de Vichy has had a very good night, and is quite well.— Philip! let my chaise be ready on Thursday. TO THE REV. MR. COLE. Strawberry Hill, Dec. 10, 1775. 3 I was very sorry to have been here, dear Sir, the day you called on me in town. It is so difficult to uncloister you, that I regret not seeing you when you are out of your own ambry. I have nothing new to tell you that is very old; but you can inform me of something within your own district. Who is the author, E. B. G. of a version of Mr. Gray's Latin Odes into English, and of an Elegy on my wolf-devoured dog, poor Tory? a name you will marvel at in a dog of mine; but his godmother was the widow of Alderman Parsons, who gave him at Paris to Lord Conway, and he to me. The author is a poet; but he makes me blush, for he calls Mr. Gray and me congenial pair. Alas! I have no genius; and if any symptom of talent, so inferior to Gray's, that Milton and Quarles might as well be coupled together. We rode over the Alps in the same chaise, but Pegasus drew on his side, and a cart-horse on mine. too jealous of his fame to let us be coupled together. This author says he has lately printed at Cambridge a Latin translation of the Bards; I should be much obliged to you for it. I do not ask you if Cambridge has produced anything, for it never does. Have you made any discoveries? Has Mr. Lort? Where is he? Does Mr. Tyson engrave no more? My plates for Strawberry advance leisurely. I am about nothing. I grow old and lazy, and the present world 1 Mr. Walpole's valet-de-chambre. Walpole left Paris on the 12th; upon which day, Madame du Deffand thus wrote to him:-" Adieu! ce mot est bien triste! Souvenez que vous laissez ici la personne dont vous êtes le plus aimé, et dont le bonheur et le malheur consistent dans ce que vous pensez pour elle. Donnez-moi de vos nouvelles le plus tôt qu'il sera possible."-E. * Edward Burnaby Greene, formerly of Bennet College, but at that time a brewer in Westminster. He likewise published translations of Pindar, Persius, Apollonius Rhodius, Anacreon, &c.-E. VOL. V. 2 F cares for nothing but politics, and satisfies itself with writing in newspapers. If they are not bound up and preserved in libraries, posterity will imagine that the art of printing was gone out of use. Lord Hardwicke1 has indeed reprinted his heavy volume of Sir Dudley Carleton's Dispatches, and says I was in the wrong to despise it. I never met with anybody that thought otherwise. What signifies raising the dead so often, when they die the next minute? Adieu! TO THE COUNTESS OF AILESBURY. Arlington Street, Dec. 11, 1775. DID you hear that scream?-Don't be frightened, Madam; it was only the Duchess of Kingston last Sunday was sevennight. at chapel: but it is better to be prepared; for she has sent word to the House of Lords, that her nerves are so bad she intends to scream for these two months, and therefore they must put off her trial. They are to take her throes into consideration to-day; and that there may be sufficient room for the length of her veil and train, and attendants, have a mind to treat her with Westminster-hall. I hope so, for I should like to see this comédie larmoyante; and, besides, I conclude, it would bring your ladyship to town. You shall have timely notice. There is another comedy infinitely worth seeing - Monsieur Le Texier. He is Préville, and Caillaud, and Garrick, and Weston, and Mrs. Clive, all together; and, as perfect in the most insignificant part, as in the most difficult. To be 1 Philip Yorke, second Earl of Hardwicke, when Lord Royston, published the "Letters to and from Sir Dudley Carleton, Knight, during his Embassy in Holland, from January 1615-16 to December 1620." 4to. 1727; and, in 1775, a second edition, "with large additions to the Historical Preface."-E. 2 M. Le Texier was a native of Lyons, where he was directeur des fermes. The following account of the readings of this celebrated Frenchman, is from a critique on Boaden's Life of Kemble, in the Quarterly Review, vol. xxxiv. p. 241:-" On one of the author's incidental topics we must pause for a moment with delightful recollection. We mean the readings of Le Texier, who, seated at a desk, and dressed in plain clothes, read French plays with such modulation of voice, and such sure, it is hard to give up loo in such fine weather, when one can play from morning till night. In London, Pam can scarce get a house till ten o'clock. If you happen to see the General your husband, make my compliments to him, Madam; his friend the King of Prussia is going to the devil and Alexander the Great. TO THE REV. MR. COLE. Arlington Street, Dec. 14, 1775. OUR letters probably passed by each other on the road, for I wrote to you on Tuesday, and have this instant received one from you, which I answer directly, to beg pardon for my incivility, nay, ingratitude, in not thanking you for your present of a whole branch of most respectable ancestors, the Derehaughs-why, the Derehaughs alone would make gentlemen of half the modern peers, English or Irish. I doubt my journey to France was got into my head, and left no room for an additional quarter-but I have given it to Edmondson, and ordered him to take care that I am born again from the Derehaughs. This Edmondson has got a ridiculous notion into his head that another, and much ancienter of my progenitors, Sir Henry Walpole, married his wife Isabella Fitz-Osbert, when she was widow to Sir Walter Jernegan; whereas, all the Old Testament says Sir Walter married Sir Henry's widow. Pray send me your authority to confound this gainsayer, if you know anything particular of the matter. exquisite point of dialogue, as to form a pleasure different from that of the theatre, but almost as great as we experience in listening to a firstrate actor. When it commenced, M. Le Texier read over the dramatis personæ, with the little analysis of character usually attached to each name, using the voice and manner with which he afterwards read the part and so accurately was the key-note given, that he had no need to name afterwards the person who spoke; the stupidest of the audience could not miss to recognize him." Madame du Deffand, in a letter to Walpole, says of him Soyez sûr, que lui tout seul est la meilleure troupe que nous avons:" and again, in one to Voltaire — "Assis dans un fauteuil, avec un livre à la main, il joue les comédies où il y a sept, huit, dix, douze personnages, si parfaitement bien, qu'on ne saurait croire, même en le regardant, que ce soit le même homme qui parle. Pour moi, l'illusion est parfaite."-E. 66 |