to the gout, and appears no more. What Wilkes may do at his enlargement
in April, I don't know, but his star is certainly much dimmed. The
distress of France, the injustice they have been induced to commit on
public credit, immense bankruptcies, and great bankers hanging and
drowning themselves, are comfortable objects in our prospect; for one
tiger is charmed if another tiger loses his tail.

There was a stroke of the monkey last night that will sound ill in the
ears of your neighbour the Pope. The heir-apparent of the House of
Norfolk, a drunken old mad fellow, was, though a Catholic, dressed like
a Cardinal: I hope he was scandalised at the wives of our Bishops.

So you agree with me, and don't think that the crusado from Russia will
recover the Holy Land! It is a pity; for, if the Turks kept it a little
longer, I doubt it will be the Holy Land no longer. When Rome totters,
poor Jerusalem! As to your Count Orloff's[1] denying the murder of the
late Czar, it is no more than every felon does at the Old Bailey. If I
could write like Shakspeare, I would make Peter's ghost perch on the
dome of Sancta Sophia, and, when the Russian fleet comes in sight, roar,
with a voice of thunder that should reach to Petersburg,

Let me sit heavy on thy soul to-morrow!

[Footnote 1: Count Orloff was one of the Czarina's earlier lovers, and
was universally understood to have been the principal agent in the
murder of her husband.]

We have had two or three simpletons return from Russia, charmed with the
murderess, believing her innocent, _because_ she spoke graciously to
_them_ in the drawing-room. I don't know what the present Grand