You may, if you please, suppose me extremely diverted here. Oh! exceedingly. In the first place, I have seen nothing; in the second, I have been confined this fortnight with a return of the gout in both feet; and in the third, I have not laughed since my lady Hertford went away. I assure you, you may come hither very safely, and be in no danger from mirth. Laughing is much out of fashion as pantins or bilboquets. Good folks, they have no time to laugh. There is God and the king to be pulled down first; and men and women, one and all, are devoutly employed in the demolition. They think me quite profane, for having any belief left. But this is not my only crime: I have told them, and am undone by it, that they have taken from us to admire the two dullest things we had, whisk and Richardson-It is very true, and they want nothing but George Grenville to make their conversations, or rather dissertations, the most tiresome upon earth. For lord L * * * *, if he would come hither, and turn free-thinker once more, he would be reckoned the most agreeable man in France-next to Mr. Hume, who is the only thing in the world that they believe implicitly; which they must do, for I defy them to understand any language that he speaks.

If I could divest myself of my wicked and unphilosophic bent to laughing, I should do very well. They are very civil and obliging to me, and several of the women are very agreeable, and some of the men. The duc de Nivernois has been beyond measure kind to me, and scarce missed a day without coming to see me during my confinement. The Guerchys are, as usual, all friendship. I had given entirely into supping, as I do not love rising early, and still less meat breakfasts. The misfortune is, that in several houses they dine, and in others sup.

You will think it odd that I should want to laugh, when Wilkes, Sterne, and Foote are here; but the first does not make me laugh, the second never could, and for the third, I choose to pay five shillings when I have a mind he should divert me. Besides, I certainly did not come in search of English: and yet the man I have liked the best in Paris is an Englishman, lord Ossory, who is one of the most sensible young men I ever saw, with a great deal of lord Tavistock in his manner.

The joys of Fontainbleau I miss by my illness-Patienza! If the gout deprived me of nothing better than a court.

The papers say the duke of Dorset is dead: what has he done for lord George? You cannot be so unconscionable as not to answer me. I don't ask who is to have his riband; nor how many bushels of fruit the duke of Newcastle's dessert for the hereditary prince contained, nor how often he kissed him for the sake of the dear house of Brunswick-No, keep your politics to yourselves; I want to know none of them :—when I do, and authentically, I will write to my lady * * * * or Charles Townshend.

Mrs. Pitt's friend, madame de Rochefort, is one of my principal attachments, and very agreeable indeed. Madame de Mirepoix another. For my admiration, madame de Monacobut I believe you don't doubt my lord * * * *'s taste in sensualities. March's passion, the marechalle d'Estrées, is affected, cross, and not at all handsome. The princes of the blood are pretty much retired, do not go to Portsmouth and Salisbury once a week, nor furnish every other paragraph to the newspapers. Their campaigns are confined to killing boars and stags, two or three hundred in a-year.

Adieu! Mr. Foley is my banker; or it is still more sure if you send your letter to Mr. Conway's office.

Yours ever.

TO THE HON. H. S. CONWAY.

Paris, Oct. 28, 1765.

MR. HUME1 sends me word from Fontainbleau, that your brother, some time in the spring of 1764, transmitted to the English ministry a pretty exact and very authentic account of the French finances; these are his words: and that it will be easily found among his lordship's dispatches of that period. To the other question I have received no answer: I suppose he has not yet been able to inform himself.

2 Lionel Cranfield Sackville, seventh earl and first duke of Dorset, died 10th October 1765. The celebrated lord George Sackville was his third son, and father of Charles the present and fifth duke. [Ed.]

1 David Hume was secretary of embassy to the earl of Hertford during his residence at Paris. [Or.]

This goes by an English coachman of count Lauragais, sent over to buy more horses: therefore I shall write a little ministerially, and, perhaps, surprise you, if you are not already apprised of things in the light I see them.

The dauphin will probably hold out very few days. His death, that is, the near prospect of it, fills the philosophers with the greatest joy, as it was feared he would endeavour the restoration of the Jesuits. You will think the sentiments of the philosophers very odd state news-but do you know who the philosophers are, or what the term means here? In the first place, it comprehends almost every body; and in the next, means men, who, avowing war against popery, aim, many of them, at a subversion of all religion, and still many more, at the destruction of regal power. How do you know this? you will say; you, who have been but six weeks in France, three of which you have been confined to your chamber? True: but in the first period I went every where, and heard nothing else; in the latter, I have been extremely visited, and have had long and explicit conversations with many, who think as I tell you, and with a few of the other side, who are no less persuaded that there are such intentions. In particular, I had two officers here t'other night, neither of them young, whom I had difficulty to keep from a serious quarrel, and who, in the heat of the dispute, informed me of much more than I could have learnt with great pains.

As a proof that my ideas are not quite visions, I send you a most curious paper; such as I believe no magistrate would have pronounced in the time of Charles I. I should not like to have it known to come from me, nor any part of the intelligence I send you; with regard to which, if you think it necessary to communicate it to particular persons, I desire my name may be suppressed. I tell it for your satisfaction and information, but would not have any body else think that I do any thing here but amuse myself: my amusements indeed are triste enough, and consist wholly in trying to get well; but my recovery moves very slowly. I have not yet had any thing but cloth shoes on, live sometimes a whole day on warm water, and am never tolerably well till twelve or one o'clock.

I have had another letter from sir Horace Mann, who has much 2 This paper does not appear. [Or.]

at heart his riband and increase of character. Consequently you know, as I love him so much, I must have them at heart too. Count Lorenzi is recalled, because here they think it necessary to send a Frenchman of higher rank to the new Grand Ducal court. I wish sir Horace could be raised on this occasion. For his riband, his promise is so old and so positive, that it is quite a hardship.

Pray put the colonies in good humour: I see they are violently disposed to the new administration.

I have not time to say more, nor more to say if I had time; so good night. Let me know if you receive this, and how soon: it goes the day after to-morrow. Various reports say the duke of Richmond comes this week. I sent you a letter by monsieur de Guerchy.

Dusson, I hear, goes ambassador to Poland. Tell lady Ailesbury that I have five or six little parcels, though not above one for her, of laces and ribands, which lady C**** left with me; but how to convey them the lord knows.

Yours ever.

To MR. GRAY.

Paris, Nov. 19, 1765.

You are very kind to inquire so particularly after my gout. I wish I may not be too circumstantial in my answer: but you have tapped a dangerous topic; I can talk gout by the hour. It is my great mortification, and has disappointed all the hopes that I had built on temperance and hardiness. I have resisted like a hermit, and exposed myself to all weathers and seasons like a smuggler; and in vain. I have, however, still so much of the obstinacy of both professions left, that I think I shall continue, and cannot obey you in keeping myself warm. I have gone through my second fit under one blanket, and already go about in a silk waistcoat with my bosom unbuttoned. In short, I am as prejudiced to my regimen, though so ineffectual, as I could have been to all I expected from it. The truth is, I am almost as willing to have the gout as to be liable to catch cold; and must run up stairs and down, in and out of doors, when I will,

or I cannot have the least satisfaction. This will convince you how readily I comply with another of your precepts, walking as soon as I am able.-For receipts, you may trust me for making use of none: I would not see a physician at the worst, but have quacked myself as boldly as quacks treat others. I laughed at your idea of quality receipts, it came so à-propos. There is not a man or woman here that is not a perfect old nurse, and who does not talk gruel and anatomy with equal fluency and ignorance. One instance shall serve : madame de Bouzols, marshal Berwick's daughter, assured me there was nothing so good for the gout, as to preserve the parings of my nails in a bottle close stopped. When I try any illustrious nostrum, I shall give the preference to this.

So much for the gout! I told you what was coming. As to the ministry, I know and care very little about them. I told you and told them long ago, that if ever a change happened I would bid adieu to politics for ever. Do me the justice to allow that I have not altered with the times. I was so impatient to put this resolution in execution, that I hurried out of England before I was sufficiently recovered. I shall not run the same hazard again in haste; but will stay here till I am perfectly well, and the season of warm weather coming on or arrived; though the charms of Paris have not the least attraction for me, nor would keep me an hour on their own account. For the city itself, I cannot conceive where my eyes were it is the ugliest, beastliest town in the universe. I have not seen a mouthful of verdure out of it, nor have they any thing green but their treillage and windowshutters. Trees cut into fire-shovels, and stuck into pedestals of chalk, compose their country. Their boasted knowledge of society is reduced to talking of their suppers, and every malady they have about them, or know of. The dauphin is at the point of death; every morning the physicians frame an account of him; and happy is he or she who can produce a copy of this lie, called a bulletin. The night before last, one of these was produced at supper where I was; it was read, and said he had had une evacuation fœtide. I beg your pardon, though you are not at supper. The old lady of the house (who by the way is quite blind, was the regent's mistress for a fortnight, and is very agreeable) called out, Oh! they have forgot to mention that he threw down his ***, and was forced to change his bed.'