night before last, to the great comfort of Prince Masserano and our Ministers, the ratification arrived; and, after so many delays and untoward accidents, Fortune has interposed (for there has been great luck, too, in the affair), and peace is again established.  With you, I am not at all clear that Choiseul was in earnest to make it.  If he was, it was entirely owing to his own ticklish situation.  Other people think, that this very situation had made him desperate; and that he was on the point of striking a hardy stroke indeed; and meditated sending a strong army into Holland, to oblige the Dutch to lend twelve men-of-war to invade us.  Count Welderen, who is totally an anti-Gaul, assured me he did not believe this project.  Still I am very glad such a boute-feu is removed.

This treaty is an epoch; and puts a total end to all our preceding histories.  Long quiet is never probable, nor shall I guess who will disturb it; but, whatever happens, must be thoroughly new matter, though some of the actors perhaps may not be so.  Both Lord Chatham and Wilkes are at the end of their reckoning, and the Opposition can do nothing without fresh fuel.

The scene that is closed here seems to be but opening in France.  The Parliament of Paris banished; a new one arbitrarily appointed; the Princes of the Blood refractory and disobedient; the other Parliament as mutinous; and distress everywhere:  if the army catches the infection, what may not happen, when the King is despised, his agents detested, and no Ministry settled?  Some say the mistress and her faction keep him hourly diverted or drunk; others, that he has got a new passion:  how creditable at sixty!  Still I think it is the crisis of their constitution.  If the Monarch prevails, he becomes absolute as a Czar; if he is forced to bend, will the Parliament stop there?

In the mean time our most serious war is between two Operas.  Mr. Hobart, Lord Buckingham’s brother, is manager of the Haymarket.  Last year he affronted Guadagni, by preferring the Zamperina, his own mistress, to the singing hero’s sister.  The Duchess of Northumberland, Lady Harrington, and some other great ladies, espoused the brother, and without a license erected an Opera for him at Madame Cornelys’s.  This is a singular dame, and you must be acquainted with her.  She sung here formerly, by the name of the Pompeiati.  Of late years she has been the Heidegger of the age, and presided over our diversions.  Her taste and invention in pleasures and decorations are singular.  She took Carlisle House in Soho Square, enlarged it, and established assemblies and balls by subscription.  At first they scandalised, but soon drew in both righteous and ungodly.  She went on building, and made her house a fairy palace for balls, concerts, and masquerades.  Her Opera, which she called Harmonic Meetings, was splendid and charming.  Mr. Hobart began to starve, and the managers of the theatres were alarmed.  To avoid the act, she pretended to take no money, and had the assurance to advertise that the subscription was to provide coals for the poor, for she has vehemently courted the mob, and succeeded in gaining their princely favour.  She then declared her Masquerades were for the benefit of commerce.  I concluded she would open another sort of house next for the interests of the Foundling Hospital, and I was not quite mistaken, for they say one of her maids, gained by Mr. Hobart, affirms that she could not undergo the fatigue of managing such a house.  At last Mr. Hobart informed against her, and the Bench of Justices, less soothable by music than Orpheus’s beasts, have pronounced against her.  Her Opera is quashed, and Guadagni, who governed so haughtily at Vienna, that, to pique some man of quality there, he named a minister to Venice, is not only fined, but was threatened to be sent to Bridewell, which chilled the blood of all the Caesars and Alexanders he had ever represented; nor could any promises of his lady-patronesses rehabilitate his courage ­so for once an Act of Parliament goes for something.

You have got three new companions; General Montagu, a West Indian Mr. Paine, and Mr. Lynch, your brother at Turin.

There is the devil to pay in Denmark.  The Queen has got the ascendant, has turned out favourites and Ministers, and literally wears the breeches, actual buckskin.  There is a physician, who is said to rule both their Majesties, and I suppose is sold to France, for that is the predominant interest now at Copenhagen.  The Czarina has whispered her disapprobation, and if she has a talon left, when she has done with the Ottomans, may chance to scratch the little King.

For eight months to come I should think we shall have little to talk of, you and I, but distant wars and distant majesties.  For my part, I reckon the volume quite shut in which I took any interest.  The succeeding world is young, new, and half unknown to me.  Tranquillity comprehends every wish I have left, and I think I should not even ask what news there is, but for fear of seeming wedded to old stories ­the rock of old men; and yet I should prefer that failing to the solicitude about a world one belongs to no more!  Adieu!