Mr.

their delightful little daughter, who is as quick as Ariel. 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.

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 Phedre 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 fountainhead. 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 all. I have acted from no views of interest; I have shown I did not; I have not disgraced myselfand 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.

Your ladyship's faithful humble servant.

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.

Wilkes is here, and has been twice to see me in my illness. He was very civil, but I cannot say entertained me much. I saw no wit; his conversation shews how little he has lived in

good company, and the chief turn of it is the grossest * 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 shewed 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 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.

Yours ever.

To THOMAS BRAND, Esq.1

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.

Of the Hoo in Hertfordshire. [Or.]

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.]