note 2: Jervas was a fashionable portrait-painter in the first half
of the century. Lady Mary Montague, in one of her letters, speaks of him
in terms of the highest praise.]

[Footnote 3: Dr. Arbuthnot was the author of the celebrated satire on
the Partition Treaties, entitled "The History of John Bull," to which
Englishmen have ever since owed their popular nickname. It is to him
also that Pope dedicated the Prologue to his "Satires and Epistles."]

I fear, Sir, this letter is too long for thanks, and that I have been
proving what I have said, of my growing superannuated; but, having made
my will in my last volume, you may look on this as a codicil.

P.S.--I had sealed my letter, Sir, but break it open, lest you should
think soon, that I do not know what I say, or break my resolution
lightly. I shall be able to send you in about two months a very curious
work that I am going to print, and is actually in the press; but there
is not a syllable of my writing in it. It is a discovery just made of
two very ancient manuscripts, copies of which were found in two or three
libraries in Germany, and of which there are more complete manuscripts
at Cambridge. They are of the eleventh century at lowest, and prove
that painting in oil was then known, above three hundred years before
the pretended invention of Van Eyck. The manuscripts themselves will be
printed, with a full introductory Dissertation by the discoverer, Mr.
Raspe, a very learned German, formerly librarian to the Landgrave of
Hesse, and who writes English surprisingly well. The manuscripts are in
the most barbarous monkish Latin, and are much such works as our
booksellers publish of receipts for mixing colours, varnishes, &c. One
of the authors, who calls himself Theophilus, was a monk; the other,
Heraclius, is totally unknown; but the proofs are unquestionable. As my
press is out of order, and that besides it would take up too much time
to print them there, they will be printed here at my expense, and if
there is any surplus, it will be for Raspe's benefit.

_THE PRINCE OF WALES--HURRICANE AT BARBADOES--A "VOICE FROM ST.
HELENA."_

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

BERKELEY SQUARE, _Dec._ 31, 1780.

I have received, and thank you much for the curious history of the Count
and Countess of Albany; what a wretched conclusion of a wretched family!
Surely no royal race was ever so drawn to the dregs! The other Countess
[Orford] you mention seems to approach still nearer to diss