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1774] To the Countess of Upper Ossory 43

travestied themselves into a quadruped and biped; but the
truth is, I have no mind, Madam, to be Prime Minister*
King Pharaoh is mighty apt on emergencies to send for us
soothsayers, and put the whole kingdom into our hands, if
his butler or baker, with whom he is wont to gossip, does
but tell him of a cunning man,

I hare no ambition to supplant Lord North—especially as
the season approaches when I dread the gout; and I should
be very sorry to be fetched out of my bed to pacify America.
To be sure, Madam, you give me a fair field for uttering
oracles: however, all I will unfold is, that the emblematic
animals have no views on Lady Louisa². The omens of her
fortune are in herself; and I will burn my books, if beauty,
sense, and merit do not bestow all the happiness on her
they prognosticate,

I can as little agree to the Duchess of M.'s solution of the
Duchess of L/s marriage, which, by the way, is at least not
over yet. Mor do I believe, whatever mamma Tcnows, that she
will agree to it either; and, for this reason, the efficacy of
pregnancy on a delicate constitution is no lasting nostrum.
A husband would be but a temporary preservative, and use-
less, when the operations of the remedy could not possibly
be of any service. Alas! is a poor sick lady to leave off the
drug when it can no longer produce the wholesome tumour
on the patient!

I doubt the Duchess of M. did not advert to the vicinity
of that hopeless season in the Duchess of L,, or I think her
Grace would not have laid down a position from which such
disagreeable consequences might be drawn.

I like the blue eyes, Madam, better than the denomination
of Lady Gertrude Fitzpatrick, -which, all respectable as it is,

²LadyIionisaKtzpatiiok(d.l789), cond wife, William Petty, second

dangrliteroffirstB3aTlofirpper00so3ry, Earl of Shellmnie, who was created

and sister-in-law of Horace Walpole's Marquis of Lansdowue in 1784.
correspondent; in. (1779), as Ms se-