scough, his tutor,
is to be removed with her entire inclination as well as with everybody's
approbation. They talk of a Regency to be established (in case of a
minority) by authority of Parliament, even this session, with the
Princess at the head of it. She and Dr. Lee, the only one she consults
of the late cabal, very sensibly burned the late Prince's papers the
moment he was dead. Lord Egmont, by seven o'clock the next morning,
summoned (not very decently) the faction to his house: all was whisper!
at last he hinted something of taking the Princess and her children
under their protection, and something of the necessity of harmony. No
answer was made to the former proposal. Somebody said, it was very
likely indeed they should agree now, when the Prince could never bring
it about; and so everybody went away to take care of himself. The
imposthumation is supposed to have proceeded, not from his fall last
year, but from a blow with a tennis-ball some years ago. The grief for
the dead brother is affectedly displayed. They cried about an elegy,[1]
and added, "Oh, that it were but his brother!" On 'Change they said,
"Oh, that it were but the butcher[2]!"

[Footnote 1: The elegy alluded to, was probably the effusion of some
Jacobite royalist. That faction could not forgive the Duke of Cumberland
his excesses or successes in Scotland; and, not contented with branding
the parliamentary government of the country as usurpation, indulged in
frequent unfeeling and scurrilous personalities on every branch of the
reigning family:

Here lies Fred,
Who was alive and is dead:
Had it been his father,
I had much rather;
Had it been his brother,
Still better than another;
Had it been his sister,
No one would have missed her;
Had it been the whole generation,
Still better for the nation:
But since 'tis only Fred,
Who was alive and is dead--
There's no more to be said.

Walpole's _Memoirs of George II._]

[Footnote 2: A name given to the Duke of Cumberland for his severities
to his prisoners after the battle of Culloden.]

The Houses sit, but no business will be done till after the holidays.
Anstruther's affair will go on, but not with much spirit. One wants to
see faces about again! Dick Lyttelton, one of the patriot officers, had
collected depositions on oath against the Duke for his behaviour in
Scotland, but I suppose he will now throw his pa