FROM ERASMUS LEWIS, ESQ.
I HAVE yours of the twenty-fifth. You judge very right; it is not the going out, but the manner, that enrages me. The queen has told all the lords the reasons of her parting with him, viz. that he neglected all business; that he was seldom to be understood; that when he did explain himself, she could not depend upon the truth of what he said; that he never came to her at the time she appointed; that he often came drunk; that lastly, to crown all, he behaved himself toward her with bad manners, indecency, and disrespect. Pudet hæc opprobria nobis, &c.
I am distracted with the thoughts of this, and the pride of the conqueror[1]. I would give the world I could go out of town to morrow; but the secretary says, I must not go till he returns, which will not be till the sixteenth of August, or perhaps the twenty-third; but I am in hopes I may go toward Bath the sixteenth.
The runners are already employed to go to all the coffeehouses. They rail to the pit of Hell. I am ready to burst for want of vent.
The stick[2] is yet in his hand, because they can-
- ↑ Lord Bolingbroke.
- ↑ On the night of Tuesday, July 27, the day on which this letter is dated, a cabinet council was held (after the earl of Oxford had resigned the staff, which he did on that day) to consult what persons to put in commission for the management of the treasury. The
