308 
New equipage in great splendour is every where 
to be seen, especially their Majesty’s. Her Ma- 
jesty is wonderful glorious in her own apparel, 
Here is arrived an Italian Prince of Piombino,* 
the greatest spendthrift in the world reckoned, 
for he has consumed the greatest part of a patri- 
monial estate of £150,000 per annum, and the 
treasure of three Popes. So it seems notthat we 
need fear his politics. This next term I am like 
to be confined hither, and then what I shall do I 
know not. Lords Ormonde and Ossory come 
next week ; if their favour help not, I will see you 
foy a little, to wind up a mean bottom very indif- 
ferently worth my while, and so go for Paris, and 
with my Lord Denbigh} into Italy in the winter. 
I hope you will succeed in, your design of re- 
moyal hither; but these lords keeping thus out 
of town, puts us both out of our way. Phil.t 
has many wonderful kind expressions from the 
King, so that I imagine some room in the navy 
(where they rollin money) might be found ; so T 
adyise you to solicit hard and court kindly. Sure 
Pepys would value Lord Ossory’s recommenda- 
tion at no mean rate, though Eure and he to- 
yether neglect all where money chinks not. You 
may be sure of me upon all occasions. 
Your new Chancellor (Porter) is on the road ; 
and Tam going to sup with Will Legg, Governor 
of Kingsale, who follows him to-morrow. 
Sir G. Hewet is dying. The Graces Grafton 
and Northumberland (two of Charles's sons) are 
returned from Newport,§ and put the lady (@ wi- 
dow lady whom Northumberland had married, 
and wished to get rid of) ina monastery ; but the 
King says, it is not fit she should stay, nor is it 
believed she will. 
Now, though here is nothing very memo- 
rable, yet it is very agreeable gossip, and 
familiarizes with the times, and recalls old 
acquaintances. 
One of the letters notices the death of 
the Duke of Buckingham in these terms. 
“The Duke of Bucks, who hath some time 
supported himself with artificial spirits, on 
Friday fell to a more manifest decay, and 
on Sunday yielded up the ghost, at Helmes- 
ley in Yorkshire, in a little alehouse, where 
these eight months he hath been without 
either meat or money, deserted of all his 
servants almost.” To this Mr. Ellis adds 
the following note :— 
This contemporary aceount of the death of 
George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, is 
curious, as showing the grounds upon which 
Pope wrote his pathetic description of the decease 
of this nobleman ; and yet it would appear that 
the statement of his extreme penury and desertion 
was much exaggerated. He died not ‘in the 
worst inn’s worst room,’’ buat in the house of one 
of his tenants, in the town of Kirby Moorside, 
which still exists, and must have been at the time 
ee A A LS EL EE ERI 
* Buoncompagni Ludovisi, Prince of Piom- 
bino, who had inherited the fortunes of the Popes 
Gregory XII. and Gregory XV. 
; Basil (Fielding) fourth Earl of Denbigh, who 
was going on his travels, not being yetofage. He 
had suceeedea his father in the title of 1685. He 
became Master of the Horse to Prince George of 
Denmark, and subsequently one of the Tellers of 
the Exchequer, He died March 18th, 1717. 
{ Philip Ellis. 
§ Nicuportin Flanders. 
Monthly Review of Literature, 
(Marcu, 
one of the best houses in the place. He had 
canght cold by sitting on the ground after fox- 
hunting, which brought on internal inflammation. 
A letter from Lord Arran, afterwards Duke of 
Hamilton (to Dr. Sprat, who had been chaplain 
to the Duke of Buckingham), which appeared in 
the Whitehall Evening Post, January 3d, 1784, 
and has every appearance of being authentie, 
gives the most credible and detailed account of 
the death of the conspicuous nobleman in ques- 
tion. ; 
The letter itself is too long to quote, 
though very interesting. 
We do not remember to have heard of 
this medal, struck on the acquittal of the 
bishops. 
A medal is said to run about with the seven 
bishops on one side, with these words: “ #isdom 
hath built her house, and chosen out seven 
pillars ;” on the other side, a church under- 
mined by a Jesuit and a fanatic, with these words, 
“ The gates of Hell shall not prevail against 
her.” 
What would be thought of this, now, 
in the Alley ? 
Among other Policies of Assurance which ap- 
pear at the Exchange, there is one of no ordinary 
nature ; whieh is, that Esqr Neale, who hath for 
some time been a suitor to the rich Welsh Widow 
Floyd, offers as many guineas as people will take 
to ensure thirty for each one, in case he marry 
the said widow. He hath already laid out as 
much as will bring him in 10 or 12,000 guineas ; 
he intends to make it 30,000, and then to present 
it to the lady in ease she marry him; and any 
one that will accept of guineas on that condition, 
may find as many as he pleases at Garraway’s 
Coffee House. % 
Talesand Confessions, by Leitch Ritchie, 
1829.—Once upon a time, when a new 
writer appeared, it was with a name; and 
the inquiry was, what’s the performance ?— 
now, the name scarcely ever appears, and 
the sole question is, whose is it? The 
manceuvre, for mancuyre it is, is often a 
successful one ; for if the writer announced 
himself John Smith, or William Tomkins, 
no soul would care about him ; but a book 
with no name at all, may be, now-a-days, 
a patrician performance—curiosity is con- 
sequently on tip-toe; for the sooner the 
secret is discovered, the sooner is the disco- 
verer in possession of something to commu- 
nicate. It is always worth something to 
know what others, no matter how insignifi- 
cant, do not. But if, after all, the name, 
upon inquiry, prove the writer to be nobody, 
—one which goes in at one ear and out at 
the other, and, of course, never likely to 
extend beyond his own immediate circle, 
he himself throws off the incognito, and 
uncovers. Nothing, therefore, finally goes 
unclaimed. Even the periodicals give up 
their dead, and we ourselves have some 
faint thoughts of re-publishing in a justwm 
volumen, and with our own names at full 
length, all these our doings and misdoings— 
but who is to pay the printer’s bill? But 
seriously, these re-printings and collectings 
