tion!" This daughter-in-law is delightfully pretty, and civil, and gay, and conversible, though not a regular beauty like madame de Monaco.

The bitterness of the frost deters me, madam, from all sights; I console myself with good company, and still more, with being absent from bad. Negative as this satisfaction is, it is incredibly great, to live in a town like this, and to be sure every day of not meeting one face one hates! I scarce know a positive pleasure equal to it.

Your ladyship and lord Holland shall laugh at me as much as you please for my dread of being thought charming; yet I shall not deny my panic, as surely nothing is so formidable as to have one's limbs on crutches and one's understanding in leading-strings. The prince of Conti laughed at me t'other day on the same account. I was complaining to the old blind charming madame du Deffand, that she preferred Mr. Crawford to me: "What," said the prince, " does not she love you?" "No, sir," I replied, "she likes me no better than if she had

seen me."

Mr. Hume carries this letter and Rousseau to England. I wish the former may not repent having engaged with the latter, who contradicts and quarrels with all mankind, in order to obtain their admiration. I think both his means and his end below such a genius. If I had talents like his, I should despise any suffrage below my own standard, and should blush to owe any part of my fame to singularities and affectations. But great parts seem like high towers erected on high mountains, the more exposed to every wind, and readier to tumble. Charles Townshend is blown round the compass; Rousseau insists that the north and south blow at the same time; and Voltaire demolishes the Bible to erect fatalism in its stead:-So compatible are the greatest abilities and greatest absurdities!

Madame d'Aiguillon gave me the enclosed letter for your ladyship. I wish I had any thing else to send you; but there are no new books, and the theatres are shut up for the dauphin's death, who, I believe, is the greatest loss they have had since Harry IV.

To JOHN CHUTE, Esq.

Paris, Jan. 1766.

It is in vain, I know, my dear sir, to scold you, though I have such a mind to it-nay, I must. Yes, you that will not lie a night at Strawberry in autumn for fear of the gout, to stay in the country till this time, and till you caught it! I know you will tell me, it did not come till you had been two days in town. Do, and I shall have no more pity for you than if I was your wife, and had wanted to come to town two months ago.

I am perfectly well, though to be sure Lapland is the torrid zone in comparison of Paris. We have had such a frost for this fortnight, that I went nine miles to dine in the country to-day, in a villa exactly like a green-house, except that there was no fire but in one room. We were four in a coach, and all our chinks stopped with furs, and yet all the glasses were frozen. We dined in a paved hall painted in fresco, with a fountain at one end; for in this country they live in perpetual opera, and persist in being young when they are old, and hot when they are frozen. At the end of the hall sat shivering three glorious maccaws, a vast cockatoo, and two poor parroquets, who squalled like the children in the wood after their nursery-fire! I am come home, and blowing my billets graph, yet can scarce move my fingers. dressed presently, and go the comtesse de appointed nine at night for my audience. to us to be presented to a princess of the but I told you, there is not a tittle in which our manners resemble one another. I was presented to her father-in-law the prince of Conti last Friday. In the middle of the levée entered a young woman, too plain I thought to be any thing but his near relation. I was confirmed in my opinion, by seeing her, after he had talked to her, go round the circle and do the honours of it. I asked a gentleman near me if that was the comtesse de la

between every paraHowever, I must be la Marche,' who has It seems a little odd blood at that hour—

1 La comtesse de la Marche, a princess of Modena, married to the only son of the prince de Conti. Le comte de la Marche was the only one of the French princes of the blood who uniformly sided with the court in the disputes with the Parliament of Paris. [Ed.]

Marche? He burst into a violent laughter, and then told me, it was mademoiselle Auguste, a dancer !-Now, who was in the wrong?

I give you these as samples of many scenes that have amused me, and which will be charming food at Strawberry. At the same time that I see all their ridicules, there is a douceur in the society of the women of fashion that captivates me. I like the way of life, though not lively; though the men are posts and apt to be arrogant, and though there are twenty ingredients wanting to make the style perfect. I have totally washed my hands of their savants and philosophers, and do not even envy you Rousseau, who has all the charlatanerie of count St. Ger main' to make himself singular and talked of. I suppose Mrs. *, my lord * * * *, and a certain lady friend of mine, will be in raptures with him, especially as conducted by Mr. Hume. But, however I admire his parts, neither he nor any Genius I have known has had common sense enough to balance the impertinence of their pretensions. They hate priests, but love dearly to have an altar at their feet; for which reason it is much pleasanter to read them than to know them. Adieu, my dear sir!

****

Yours ever.

January 15.

THIS has been writ this week, and waiting for a conveyance, and as yet has got none. Favre tells me you are recovered, but you don't tell me so yourself. I enclose a trifle that I wrote lately, which got about and has made enormous noise in a city where they run and cackle after an event, like a parcel of hens after an accidental husk of a grape. It has made me the

2 The comte de St. Germain was a native of Alsace, who had acquired a considerable military reputation in France by his conduct at Corbach in 1760, when he commanded the reserve, and saved the army by supporting the rearguard and allowing the whole body to retire upon Cassel. Considering himself ill-used by the marshal de Broglio, his commander-in-chief, he obtained leave to retire from the French service and entered that of Denmark, from which he retired into private life in 1774. From this retirement he was summoved by Louis XVI., upon the death of the comte de Muy, minister-atwar, as his successor, and the improvements which he made in the service proved him to have been well qualified for that post. [Ed.]

3 The letter from the king of Prussia to Rousseau. [Or.]

fashion, and made madame de Boufflers and the prince of Conti very angry with me; the former intending to be rapt to the temple of Fame by clinging to Rousseau's Armenian robe. I am peevish that with his parts he should be such a mountebank: but what made me more peevish was, that after receiving Wilkes with the greatest civilities, he paid court to Mr. Hume by complaining of Wilkes's visit and intrusion.

Upon the whole, I would not but have come hither; for, since I am doomed to live in England, it is some comfort to have seen that the French are ten times more contemptible than we are. I am a little ungrateful; but I cannot help seeing with my eyes, though I find other people make nothing of seeing without theirs. I have endless histories to amuse you with when we meet, which shall be at the end of March. It is much more tiresome to be fashionable than unpopular; I am used to the latter, and know how to behave under it but I cannot stand for member of parliament of Paris. Adieu!

To GEORGE MONTAGU, Esq.

Paris, January 5, 1766.

LADY Beaulieu acts like herself, and so do you in being persuaded that nobody will feel any satisfaction that comes to you with more transport than I do; you deserve her friendship, because you are more sensible to the grace of the action than to the thing itself; of which, besides approving the sentiment, I am glad, for if my lady Cardigan' is as happy in drawing a straw as in picking straws, you will certainly miss your green coat. Yet methinks you would make an excellent Robin Hood reformé, with little John your brother. How you would carol Mr. Percy's old ballads under the green-wood tree! I had rather have you in my merry Sherwood than at Greatworth, and should delight in your picture drawn as a bold forester, in a green frock, with your rosy hue, grey locks, and comely

1 Lady Mary Montagu, third daughter and co-heiress of John second duke of Montagu, and last of that creation; married 7th July, 1730, George Montagu fourth earl of Cardigan. [Ed.]

belly. In short, the favour itself, and the manner are so agreeable, that I shall be at least as much disappointed as you can be, if it fails. One is not ashamed to wear a feather from the hand of a friend. We both scorn to ask or accept boons; but it is pleasing to have life painted with images by the pencil of friendship. Visions you know have always been my pasture; and so far from growing old enough to quarrel with their emptiness, I almost think there is no wisdom comparable to that of exchanging what is called the realities of life for dreams. Old castles, old pictures, old histories, and the babble of old people, make one live back into centuries, that cannot disappoint one. One holds fast and surely what is past. The dead have exhausted their power of deceiving; one can trust Catherine of Medicis now. In short, you have opened a new landscape to my fancy; and my lady Beaulieu will oblige me as much as you, if she puts the long bow into your hands. don't know but the idea may produce some other Castle of Otranto.

The victorious arms of the present ministry in parliament will make me protract my stay here, lest it should be thought I awaited the decision of the event; next to successful enemies, I dread triumphant friends. To be sure, lord Temple and George Grenville are very proper to be tied to a conqueror's car, and to drag their slow lengths along; but it is too ridiculous to see goody Newcastle exulting like old Marius in a seventh consulship. Don't tell it, but as far as I can calculate my own intention, I shall not set out before the twenty-fifth of March. That will meet your abode in London; and I shall get a day or two out of you for some chat at Strawberry on all I have seen and done here. For this reason I will anticipate nothing now, but bid you good-morrow, after telling you a little story. The canton of Berne ordered all the impressions of Helvetius's Esprit and Voltaire's Pucelle to be seized. The officer of justice employed by them came into the council and said, "Magnifiques seigneurs, après toutes les recherches possibles, on n'a pû trouver dans toute la ville que très peu de l'Esprit, et pas une Pucelle." Adieu, Robin and John.

Yours ever.