repeated this to me, I said, "Pray tell him I have laid down politics."

I am got into puns, and will tell you an excellent one of the King of
France, though it does not spell any better than Selwyn's. You must have
heard of Count Lauragais, and his horse-race, and his quacking his horse
till he killed it.[1] At his return the King asked him what he had been
doing in England? "Sire, j'ai appris à penser"--"Des chevaux?"[2]
replied the King. Good night! I am tired and going to bed. Yours ever.

[Footnote 1: In a previous letter Walpole mentioned that the Count and
the English Lord Forbes had had a race, which the Count lost; and that,
as his horse died the following night, surgeons were employed to open
the body, and they declared he had been poisoned. "The English," says
Walpole, "suspect that a groom, who, I suppose, had been reading Livy or
Demosthenes, poisoned it on patriotic principles to secure victory to
his country. The French, on the contrary, think poison as common as oats
or beans in the stables at Newmarket. In short, there is no impertinence
which they have not uttered; and it has gone so far that two nights ago
it was said that the King had forbidden another race which was appointed
for Monday between the Prince de Nassau and a Mr. Forth, to prevent
national animosities."]

[Footnote 2: Louis pretending to think he had said _pansen_.]


_BATH--WESLEY._

TO JOHN CHUTE, ESQ.

BATH, _Oct._ 10, 1766.