I don’t know whether your letters and newspapers come often enough to have informed you that it is all over with your brother Doctor and Co. at the Treasury: their inability to continue to prescribe for the body politic, having been confessed by them in both Houses on Monday. The king was to have sent for Pitt yesterday, or the day before, to make up a new Ministry, but did not. If he had, Pitt was to have sent an offer to Fox on the same subject. This not having been done, things are consequently in great confusion; and, if not done before, Fox is to make a motion in the House to-morrow. The wonder is not great: I have it on the present occasion from ‘near observers,’ that on all changes of administration—even those which have happened when his majesty has been in full health—he has been prodigiously agitated: so much so, as to have gone without food for two or three days. At present, I understand from equally good authority, that on Saturday and Sunday, there was a visible relapse into insanity, (though nothing said of it, I believe, in the newspapers;) and, moreover, that should he recover his soundness of mind, the body is manifestly and irrevocably broke.”
“Romilly tells me, after having seen somebody who has read the article in the Edinburgh Review, that the book—the book of books—has been treated there with scandalous irreverence; and for the rest, after having been well chastised, well pulled up, well humiliated for our faults and our errors, we shall have the advantage of being thoroughly instructed in matters of legislation, since these gentlemen—dissatisfied as they are with us—will, doubtlessly, teach us to do better. I am charmed that the lessons of these young people have come in time to prevent me from continuing my follies. I only just wait to read what they say, before I throw all your MSS. into the fire. What remains of life will be tranquil. Hallelujah! I shall have nothing to do!”
“The water here strengthens the appetite, but weakens the digestion. The place has few attractions, though there are some agreeable walks in the neighbourhood. Knaresborough is in a very picturesque situation—the whole valley is charming. The dripping well is very singular—it is an abutment of the rock, whence falls a perpetual rain of petrifying water, which the curiosity of the inhabitants employs for petrifying nests, hats, wigs, &c. A wig is petrified in a year. The ordinary manner of life here is, to take up your abode at an inn, where there are tables for sixty, eighty, or one hundred persons. When one of the inns gives a ball, the custom is to send a general invitation to the other inns. Thus, ‘the ladies and gentlemen of the Dragon request the ladies and gentlemen of the Marquis of Granby, to do them the honour,’ &c. The prices are moderate. At the best, it only costs six shillings a day for breakfast, dinner, supper, and a luncheon whenever you please; and the tables are abundantly supplied. Three shillings for the servants.”
Addington.
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