really went to Turin last
Wednesday, then you will have been there perhaps near three weeks
before your Investiture. I hope no part of this delay will be
imputed to me. You will not have passed your time, I should think,
ill at a Court, where you was so announced, and to receive that
distinction. I am sure, if any time had been lost by my means, I
should be very sorry, when you tell me that the going so soon to
Turin will accelerate your return hither. For to tell you the truth,
I begin to think the time long already, and it is too soon to begin
counting the months.

I am extremely glad to find that you had the Marquis(65) with you. I
did not like the idea of your travelling alone. Your application to
Italian, or to anything, is what will certainly turn to account,
because, if I am not much mistaken, yours is the very age of
improvement; but your growing fat must be owing to more indolence
than can be salutary to you, and I hope you will take care that that
is not too habitual. The inconveniences of it you may not find
immediately, but they are certain, and very great, of which I could
enumerate very remarkable instances; but they do not interest me as
that does which concerns yourself. I find by Sir W[illiam] that you
have already heard all that your family knows of Lady Fr.; your
great good nature makes me not surprised at your anxiety, but there
is no occasion for it, if I am rightly informed. Your monk's
disinterest[ed]ness is a mare's nest; you will find he expects some
gratuity that will amount to more than a certain stipend; there is
no such thing in nature as an Eccle[si]astic doing anything for
nothing.

As to Morpeth, the best that can be done at present is done. I'm
persuaded what can be done in future times will depend upon
yourself, as I hope and suppose. I do not wonder that Lady Carl,
prefers Reynolds' picture, but I am not sorry to have that which I
have neither. It is a great likeness, though not a good one.

Your seal you will receive with the other things. You ask me about
Lord Tho[mon]d(66) and Will: all [the] party is so broke up at
present that they are au desespoir. The Bedfords are in
extraordinary good humour; that elevation of spirit does them no
more credit than their precedent abasement; the equus animus seems a
stranger to them. G. Greenv.(67) is certainly [befouled] as a
Minister, but he is so well manured in other respects that he cannot
be an object of great compassion certainly.