[41] The substance of this petition, and the grave answer which the King was advised to give to such a ludicrous appeal, are preserved in the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ for 1765, p. 95; where also we learn that Mr. Walpole’s idea of the Carpenters’ petition was put in practice, and his Majesty was humbly entreated to wear a wooden leg himself, and to enjoin all his servants to do the same. It may, therefore, be presumed that this _jeu d’esprit_ was from the pen of Mr. Walpole. [42] “Their women are the first in the world in everything but beauty; sensible, agreeable, and infinitely informed. The _philosophes_, except Buffon, are solemn, arrogant, dictatorial coxcombs--I need not say superlatively disagreeable.”--_Walpole to Mann._ [43] He alludes to his Roman Eagle at Strawberry Hill. [44] The installation of the Duke of Grafton as Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. Gray wrote the Ode for the occasion. [45] The proceedings of the House of Commons against Wilkes had just produced a Ministerial crisis. [46] Maria Walpole, Countess Dowager of Waldegrave, who had now secretly married William Henry, Duke of Gloucester. [47] Sons of Francis, Earl of Hertford, Mr. Walpole’s cousin-german. [48] Mr. Walpole’s nephews. [49] The Pantheon. [50] In the comedy of “The Provoked Husband.” [51] Benjamin West, afterwards, at Sir Joshua’s death, President of the Royal Academy of Arts. [52] Lady Anne Howard, daughter of Henry, fourth Earl, and sister of Frederick, fifth Earl of Carlisle. [53] The Temple of Friendship, like the ruins in the Campo Vaccino, is reduced to a single column at Stowe.--_Walpole to Crauford, 6th March, 1766._ [54] ‘He dropped me, partly from politics and partly from caprice, for we never had any quarrel; but he was grown an excessive humourist, and had shed almost all his friends as well as me. He had parts, and infinite vivacity and originality till of late years; and it grieved me much that he had changed towards me after a friendship of between thirty and forty years.’ This is Walpole’s account written to Cole the day after Montagu’s death. But Montagu’s last letter to Walpole, dated October 6, 1770, is cordial and even affectionate in tone; while in Walpole’s preceding letter there are some signs of pique, and the letter from Horace which ends the correspondence is both short and cold. [55] He means Gloucester House.