“Though I sigh for your Ladyship’s coming to town, I do not know whether I shall not be a loser, for what news don’t you send me? That Lord Salisbury is a poet is nothing to your intelligence that _I_ am going to turn player; nay, perhaps I should, if I were not too young for the company!--You tell me, too, that I snub and sneer; I protest, I thought I was the snubee.… “For sneering, Heaven help me! I was guiltless. Every day I meet with red-hot politicians in petticoats, and told your Ladyship how I had been schooled by one of them, and how docile I was. If you yourself have any zeal for making converts, I should be very ready to be a proselyte, if I could get anything by it. It is very creditable, honourable, and fashionable; but, alas! I am so insignificant that I fear nobody would buy me; and one should look sillily to put one’s self up to sale and not find a purchaser. “In short, I doubt I shall never make my fortune by turning courtier or comedian; and therefore I may as well adhere to my old principles, as I have always done, since you yourself, Madam, would not be flattered in a convert that nobody would take off your hands. If you could bring over Mr. Sheridan, he would do something: he talked for five hours and a half on Wednesday, and turned everybody’s head. One heard everybody in the streets raving on the wonders of that speech; for my part, I cannot believe it was so supernatural as they say--do you believe it was, Madam? I will go to my oracle, who told me of the marvels of the pamphlet, which assures us that Mr. Hastings is a prodigy of virtue and abilities; and, as you think so too, how should such a fellow as Sheridan, who has no diamonds to bestow, fascinate all the world?--Yet witchcraft, no doubt, there has been, for when did simple eloquence ever convince a majority? Mr. Pitt and 174 other persons found Mr. Hastings guilty last night,[105] and only sixty-eight remained thinking with _the pamphlet_ and your Ladyship, that he is as white as snow. Well, at least there is a new crime, sorcery, to charge on the Opposition! and, till they are cleared of that charge, I will never say a word in their favour, nor think on politics more, which I would not have mentioned but in answer to your Ladyship’s questions; and therefore I hope we shall drop the subject, and meet soon in Grosvenor Place in a perfect neutrality of good humour.” His remarks on the Duke’s Theatre are contained in the following letter, written after his early return to Twickenham. “Strawberry Hill, June 14, 1787.