the world be so unenglished as to do otherwise. I am persuaded that
when Count Saxe,[1] with ten thousand men, is within a day's march of
London, people will be hiring windows at Charing-cross and Cheapside to
see them pass by. 'Tis our characteristic to take dangers for sights,
and evils for curiosities.

[Footnote 1: The great Maréchal Saxe, Commander-in-chief of the French
army in Flanders during the war of the Austrian succession.]

Adieu! dear George: I am laying in scraps of Cato against it may be
necessary to take leave of one's correspondents _à la Romaine_, and
before the play itself is suppressed by a _lettre de cachet_ to the
book-sellers.

P.S.--Lord! 'tis the first of August,[1] 1745, a holiday that is going
to be turned out of the almanack!

[Footnote 1: August 1 was the anniversary of the accession of George I.]


_INVASION OF SCOTLAND BY THE YOUNG PRETENDER--FORCES ARE SAID TO BE
PREPARING IN FRANCE TO JOIN HIM._

TO SIR HORACE MANN.

ARLINGTON STREET, _Sept._ 6, 1745.

It would have been inexcusable in me, in our present circumstances, and
after all I have promised you, not to have written to you for this last
month, if I had been in London; but I have been at Mount Edgecumbe, and