to be at Fulham, and nobody will be more welcome there than yourself. I find there is a very old bad house; I must repair a great deal of it, and I am afraid, re-build some part. It is late for me to be so employed, but somebody will be the better for it. I write with difficulty, I wish you can read. I am, Sir, Your affectionate brother, and humble servant, Thomas London." G. M. Copy of an Original Letter, sent by the late Pretender to Lady Abbess Fleetwood. Rome, January 28th, 1749. "I have received your letter of the first of this month, and thank you very kindly, and your worthy community, for the duty you express towards me ; for your good wishes on, the new year; and for your good prayers for me and my family, to the continuation of which, I recommend ourselves; and I desire, that you and your community may be assured of my favour and protection, upon all proper occasions, and yourself, of the particular regard and consideration I have for you. James R." For the Lady Abbess of the English Benedictine Nuns at Dunkirk. Anecdote of Signier Gualdi. In 1687, a stranger, naming himself, Signior Gualdi, profited of the known ease and freedom of Venice, to render himself much respected, and well received there. He spent his money readily, but was never observed to have connection with any bankers; he was perfectly well bred, and remarkable for his sagacity and powers of entertainment in company. Inquiries were made about his family, and whence he came, but all terminated in obscurity. One day a noble Venetian, admiring the stranger's pictures, which were exquistely fine, and fixing his eye on one of them, exclaimed! "How is this, sir, Here is a portrait of yourself, drawn by the hand of Titian, yet that artist has been dead one, hundred and thirty years, and you look not to be more than fifty!" "Well, signior, replied the stranger, there is, I hope, no crime, in resembling a portrait drawn by Titian. The noble found that he had been too curious, and withdrew; but before the next morning's dawn, the stranger, his pictures, goods and domestics had quitted Venice. Anecdote of a French Officer. A French officer, more remarkable for his birth and spirit than his riches, had served the Venetian Republic, with great valour and fidelity, for some years, but had not met with preferment adequate, by any means, to his merits. One day, he waited on an illustrissimo, whom he had often solicited in vain, but on whose friendship he had still some reliance. The reception he met with was cool and mortifying, the noble turned his back upon the veteran, and left him to find his way to the street, through a suite of rooms magnificiently furnished. He passed them lost in thought, till casting his eyes on a sumptuous side-board, where stood on a damask cloth, as a preparation for a showy entertainment, an invaluable collection of Venice glass, polished and formed to the highest degree of perfection: he took hold of a corner of the linen, and turning to a faithful English mastiff, who always accompanied him, said to the animal, in a kind of absence of mind. There my poor old friend, you see how these scoundrels enjoy themselves, and yet how we are treated. The poor dog looked up in his master's face, and wagged his tail, as if he under stood him. The master walked on, but the mastiff slackened his peace, and laying hold of the damask cloth with his teeth, at one hearthy pull, brought all the sideboard in shivers to the ground, and deprived the insolent noble of his favourite exhibition of splendour. Anecdote of Busbequius, Who, when he was apparently an ambassador, but really a prisoner at Constantinople, tells us the use he made of the Turkish aversion to every thing of the hog kind, in the following manner. When any body had a mind to send me a secret message, he would enclose it in a little bag, together with a roasting pig, and sending it by a youth, when my chiaux met him, he would ask, what he had there? The boy being instructed before, would whisper him in the ear, that a friend of mine had sent me a roasting pig for a present. |