account that the poet adopted, of mortification
at the inaction to which his orders compelled him; but according to
another statement, more trustworthy if less poetical, of fever.]

You see how glad I am to have reasons for not returning; I wish I had no
better.

As to "Hosier's Ghost," I think it very easy, and consequently pretty;
but, from the ease, should never have guessed it Glover's. I delight in
your, "the patriots cry it up, and the courtiers cry it down, and the
hawkers cry it up and down," and your laconic history of the King and
Sir Robert, on going to Hanover, and turning out the Duke of Argyle. The
epigram, too, you sent me on the same occasion is charming.

Unless I sent you back news that you and others send me, I can send you
none. I have left the Conclave, which is the only stirring thing in this
part of the world, except the child that the Queen of Naples is to be
delivered of in August. There is no likelihood the Conclave will end,
unless the messages take effect which 'tis said the Imperial and French
ministers have sent to their respective courts for leave to quit the
Corsini for the Albani faction: otherwise there will never be a pope.
Corsini has lost the only one he could have ventured to make pope, and
him he designed; 'twas Cenci, a relation of the Corsini's mistress. The
last morning Corsini made him rise, stuffed a dish of chocolate down his
throat, and would carry him to the scrutiny. The poor old creature went,
came back, and died. I am sorry to have lost the sight of the Pope's
coronation, but I might have staid for seeing it till I had been old
enough to be pope myself.[1]

[Footnote 1: The contest was caused by the death of Clement XII. The
successful candidate was Benedict XIV.]

Harry, what luck the Chancellor has! first, indeed, to be in himself so
great a man; but then in accident: he is made Chief Justice and peer,
when Talbot is made Chancellor and peer. Talbot dies in a twelvemonth,
and leaves him the seals at an age when others are scarce made
Solicitors:--then marries his son into one of the first families of
Britain, obtains a patent for a Marquisate and eight thousand pounds a
year after the Duke of Kent's death: the Duke dies in a fortnight, and
leaves them all! People talk of Fortune's wheel, that is always
rolling: troth, my Lord Hardwicke has overtaken her wheel, and rolled
away with it.... Yours ever.

_A FLORENTINE WEDDING--ADDISON'S DESCRIPTIONS ARE BORROWED F