t fails me as the
time of my going to Gloucester approaches. I made a very stout
resistance a fortnight ago, notwithstanding Harris's importunate
summons, and now he plainly confesses in a letter which I received
from him to-day, that my coming down upon that pretended meeting
would have been nugatory, as he calls it. The Devil take them; I
have wished him and his Corporation in Newgate a thousand times. But
there will be no trifling after the end of this next week. The
Assizes begin on Monday sevennight. Then the Judges will be met, a
terrible show, for I shall be obliged to dine with them, and be in
more danger from their infernal cooks than any of the criminals who
are to be tried, excepting those who will be so unfortunate as to
have our jurisconsult for their advocate.

I would not advise you to be unhappy about Caroline's(111) want of
erudition; a very little science will do at present, and much cannot
be poured into the neck of so small a vessel at once. I agree with
you that it is not to be wished that she should be a savante, and
she will know what others know. I have no doubt there is time enough
for her to read, and little Morpeth(112) to walk.

There is, I grant you, more reason to fear for Hare. Boothby(113)
assures me that as yet no prejudice has been done to his fortune. I
have my doubts of that, but am clear that he runs constant risk of
being very uneasy. But there is no talking to him; he has imbibed so
much of Charles's ton of qu'importe, que cela peut mener a
l'hopital.

Lady Holland(114) will be removed on Monday, and my thief one of her
outriders. All Lord Holland's servants, since he had that house at
Kingsgate, have been professed smugglers, and John, as I am
informed, was employed in vending for them some of their contraband
goods, for which he was to be allowed a profit. He sold the goods,
and never accounted with his principals for a farthing; and so now
they place him to sit up with the corps[e] of the family, and to act
as one of their undertakers, that they may be in part reimbursed.
This is the dessous des cartes, qui est veritablement comique, et
singulier. Ste, &c., will be here about the end of the week.

I hear that the night that Charles sat up at White's, which was that
preceding the night of Lady Holland's death, he planned out a kind
of itinerant trade, which was going from horse race to horse race,
and so, by knowing the value and speed of all the horses in England,
to acqui