ford goes back to Holland in a day or two, and I hope our peace is very near. I have about thirty pages more to write, (that is, to be extracted,) which will be sixty in print. It is the most troublesome part of all, and I cannot keep myself private, though I stole into a room up two pair of stairs, when I came from Windsor; but my present man has not yet learned his lesson of denying me discreetly.

30. The Duchess of Ormond found me out to-day, and made me dine with her. Lady Masham is still expecting. She has had a cruel cold. I could not finish my letter last post for the soul of me. Lord Bolingbroke has had my papers these six weeks, and done nothing to them. Is Tisdall yet in the world? I propose writing controversies, to get a name with posterity. The Duke of Ormond will not be over these three or four days. I design to make him join with me in settling all right among our people. I have ordered the Duchess to let me have an hour with the Duke at his first coming, to give him a true state of persons and things. I believe the Duke of Shrewsbury will hardly be declared your governor yet; at least, I think so now; but resolutions alter very often. Duke Hamilton gave me a pound of snuff to-day, admirable good. I wish DD had it, and Ppt too, if she likes it. It cost me a quarter of an hour of his politics, which I was forced to hear. Lady Orkney is making me a writing-table of her own contrivance, and a bed nightgown. She is perfectly kind, like a mother. I think the devil was in it the other day, that I should talk to her of an ugly squinting cousin of hers, and the poor lady herself, you know, squints like a dragon. The other day we had a long discourse with her about love; and she told us a

saying of her sister Fitzharding, which I thought excellent, that in men, desire begets love, and in women, love begets desire. We have abundance of our old criers still hereabouts. I hear every morning your women with the old satin and taffata, &c. the fellow with old coats, suits or cloaks. Our weather is abominable of late. We have not two tolerable days in twenty. I have lost money again at ombre, with Lord Orkney and others ; yet, after all, this year I have lost but three-and-twenty shillings; so that, considering card money, I am no loser.

Our society hath not yet renewed their meetings. I hope we shall continue to do some good this winter; and lord-treasurer promises the academy for reforming our language shall soon go forward. I must now go hunt those dry letters for materials. You will see something very notable, I hope. So much for that. God Almighty bless you.

LETTER LV.

London, Nov. 15, 1712. *

BEFORE this comes to your hands, you will have heard of the most terrible accident that hath almost ever happened. This morning at eight, my man brought me word that Duke Hamilton had fought with Lord Mohun, and killed him, and was brought home wounded. I immediately sent him to the Duke's house, in St James's Square; but the porter could hardly answer for tears,

*Endorsed, "Received Nov. 26, just come from Portraine.”

and a great rabble was about the house. In short, they fought at seven this morning. The dog Mohun was killed on the spot; and, while the duke was over him, Mohun shortened his sword, stabbed him in at the shoulder to the heart. The duke was helped toward the cakehouse by the ring in Hyde Park, (where they fought,) and died on the grass, before he could reach the house; and was brought home in his coach by eight, while the poor duchess was asleep. Macartney, and one Hamilton, were the seconds, who fought likewise, and are both fled. I am told, that a footman of Lord Mohun's stabbed Duke Hamilton; and some say Macartney did so too. * Mohun gave the affront, and yet sent the challenge.† I am infinitely concerned for the poor duke, who was a frank, honest, good-natured man. I loved

* Various accounts were given of this affair. The quarrel seemed to be forced on the duke, but there is great room to doubt the prevailing report, that he received foul play. Both the report of the coroner's inquest, and the surgeon's examination, tend to prove, that he died by the wound received from Lord Mohun. And although Colonel Hamilton deposed, that as he went to raise the duke from the ground, he saw Macartney make a thrust at him, yet, as he neither mentioned this at the time, nor endeavoured to detain Macartney, his testimony did not receive general credit. See Colonel Hamilton's trial in the State Trials. The Tories insisted, that this was a party duel; the Whigs, that it was entirely a private quarrel. It probably partook of the nature of both.

+ At a meeting concerning a law-suit which had long depended between them, the duke, speaking of one of Lord Mohun's witnesses, said, "He had neither truth nor justice in him;" to which Lord Mohun replied, "He had as much truth and justice as his Grace." Now, although upon these words there might have been some ground for the duke challenging Mohun, it is certainly difficult to conceive why the challenge should have come as it did from the other side.

him very well, and I think he loved me better. He had the greatest mind in the world to have me go with him to France, but durst not tell it me; and those he did tell, said I could not be spared, which was true.* They have removed the poor duchess to a lodging in the neighbourhood, where I have been with her two hours, and am just come away. I never saw so melancholy a scene; for indeed all reasons for real grief belong to her; nor is it possible for any body to be a greater loser in all regards. She has moved my very soul. The lodging was inconvenient, and they would have removed her to another; but I would not suffer it, because it had no room backward, and she must have been tortured with the noise of the Grub Street screamers mentioning her husband's murder in her ears.

I believe you have heard the story of my escape, in opening the band-box sent to the lord-treasurer. † The

* The Duke of Hamilton was about to be sent ambassador to France; hence Parnell's beautiful lines on his death:

Half-peopled Gaul, whom num'rous ills destroy,

With wishful heart attends the promised joy.

For this prepares the Duke

ah, sadly slain!

'Tis grief to name him when we mourn in vain ;

No warmth of verse repairs the vital flame,

For verse can only grant a life in fame;
Yet could my praise, like spicy odours shed,
In everlasting song embalm the dead,

To realms that weeping heard the loss I'd tell,
What courage, sense, and faith, with Brandon fell!

Verses on the Peace.

"A report was spread of a strange conspiracy against the lord-treasurer, by sending him on that very day a band-box, with three pistols charged and cocked, whose triggers being tied to a pack-thread fastened to the cover, the pistols would have gone off, and done execution at the opening of the box, had not the same

prints have told a thousand lies of it; but at last we gave them a true account of it at length, printed in "The Evening;" only I would not suffer them to name me, having been so often named before, and teased to death with questions. I wonder how I came to have so much presence of mind, which is usually not my talent; but so it pleased God, and I saved myself and him; for there was a bullet-piece. A gentleman told me, that if I had been killed, the Whigs would have called it a judgment, because the barrels were of inkhorns, with which I had done them so much mischief. There was a pure Grub Street of it, full of lies and inconsistencies. I do not like these things at all, and I wish myself more and more among my willows. There is a devilish spirit among people, and the ministry must exert themselves, or sink. Night, dearest sirrahs, I'll go to sleep.

been miraculously prevented by Dr Jonathan Swift, who, being then in the room, while his lordship was shaving, suspected something, and opened the box in such a manner that no mischief was done. This was the first story that was whispered about; but the belief of such an extravagant plot was soon exploded, when it was found that the three pistols were no more than a steel set on a pistol-stock to strike fire, and two inkhorns or squibs; so that the lucky discoverer, Dr Swift, was by many suspected to have been the ingenious contriver of this political machine.”—RAPIN'S History of England, IV. 297. It seems very difficult to understand this affair. To suppose it a trick of Swift, is not only utterly inconsistent with his character, but with common sense; for why should he not have placed real pistols in the box, since he was to open it with such precaution? yet it is not easy to conceive what the Whigs should have hoped from so imperfect an engine. Swift here calls the contents a bullet-piece, and a few pages below says, the fellow to the pistol was found in Hyde Park. Yet, at the same time, he mentions the barrels being made of inkhorn, meaning the iron cases used for holding ink and pens. Perhaps the contriver had chosen so ludicrous an implement, that the plot might be ridiculed, if it should prove unsuccessful.