to give it up without dividing. Sandys, who loves persecution, _even
unto death_, moved to punish the sheriff; and as we dared not divide,
they ordered him into custody, where by this time, I suppose, Sandys has
eaten him.

[Footnote 1: Hume Campbell, twin brother of Hugh, third Earl of
Marchmont, the friend of Pope, and one of his executors. They were sons
of Alexander, the second earl, who had quarrelled with Sir Robert
Walpole at the time of the excise scheme in 1733. Sir Robert, in
consequence, prevented him from being re-elected one of the sixteen
representative Scotch peers in 1734; in requital for which, the old
earl's two sons became the bitterest opponents of the minister. They
were both men of considerable talents; extremely similar in their
characters and dispositions, and so much so in their outward appearance,
that it was very difficult to know them apart.]

On Wednesday Sir Robert Godschall, the Lord Mayor, presented the
Merchant's petition, signed by three hundred of them, and drawn up by
_Leonidas_ Glover.[1] This is to be heard next Wednesday. This
gold-chain came into parliament, cried up for his parts, but proves so
dull, one would think he chewed opium. Earle says, "I have heard an
oyster speak as well twenty times."...

[Footnote 1: Mr. Glover, a London merchant, was the author of a poem
entitled "Leonidas"; of a tragedy, "Boadicea"; and of the ode on
"Admiral Hosier's Ghost," which is mentioned in the letter to Conway at
p. 23.]

On this Thursday, of which I was telling you, at three o'clock, Mr.
Pulteney rose up, and moved for a secret committee of twenty-one. This