This is just my case: Love might shoot at me, but it was with a gouty arrow. I have had a relapse in both feet, and kept my bed six days: but the fit seems to be going off; my heart can already go alone, and my feet promise themselves the mighty luxury of a cloth shoe in two or three days. Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay," who are here, and are, alas! to carry this, have been of great comfort to me, and have brought their delightful little daughter, who is as quick as Ariel. Mr. Ramsay could want no assistance from me: what do we both exist upon here, Madam, but your bounty and charity? When did you ever leave one of your friends in want of another? Madame Geoffrin came and sat two hours last night by my bedside: I could have sworn it had been my Lady Hervey, she was so good to me, It was with so much sense, information, instruction, and correction! The manner of the latter charms me. I never saw any body in my days that catches one's faults and vanities and impositions so quick, that explains them to one so clearly, and convinces one so easily. I never liked to be set right before! You cannot imagine how I taste it! I make her both my confessor and director, and begin to think I shall be a reasonable creature at last, which I had never intended to be. The next time I see her, I believe I shall say, "Oh! Common Sense, sit down: I have been thinking so and so; is not it absurd?"— for t'other sense and wisdom, I never liked them; I shall now hate them for her sake. If it was worth her while, I assure your ladyship she might govern me like a child.c

The Duc de Nivernois too is astonishingly good to me. In short, Madam, I am going down hill, but the sun sets pleasingly. Your two other friends have been in Paris; but I was confined, and could not wait on them. I passed a whole evening with Lady Mary Chabot most agreeably: she charged me over and over with a thousand compliments to your ladyship. For sights, alas! and pilgrimages, they have been cut short! I had destined the fine days of October to excursions; but you know, Madam, what it is to reckon without one's host, the gout. It makes such a coward of me, that I shall be afraid almost of entering a church. I have lost, too, the Dumenil in Phèdre and Merope, two of her principal parts, but I hope not irrecoverably.

Thank you, Madam, for the Taliacotian extract: it diverted me much. It is true, in general I neither see nor desire to see our wretched political trash: I am sick of it up to the fountain-head. It was my principal motive for coming hither; and had long been my determination, the first moment I should be at liberty, to abandon it

Allan Ramsay, the painter.

b Baron de Grimm, in speaking of Madame Geoffrin, says: "This lady's religion seems to have always proceeded on two principles: the one, to do the greatest quantity of good in her power; the other, to respect scrupulously all established forms, and even to lend herself, with great complaisance, to all the different movements of public opinion." -E.

© Gibbon, in a letter to his father, of the 24th of February 1763, says :-" Lady Hervey's recommendation to Madame Geoffrin was a most excellent one: her house is a very good one; regular dinners there every Wednesday, and the best company in Paris, in men of letters and people of fashion. It was at her house I connected myself with M. Helvetius, who, from his heart, his head, and his fortune, is a most valuable man.”—E.

all. I have acted from no views of interest; I have shown I did not; I have not disgraced myself-and I must be free. My comfort is, that, if I am blamed, it will be by all parties. A little peace of mind for the rest of my days is all I ask, to balance the gout.

I have writ to Madame de Guerchy about your orange-flower water; and I sent your ladyship two little French pieces that I hope you received. The uncomfortable posture in which I write will excuse my saying any more; but it is no excuse against my trying to do any thing to please one, who always forgets pain when her friends are in question.

TO GEORGE MONTAGU, ESQ.

Paris, Oct. 16, 1765.

I AM here, in this supposed metropolis of pleasure, triste enough; hearing from nobody in England, and again confined with the gout in both feet: yes, I caught cold, and it has returned; but as I begin to be a little acquainted with the nature of its caresses, I think the violence of its passion this time will be wasted within the fortnight. Indeed, a stick and a great shoe do not commonly compose the dress which the English come hither to learn; but I shall content myself if I can limp about enough to amuse my eyes; my ears have already had their fill, and are not at all edified. My confinement preserves me from the journey to Fontainbleau, to which I had no great appetite; but then I lose the opportunity of seeing Versailles and St. Cloud at my leisure.

I wrote to you soon after my arrival; did you receive it? All the English books you named to me are to be had here at the following prices. Shakspeare in eight volumes unbound for twenty-one livres ; in larger paper for twenty-seven. Congreve, in three volumes for nine livres. Swift, in twelve volumes for twenty-four livres, another edition for twenty-seven. So you see I do not forget your commissions: if you have farther orders, let me know.

He

Wilkes is here, and has been twice to see me in my illness. was very civil, but I cannot say entertained me much. I saw no wit; his conversation shows how little he has lived in good company, and the chief turn of it is the grossest bawdy." He has certainly one merit, notwithstanding the bitterness of his pen, that is, he has no rancour; not even against Sandwich, of whom he talked with the utmost temper. He showed me some of his notes on Churchill's works, but they contain little more than one note on each poem to explain the subject of it.

The Dumenil is still the Dumenil, and nothing but curiosity could

a "I scarcely ever," says Gibbon, who happened to dine in the company of Wilkes in September 1762, "met with a better companion; he has inexhaustible spirits, infinite wit and humour, and a great deal of knowledge; but a thorough profligate in principle as in practice; his life stained with every vice, and his conversation full of blasphemy and indecency."-E.

make me want the Clairon. Grandval is grown so fat and old, that I saw him through a whole play and did not guess him. Not one other, that you remember on the stage, remains there.

It is not a season for novelty in any way, as both the court and the world are out of town. The few that I know are almost all dispersed. The old president Henault made me a visit yesterday: he is extremely amiable, but has the appearance of a superannuated bacchanal; superannuated, poor soul! indeed he is! The Duc de Richelieu is a lean old resemblance of old General Churchill, and like him affects still to have his Boothbies. Alas! poor Boothbies!

I hope, by the time I am convalescent, to have the Richmonds here. One of the miseries of chronical illnesses is, that you are a prey to every fool, who, not knowing what to do with himself, brings his ennui to you, and calls it charity. Tell me a little the intended dates of your motions, that I may know where to write at you. Commend me kindly to Mr. John, and wish me a good night, of which I have had but one these ten days.

TO THE COUNTESS OF SUFFOLK.*

Paris, Oct. 16, 1765.

THOUGH I begin my letter to-day, Madam, it may not be finished and set out these four days; but serving a tyrant who does not allow me many holiday-minutes, I am forced to seize the first that offer. Even now when I am writing upon the table, he is giving me malicious pinches under it. I was exceedingly obliged to Miss Hotham for her letter, though it did not give me so good an account of your ladyship as I wished. I will not advise you to come to Paris, where, I assure you, one has not a nip less of the gout than at London, and where it is rather more difficult to keep one's chamber pure; water not being reckoned here one of the elements of cleanliness. If ever my Lady Blandford and I make a match, I shall insist on her coming hither for a month first, to learn patience. I need have a great stock, who have only travelled from one sick bed to another; who have seen nothing; and who hear of nothing but the braveries of Fontainbleau, where the Duc de Richelieu, whose year it is, has ordered seven new operas besides other shows. However, if I cannot be diverted, my ruin at least is protracted, as I cannot go to a single shop.

Lady Mary Chabot has been so good as to make me a visit. She is again gone into the country till November, but charged me over and over to say a great deal for her to your ladyship, for whom she expresses the highest regard. Lady Brown is still in the country too; but as she loves laughing more than is fashionable here, I expect her return with great impatience. As I neither desire to change their

a Now first collected.

religion or government, I am tired of their perpetual dissertations on those subjects. As when I was here last, which, alas! is four-andtwenty years ago, I was much at Mrs. Hayes's, I thought it but civil to wait on her now that her situation is a little less brilliant. She was not at home, but invited me to supper next night. The moment she saw me I thought I had done very right not to neglect her; for she overwhelmed me with professions of her fondness for me and all my family. When the first torrent was over, she asked me if I was son of the Horace Walpole who had been ambassador here. I said no, he was my uncle. Oh! then you are he I used to call my Neddy! No, Madam, I believe that is my brother. Your brother! what is my Lord Walpole? My cousin, Madam. Your cousin! why, then, who are you? I found that if I had omitted my visit, her memory of me would not have reproached me much.

Lord and Lady Fife are expected here every day from Spa; but we hear nothing certain yet of their graces of Richmond, for whom I am a little impatient; and for pam too, who I hope comes with them. In French houses it is impossible to meet with any thing but whist, which I am determined never to learn again. I sit by and yawn; which, however, is better than sitting at it to yawn. I hope to be able to take the air in a few days; for though I have had sharp pain and terrible nights, this codicil to my gout promises to be of much shorter duration than what I had in England, and has kept entirely to my feet. My diet sounds like an English farmer's, being nothing but beef and pudding; in truth the beef is bouilli, and the pudding bread. This last night has been the first in which I have got a wink of sleep before six in the morning: but skeletons can live very well without eating or sleeping; nay, they can laugh too, when they meet with a jolly mortal of this world.

races.

Mr. Chetwynd, I conclude, is dancing at country balls and horseIt is charming to be so young; but I do not envy one whose youth is so good-humoured and good-natured. When he gallops post to town, or swims his horse through a millpond in November, pray make my compliments to him, and to Lady Blandford and Lady Denbigh. The joys of the gout do not put one's old friends out of one's head, even at this distance. I am, &c.

TO THOMAS BRAND, ESQ. b

Paris, Oct. 19, 1765.

DON'T think I have forgot your commissions: I mentioned them to old Mariette this evening, who says he has got one of them, but never could meet with the other, and that it will be impossible for me to find either at Paris. You know, I suppose, that he would as soon part with an eye as with any thing in his own collection.

* See antè, p. 412.—E.

b Of the Hoo, in Hertfordshire. See vol. ii. p. 211.-E.

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 as 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 Lyttelton, if he would come hither, and turn freethinker 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.

a Lionel Cranfield Sackville, seventh Earl and first Duke of Dorset: he died on the 10th of October. Lord George Sackville was his third son.-E.